The new history in Britain and the new social studies in the United States each grew out of a desire in the 1960s to reform education and to create an inquiry-based mode of instruction. Although the two movements shared many similarities, the British movement succeeded whereas the American movement largely failed. The failure of the new social studies was caused in part by the fragmentation of the social studies themselves, whereas the success of the new history was facilitated by the central and unifying curricular position played by history and the belief that the social sciences should be used to illuminate history.
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