What Should You Expect From This Lesson?

Lesson Objective: To explore these different kinds of communities, the amount of uniformity they imply and the issues of difference and tolerance they raise.

How To Carry Out This Lesson At Home:

Step 1:
Communities can be distinguished according to the degree of internal dissent or difference they allow or otherwise, and according to their willingness or otherwise to communicate or speak with communities other than their own. This distinction leads us to classify certain communities as closed and others as open. Closed communities are usually intolerant both of internal dissent and of other communities and ways of life, and their outlook is described as fundamentalist in this sense. Open communities are internally tolerant of dissent and difference and willing to speak with other communities different from their own, and their outlook is described as liberal in this sense.

Step 2:
Look at the two images on the resource. The first image depicts an open community while the second image pertains to the notion of a closed community.
Outline the characteristics of open and closed communities. Give examples of both types of communities.

Concluding activity:
Look at both types of communities critically to:
(b) to say which kind should be encouraged in a pluralistic, democratic, multi-cultural society as the Maltese aspires to be;
(c) to discuss whether such a society is possible.
Keep in mind that there is no tolerance without understanding the other, and that such understanding begins with oneself.