The Social Science Studies Program provides training in the many areas of social studies, including economics, geography, history, political science, psychology and sociology-anthropology. All students enrolled in any of the Social Science Studies concentrations (political science, sociology-anthropology, psychology, and geography) pursue degree work to be licensed to teach ALL social science subjects in Illinois's public high schools.
Program Vision Statement
The Social Science Studies major is a rigorous, multi-disciplinary teacher education program, committed to the belief that competent and caring social studies teachers must play a central role in providing the civic literacy which is necessary for the full functioning of a democracy. Its strength lies in its cross-disciplinary nature and in the breadth of preparation provided to majors. Graduates will acquire the social science knowledge and research-based teaching methodologies which will allow them to work with skill and effectiveness in the social studies classrooms of the twenty-first century. There they will help provide their own students with an intellectual scaffolding of civic competence--composed of knowledge, reasoning, and critical thinking--which will enable those students to participate meaningfully and effectively in our democratic society.
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. … Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education.”
Martin Luther King Jr.,
as quoted in the NCSS Vision Statement, http://www.socialstudies.org/positions/powerful
