This newsletter explores trends in social studies education from the 1950s through the 1970s. The decades of the 1950s and 1960s are characterized as kaleidoscopes of pedagogic fashions. Among the trends in social studies objectives, methods, and content were socialization, democratic attitudes, conceptual learning, inquiry learning, values clarification, racial equality, integration, cultural pluralism, ethnic studies, legal education, consumer education, and global education. Social studies courses became the target of special interest groups during this period. During the 1970s emphasis was placed on citizenship, "back to basics," and minimum competency. Among the possible reasons for this rapid succession of experiments and changes are: (1) transition in American society and world affairs, (2) teacher educators' attempts to initiate educational fashions, (3) teachers' tendencies to follow fads in search of the ultimate educational method, (4) competition of commercial textbook publishers who emphasize easy sales instead of quality, (5) lack of sequenced instructional material covering the first eight or nine years of school, and (6) textbook revisions based on fads in order to ensure consistent selection by state textbook adoption committees. The author concludes that educators can overcome social studies fads by insisting on quality textbooks, student-centered teaching approaches, and consistent and cumulative instructional materials. (AV)