Social Studies and the Arts

What are the historical and cultural influences of the visual and performing arts in history?

Understanding history involves much more than politics and government. Understanding how people lived day to day and how they expressed themselves creatively through the arts is an important part of social studies

• How can visual and performing arts be integrated into the social studies curriculum (K-6)?
• What topics in the California social studies framework can easily be explored through the visual and performing arts?
• Which specific social studies standards refer to the use of visual arts, music, theatre, dance, and movement for teaching?
• How can social studies instruction be enhanced by studying history and culture through the visual and performing arts?

Historical Literacy

• Develop research skills and a sense of historical empathy.
• The study of history involves the imaginative reconstruction of the past.
  • Ideally, students should have a sense of what it was like to be there, to realize that events hung in the balance, that people living then did not know how things ultimately would turn out.
  • Historical empathy is much like entering into the world of a drama, suspending one’s knowledge of “the ending” in order to gain a sense of another era and living with the hopes and fears of the people of the time.
  • In every age, knowledge of the humanities helps to develop a keen sense of historical empathy by allowing students to see through the eyes of people who were there.
  • Students should understand that each event in the past took place within its own historical context, and they should recognize that civilizations share common features across time and distance, yet also have their own unique aspects.
• Understand the meaning of time and chronology.
• Analyze cause and effect.
• Understand the reasons for continuity and change.
• Recognize history as common memory, with political implications.
  • Throughout recorded time, societies have used their history as a vehicle for maintaining their identity as a people and a nation.
  • The study of history allows people to explain and transmit their ideas and traditions to the younger generation.
  • In tightly controlled societies the historical record may be altered to redefine public consciousness of the past and to regulate the public's loyalties; in democratic societies the historical record is open to debate, revision, conflicting interpretations, and acknowledgment of past mistakes.
• Understand the importance of religion, philosophy, and other major belief systems in history.

Cultural History

• Understand the rich, complex nature of a given culture: its history, geography, politics, literature, art, drama, music, dance, law, religion, philosophy, architecture, technology, science, education, sports, social structure, and economy.
  • Cultural literacy includes but is not limited to knowledge of the humanities.
  • True cultural literacy takes many years to develop, whether one is a student of a foreign country or a student of one’s own society.
  • Students should not be under the illusion that they truly know another society as a result of studying it for a few weeks or even for a year.
  • At the very least they should learn how difficult it is to master a culture and should be encouraged to recognize that education is a lifelong process.
• Recognize the relationships among the various parts of a nation’s cultural life.
  • Mature students should come to appreciate the ways that a nation’s literature and arts react to and comment on events in its political and social development and also should study and appreciate the interactions among a nation’s govern-mental system, economic structure, technology, arts, and press.
  • None of the elements of a culture exists in a vacuum, and students will come to an under-stand the connections as they develop a deeper knowledge of the constituent parts.
• Learn about the mythology, legends, values, and beliefs of a people. Ideas are important; to understand a society, students must perceive what its members believe about themselves, what stories and tales explain their origins and common bonds, what religious tenets embody their ethical standards of justice and duty, what heroes capture their imagination, what ideals inspire their sense of purpose, and what visual images portray their idea of themselves as a people.
• Recognize that literature and art shape and reflect the inner life of a people.
  • Artists and writers tend to have sensitive antennae. In their work artists and writers record the hopes, fears, aspirations, and anxieties of their society. A culture cannot be fully understood without knowledge of the poems, plays, dance, visual art, and other works that express its spirit.
• Take pride in their own cultural heritages and develop a multicultural perspective that respects the dignity and worth of all people.
  • Students should learn from their earliest school years that our nation is composed of people whose backgrounds are rooted in cultures around the world.
  • They should take pride in their own cultural heritages, and should develop a multicultural perspective that respects the human dignity of all people and an understanding of different cultures and ways of life.

National Identity

"America, as a nation, unites as one people the descendants of many cultures, races, religions, and ethnic groups. The American story is unfinished, and the outcome rests in the students’ hands."

• Recognize that American society is and always has been pluralistic and multicultural, a single nation composed of individuals whose heritages encompass many different national and cultural backgrounds.
  • From the first encounter between indigenous peoples and exploring Europeans, the inhabitants of the North American continent have represented a variety of races, religions, languages, and ethnic and cultural groups.
  • With the passage of time, the United States has grown increasingly diverse in its social and cultural composition.
  • Teachers have an obligation to instill in students a sense of pride in their individual heritages.
  • Students must recognize that whatever our diverse origins may be, we are all Americans.
• Understand the American creed as an ideology extolling equality and freedom.
  • The American creed is derived from the language and values found in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
  • Its themes are echoed in patriotic songs such as “America the Beautiful” (“ . . . and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea”) and “America” (“ . . . from every mountainside, let freedom ring”).
  • The creed provides the unifying theme of the memorable discourse of Martin Luther King, Jr., “I Have a Dream”: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. . . . This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My Country, 'Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty"....
  • Students should learn the radical implications of such phrases as "all men are created equal" and study the historic struggle to extend to all Americans the constitutional guarantees of equality and freedom.
• Recognize the status of minorities and women in different times in American history.
  • Students should be aware of the history of prejudice and discrimination against minorities and women as well as efforts to establish equality and freedom.
  • Students should understand how different minorities were treated historically and should see historical events through a variety of perspectives.
• Understand the unique experiences of immigrants from Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Latin America.
  • Students should examine the cultural, political, and economic sources of contemporary immigration from these areas to understand the changing demography of California and the United States.
  • Attention should be paid to the contributions of immigrants from Asia, the Pacific islands, and Latin America to life and culture in the United States.
• Understand the special role of the United States in world history as a nation of immigrants.
  • The multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, multi-religious character of the United States makes it unusual among the nations of the world.
  • Few, if any, nations can match the United States when compared on a scale of social heterogeneity; few, if any, have opened their doors so wide to immigration and provided such relatively easy access to full citizenship.
  • At the same time students should analyze periodic waves of hostility toward newcomers and recognize that the nation has in different eras restricted immigration on the basis of racial, ethnic, or cultural grounds.
• Realize that true patriotism celebrates the moral force of the American idea as a nation that unites as one people the descendants of many cultures, races, religions, and ethnic groups.
  • The American story is unfinished, for it is a story of ideals and aspirations that have not yet been realized. It is a story that is in the making; its main characters are today’s students, their parents, and their friends.
  • Unlike other historical events that are wholly in the past, this is a story whose beginning can be traced to the nation’s founding and whose outcome rests in the students’ hands.