The paper is designed to aid social studies educators and teachers in selecting curriculum materials. It is presented in three sections. Section I outlines problems involved in choosing among curricula. These problems include similarity of traditional social studies textbooks; recent proliferation of innovative curricula which have not been systematically evaluated; and absence of comprehensive criteria for comparing curriculum proposals. Section II summarizes the views of several educators and social scientists who suggest that responsible citizenship is the primary goal of social studies instruction. The paper develops a scheme for classifying four teaching approaches to social studies instruction: social science knowledge (facts and generalizations), ways of social science thinking (modes of inquiry), procedures for making rational value judgments, and value judgments of a reference group. Section III identifies 12 national values education curriculum projects and explains how they can be classified according to the scheme. For each project, the following information is given: approach, purpose, methods, materials, and development. (Author/JK)