Stitching Truth Lesson One: What is Civil Society?

Warm up:
To prepare students for the main activity, they first should construct a working definition of the term civil society. One way to introduce (or review) this term is to ask students to brainstorm all of the institutions, organizations, and individuals that influence their lives and the lives of people in their community.

Main activity:
Record this list on the board. Students' lists might include the names of government officials, judges, corporations, artists, athletes, religious groups, nonprofit organizations, and even family members. Next, ask students to cross off the list items that are part of the government and items that are part of business and commerce. Finally, ask students to cross off items that they consider aspects of their private lives, that is, something that affects them but may not influence a larger group of people such as their friends and family. What is left is generally considered part of civil society.

While engaged in the preceding exercise, students might express confusion about when to cross off a particular item. Is the American Red Cross part of government because it receives funds from the state? Is an artist, such as a popular musician, part of the economy because she makes money selling her songs? Religion can be something private and public, depending on how it is practiced. Issues such as these illuminate the complexity and connectedness of segments of society; roles do not often break down into neat and tidy categories in the real world. Through discussing some of these situations, students will have to think about the different functions institutions, individuals, and groups serve (for example, to administer laws, to exchange goods, to express ideas, to bring people together, etc.).

Follow through:
Finally, before introducing students to the case study of life in Pinochet's Chile, have them spend a few minutes writing in their journals in answer to the questions, Why do you think civil society is important?, What might happen in a society with a weak civil society?, and What might happen in a society with a strong civil society? The purpose of asking these questions now is not to reveal students' well-developed answers but to serve as a pretest. After learning about life in Chile in the 1970s and 1980s, and in particular about the role of the arpilleristas, students should be able to formulate a more robust answer to questions about the role of civil life in a society, especially the importance of civil society in a democracy.