Balancing Individual and Collective Rights

Suggested Activities

Students develop an understanding of individual and collective rights and the challenges governments face in attempting to balance the promotion of these rights. Students participate in a structured discussion to determine the degree to which governments should balance individual and collective rights.

Use a concept-formation activity to define key terms
To help students distinguish between individual rights and collective rights, guide them in a concept-formation activity.

To prepare for this activity, write on index cards key terms such as security, mobility, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right of assembly, freedom of expression and so on. Form groups of two or three students. Ask students to sort and rank key terms into two groups: the most important individual rights and the most important collective rights.

Invite students to question each other about the key terms. Encourage discussion when the placement of a key term is unclear or disputed. Some of these statements could be placed under either heading. It is important that students explore the relationships and tensions between individual rights and collective rights. For example, someone who exercises freedom of speech to express dislike for another group may prompt attacks on the group, thereby threatening that group's right to security. In this case, there may be tension between the promotion of the individual right to free speech and the collective right to security.

You may want to adapt the strategies Concept Attainment (Support Material) as an alternative approach to this activity.

Assess government efforts
To deepen students' thinking on the issue of the balance by government of individual and collective rights, ask students to examine primary source documents such as the following:

• Bill of Rights (United States)
• Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms
• War Measures Act; Emergencies Act (Canada)
• PATRIOT Act (United States)
• Anti-terrorism Act (Canada).

Ask students to assess the extent to which each document provides a reasonable balance between protecting the rights of groups and individuals. To assess government efforts, encourage students to identify explicit and implicit ways that the act or bill promotes individual and/or collective rights. Suggest students consider the following criteria for a reasonable balance:

• Fundamental rights such as freedom of speech, religion and security of person are protected.
• Protection of one person's or group's rights does not deny another person or group their fundamental rights.

Check for understanding
Consider checking for students' understanding of individual and collective rights by asking them to examine, individually or in small groups, brief case studies on issues related to both individual and collective rights. You may wish to refer to the basic authorized resources or other sources (see References). For example, case studies could include issues involving the following:

• Bill of Rights (United States)
• Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
• Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms
• First Nations, Métis and Inuit rights
• language legislation
• implementation of the War Measures Act and/or Emergencies Act
• emergency and security legislation (e.g., the USA PATRIOT Act, Canada's Anti-terrorism Act).

To meet diverse learning needs, provide examples of responses by national and foreign liberal democracies to the same or similar issues or events; e.g., United States and Canadian government responses to 9/11.

To prompt student thinking, you may want to pose this focus question: Which action best promoted individual or collective rights, and which action did the most to undermine the protection of either individual or collective rights? Remind students to support their position with reference to implied or explicit evidence from the case studies.

Explore perspectives in a four corners discussion
To help students explore the extent to which governments should balance individual and collective rights, ask students to take a stand (physically) on a statement similar to the following: Governments should attempt to balance the promotion of individual and collective rights.

Ask students to respond to the statement by using a four corners discussion. In each of the four corners of the room, post one of the following signs: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree and Strongly Disagree. Invite students to stand in the corner that best reflects their response to the statement. Once students are in the appropriate corner, ask them to turn to a partner and to take turns explaining why they chose the corner they did. Once students have had an opportunity to share their reasons, randomly call on individual students to justify or explain their decision. Encourage students to move to a different corner if their thinking changes based on discussion during the activity. You may wish to refer to Four Corners Discussion (Support Material) to structure this activity.