Social studies, perhaps more so than any other content area, also serves as the catalyst of change when we, the people, use our experiences to our own and others' advancements. At its core, social studies has been both a concurrent limiting and freeing pursuit of knowledge, a pursuit that discourages and encourages us to learn from and about our experiences and associations, to learn of ourselves and others. In Social Studies Instruction, Learning, and Assessment in the Contemporary World: Leveraging the Past to Form a New Future, Epps and Harper reimagine social studies moving from the limitations it imposes and towards the freedom that it envisions for each one of us. In place of the previously adopted one-size-fits-all majority-controlled education in which most American learners were forced to comply, practices that are identifiable and relatable to all students are proposed. The book reflects that social studies teaching should be recursive and fluid, allowing for movement forward, backward, inward, and outward, thus creating opportunities for students to examine events, not just through the rote memorization of dominant facts and figures, but through critical inquiry and reflection.

Rather than a list of events and names to be memorized, the book adopts the idea that history is a 'mode of thinking' and the book is laid out as such. Topics are addressed and explored by theme and overarching ideas in each chapter to enable meaningful social studies learning, which occurs when students see the interconnectedness of multiple social studies concepts, ideas, and the interconnectedness of life.