Federalism: Lesson for Kids

Federalism is a bit like a school. In a school, each classroom can have its own rules for some things. For example, art class and science class might have different rules about what supplies you need. But there are also some rules for the whole school, like the dress code. So there's one central government (the whole school) and a bunch of smaller governments (the classrooms), and they share the power of making rules. That's what federalism is like.

Just having a country divided into different areas doesn't make it a federalist country. For example, France is divided up into smaller areas called departments. But each department doesn't get to make a lot of laws for itself, the way a state can in the USA. Departments just do whatever the central government tells them to do. So France isn't a federalist country, because the Departments don't have power of their own.