The focus for social studies in grade eight is South Carolina and the role the state and its people have played in the development of the United States as a nation. Students learn about the state’s development during colonial times and the growth of the American ideal, which led to the break with England, the rising controversy about slavery, and the Civil War. The study of the rebuilding of South Carolina after the Civil War and the continuing struggle for civil rights and justice waged by the people of South Carolina allows students to see the progress that the state has made and to appreciate the contributions that its people have made to the nation as a whole.