Social studies emerged at the core of the American common school in the mid-nineteenth century amid the rise of the urban immigrant receiving center. These two forces together resulted in the heightened importance of schools in transforming immigrant students into American citizens. Today, U.S. schools often serve as a social and educational nexus in the community where immigrant families experience their first socialization into the American mainstream culture. Immigrant adolescents are one of the fastest growing segments of our population, yet only recently have researchers begun to disentangle the role of schools, social studies education specifically, in their civic socialization.