What are my rights? What can I do if my rights are violated? Who has the right to do that?Questions like these are easily articulated by most students in the United States because from an early age they frequently receive socially diffused rights messages in virtually every aspect of their lives. The United States has been described as a highly legalistic society or a polity of laws, not people. That tradition is indeed one of the hallmarks of the U.S. democracy. Television and film media illustrate that claim, awash as they are with references to laws, statutes, adjudication, and police work. Because young people, particularly adolescents, are great consumers of those visual texts, they imbibe a general understanding of, and perhaps even a taste for, this national legal fixation. The same is true for classrooms, with rights and litigation issues taking precedence over all other civic ideas, according to Avery (2002). Much of what constitutes formal rights education in the United States is focused on study of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, emergent case law, and criminal or civil procedures. This article helps students to better understand social rights.