The major thrust of the project dealt with the problems of current elementary, junior high, and senior high courses in United States history. Nine specified objectives were: 1) to encourage social scientists to participate in curriculum development; 2) to secure an identification of basic ideas and concepts concerning American society; 3) to arrange contacts and develop procedures for production of instructional materials and guides to improve social studies instruction; 4) to review research concerning the treatment of economics, geographical, historical, and political aspects of American society in the curriculum of grades five and eight; 5) to ascertain the levels of ideas that can be learned in grades five through twelve; 6) to facilitate efficient learning through a sequential curriculum; 7) to investigate the relative merits of combined and separate subject organization in new materials, applications of new approaches to other subject matter, and variations in applicability to students of differing ability levels; 8) to eliminate undesirable duplication; and, 9) to disseminate findings and the materials. The variety of procedures used to achieve these objectives are described clearly for each project, study, or experiment. See SO 000 642 for Volume II. (SBE)