This study analyzes the organization of high school social studies from the 6th curriculum period to the 2015 revised curriculum period. In addition, the purpose is to analyze the process of changing the nature, goals, and content elements of the 'social studies' subject in high school to clarify the organizational and content characteristics and problems of the 'social studies' subject and to devise improvement measures. Based on the findings, the research suggests as follows. First, the frequent reorganizations of the curriculum need to be reconsidered whether they are rational and useful from educational and practical points of view. Second, even if the same subject name, such as ‘social studies' subject is used, the characteristics and the goals of the subject should be differentially presented according to the school ages. Third, the subjects with the main goal of civic education need to use the same subject name regardless of the school ages. Fourth, if the high school ’social studies’ subject aims at perceiving social phenomena from an integrative standpoint, it is worth considering integrating its content not only with geography, history, social science, and ethics, but also with languages or sciences.