Activity Seven

This activity is to accompany Unit One of the Curriculum Guide.

Incorporating the C.E.L.s

• Independent Learning
• Critical & Creative Thinking
• Personal & Social Values & Skills
• Communications

Concept Application Lesson for:

• Ideology
• Liberalism
• Conservatism
• Socialism
• Order
• Hierarchy
• Equality

This general concept application lesson gives students an opportunity to research current issues of interest and then identify how the ideologies of conservatism, liberalism and socialism would interpret and handle each of the issues.

Knowledge Objectives

The student will:

• know that various ideologies will apply different solutions to different social issues; and,
• know that the application of a particular ideology to a social issue may produce different consequences than those produced by the application of another ideology.

Skills Development

The student will:

• Practise using the following analytical skills:
  • defining the main parts;
  • describing cause-effect relationships; and
  • describing how the parts are related to the whole.
• Practise drawing inferences from relationships within the data.

Values Issues

The student will:

Conservative Value Issues:

• Should change in any fundamental relationship within society occur slowly or quickly?
• If society has to choose between change and order, which should it choose?
• Are traditional ideas more reliable than new ideas?
• Is order more important to the well-being of society than freedom?
• Should a person be given access to resources that have not been earned?
• What is progress?

Liberal Value Issues:

• Should society depend on individual conscience to guide personal behaviour?
• Is competition the best way to decide who should be given the power and rewards of society?
• Should individuals be freed from the restraints of tradition, custom and authority?
• Is it reasonable to believe in the idea of progress for society?
• Should we trust the rights of citizenship to everybody in society?
• Can we depend on ordinary people to make the right decisions for society?
• What is progress?

Socialist Value Issues:

• Can an individual who is deprived of the basic necessities of life be considered free?
• Is it true to say that "some people will never be given a chance because they have never had a chance"?
• Should someone be able to make a profit from the labour of others?
• Should workers have as much input into workplace decisions as do the owners (and managers)?
• What is progress?

Outline of the Activity

Provide the students with the list of issues that appears on the next page and in a class discussion analyze one of them from a conservative perspective, a liberal perspective and a socialist perspective.

Divide students into groups. Provide the groups with another issue and assign one of the three political perspectives to each group.

• Each group will attempt to do an analysis of the issue from their assigned perspective.

Discuss with each group how an ideology uses its ideas, beliefs, and values to analyze issues about which society has to make decisions.

• Give the students an example and work through it in a class discussion.

Instruct each group to review the list of issues and select the one they think are the most important. Note that students may add issues to the list, if they believe the issues are worthwhile.

Issues for Analysis:

• Environmental issues
• The prevention of crime
• The problem of poverty in society (and the world)
• Protecting the Canadian identity
• The question of the rights of women
• The rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada
• The defence of Canada
• The problem of illness and health care
• The problem of pornography in society
• The creation of wealth in society
• The question of the minimum voting age in society