The Aim of Social Studies Education

Social studies education aims to enable students to participate in a changing society as informed, confident, and responsible citizens.

Students will achieve this aim by developing knowledge and understandings about human society as they study:

• people's organisation in groups and their rights, roles, and responsibilities as they interact within groups;
• the contribution of culture and heritage to identity and the nature and consequences of cultural interaction;
• people's interaction with places and the environment and the ways in which people represent and interpret place and environment;
• relationships between people and events, through time, and interpretations of these relationships;
• people's allocation and management of resources and people's participation in economic activities;
  and by developing skills as they use the social studies processes:
• to learn about society and to enable them to participate responsibly in society.

The social studies strands and processes are inextricably linked.

Teaching and learning in Social Studies in the New Zealand Curriculum is built around five strands and three processes.