Social Studies

Social Studies is the memory, reflection and analysis of the human group experience. Without it, we cannot know who we are, where we are, or how we arrived. Civilization is not inherited but learned, and must be learned by each generation anew. Social studies locates us in the present by connecting us to our past so we can move into the future with wisdom, for only the truly wise can be “Men and Women for Others.” Therefore, rather than emphasize a mass of data, the Jesuit Dallas Social Studies Department focuses on those trends and processes of the social sciences that enable us to better understand our world and ourselves. The various disciplines of social studies require one to train and exercise all the essential aspects of intellectual activity: inquiry, reason, self-expression and communication. Together they enable one to become a truly educated individual. Above all, social studies teaches those habits truly characteristic of an educated person: those of skepticism, criticism, perspective, objectivity, and the ability to see not only the blacks and whites of the human experience, but also the various shades of gray.