Social studies in the primary schools of New Zealand

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the teaching of social studies and in particular its geographic component, to determine its strengths and weaknesses and the extent to which it has reflected changing educational thought from 1877* to the present day. Social studies has been defined as a field composed of such subjects as history, geography, economics, sociology and civics Encyclopedia of educational research p. 1211. The term parallels the sciences and mathematics and like them denotes the several areas into which the field is divided. As it is a field and not a subject it should not refer to any scheme, organisation or integration Encyclopedia of educational research p. 1212. But the temptation to use the collective term social studies for material selected from the broad field has proved too great and the habit is now firmly entrenched in educational circles.