History and the Social Studies: A Response to the Critics

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Abstract
The recommendation of both the Bradley Commission and the National Commission on Social Studies that the study of history should form the core of the social studies curriculum has intensified the long-standing debate among educators about the nature of social studies education. This article is a response to three of the sharpest critiques of recommendation: first, that a history-centered curriculum is an ideologically conservative idea; second, that history's claim to a central place in the curriculum is not supported by empirical evidence; and third, that an integrated study of social problems is the proper focus of social studies education.