What Money Can’t Buy

“In what ways have ‘the extension of markets and of market-oriented thinking [expanded] into spheres of life once thought to lie beyond their reach’ according to Sandel? Why might this be a bad thing?”

Watch this:

And answer the question.

Average Income in Historical Perspective

According to this graph, what has happened after 1982, and particularly after 2009? And why?

Click on the graph to enlarge it.

Race and Marriage

Analyze this graph. What does it say? Why is “marriage rate” is higher for some races than others ? What could be the social dynamics which might cause this? What are the social consequences of this phenomenon? Discuss.

Click on the graph to enlarge it.

To Do List for Sep. 26

Here are your tasks for next week. And a couple of clarifications about reflection papers and the first reading assignment.

Group Presentations: We will begin with the group presentations next week. The speakers should come prepared to the class. The note-takers should make sure that they wrote their notes in the comment section of the blog posts that they were assigned.

• The first two groups were assigned this: Growth and Inequality
• The second two groups were assigned this: Racialized Labour Market
• And the last group was assigned this: Real Wages and Productivity

Reflection Papers: I am very happy with the quality of your reflection papers that I received this week. So, instead of asking for a paper each week, I decided to ask five papers per term. Thus, you don’t have to write a paper every week. But make sure that you submit five… These papers are pass/fail. If you don’t present something satisfactory, then you need to submit another reflection paper.

If you choose to write a reflection paper this week, it should be on one of the texts below.Thsee texts are available through the course website (not the tutorial website). For more information about reflection papers, see this link.

• Marchak, Patricia M. ‘Ideology and Social Organization’ fromIdeological Perspectives on Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011. Pp. 1-24.
• McNeil, William H. ‘Mythistory, or Truth, Myth, History and Historians’ and ‘The Care and Repair of Public Myth’ from Mythistory and Other Essays. ACLS History E-Book Project, 2009. Pp. 3-25.

Reading Assignment: The deadline for the first reading assignment is October 3. Follow this link for more information about this assignment.

Any questions? Contact me using this page.

Group Activity (September 12)

What do you think is the most important issue relating to business and society (however you understand it) facing your community/society today?

Group Work: Essentials

In the first tutorial, I divided you up into groups of four. These groups aren’t fixed—you are free to join a different group—but the roles that I assign are. Each group will have 4 distinct roles and it is up to the group members themselves to decide who will fill each role:

• Questioner,
• Facilitator,
• Note-taker
• and Speaker

The note-taker will note the questions as well as the responses. The facilitator’s role is to ensure that everyone participates—if there is silence in response to the questioner’s questions, the facilitator should help the questioner rephrase the questions. The speaker will then become the spokesperson for the group when we return to class discussion after the group work is complete.