This article explores inquiry-based teaching and learning in social studies. We’ll take a closer look at how inquiry-based social studies learning approaches have developed over time, why they matter for today’s classrooms, what makes them such a promising path for both teachers and students, and how to get started implementing them.
“Hooray for Social Studies!”
A second-grade class exploring the question Why do we have to have rules? offers an insight into the power of inquiry-based learning in social studies. The teacher tells me, “My students and I had been working for an hour or so when one of them came up to me and said, ‘Ms. Valentine, this has been the best recess ever!’”
Holly Valentine is an experienced teacher, but second graders can surprise anyone. Ms. Valentine responded, “That’s great, except we haven’t had recess yet today.” Looking a little confused, the boy asked, “Well, what have we been doing?” When Ms. Valentine informed him that they had been doing social studies, the student shouted, “Hooray for social studies!”
Unfortunately, too many other social studies teachers hear “This is boring!” from their students. Inquiry-based social studies practice may not be the entire answer to replacing “boring” with “hooray,” but Ms. Valentine’s second grader gives us hope.
Why Social Studies Can Feel “Boring” for Students
When students say social studies is boring, they might mean the content, or the way it’s taught, or both. If the content is simply an endless stream of facts and the teaching is designed to shovel those facts into kids’ heads, who wouldn’t think that was boring?
But if you think about it, the subject matter of social studies helps kids understand why people do the things they do—the brave, noble, and generous things as well as the nasty, brutish, and self-serving. Figuring out why people do these things is endlessly fascinating to students (and to adults!). So “boring” social studies is more likely to be a teaching issue than a content issue.
To their credit, some teachers try to enliven their classrooms with games (Jeopardy), art projects (coloring countries on a map), and video (watching movies). Although “fun” in a sense, these activities don’t challenge the kind of traditional teacher-centered, passive-learning approach students often find dreary.
The second grader who shouted “hooray for social studies” did so because he and his classmates were doing the real work of social studies—the question Why do we have to have rules has real consequences to students.
What Is Inquiry-Based Learning in Social Studies?
Inquiry-based learning in social studies is an approach where students explore meaningful questions to understand people, events, and systems. Instead of starting with facts, students investigate sources, discuss ideas, and build evidence-based explanations. This process helps learners actively construct knowledge, think critically, and see the relevance of social studies in understanding the world around them.
Why Inquiry-Based Learning Changes Social Studies Instruction
In the traditional view of social studies learning, students have to accumulate facts before they can start thinking about why the world is as it is. Inquiry flips that script.
Facts matter—but accumulating them without a real question or problem in mind doesn’t. It turns out that kids don’t hate facts; they just hate learning them without any real reason to do so. Inquiry-based teaching provides that reason.
So, instead of starting with facts, inquiry teachers start each unit with a question. And if that question grabs kids’ attention, then they will actively build their factual knowledge base to answer it.
This is where inquiry-based learning in social studies becomes powerful: It organizes learning around curiosity, purpose, and investigation rather than memorization alone.
Common Barriers to Inquiry-Based Social Studies in Classrooms
Although the value of inquiry is well-documented in the social studies literature, it has found rocky ground in U.S. classrooms. Observers cite several reasons for this condition.
Confusion
One is that inquiry based social studies practice is too often confused with discovery learning—the discredited idea that students should have free rein to decide what, how, when, and why they learn things. Inquiry-based practice is student-centered, but it only works if teachers play a key role in crafting a productive environment for engaged study.
Lack of Teacher Experience
A second reason inquiry sometimes falters is that few teachers have had much experience with it themselves. They may want to do something different, but most are products of traditional social studies classrooms. And although our past experiences do not determine our actions, they can strongly influence the status quo.
High-Stakes Testing
One last challenge is the assumption that high-stakes testing demands traditional instruction. This idea goes back to the notion that social studies is about facts first. If standardized tests only measure low-level knowledge, it makes some sense to promote low-level teaching and learning. The research evidence, however, suggests just the opposite: It is the students of more ambitious teachers who score higher on large-scale exams.
Inquiry-based learning in social studies can become the norm in K–12 classrooms. It will do so, however, only through the thoughtful actions of classroom teachers.
The Promise of Inquiry-Based Social Studies
Those actions now have the support inquiry-interested teachers need. That support comes in several forms.
The most prominent is the C3 Framework, or more formally, the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards. Central to the C3 Framework is the Inquiry Arc, which includes
- developing questions and planning inquiries
- applying disciplinary concepts and tools
- evaluating sources and using evidence
- communicating conclusions and taking informed action.
Each dimension is rooted in the social studies literature and together they offer a framework for building inquiry-based learning in social studies into classroom lessons and units.
A second related support is the influence the C3 Framework has had on state standards. A recent study (4) found that 38 states have incorporated important elements of the C3 Framework into the standards they use with students. As a result, ambitious teachers now have license to chart a new course toward inquiry.
The third area of support is the research evidence. The scholarly literature shows how elements of inquiry-based social studies practice—such as compelling questions, making and supporting arguments, and using a range of sources—add value to classrooms.
This last point is worth expanding. Instead of using inquiry-based lessons only with the most able students, research demonstrates that all students can do inquiry. Where some teachers might think inquiry-based approaches are too hard, we now know that elementary-aged students can engage deeply in inquiry.
Moreover, inquiry is not just for academically gifted students. Researchers have established that, with teacher assistance, students of all ability levels can successfully read, write, and think in inquiry contexts.
Finally, studies of large-scale testing indicate that students benefit from inquiry-based practices. Scholars demonstrate a clear and positive link between high test scores and reading, writing, and discussing challenging ideas and texts.
There are many strong examples of inquiry-based learning in social studies classrooms where students investigate real questions, analyze sources, and build arguments grounded in evidence.
Why Inquiry-Based Social Studies Deserves a “Hooray”
Classrooms across the U.S. may not yet be where Ms. Valentine and her second graders are, but the time and circumstances are right for social studies teachers and kids to shout “hooray!” Together, these shifts in practice, research, and standards point toward a future where inquiry-based social studies learning becomes a more common and powerful approach in classrooms, helping students move beyond memorization and into meaningful understanding of the world around them.
De La Paz, S. & Felton, M. (2010). Reading and writing from multiple source documents in history: Effects of strategy instruction with low and average high school writers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 35 (3),174–192.
De La Paz, S. & Graham, S. (2002). Explicitly teaching strategies, skills, and knowledge: Writing instruction in middle school classrooms. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 687–698.
Fillpot, E. (2012). Historical thinking in third grade. Social Studies, 103 (5), 206–217; VanSledright, B. A. (2002). In search of America’s past. New York: Teachers College Press.
Grant, S.G., Swan, K. & Lee, J. (2022). Inquiry-based practice in social studies education: The inquiry design model. (2nd ed.) New York: Routledge.
Grant, S.G., Lee, J. & Swan, K. (2023). The state of the C3 framework: An inquiry revolution in the making, Social Education, 87(6), 361-366.
National Council for the Social Studies (2013). The college, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards. Washington, DC: National Council for the Social Studies.
Smith, J. & Niemi, R. (2001). Learning history in school: The impact of course work and instructional practices on achievement. Theory and Research in Social Education, 29 (1), 18–42.
Swan, K., Grant, S.G. & J. Lee. (2019). Blueprinting an inquiry-based social studies curriculum. Silver Spring, MD: National Council for the Social Studies.
