World Applied Sciences Journal 12 (9): 1374-1377, 2011

ISSN 1818-4952
IDOSI Publications, 2011

Outlook on Some Concepts in the Curriculum of Social Studies

Muhammad Farooq Joubish and Muhammad Ashraf Khurram
Department of Education, Federal Urdu University, Pakistan
Abstract: This paper provided not only a solid grounding in the subject, but also covered the latest trends
and issues affecting the field. The strengths, weaknesses and controversies around major concepts in
curriculum, including, curriculum planning and development, curriculum management, teaching perspectives,
collaborative involvement in curriculum, curriculum ideology.
Key words: Inductive Learning

Concept Acquisition

INTRODUCTION
Concepts, generalization, principles, theories and
structures are the organizational bases for all
knowledge of social sciences as well as social studies.
Through the work of educationists such as Jerome Bruner
and Hilda Taba [1, 2], concepts drawn from various social
sciences have become the focus of instruction in social
studies. Acquiring concepts summarizes and filers
the world for studies and generally enriches their
intellectual life.
There is much confusion regarding how best to teach
social studies concepts and much of the confusion
persists because there is no agreement as to how
concepts should be defined. Based on a psychological
precept, educators have tended to define a concept in
terms of mental processes and this, of course, influences
the methods of teaching incorporated into the social
studies curriculum. Once clearly defined, the teacher can
follow a teaching model which will be most beneficial to
the student in his/her acquisition of the concepts being
taught. This requires knowledge of different teaching
strategies as well as critical approach of them.
The aim of social studies is the promotion of civic
competence-the knowledge, intellectual processes and
democratic dispositions required of students to be active
and engaged participants in public life. By making civic
competence a central aim, NCSS emphasizes the
importance of educating students who are committed to
the ideas and values of democracy. Civic competence
rests on this commitment to democratic values and
requires that citizens have the ability to use their

Self-directed

Self-disciplined

knowledge about their community, nation and world; to

apply inquiry processes; and to employ skills of data
collection and analysis, collaboration, decision-making
and problem-solving. Young people who are
knowledgeable, skillful and committed to democracy are
necessary to sustaining and improving our democratic
way of life and participating as members of a global
community [3].
Social studies are the integrated study of the social
sciences and humanities to promote civic competence.
Within the school program, social studies provides
coordinated, systematic study drawing upon such
disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, economics,
geography, history, law, philosophy, political science,
psychology, religion and sociology, as well as
appropriate content from the humanities, mathematics
and natural sciences. The primary purpose of social
studies is to help young people develop the ability to
make informed and reasoned decisions for the public
good as citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic
society in an interdependent world.
In social studies, students develop knowledge, skills
and dispositions including but not limited to:
Basic knowledge and ways of thinking drawn from
many academic disciplines,
Expressing ideas in written form,
Reading reflectively and critically,
Analyzing their own and others' opinions on social
issues,
Becoming motivated to participate in civic and
community life as active and informed citizens.

Corresponding Author: Muhammad Farooq Joubish, Department of Education, Federal Urdu University, Pakistan.
E-mail: [email protected].

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Concept Acquisition: In general, as an inductive

technique, concept acquisition should be able to generate
new concepts spontaneously and to recognize the
relevant features over the entire input domain.
Concept acquisition refers to the ability of an agent
to identify the discriminating properties of objects in
the world, to generate labels for the objects and to use
the labels in the condition list of operators, thereby
associating operations with the concept.
Concept acquisition normally proceeds from a set
of positive and negative instances of some concept
(or group of segregated concepts). The problem with this
technique as it is described here is that it requires the
specification of both relevant features and the possible
concepts [4].
The ability to use prior knowledge when dealing
with new situations is a defining characteristic of human
intelligence. This is made possible through the use of
concepts, which are formed by abstracting away the
common essence from multiple distinct but related
entities [5].
There are prevailing theories in contemporary
philosophy which attempt to explain the nature of
concepts. The representational theory of mind proposes
that concepts are mental representations, while the
semantic theory of concepts (originating with Frege's
distinction between concept and object) holds that they
are abstract objects [6]. Ideas are taken to be concepts,
although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear to
the mind as images as some ideas do. Many philosophers
consider concepts to be a fundamental ontological
category of being.
When gaining conceptual knowledge, students
discover new ways of categorizing what was unknown to
him/her. Jerome Bruners research in this area has led to
the defining of five steps involving patterns of decisions
involved in attaining understanding of a concept:
Definition of the task. The student labels the existing
milieu in order to form an objective for that which
characterizes behavior.
Determining the nature of the attributes which define
the concept. How many attributes are encountered?
Are they encountered systematically or randomly?.
Validation of the experience. Does the student learn
consistently whether the attribute is an example or a
non-example of the concept whose definition he/she
is seeking?

