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International instructional systems: social studies
Author(s) -
Brant Jacek,
Chapman Arthur,
Isaacs Tina
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the curriculum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.843
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1469-3704
pISSN - 0958-5176
DOI - 10.1080/09585176.2015.1134340
Subject(s) - social studies , subject (documents) , curriculum , citizenship , engineering ethics , pedagogy , management science , mathematics education , sociology , political science , social science , computer science , psychology , engineering , library science , politics , law
This paper reports on research conducted as part of the International Instructional System Study that explored five subject areas across nine jurisdictions in six high‐performing countries. The Study's overall aim was to understand what, if anything, there is in common in the curricula and assessment arrangements among the high‐performing jurisdictions to see if there are aspects of instructional system design that might account, in part, for high performance. This paper focuses on social studies which in most jurisdictions includes elements of history, geography and citizenship and highlights a number of emerging issues. These include the advantages and disadvantages of teaching history and geography separately or within a social studies programme; the extent to which key concepts are embedded within the social studies/history/geography curricula; whether the level of demand should be considered in terms of a generic taxonomy or in terms of subject specific models; how progression might be defined and considerations of an appropriate balance between teacher assessment and external assessment.