Relative Difficulty of Junior High School Social Studies Texts

Abstract

Recently there has been a great deal of interest in unified social studies courses for the junior high school. Such courses are designed to replace separate courses in history, geography, and civics. With this end in view much curriculum work has been done including the writing of textbooks. When history, civics, and geography are taught as separate subjects, there is a possibility that pupils may not completely grasp the unity which underlies this field of thought. The purpose of unified social studies programs is to enable pupils to perceive this unity and to under stand the origin and development of modern life as a whole. In order that this result may be attained it is held that diverse factors that effect modern life should be considered together. For the past two years in the Washington Junior High School in Grants Pass an experiment in unified social studies has been carried on in the seventh and eighth grades. The texts written by Dr. Harold Rugg of Columbia University have served as the basis of the course. These texts offer one volume and an accompanying workbook for each semester. Two criticisms have been made of the course offered in these books. The first is that there is too much material in each book to cover in one semester, especially if the workbooks are used ; and the second, that the vocabulary of the books is too difficult for pupils in the seventh and eighth grades. An attempt has been made in Grants Pass to study the validity of these criticisms in our local situation.