This paper aims to examine the various approaches to integrating social studies and the NCSS’s thematic strands centered education process, analyze the currently used high school social studies curriculum dealing with industrialization and 11 types ...
This paper aims to examine the various approaches to integrating social studies and the NCSS’s thematic strands centered education process, analyze the currently used high school social studies curriculum dealing with industrialization and 11 types of textbooks, and organize an integrated high school social studies unit on industrialization centered around the thematic strands selected through the analysis.
In order to achieve its aim, this paper has set the following method. Through reference research, the thematic strands curriculum was first examined as an industrialization concept and content, a type and form of integrated curriculum, and an integrated social studies curriculum. This study has the characteristics of basic research for developing an integrated curriculum unit that is based on an understanding of thematic strands centered integrated curriculum organization by examining the concepts and content related to industrialization as a theoretical basis of an integrated curriculum being debated in social studies curriculum and by considering various theories of integrated social studies curriculum. Next, building on the theories of integrated social studies curriculum, the teaching goals and content of the 7th social studies curriculum related to industrialization was analyzed, after which relevant strands were selected and their performance expectations was analyzed and presented. The purpose was to take the results of analyzing the teaching goals and content, the performance expectations of the 7th curriculum related to industrialization, and connect the integration centered on thematic strands to such things as the characteristics, goals, selection of contents, and organization of social studies curriculum currently being used, thus developing an integrated social studies unit that is consistent in its social studies educational goals and integrated unit content organization.
Finally, based on the concepts and content of industrialization, the theoretical background on integrated social studies curriculum, and the necessity of developing an integrated social studies unit, the integrated unit on industrialization was reorganized as follows. First, the education goal was set on cultivating a comprehensive perception, harmonious attitude, and rational decision-making ability necessary in today’s rapidly changing society. This is because the student of social studies must, as future citizens, foster the ability to rationally solve many types of complex individual or social problems in today’s society. Second, the elements of content structure were composed of thematic strands. Because this paper focused mainly on content structure in finding an integrated social studies plan, the thematic strands as content structure elements can be considered the most essential research content. Specifically, in order to cultivate the qualities of a democratic citizen required in social studies and the ability to make rational decisions concerning the coming future society, of the ten NCSS strand areas the following eight were proposed: 1) Time, Continuity, and Change; 2) People, Places, and Environments; 3) Individual development and Identity; 4) Individual, Groups, and Institution; 5) Power, Authority, and Governance; 6) Production, Distribution, and Consumption; 7) Science, Technology, and Society; 8) Global Connections. Third, the performance expectations of currently used social studies curriculum related to industrialization was analyzed and reorganized to fit thematic strands. The content structure elements of integrated unit centered on thematic strands on industrialization were composed of the above eight thematic strands, and a unit called “industrialization and social change, resolving social problems” was set as content structure focus in formulating an actual lesson.
The significance of the above development of integrated unit centered on thematic strands with respect to the direction of integrated social studies curriculum and actual teaching in schools is as follows.
First, using the theoretical basis of reorganizing the unit content on industrialization, of the ten thematic strands areas presented in the “Curriculum Standards for Social Studies” by NCSS in the United States, eight thematic strands related to industrialization in the 7th social studies curriculum were extracted and presented. This s hows that the learning content scattered in the social studies textbooks can be reorganized not as one thematic strand but as a variety of thematic strands according to the dictates of social studies education philosophy, goal, and basic direction.
Second, the selection and organizing principles of learning goals and content elements were analyzed through the NCSS’s strands and their implications to the content organization of new integrated unit were discovered. The content organization of the integrated unit with the theme of industrialization can promote an organic integration between value-related elements such as those dealing with knowledge of industrialization, functional elements for solving social problem related to the society, women, cities and farms, the environment, and labor, the ability to solve problems as a democratic citizen, and higher level reasoning.
Third, the content organization elements between textbooks were set using the content organization of the integrated unit with the theme of industrialization, and then the content organization procedure for integrated units was established. For the content organization procedure, the learning goals and content of textbooks related to industrialization were selected, their content elements were then selected as theme-centered strands, and the criteria that could evaluate their integrated goals and content regarding industrialization were presented as the performance expectations. Because the content of the integrated unit composed through this procedure was organized in a trans-disciplinary manner by breaking down the walls of each of the independent disciplines, it will contribute to a more practical organization of integrated social studies units and teaching and learning them.
This paper is meaningful in that, by presenting an integrated unit focusing on industrialization, it can cultivate the ability to make rational decisions through a process of searching for ways to perceive and resolve various social problems due to industrialization and of learning to be citizens of a democratic society. In particular, the integrated unit organization will practically contribute to the development of integrated units needed in actual lessons and raise the possibility of a more detailed and practical integration at schools. Furthermore, through a harmonious and comprehensive viewpoint and perception of industrialization, it will cultivate such abilities as problem solving, critical reasoning, higher-level reasoning, and even democratic citizenship, qualities that today's rapidly changing society demands from social studies.