Organizing Society

Open Ended

What needs do the people of a society have that must be met? Or, what are the essential services required? 

Needs that must be met:

• Education 

• Law and Order 

• Family 

• Religion 

• Healthcare 

• Culture 

• Traditional knowledge keepers 

• Crime control 

Open Ended

How do we ensure that the needs of the people within our society are being met? 

How we meet needs:

Create institutions or organizations to take care of the people. 

Open Ended

What institutions are created to help meet the needs of people within a society? 

Institutions Created:

• Schools 

• Churches 

• Local government 

• Hospitals 

• Prisons 

Open Ended

How do these institutions address the needs of the people? What is their role or function? 

How Institutions Meet Needs + Their Role and Function:

• Schools educate the children of cultural values of a society and help them to earn jobs so that they can survive and contribute to society. 

• Churches provide a safe space for people to worship and practice their religious beliefs. 

• Local governments provide law and order and protect the rights of the members of that society. 

• Hospitals provide healthcare to the members of the society so that they may lead long happy lives. 

• Prisons help to regulate the justice system of a society. They also protect the members of a society from those people who wish to cause harm of some form to the society. 

Open Ended

If we think of Canadian society, what gaps or problems can you identify that exist within these institutions? 

Gaps or Problems in Canadian Institutions:

• Not everyone does well in school; not everyone completes high school; post-secondary education is sometimes too difficult for some people to access. 

• Free healthcare sometimes means long waiting lists for surgeries or to consult specialists. 

• Sometimes people may be wrongly convicted or convicted of something that is a highly contested subject. 

• Governments don’t always make decisions that every member of society agrees with. Sometimes minorities get left out of political decision-making.