Consequences of categorization. Will an incorrect

labeling of an example or non-example prevent a valid
understanding of the concept?
Dealing with restrictions. Is there a time limit which
may encourage hastily decisions?
One can see from Bruners steps for concept
acquisition that in order for a concept to be fully
understood. The student must use his/her critical thinking
skills, discriminate between examples and non examples
and be in tune with the decision making process.
Definitions: A notion or statement of an idea, expressing
how something might be done or accomplished, that may
lead to an accepted procedure [7].
Defined as an aspect of thought, a concept is a kind
of unit in terms of which one thinks; a unit smaller than a
judgment, proposition, or theory, but one which
necessarily enters into these. In an assertion, something
is predicated of a concept and the predicate itself can
generally be re-described as a concept. At the same time,
however, the concept is by no means an ultimate or
indivisible unit, for concepts can be augmented or
diminished by addition or subtraction of some feature.
(For instance, one may say that someone's concept of
social class does, or fails to, include the notion of
differences in material rewards.) Moreover, while concepts
occur within assertions or theories and are thus distinct
from them, a proposition or theory or thesis as a whole
can in turn be referred to as a further concept [8].
Critical thinking is that mode of thinking - about any
subject, content, or problem - in which the thinker
improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully
analyzing, assessing and reconstructing it. Critical
thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored
and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to
rigorous standards of excellence and a good mindful
command of their use. It entails effective communication
and problem-solving abilities, as well as a commitment to
overcome our native egocentrism and socio-centrism.
Basically, a concept is an idea which relates the
attributes which and organized to form the idea. It is an
organization where information and / or experiences are
brought together and related into a higher idea or
abstraction and is then labeled. A concept designates
the relationship between attributes which form it. It
categorizes attributes from the particular to the very
general. A concept is not just a word, but all of the ideas
that are conjured up at the mention of the world.

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A distinction between three of concepts has been

defined as useful to the teachers:
Conjunctive: Concept is described in terms of a
common class of combined elements. (Example:
tourist).
Disjunctive: concepts are described as having
alternative attributes. (Example: citizen, born or
landed).
Relationship: concepts show a relationship among
attributes. (Example: uncle).
Methodology: This study was based on content
analysis, because
it is a reliable and valid
methodology in the social sciences for studying the
content of communication. Content analysis is also,
considered a scholarly methodology in the humanities by
which texts are studied as to authorship, authenticity,
or meaning.
How Should Concepts Be Taught: At present, no one
method of concept teaching in universally accepted.
Increasingly more research in this area is available though
much more need to be done as the results remain
inconclusive.
According to the traditional approach to concept,
formation, concepts are formed by learning lists of critical
attributes which are external and concepts. Recent
research, however, indicates that students form mental
prototypes which are internal and absent in the memory
after exposure to bust examples. Bases on this theory of
concept attainment, Tennyson [9] suggests a five step
method for teaching concepts:
A thorough analysis of the concept is required in
order to determine concept type (conjunctive,
disjunctive or relational).
Analysis is followed by the presentation of a
definition of the concept.
Definition is followed by a presentation of the best
example.
A seniority rational set of examples is given.
Time for practice is allocated.
When teaching coordinate concepts, the teacher may:
Develop separate concept for each concept or,
Teach all of the concepts in one lesson
simultaneously.

Research indicates that teaching related coordinate

concepts in a single lesson is more effective because
each concept serves as a meaningful non-example. Thus,
non-examples which exist out of coordinate relationships
help in concept acquisition.
Studies show that the introduction of non-examples
is an important step in concept formation. Non-examples
have been shown to limit over-generalization of errors
which occur when the learner fails to discriminate between
examples and closely related n on-examples. Thus, the
best example can be referred to when trying to
differentiate between examples can be referred to when
trying to differentiate between examples and nonexamples. Larkins [10] found that when students where
given either coordinate concept non-examples and
ordinary non-examples or coordinate concept nonexamples they made fewer mistakes on post-tests than
students who were given ordinary non-examples only.
Mskinney [11] replicated Larkins finding and also
determined that fewer over-generalizations were made
when students were given coordinate and ordinary
non-examples. Furthermore, students who are not given
ordinary non-examples tend to over generalize the
concepts to include related non-examples.
Research indicates that students should be
encouraged to refer to this best example when trying to
differentiate between examples and non-examples.
Students who were taught by this best example
principle scored higher on delayed post-testes. This
combined with time for interrogatory practice allowed for
the elaboration of dimensions of the concept and
provided for optimum understanding.
It has also been suggested that extraneous variables
such as chronological age, intelligence level and grade
leave may determine the acquisition of some abstract
concepts. Thus, if student is having particular difficulty
with a certain concept it may very well be that these
extraneous variables influenced the acquisition or nonacquisition of an understanding of base areas symbols
on maps [12]. This and similar studies emphasize the need
for practitioners to realize that there will be a great range
of ability of concept acquisitionist in any one classroom.
Teachers should also be aware of and look out for
patterns of development in their students.
While prepared for external cues, the teacher should
know that the teaching of concepts are more effective via
direct instruction rather than through the traditional
lecture method. Students often need to be coached in
their tasks. Teacher should also be aware that concept
learning has been found to come in two phases:

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The formulation of conceptual knowledge and

The development of procedural knowledge.
Thus, teachers must encourage students to go
beyond initial identification and classification of concepts
and facilities their understanding whenever possible.
In fact, study showed that the presentation of examples
and non-examples in an exposition or in an inquisitory
practice enhances acquisition of social studies concepts.
Defining of concepts was not essential to understanding.
Furthermore, Mckinney [13] found that the order of
difficulty of concepts to be learned does not significantly
affect student achievement. It should be known to
teachers that some abstract concepts, such as ethnically
or alienation, are defined better in terms of degree. If a
definition is given in a situation which is fixed and biased
the meaning is distorted. Finally, it has also been
determined that optimum learning occurs when students
are given small numbers of examples so as not to
overwhelm them. In this study we found that the most
effective strategy for concept teaching is the emphasis
of one prototype formation by focusing on a class case
(best example) of the concept being taught and
elaborating on that example by contrasting it with newly
encountered examples.
CONCLUSION

8.
9.

10.

11.

12.

14.

15.

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2.

7.

13.

The inductive approach seems to work well in the

development of concepts. However, a healthy balance
should be struck between the inductive and deductive
concepts. Strategies for teaching concepts require
sequential pattern that takes into account not only a
logical analysis of the subject matter relationship but also
the cognitive, affective, and developmental state of the
learned.

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