Government – #1: Political Ideologies
What does active citizenship look like in Canadian politics? What are the similarities and differences among key political ideologies? What is the political spectrum, and what characterizes the left, centre, and right portions of the spectrum?
These are some of the questions that were discussed in class today, and they will guide our introduction to political ideologies. For this unit, we will eventually connect to our study of political parties in Canada and the world, to the structure of our government, and then to issues of individual rights and freedoms.
Today’s Class Activities:
1. Jigsaw Role Assignment: Discussion of Ideologies
2. Political Viewpoints Quiz – including partner, printout, and class discussion
3. Overview of 4 quadrant political spectrum
Homework Assignment (if not completed in class, please hand in next day)
First, go to http://www.politicalcompass.org/ and ‘take the test’. It will take about 25-40 minutes to complete, so please allocate enough time. For difficult questions or the vocabulary, use http://www.dictionary.com/.
Once you are finished with the survey, please print out your results page by putting the info in a new word file (try to save paper!), or if you don’t have a printer, bring the coordinate results to class.
Additional Challenge Activity for bonus marks: Read over the website explanation on ideology as it is quite thorough. We will be discussing this next day in class.