{"id":73274,"date":"2024-07-17T14:38:24","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T19:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=73274"},"modified":"2024-07-17T14:38:26","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T19:38:26","slug":"cheeseburger-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2024\/07\/17\/cheeseburger-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheeseburger Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\"Cheeseburger<\/a>\n<\/div>
Cheeseburger Baby – South Beach Miami<\/a> by AdamChandler86, Flickr CC<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest challenges and joys I have in teaching Introduction to Sociology is making ideas like social construction, cultural objects, or bureaucracy visible and intuitive<\/em> to students. A big part of our value as a general education course is in showing students how to use these ideas in the world. I make a point to focus on bureaucracy, for example, because drawing attention to the unique skills and challenges of navigating a large bureaucratic system like a university is one way sociology can help students across many different majors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Max Weber plays a big role here, of course, but one of the challenges in teaching his work is the “This is Water<\/a>” problem \u2014 students are so steeped in bureaucracy that it is hard to recognize its unique traits. George Ritzer’s The McDonaldization of Society<\/a><\/em> is a classic example, but the point-of-sale system is now so normal in the service industry that it can be difficult to wrap your head around any other way to organize a business. That’s why I love the charming 2004 documentary Hamburger America, <\/em>by George Motz. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you make a cheeseburger? Ask your students and you will probably get a pretty standardized answer. At least one of these segments will turn that question on its head. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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