Developing the Social Studies Curriculum for the Second Year of the Preparatory General Stage in Light of the Requirements of the Knowledge Economy and its Impact on the Development of some Life Skills

Faculty of Education, Mansoura University
Abstract
The current research aimed at developing a social studies curriculum for the second year of the preparatory school (objectives - content - activities and methods - assessment techniques) in light of the requirements of the knowledge economy and the development of some life skills among students. To verify this goal, the researcher prepared two lists, one of themaddresses the requirements of knowledge economy including these requirements: (cognitive - Social-economic - research - creative - technological - life) and their sub-requirements. The researcher designed a tool to analyze the elements of the curriculum in light of these requirements, and indicated the weakness of the availability of these requirements in the social studies curriculum for the second year of the preparatory stage.Accordingly, the researcher developed the elements of the curriculum in light of the requirements of knowledge economy. The researcher also designed a list of life skills most suitable for the second-grade preparatory school students, which was applied to the two research groups (experimental and control) before and after teaching the proposed unit. Findings indicated the effectiveness of the developed curriculum in providing students with the requirements of the knowledge economy and in developing their life skills, as the results were as follows:

The degree to which content  and evaluation techniques meet the requirements of the knowledge economy in the current second preparatory social studies curriculum is greater than the rest of the curriculum components, as the relative weight of their availability in the curriculum reached (28.25, 27.46%), while the relative weight of the objectives and teaching and learning activities, teaching methods was respectively (23.44, 23.17%).
The degree to which the social studies curriculum for the second year of middle school with its four components (objectives - content - activities and methods - assessment techniques) meets the requirements of knowledge economy is great.
The effectiveness of the developed curriculum in providing second-grade preparatory students with the requirements of knowledge economy.
The effectiveness of the developed curriculum in developing some life skills for second-year preparatory school pupils.