Study Guide: Work & Education

 

Glossary:

rationalization appropriate technology underclass
bureaucracy science split labor market
genetic engineering bioethics structural unemployment
Luddites alienation modernization
created environment cultural lag social mobility
division of labor intensification class
postindustrial  futurists  class consciousness
mechanization automation stratification
technology industrialization

 

News:

 

Please Note:
 
Causes of workplace transformation
Symptoms of workplace transformation
Consequences of workplace transformation
Education and income
Higher education and standards
Liberal arts and democracy

Names to Know: 

Max Weber

Karl Marx

Graphing the Problem:

Work:

Unemployment By Race and Ethnicity
Official U.S. Unemployment Rates by Sex, Ethnicity and Education
Number of Workers in Selected Occupations, 1972-2005
U.S. Workers by Sex in three types of Jobs
Labor Force Participation by Sex
Average Hourly Earnings of U.S. Workers
Employment Distribution in Agriculture, Manufacture and Service
Women as a Percent of Workforce in the Ten Most Industrialized Nations
Percent of Women in Labor Force by Education
Percent of Women in Labor Force by Marital Status
Percent of Women in Labor Force by Presence of Preschooler
Income Distribution (Percent Housholds by Income)
Unemployment by Race
Do you belong to a Union?

Education:
Average Years of Schooling by Country
The Funneling Effects of Education:  Race and Ethnicity
National Results of SAT
Educational Achievement in the U.S.
Educational Expenditures and Student Scores
Education does not Pay Equitably

Milgram's Obedience to Authority Study (1974):
Maximum Shocks Administered in Experiments 1, 2, 3 and 4

 

Practice Quiz

Essay Questions:

  1. According to Elwell (Industrializing America), how has globalization affected the American workplace?
  2. Discuss human relations management and automation as a form of rationalization.
  3. What technological advances have made the current rationalization of work feasible?
  4. What are some of the major symptoms of the rationalization of American higher education?
  5. What are some of the major causes of the rationalization of American higher education?
  6. What are the major consequences of the rationalization of American higher education?
  7. According to Bluestone and Rose (Overworked and Underemployed), what is "overwork" and what is "underemployment"?  How do they interrelate?
  8. What is "capitalism's squirrel cage"?  How is it related to overwork?
  9. What factors contribute to overwork and underemployment?
  10. What does Freeman (Toward an Apartheid Economy) mean by an "apartheid economy"?
  11. Who has suffered the most in the distribution of wages?  What factors have contributed to this situation?
  12. How does the situation of U.S. workers compare to that of their European and Canadian counterparts?
  13. Describe some of the costs that societies bear because of income inequality.

 

Links:

Verstehen:  Max Weber's Home Page

 

Bibliography:

Ellul, Jacques 1970 [1964] The Technological Society. Translated by John Wilkinson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Fayol, H.  1949.  General and Industrial Management.  London: Pitman.

Gayer, F. and Schveitzer, D. (eds) 1981.  Aliention: Problems of Meaning, Theory and Method. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Howard, Robert.  1985.  Brave New Workplace.  New York: Viking.

Huxley, Aldous.  1959.  Brave New World Revisited.  New York: Bantam.

Israel, J.  1971.  Alienation: From Marx to Modern Sociology. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Menosky, Joseph A. 1984.  "Computer Worship," Science 84 (May): 40-46.

Naisbitt, John.  1982.  Megatrends.  New York: Warner.

Toeffler, Alvin.  1981.  The Third Wave. New York: Bantam.

Winner, Langdon.  1984.  "Mythinformation in the High-Tech Era,"  IEEE Spectrum (June): 90-96.

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Continuously updated. ©Frank Elwell