Promoting Liberal Arts Courses to Social Studies Students

Liberal arts education is indeed a key ingredient to the growing manifestation ofscientifically-inclined programs in the country. This benefits the relentless explosion of critical-mindednessand problem-solving skills as a balancing principle to the student’s learning formation. But, as observed,the moral worth of liberal arts education was not very much underscored in the minds and hearts of thestudents, particularly the Social Studies students. For this reason, the researcher argues the restoration ofthe significance of liberal arts education to Social Studies students. This study employs a qualitativeresearch design in the form of critical hermeneutics and document analysis. In addition, it incorporatessemi-structured interviews to elucidate the experiences of the Social Studies students in their liberal artscourses. Results have shown that critical reflection is needed to probe into the conscious-unconscious tendency of the students’ experience of liberal arts, respect should also be regarded among the liberal arts students diversified cultural backgrounds, and self-mirroring where the liberal arts teacher must be uplifted in the teaching-learning process. To continuously practice these results, the researcher gives an additional context by proposing special topics to students, offering seminars, pieces of training, or workshops for liberal arts professors, and reviewing student evaluation of the school administration to the performance level of students to maintain the given character.

Keywords – Critical reflection, liberal arts, respecting differences, self-mirroring, Social studies