Alberta government expected to release social studies curriculum overview in February

Albertans should have their first look at the province's latest high-level plan for a new K-12 social studies curriculum in February — give or take a couple of weeks, the education minister says.

Demetrios Nicolaides said in an interview on Wednesday that the public will see a proposed scope and sequence for social studies for all 13 years of school, laying out what topics would be covered in which grade and in what order.

The latest attempt at revamping social studies will include feedback from a survey conducted this fall, the results of which the province released earlier this week.

"Social studies is a complex area because it involves history and world events, and no two people have the same opinion on global events or even on interpretations of the importance of different historical events," Nicolaides said in the interview.

He said Alberta Education has just finished consulting with education professors at post-secondary institutions and will now seek feedback from professors with expertise in history, economics, and other disciplines relevant to social studies.

Although the government will prepare a high-level plan for how social studies should look from kindergarten to graduation, junior and senior high students will likely see new math, English and science curriculum expand to those grades before social studies, Nicolaides said. He was still determining what year that would begin.

There has been an effort to modernize Alberta's entire K-12 curriculum in English and French. However, social studies has provoked the most controversy.

Any new version coming in 2024 would be the third iteration of social studies since the NDP government published a draft in 2018, and Jason Kenney's United Conservative Party government reworked it in 2021.

Critics of the 2018 version accused the previous government of using the curriculum to indoctrinate students with socialist ideology. Skeptics of the 2021 draft said it was age-inappropriate, fixated on memorizing dates and facts, and too Eurocentric. Public condemnation prompted the UCP to take social studies and fine arts proposals back to the start.

The fall online survey, which included 12,853 respondents, asked participants to rank possible focal points of a social studies curriculum, what skills students should develop, and which history and culture should be included. The opt-in survey is not necessarily balanced to reflect the general population's opinions.

The results suggested the public broadly favours students developing critical thinking skills.

Although educators and students wanted more emphasis on respectfully interacting with people with different ideas and opinions, parents and "interested Albertans" wanted a better understanding of historical events.

The survey suggested little consensus about what topics the curriculum should cover.

Nicolaides said the province would have to narrow it down since social studies are only about 10 per cent of class time in elementary school. He said he's been speaking with different cultural and religious groups because including different perspectives is a priority.