Improving Elementary-School Social Studies: An Idea-Oriented Approach

Transcending National Boundaries: Hilda Taba and the “New Social Studies” in Australia, 1969 to 1981

“…They also learned of those trends and developments from international visitors such as Jack Fraenkel (at that time, a close associate of Hilda Taba), correspondence, sharing of draft materials, and the educational press. Writings by Jarolimek (l968), Micheelis (1968), Taba (Fraenkel et al 1969) and others from the United States were particularly influential. Their theoretical perspectives were an educational awakening for many of the Queensland developers.…”

“…In endorsing that view, curriculum workers also tried to produce "new and better ways of teaching" by drawing on the theoretical and curriculum development work in the early 1960s of the late Hilda Taba and her associates (Fraenkel, McNaughton, Wallen, and Durkin 1969) from San Francisco State University (at that time, San Francisco State College). Taba and the project team worked collaboratively and consistently with classroom teachers in Contra Costa County (near San Francisco, California) for an intense period of four years to develop a series of instructional guides for social studies.…”

“…Taba and the project team worked collaboratively and consistently with classroom teachers in Contra Costa County (near San Francisco, California) for an intense period of four years to develop a series of instructional guides for social studies. They emphasized the development of cognitive processes in children in the elementary grades (Fraenkel et al 1969;Isham 1982).…”

“…The spiral curriculum incorporates the eleven key concepts of causality, conflict, cooperation, cultural change, differences, interdependence, modification, power, societal control, tradition, and values. They were selected for their power to organize and synthesize large amounts of information (Fraenkel et al 1969;Fraenkel 1992). In the arrangement of the concepts, Years 1 through 4 respectively deal with people in families, neighborhoods, communities, and states.…”