The study, in viewpoints of Hermeneutics and Critical Theory, aimed to
analyze thesignification structure in Taiwan society and its realization in the
elementary social studies. In other words, it aimed to darify the relationship of the
social structure and socialstudies education in Taiwan for the last 40 years.
The major findings were as follows: In view of signification structure, the result ofthe
competition of two sets of signification interpretative schemes (i.e.
"TraditionaVWestern" & "Chinaese/ Taiwanese") was realized in social studies
education. In sum,the "school knowledge" of social studies education was combined
with Chinese(content)and Western (form) signification interpretative schemes