The history of the teaching of social sciences as a reference for the critical transformation of educational practices

This article is part of the historiographic balance accomplished during the dissertation entitled The configuration and reconfiguration of social sciences in basic education and high school in Colombia: the scope of official curriculum reforms (1945-2002) of the inter-institutional PhD in Education at Universidad Distrital Francisco Jose de Caldas. It is intended to approach the production on the recent history of the teaching of social sciences in Colombia, especially in connection with the study of the historical dynamics of these disciplines within the school to determine the fields that have been researched, as well as the advances, limitations and gaps that remain in this field. This research project is connected to social history from the perspective of overall story. It seeks to move forward in reconstructing curriculum reconfiguration and explaining the function of social knowledge at school in relation to different interests, demands, and social expectations. Therefore, it pretends to contribute to the global and critical understanding of society from an educational point of view; it also seeks to reveal the circumstances that determine the selection, synthesis, and formalization of social sciences' educational discourses and contents and to analyze teaching patterns and practices with an educational intention.