This article argues that the field of social studies encompasses concepts critical to students' eventual civic participation. It addresses ways to foster higher level thinking, problem solving, and group skills by working with issues of importance to students with learning disabilities and promoting their futures as active citizens. A…

"Active Citizenship Today" (ACT) is a service learning program for the social studies. There are two things that make ACT different from other service learning programs: (1) the "learning" in service -- learning refers to traditional social studies content and skills (it is a civics model); and (2) ACT is built around a problem-solving framework.…