Learning and Teaching about Cultural Universals in Primary-Grade Social Studies

Abstract

In this article we develop the argument that topical units on cultural universals are well suited as means for introducing students to social studies, although these units need to be more powerful than those found in the leading publishers' textbook series, and they do not need to be couched within the traditional expanding communities curricular sequence. We also overview 2 related lines of research designed to inform planning for more powerful social studies teaching in the primary grades. The first line of work features developmental studies indicating that the mostly tacit knowledge that children accumulate about cultural universals through everyday experiences is limited, disconnected, and frequently distorted by naïve ideas or outright misconceptions. The second line of work features educational studies in which units on cultural universals are constructed around big ideas and then implemented in first- and second-grade classrooms. Data collected during these implementations support the feasibility of these efforts and suggest practical guidelines on topics such as what needs to be included in lesson plans in order to enable teachers to work effectively from them, which aspects of cultural universals appear to be worth developing (given social education goals), how initial plans for topic development may need to be elaborated to ensure desired understandings, how traditional text materials may be supplemented profitably with fictional and nonfictional children's literature selections, and how students' potential for life application of what they are learning (and related self-efficacy perceptions) can be augmented through activities calling for students to interact with their parents at home.