The one-year course in world history, popular in some quarters, does not seem to have made much headway. High school level courses on world-history are one of the many responses to the World Wars, yet said courses have never been recommended by a committee of national scope on which there were any historians. Opinion surveys among teachers and students indicate that no other part of the typical social studies program is more criticized than the tenth grade level one year elective world history course. These courses are increasing in number, textbooks are multiplying, and a few interesting experiments are being worked out--yet there is no general agreement on organization, scope, objectives, teaching strategies, or assessment in these courses. This document is a summary of historical and recent surveys on curricular trends in social studies with regard to world history, to help educators assess what impact they may have on the teaching of world history in the 1970s.

This is the second volume in a two-volume set reporting the results of all surveys through 1991 from the Monitoring the Future study of American secondary school students and young adults. Volume II begins with chapter 11 which provides an introduction to the volume, noting that Monitoring the Future consists of an ongoing series of annual national surveys of American high school seniors begun in 1975 (the results of which are presented in volume I) and a series of annual follow-up surveys of representative samples of the previous participants from each high school senior class going back to the Class of 1976. It further notes that this volume presents the results of the 1977 through 1991 follow-up surveys of the graduating classes of 1976 through 1990. Chapter 12 presents an overview of key findings, examining trends in illicit drug use, alcohol use, and cigarette smoking, and noting college-noncollege and male-female differences. Racial and ethnic comparisons are included. Chapter 13 describes the study design and procedures, chapter 14 looks at the prevalence of drug use among young adults, and chapter 15 explores trends in drug use among young adults. Chapter 16 focuses on the attitudes and beliefs about drugs among young adults, while chapter 17 concentrates on the social milieu. Chapters 18 and 19 focus on college students, looking at the prevalence of and trends in drug use in this population. Twenty-six tables and 48 figures illustrate data from the study. (Author/NB)

"Selected references" at end of each chapter.