This information is to accompany Activity Four of the Unit One Curriculum Guide.

Student Information Sheet: Dreyfus Case

In the late 1890s, Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain in the French army, was falsely accused and convicted of treason. The army's high command had enough evidence to acquit Dreyfus but chose to hide that evidence. The high command was seeking a scapegoat for German military intelligence's success in infiltrating the French Army headquarters.

The case split France. On one side was the army's high command, which had manufactured evidence against Dreyfus. The army's high command was supported by anti-Semites and most of the Catholic establishment. Dreyfus's cause was supported by civil libertarians and radical republicans who wished to reduce the power of both the Catholic Church and the military in French politics.

Dreyfus was finally declared innocent. The case revived republican feelings against the church. Between 1901 and 1905, the French government severed all ties between the state and the Catholic Church.

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

Student Information Sheet: Historical Inequalities in the Treatment of People in Canada

• For many years women were denied the right to vote.
• For many years, Canadian law maintained that women were persons "only in matters of pain and punishment" and therefore, did not have the degree of personhood that allowed them to sit in the Senate.
• Presently, Canadian women in the work force are often paid less than men performing the same work task.
• It was not until 1960 that Treaty Indians were allowed to vote in federal elections.
• Many people of Aboriginal descent served in the Canadian armed forces, in both World Wars, but were denied the same "benefits" that non-Aboriginal veterans received.
• During World War Two, Canadians of Japanese descent were forcibly relocated to internment camps. Many of these people lost their homes, businesses and suffered great hardships. Compensation for the victims of this action is just now being provided to the surviving victims.
• For many years, immigrants from China were required to pay a "head" tax before being admitted to Canada.

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

Student Information Sheet: Late-Nineteenth Century Paradigms

Newtonian Paradigm

• All matter can be reduced to basic particles (atoms) which behave according to rigid and predictable laws.

Darwinian Paradigm

• Because there are too many creatures, "survival of the fittest" means that those creatures with better characteristics have more chance to reproduce and pass on their characteristics.

Social Darwinism

• The groups with the more successful characteristics will come to dominate the other groups according to the law of survival of the fittest.

Economic Paradigm

• Society can best be seen as a bitter contest between those who do the work to produce wealth and those who own the capital and resources.

Marxist Paradigm

• Society is divided into classes according to the way it is organized economically.
• The economic organization changes when there is a violent struggle for power between the two groups.

Christian Paradigm

• The Ten Commandments.
• The meek shall inherit the earth.