"Given its many disciplinary roots, competing perspectives about appropriate goals, and ongoing conflict over the content of the social studies curriculum, social studies will no doubt remain complex, challenging, and, one hopes, dynamic. It need not remain under-researched. We hope that this Handbook will not only outline the present state of things, but encourage the kind of new research needed to move the field forward and foster the civic competence that advocates for social studies have long claimed as a fundamental goal of the field."