Call numbers for textbooks always begin with "TEXT".  The call number ranges for Social Studies books are:

History: TEXT 973

Geography: TEXT 910

Civics: TEXT 320

Civil Rights: TEXT 323

Social Science/Social Studies (elementary): TEXT 300

Browsing the stacks in the Curriculum Room (Room 104) in theSocial Sciences, Health, and Education Library in these ranges can help you find relevant textbooks. Most textbooks in the University of Illinois collection published within the last ten years will be located in this room.

Here are some dictionary and encyclopediac sources that you can turn to if you need to find out more about a term or concept quickly. 

There is not a social studies textbook subject heading in the catalog.  But don't worry!  There is a search that you can use on the advanced search page of the library catalog to find textbooks. 

If you do a subject words search for "study and teaching" (1) and a title words search for "social studies" (2) you should be able to find social studies textbooks in the catalog.  Make sure you enclose the phrases in quotation marks so that they will be searched as phrases.  You also need to change the drop down menus in the middle column to make sure they say "subject" and "title."

Sorting your results by "newest first" will show you the most up to date materials.

If you want to textbooks specifically targeted at middle schoolers, you can perform the same search listed above and add an "Any Field" search for "middle school" in the last line, as shown below.  However, there may be relevant high school textbooks that you will exclude if you try this approach. Remember to enclose your search words in parentheses if you want to search the words as a phrase.