Social 20: Contending Loyalties

Today we discussed the various ways in which people face contending loyalties.

The comparison was made to gravity: Every object in the universe exerts gravity on everything around it much the same way various loyalties pull us in one direction or the other.

These loyalties can be non-national (class based, religious, ethnic/racial, regional, ideological, or cultural) or national (a Metis person may feel loyalty to the Metis nation, a Canadian nation if it exists, and perhaps loyalties to his/her other nations such as the French or Scots).

How you describe yourself often reveals a lot about what you’re loyal to: Are you a Canadian first? A hockey player? A farmer? An Albertan? A Catholic? A gamer? A French Canadian? An artist? A Ukrainian? A conservative? An environmentalist? Something else?


Assignment: Complete the following booklet about Alberta’s oil sands. It challenges you to consider a number of contending loyalties, largely non-national, within both a current events context and a larger Albertan history.

Social20RegionalOil

Mr. McIntosh

Teacher - Humanities

In a typical year I teach a range of courses from elementary to high school. I am our school's Social Studies specialist, teaching high school social, as well as a member of the PE team.

No Comments Yet

Comments are closed