Alabama Social Studies SS24.S.8b
The Standard
- SS24.S.8
- Explain the purpose of social systems and institutions, including governments, houses of worship, schools, and voluntary associations.
Differentiate among Weber’s three types of authority (charismatic, rational-legal, and traditional) in respect to source of power and leadership style.*
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies · Groups and Socialization
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students identify whether a leader's authority comes from personal appeal, custom, or formal rules and an office. They explain how each source affects the way the leader gets people to follow.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can classify a movement founder, a hereditary chief, and an elected mayor. They can explain why followers respond to speeches, inherited customs, or decisions made under written rules.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may mistake a popular mayor's personality for the source of the mayor's legal authority. They may call a long-serving principal a traditional leader, though that position comes from district rules, not inherited custom.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Label each leader's type of authority and name a clue about both their source of power and how they lead: a chief follows inherited customs, a mayor applies city rules, and a founder rallies followers through speeches.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs three leader profile cards, three power-source cards, and three leadership-style cards to match and explain.
Ask students to write two sentences comparing why people follow a mayor and a movement founder, then predict what happens when each leaves.
Play a quick card sort: teams match six leader scenarios to an authority type and point to the clue in each.
Compare a principal's job description, a royal family tree, and a neighborhood organizer's speech to identify each source of authority.
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Related Standards
- SS24.S.8a
Compare how authority is perceived in legitimate power and coercive power leadership styles.*
- SS24.S.7
Analyze how different types of social groups can influence individual and group behavior.*
- SS24.6.10a
Compare and contrast the division of power among levels of government in unitary, federal, and confederate styles of governance.
- SS24.S.3
Compare and contrast the three major sociological theories: functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interaction.*
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