Teachers and curriculum developers should organize cultural materials within a conceptual framework which explains how to classify the behavior of any cultural group. This would help elementary and secondary students in social studies classes learn about their own and other cultures. This conceptual framework must represent all major realms of culture--concrete, human, and abstract--and be able to explain different dimensions of these realms. For example, in the concrete world, there is the material dimension involving fads, fashions, needs, wants, and consumer choices, and also a spatial dimension which determines how humans divide space into territories they can manage. In the human realm, external and internal dimensions influence social activity, interpersonal interactions, role modeling, and self-concept. In the abstract world, there are four dimensions--temporal, ideational, aesthetic, and spiritual. These dimensions influence how people measure time, construct and communicate ideas, seek beauty, and express faith through rituals, festivals, and religions. Educators can use conceptual framework based upon these abstract constructs to organize a curricular structure for social studies, view a given culture, study the culture of the classroom, and help students organize knowledge of themselves and their culture. (DB)