Speaking Up for Science and Social Studies by Nell Duke - University of Michigan
The Marginalization of Social Studies by the Council of Chief State School Officers
Research consistently demonstrates that social studies receives the least amount of instructional time in the elementary grades when compared to the amount of time afforded to other core content areas. The Social Studies Collaborative believes that social studies helps prepare students for civic life and that the marginalization of social studies in the early grades is an issue of equity for all students.
Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement - Robert Marzano (2004)
In his research Robert Marzano identified the words that students would need to know in order to be successful in school. In the chart below, you see a breakdown of the words by content area with highlighted areas representing content that falls under the umbrella of social studies. As one can see, over the course of their K-12 education, over 55% of the words students need to be familiar with, come from social studies with the trend emerging as early as 41.56% of words in grades K-2.
