The report presents data on changes in social studies achievement for young Americans aged nine, 13, and 17 during the period 1972-76. Data were collected through two surveys conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress during the 1971-72 and 1975-76 school years. Test items were categorized in three major areas: knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Four topics included under knowledge were economics, geography, history, and politics. Skill items dealt with ability to obtain and interpret information; questions about attitudes covered support for constitutional rights and respect for others. In this report, the first three chapters describe results for the three major areas. Each chapter includes a summary of changes in national performance, samples of the items used, and data for various population groups. Chapter four compares achievement for 13 and 17-year-olds. Overall results of the assessment revealed that nine-year-olds showed no statistically significant change in performance, and that 13 and 17-year-olds' performance declined. Seventeen-year-old Hispanic students and students living in the West displayed smaller declines than the nation as a whole. Although overall performance of blacks remained below that of whites, at age nine blacks showed more improvement than whites. At age 13 black performance remained the same while white performance declined. (Author/AV) Primary type of information provided by report: Results (Change) (Selective).