Instructional Materials - Foundations of Democracy

The Center’s Foundations of Democracy series, used in more than 40 countries, is its second most widely-adapted and implemented curriculum. The Foundations of Democracy series consists of curricular materials for use with students from kindergarten through twelfth grade on four concepts fundamental to an understanding of politics and government: Authority, Privacy, Responsibility, and Justice. This multidisciplinary curriculum draws upon such fields as political philosophy, political science, law, history, literature, and environmental studies.

The Authority curriculum helps students distinguish between authority and power, learn how to choose people for leadership positions, analyze benefits and costs of authority, and evaluate, take, and defend positions on the proper scope and limits of authority. Privacy deals with the importance of privacy in a free society, the benefits and costs of that privacy, and its proper limits. The Justice curriculum teaches students the difference between distributive, corrective, and procedural justice while evaluating, taking, and defending positions on issues of justice. Responsibility guides students through a process of learning how to choose among competing responsibilities, how to assign and accept responsibility, and how to evaluate the benefits and costs of being responsible.