Abstract
This study focuses on powerful and authentic social studies (PASS), a program proposed by the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS). The following two questions are addressed: (1) By learning PASS, what qualifications and competencies can social studies teachers develop? (2) Why does PASS have the structure that it does? The analysis revealed the following two points. First, PASS successfully integrates different social studies ideas to create a common ground for a "powerful and authentic" view of social studies. Concretely, it embodies the learning of social issues at the unit level. In terms of this, PASS can be described as a highly versatile professional development program that purses the ideal, namely, teaching students about public issues, while simultaneously meeting teachers' needs by broadly capturing social studies. Second, PASS gives teachers opportunities to reflect on their social studies practices by analyzing lesson plans. In this way, it fosters social studies teachers' skills in lesson design, lesson practice, lesson evaluation, and lesson improvement/redesign. This research suggests the development approach of professional development program for academic conferences or local governments.
