Seven Themes of

Social Studies
1. People, Environment and Society
◦ Human interaction of the environment is one of the
fundamental concepts in Social Studies. This theme
puts premium on how human interacts not only with
his environment but also to a bigger society.
2. Time, Continuity and Change
◦ Essential in the understanding of cultural and national
identity is the evolution and development of a given
society. Central in this study is the concept of time that
serves as a contextual basis and foundation in the
analysis of social dynamics.
3. Culture, Identity and Nationhood
◦ Identity is anchored on culture which pertains to the
complex whole that includes belief system, values,
tradition, language and arts of a group of people in a
given society. This theme provides learners the
opportunities to develop their identity as individual, as
youth, and as a Filipino.
4. Rights, Responsibilities and
Citizenship
◦ Civic competence is grounded on how citizens
understand and value their role as members of society
and how they acknowledge their rights, roles and
responsibilities as citizens.
5. Power, Authority and Governance
◦ Central in citizenship education is understanding the
concept of the use of power in advocating the
common good and the importance of democratic
processes in realizing good governance. This theme
includes examining the Philippine constitution,
highlighting the serious responsibilities of government
leaders in various levels of governance.
6. Production, Distribution and
Consumption
◦ This theme provides learning experiences that allow
students to understand economic concepts such as
choice, opportunity costs, expenditure, inflation,
deficit, sound economic decision, savings, investments
and financial literacy among others.
7. Regional and Global Connections
◦ The Philippines is a member of a bigger community
called global village. This theme affords learners to
appreciate how the country influences the res of the
world and how it was influenced in return in terms of
the mobility of ideas, people and products.
Constructivist Theory in
Teaching Social Studies
What is Constructivism?
◦ Constructivism is based on the idea that people
actively construct or make their own knowledge, and
that reality is determined by one’s experiences as a
learner. Basically, learners use their previous
knowledge as a foundation and build on it with new
things that they learn. So everyone's individual
experiences make their learning unique to them.
Basic Tenets of Constructivism
Knowledge is not passively accumulated, but rather is
the result of active cognizing by the individual.
Cognition is an adaptive process that functions to
make an individual’s behavior more viable given a
particular environment.
Cognition organizes and makes sense of one’s
experience, and is not a process to render an accurate
representation of reality
Basic Tenets of Constructivism
Knowing has roots in both biological/neurological
construction, and social, cultural and language-based
interactions.
Types of Constructivism
Cognitive Constructivism
It emphasizes that in order to acquire knowledge, an
individual has an active role in cognizing any stimuli
that formed part of his/her experiences.
It maintains the idea that an independent yet
knowable reality exists.
Radical Constructivism
This believes that the acquisition of knowledge is an
adaptive process that could be attributed from the
active cognition of an individual translating an
experientially based mind.
Reality is personally constructed and personal
experience determine reality.
Social Constructivism
This upholds the social nature of knowledge and that
knowledge is the result of social interaction and
language usage, and thus is a shared, rather than an
individual, experience.