Social Studies is learning about cultures other than your own.. correct?

 "A fundamental objective of social studies instruction is to link students’ lives and experiences to the lives and experiences of others." -Litner
I definitely agree with this quote. My opinion of Social Studies is learning about cultures different from your own and linking students lives and experiences to the lives and experiences of others helps them learn about other cultures and their similarities and differences to the students. A fundamental objective of Social Studies education is to link students lives to the outside world. This way students are learning about the outside world but are also able to remember it better because they link it to their lives.  An example of a way the teacher could teach this would be to do a service learning project for a needy family. Students could do something like Habitat for Humanity where they learn about a needy family and then help build a house for them. This way students are gaining knowledge about other peoples lives and the experiences they have gone through. Another example of this would be for students to research a students school day in Brazil and then find similarities and differences in the two different cultures. It is fundamental to have students learn about cultures that differ from their own so that they are not ignorant of differences when they go out into the real world. Students learn best from their experiences and their connections they are able to make to their self. If students are able to link theirself and see their similarities and differences to another culture then that culture will not seem so foreign to them. I believe what Litner said is profound and that as teachers we need to pay attention to these things and need to give students direct experiences with people who are different from them. After all, that is what Social Studies content is centered around.