Day 11
Day 11
Did You Know?
The sociological perspective can help us take ideas, objects, and experiences we take for granted in our daily lives, and see how culture, history, and local conditions can shape those ideas, objects, and experiences. The documentary, Hamburger America, shows us a wide variety of ways cheeseburgers are made across the U.S. Moving us away from seeing the cheeseburger only through franchises such as McDonalds or Burger King, the film highlights how, without standardized systems like fast-food chains, social arrangements can vary widely.
One of the biggest challenges of teaching sociology is making abstract ideas like social construction and bureaucracy feel real and useful to students. Bureaucracy, a concept developed by Max Weber, can help students understand large complex systems like a university. Yet, since we are so used to bureaucracy, and the way it organizes our daily lives, it can be challenging to recognize or question it.
By taking an object that is so familiar (like a hamburger), and showing the variations across the country, students see how culture is embedded in ordinary things and encourages discussion about broader sociological themes like tradition, inequality, and economic change.
