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eLECTIONS State Standards - California


CALIFORNIA SEA HOMEPAGE

CALIFORNIA CONTENT STANDARDS ALL

CALIFORNIA SOCIAL STUDIES CONTENT STANDARDS GRADE 8

No Social Studies STANDARDS FOR GRADE 9

CALIFORNIA SOCIAL STUDIES CONTENT STANDARDS GRADE 11

CALIFORNIA SOCIAL STUDIES CONTENT STANDARDS GRADE 12


Grade Eight
8.3 Students understand the foundation of the American political system and the ways in which citizens participate in it.
  1. Describe the basic law-making process and how the Constitution provides numerous opportunities for citizens to participate in the political process and to monitor and influence government (e.g., function of elections, political parties, interest groups).
  2. Understand the functions and responsibilities of a free press.
Grade Eleven
11.10 Students analyze the development of federal civil rights and voting rights.
  1. Explain how demands of African Americans helped produce a stimulus for civil rights, including President Roosevelt's ban on racial discrimination in defense industries in 1941, and how African Americans' service in World War II produced a stimulus for President Truman's decision to end segregation in the armed forces in 1948.
  2. Examine and analyze the key events, policies, and court cases in the evolution of civil rights, including Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Brown v. Board of Education, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, and California Proposition 209.
  3. Describe the collaboration on legal strategy between African American and white civil rights lawyers to end racial segregation in higher education.
  4. Examine the roles of civil rights advocates (e.g., A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Thurgood Marshall, James Farmer, Rosa Parks), including the significance of Martin Luther King, Jr. 's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and "I Have a Dream" speech.
  5. Discuss the diffusion of the civil rights movement of African Americans from the churches of the rural South and the urban North, including the resistance to racial desegregation in Little Rock and Birmingham, and how the advances influenced the agendas, strategies, and effectiveness of the quests of American Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans for civil rights and equal opportunities.
  6. Analyze the passage and effects of civil rights and voting rights legislation (e.g., 1964 Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act of 1965) and the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, with an emphasis on equality of access to education and to the political process.
  7. Analyze the women's rights movement from the era of Elizabeth Stanton and Susan Anthony and the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the movement launched in the 1960s, including differing perspectives on the roles of women.
Grade 12
12.3 Students evaluate and take and defend positions on what the fundamental values and principles of civil society are (i.e., the autonomous sphere of voluntary personal, social, and economic relations that are not part of government), their interdependence, and the meaning and importance of those values and principles for a free society.
  1. Explain how civil society provides opportunities for individuals to associate for social, cultural, religious, economic, and political purposes.
  2. Explain how civil society makes it possible for people, individually or in association with others, to bring their influence to bear on government in ways other than voting and elections.
  3. Discuss the historical role of religion and religious diversity.
  4. Compare the relationship of government and civil society in constitutional democracies to the relationship of government and civil society in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes
12.6 Students evaluate issues regarding campaigns for national, state, and local elective offices.
  1. Analyze the origin, development, and role of political parties, noting those occasional periods in which there was only one major party or were more than two major parties.
  2. Discuss the history of the nomination process for presidential candidates and the increasing importance of primaries in general elections.
  3. Evaluate the roles of polls, campaign advertising, and the controversies over campaign funding.
  4. Describe the means that citizens use to participate in the political process (e.g., voting, campaigning, lobbying, filing a legal challenge, demonstrating, petitioning, picketing, running for political office).
  5. Discuss the features of direct democracy in numerous states (e.g., the process of referendums, recall elections).
  6. Analyze trends in voter turnout; the causes and effects of reapportionment and redistricting, with special attention to spatial districting and the rights of minorities; and the function of the Electoral College.
12.8 Students evaluate and take and defend positions on the influence of the media on American political life.
  1. Discuss the meaning and importance of a free and responsible press.
  2. Describe the roles of broadcast, print, and electronic media, including the Internet, as means of communication in American politics.
  3. Explain how public officials use the media to communicate with the citizenry and to shape public opinion.
12.10 Students formulate questions about and defend their analyses of tensions within our constitutional democracy and the importance of maintaining a balance between the following concepts: majority rule and individual rights; liberty and equality; state and national authority in a federal system; civil disobedience and the rule of law; freedom of the press and the right to a fair trial; the relationship of religion and government.