Date Approved

3-6-2026

Graduate Degree Type

Project

Degree Name

Social Innovation (M.A.)

Degree Program

School of Community Leadership & Development

First Advisor

Dr. Kevin Holohan

Academic Year

2025/2026

Abstract

The Michigan Department of Education social studies standards were crafted with the primary goal of promoting “the knowledge, skills, intellectual processes, and dispositions required of people to be actively engaged in fulfilling their responsibility of civic participation” (Michigan Department of Education, 2019, p.3).  The “Purpose of Social Studies” section goes on to explain that, “As members of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world, young people need to learn how to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good” (Michigan Department of Education, 2019, p.3). While the standards provide an accurate explanation of how the United States embarked on a market-based, industrialized course of economic growth, they uncritically present the land, resources, and population groups that have been exploited along the way, compromising students’ ability to understand and operate within the “culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world.” To better achieve these ends, there have been widespread demands for deeper incorporation of environmentalism in public school curriculum and better inclusion of differing demographic groups’ experience–particularly Indigenous communities–throughout the teaching of history, specifically, yet these demands have faced opposition and contentious debate. This paper seeks to add to the conversation by framing these issues in economic terms so that educators can more effectively convey to students the measurable costs embedded in that nation’s pursuit of unchecked economic growth without it being perceived as pushing a ideological agenda.

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