The paper reviews the design of a model for teaching about work in social studies. Developed in 1974 at an inservice economic education workshop sponsored by the Illinois Council on Economic Education, The World of Work Economic Education Program orients existing curriculum materials around fundamental economic principles. It was hypothesized that work and social studies are related and that social studies teachers should incorporate work issues into the curriculum because their relevance to students would help offset declining interest in social studies courses. Objections to teaching about work in social studies are discussed. For example, it is alledged that work-related topics are unrelated to social studies, faddish, time-consuming, too theoretical, less important than other topics, and difficult to present. Project teachers developed curriculum materials, gave pre- and posttests to more than 5,000 students, and kept diaries in which they evaluated students' economic understandings. Test results indicated that students exposed to the model curriculum learned significantly more about economic concepts than students who did not follow the curriculum. The conclusion is that students are interested in work-related subjects and can be taught about work and other economic concepts. The World of Work Economic Education Program is a mini-course which achieves this objective. (Author/DB)