What Gives People Authority?

What gives people authority?

Read the passage below:

Think back to the people in your mind map, the community leaders from your Venn diagram and the leaders of the nation states you researched. What they all have in common is that they have some authority over us. There are different reasons why we obey some people and not others.

Open Ended

Brainstorm the reasons why we obey some authority figures. List as many ideas as you can, start by listing those in your Humanities notebook then copy them here.

Open Ended

Reflection

Now look at the list you have generated and answer the following:

1. Are some of these reasons better than others?

2. Do some apply more to some kinds of authority figures than others?

3. For each of the authority figures you had in your mind map what is the reason they have authority over you?

Open Ended

·         Do we give authority or do people take it? Why do we listen to people in authority over us (our parents, our teachers, the police?)

Open Ended

·         How much choice do we have and should we have about who has authority over us in the different areas of our lives?

Open Ended

If we choose to participate in a democracy must we abide by the results of a fair election, even if we don’t like the result?

Open Ended

What happens when an election is not ‘fair’?

Open Ended

How else might authority be ‘acquired’ by people who have it?

What are the different types of authority structure?

What are the different types of authority structure?

Watch the video in the link below and write down ideas and information you found interesting.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B5pGiWptb4

When decisions are made they can be made democratically (everyone contributes to the decision in some way) or autocratically (the decision is made by one person without consulting the others).

For each of the examples below decide whether they are examples of an autocratic decision-making or democratic decision-making:

- Your parents announce that you will all be going on holiday to South Africa to visit family.

- Your teacher asks you to complete task 3 on page 15 of the textbook.

- Your friends discuss what they will see at the cinema on Friday

- Jesus teaches in the bible that if you are struck by your enemy you should not fight back.

- You and your parents have agreed three possible options of university for you.

- Your teacher lets you choose which monarch you will research for your project.

- Everyone is allowed to suggest new house names for AKA,M and then the whole school votes.