The social studies program at Urban Day strives to achieve historical, ethical, cultural, and geographic literacy across the K-8 curriculum. The social studies curriculum is designed to ask students to consider important questions in the discipline:

How do cause and effect relationships affect societies and history?

• What are the glasses or lenses through which culture can be examined?
  
  
• How and what can we know about time periods and events?
  
  
• What allows cultures to be successful? What causes others to fail?
  
  
• What causes interdependencies between peoples and between people and the environment?
  
  
• What is the impact of major historical events?
  
  
• What are our personal connections to other cultures and events?
  
  
• What is the significance of connections between different time-periods and events?
  
  

At Urban Day School, diversity is appreciated as students examine the similarities and differences between cultures and between communities as they study cross-cultural traditions. Finally, the arts, religions, and celebrations of different cultures are studied to reveal underlying belief systems.