Citizenship at key stage 4 (Year 10-11)
Unit 09: Consumer rights and responsibilities
Section 3: The consequences of consumer choices - how effective are consumer campaigns?
|
|
Objectives |
| Children should learn: |
- about the impact of consumer choices locally and nationally
- about how organised campaigns can affect public opinion and lead to greater consumer participation
- about the political impact of particular consumer campaigns
|
Activities |
|
Outcomes |
|
Children: |
- Small groups of pupils discuss what they understand by the term 'responsible consumerism'. This will build on their discussion of purchasing choices in the first part of the unit. They share their ideas with the whole group and draw up a list of major issues and questions relating to making consumer choices, eg what might make me decide not to purchase a particular product or brand? Would I think twice if the company did not provide reasonable working conditions for employees/used child labour inappropriately/had a poor safety record?
- Pupils investigate a number of local and national organisations that campaign on consumer issues, eg what has happened to environmental groups over the last 10-20 years? How has Local Agenda 21 affected their membership and the activities they engage in? In small groups, pupils discuss the ways that various organisations might campaign. Pupils can then debate what sorts of action might be appropriate, eg physical action such as occupation of a company's office or destruction of property versus political lobbying or boycotts. They consider why collective campaigning can be more effective than individual action.
- Using various sources of information, pupils identify some recent changes that have resulted from consumer-led campaigning, eg changes resulting from the UK fuel protests, changes in food shopping habits. What were the key elements of the action? Who was involved?
|
|
- identify a range of issues associated with a particular type of consumer action, such as 'green consumerism'
- can relate their knowledge and understanding of the topic to examples from real life
- are aware of the roles of local and national organisations in campaigns on a range of issues
- understand how groups campaign in various ways to achieve specific results
|
|
Points to note |
- This section links with unit 4 'How and why are laws made?'. It provides clear opportunities for pupils to identify how their own behaviour has an impact on the immediate community and on the wider and national community.
- This section provides an opportunity for pupils to discuss the nature and appropriateness of different forms of campaign action, including individual, collective and direct action.
- Link with unit 12 'Global issues, local action'. Pupils could explore how international agreements are implemented at a local level, eg the Rio Summit resulted in Local Agenda 21, which promotes local groups that address environmental issues.
- Link with history: political, economic and social history, including Africa and Asia post-independence, trade and industry, protest and reform, and media and communications. This section also builds on unit 11 'Industrial changes' in the key stage 3 scheme of work and the breadth of study sections 10, 12 and 13 in the key stage 3 programme of study.
|
|
|
This unit is divided into sections. Each section contains a sequence of
activities with related objectives and outcomes. You can view this unit by
moving through the sections or print/download the whole unit.
|
|
|
