Universe of Obligation (UK)

In this lesson, students build on their previous discussion about stereotypes by examining why humans form groups and what it means to belong. This examination begins the second stage of the Facing History & Ourselves scope and sequence, ‘We and They’. Students will learn a new concept, universe of obligation – the term sociologist Helen Fein coined to describe the circle of other individuals and groups within a society ‘toward whom obligations are owed, to whom rules apply, and whose injuries call for amends’. ¹

Understanding the concept of universe of obligation provides important insights into the behaviour of individuals, groups, and nations throughout history. It also helps students think more deeply about the benefits of being part of a society’s ‘in’ group and the consequences of being part of an ‘out’ group.

The activities in this lesson ask students to think about the people for whom they feel responsible. The activities also help students analyse the ways that their society designates who is worthy of respect and caring and who is not.

• 1H. Fein, Accounting for Genocide (New York: Free Press, 1979), 4.

Before you teach this lesson, please review the following guidance to tailor this lesson to your students’ contexts and needs.

Activity 1 Reflect on Groups and Belonging

• Ask students to respond in their journals to the following prompt:
• Think about a group you belong to. It might be your family, a team, a faith community, a club, a classroom, an online community, or some other type of group. 

  • How did you become a member of that group? 
  • Did you choose to be a member, or are you one automatically? 
  • What do you gain by belonging to that group? 
  • What, if anything, do you have to give up or hide about yourself to be a member?

• Briefly debrief the prompt by asking students to share some of the things they gain by belonging to groups and some of the things they give up in order to belong. Honour student privacy and refrain from requiring all students to share their responses in detail.
• Then pose new questions to students:

  • Why do humans so often divide themselves into groups? 
  • When is this a good thing? 
  • When is it harmful?

• Give students a few minutes to respond in their journals, and then discuss the question using the Think, Pair, Share strategy.

Activity 2 Introduce the Concept of ‘Universe of Obligation’

• Introduce the concept of universe of obligation to students, and explain that it is one way to consider the benefits of belonging to groups and the consequences of being excluded. An individual’s or group’s universe of obligation represents the extent to which they feel responsible for others. We often feel a greater sense of responsibility for those who belong to the same groups that we do.
• Pass out the reading Universe of Obligation and read it aloud.
• This reading includes quotations that feature the perspectives of three people: David Hume, Chuck Collins, and William Graham Sumner (Connection Question 4). Reread the quotations from each of these people to the class, and then discuss the following questions with students:

  • In what ways do these three people agree? In what ways do they disagree?
  • Which of these people seems to have the most inclusive universe of obligation? Which seems to have the most exclusive?
  • Is it possible for everyone in the world to be included in a person’s or country’s universe of obligation? If not, how should we prioritise?

Activity 3 Illustrate Individual Universes of Obligation

• Finally, ask students to illustrate their own universes of obligation using the graphic organiser on the Universe of Obligation handout. The concentric circles on this handout can help students visualise and diagram what an individual, group, or country’s universe of obligation might look like.
• Give students time to follow the instructions and complete the activity on the handout. It might be helpful first to quickly brainstorm a variety of types of individuals and groups that might appear on one’s graphic organiser, including family, friends, neighbours, classmates, strangers in one’s town, and others.
• Then have students meet in groups of two or three to discuss their experience of trying to illustrate their universes of obligation. In their discussions, students should address some of the following questions:

  • What was the experience of diagramming your universe of obligation like?
  • What did you think about when deciding where to place certain groups in your universe of obligation? Which decisions were difficult? Which were easy?
  • Under what conditions might your universe of obligation shift? What might cause you to move some groups to the centre and others to the outside?
  • What is the difference between an individual’s universe of obligation and that of a school, community, or country?

Extension Activity Supplement with Additional Readings

You might deepen the discussion of groups and belonging in this lesson by introducing additional readings from Chapter 2 of Holocaust and Human Behaviour for student discussion and reflection. The reading What Do We Do with a Difference? includes a poem that raises important questions about the ways we respond to differences. In the reading Understanding Strangers, journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski discusses the ways the earliest humans likely responded to ‘the Other’ and suggests models for how we can constructively respond to unfamiliar groups of people today. Both readings and their related connection questions can help support a larger class discussion about the human behaviour of dividing ourselves into groups. You might use the following questions to guide the discussion:

Why do humans so often divide themselves into ‘we’ and ‘they’? When does it become a problem? What historical examples help you answer this question? What examples from the world today help you answer it?