The NCSS (National Council for the Social Studies) originally released its Curriculum Standards in 1994. Rather than being a set of content standards for various disciplines within the social studies, the Curriculum Standards describe a thematic approach that can serve as a framework for the creation of a rich and dynamic set of content standards in any social studies discipline. The Curriculum Standards are based around ten themes. The draft for the updated version of these ten themes is available here:

http://communities.ncss.org/node/269

More on the revision effort in general is available here:

http://communities.ncss.org/standardsrevision