A role for social studies education in a changing world

Social studies education, in whatever form it takes, has a distinctive role to play in the education of young people. It engages students to look deeply within themselves, the contexts they experience, their relationships with others and the world around them. It is academic in the sense that it provides access to established bodies of knowledge. Yet it also builds on the informal experiences of students in their social relationships with friends, families and communities. These formal and informal connections provide the basis for education about the social world in all its manifestations and contexts. This social world was once confined by borders and boundaries. It is now open for exploration, almost at will in a virtual sense and with only minor constraints in reality. Social studies education needs to embrace this new post-national frame: it needs to focus on multiple contexts and the polyvocality of these contexts. Students may reside in nation states, but they live in a global environment that they must understand and seek to influence. Copyright © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Kerry J. Kennedy; individual chapters, the contributors.