Unit 8: Tension between Traditional Cultures and Modernization

Enduring Understandings

Students understand that...

Tensions exist between traditional cultures and agents of modernization. Reactions for and against modernization depend on perspective and context.

Skills

Students will be able to...

• Students will investigate the extent to which urbanization and industrialization have modified the roles of social institutions such as family, religion, education, and government by examining one case study in each of these regions: Africa (e.g., Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone), Latin America (e.g., Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico), and Asia (e.g., China, India, Indonesia, South Korea).

• Students will investigate, compare, and contrast tensions between modernization and traditional culture in Turkey under the rule of  Kemal Ataturk and in Iran under the Pahlavis and the Ayatollahs.

• Students will explore how changes in technology, such as communication and transportation, have affected interactions between people and those in authority (e.g.,efforts to affect change in government policy, engage people in the political process including use of social media, control access to information, and use terrorism as a tactic).

"I Think" lesson (p. 82):  lesson demonstrates how changes in government have had an either positive or negative impact on civilians in South Africa and China.