Hauhart describes a survey that is used to illustrate how students in an online sociology course tend to learn about inequality in everyday life. The online course discussed personalizes key concepts found within Hoschild’s works on the ‘second shift’ of domestic labor, by asking students to connect these notions with their own experiences.  The article begins by providing data that states since the end of World War II the United States’ women’s labor force participation has exorbitantly increased. In 1949, 31 percent of American women were employed outside the home, by 1960 this figure increased to 38 percent, and by 2000 to 60 percent, and states this increase as substantial demographic and social change of the past century. The article also presented data stating that U.S. women spent 30 hours per week doing unpaid household work in 1965, which was more than six times the time spent by U.S. men (4.9 hours). By 1995 this gap had narrowed with women doing 17.5 hours of work each week and 10 hours of work each week.  The goals of the class survey used were to induce student’s recognition of the unequitable division of labor within today’s society as well as to increase their understandings of the patterned nature of societal inequality through the analysis of the gendered division of household labor in relation to other issues of gender inequality that may originate outside the home. Hauhart asked students to review a list of household tasks as well as to evaluate household members’ contribution to the performance of each task. Students were also asked to write about the ‘ideal’ level of contribution from each household member within their own household. Most of the responses received by students illustrated a continuing gap in performing household labor between sexes in heterosexual couple households. Although the age range of class members was between 18 and 43 between 2003 and 2004 and was distributed evenly over the range, there were not any apparent age related trends in either direction. Hauhart’s main points were that the unequal division of American household labor following World War II has continued to be a stubborn and problematic issue, and that the online course discussed was a legitimate method of educating students on this topic as well as intimately involving and engaging students with this issue by imploring students to relate their own personal experiences with the unequal division of labor to the class.  After the administration of the survey class members were asked to comment on their responses and those of their classmates. The responses tended to be varied and there was adamant discussion following. Generally speaking, the online course tended to spur the results desired by the author, which included results for the survey, as well as in depth discussion of the results. Hauhart stated that there were a multitude of chances to note the various topics of inequality as well as stratification within undergraduate sociology courses, and that he experienced problems conjuring meaningful discussion encouraging equal participation rates within class discussions and achieving student recognition of connection between unequal circumstances and the perpetual patterns of extant and widespread structured inequality. The author also illustrates that the survey results received were for teaching rather than scientific purposes. The use of surveys, journals, quizzes, and exercises were used to open discussion, introduce controversial ideas, and create a comfortable environment for investigating a comfortable setting to explore topics in depth within sociology classes is a common pedagogical. Hauhart demonstrates that the primary innovation offered is the translation of technique into online settings.  Evaluation: Hauharts main points were that the unequal division of American household labor following World War II has continued to be a stubborn and problematic issue. It seemed like he unnecessarily repeated some of his main arguments. As mentioned in the piece, the course only ‘briefly’ referenced Hoschild’s study of the ‘second shift’ phenomenon’, which made me consider whether student’s were able to adequately digest the various variables including types of household tasks completed (indoor, outdoor, as although it is a somewhat simple study. I also thought more information could have been gleaned regarding the division of labor results he received from his students. For instance the number of children could have been listed as well as if the household was dual earner, the racial makeup, SES status, as well as geographical location. These factors are all relatively easy to attain and would have added significant detail and deeper insight into why the reports of the gendered division of labor were reported the way they were. It also seemed as if the results of the survey could have been discussed in a bit more detail. I also thought the specific percentage breakdown of the household survey could have been discussed in more detail, as most seemed to be far from parity. As for contributions to the sociology of gender I do not think it is adding much to the literature. The sample it uses to describe the division of household labor is relatively small (38 students) making it difficult to generalize to a wider population and its findings do not state anything that has not already been said from previous literature. Essentially I would call for richer or more detailed data, as well as a larger sample size to more accurately assess the quantity as well as quality of labor completed by members within households. Additionally, although the structure of the class exercise is relatively interesting and was adept at involving class members in a legitimate conversation about gender, this would be helpful to sociologists within the field of education. I am curious of how other factors such as age, race, class, sexual orientation, SES, occupational status, and educational background play a role in determining the division of household labor. I am interested in how these a combination of these various factors interact and how they determine the way in which couples divide labor within the household. An affluent straight white heterosexual couples may indeed divide household labor differently than an African-American lesbian couple who fall below the poverty line. I also think a richer description of the type of work done by various couples would be helpful for future research, as the amount of time spent on a task does not necessarily denote its level of difficulty, and a broad category such as yard work covers a variety of task difficulty from tractor lawn mowing to intensive gardening. I am also interested in what the ages of the children were for those students

Works Cited: Hauhart, Robert C. 2007. “Teaching about Inequality in a Distance Education Course Unsing the Second Shift.” Teaching Sociology 35 (2): 174-183.

Currently there is controversy regarding the varying levels of reluctance and willingness of Western health care practitioners to adopt allopathic or alternative medicinal practices-such as acupuncture, ayuverda, and ohashiatsu-as legitimate forms of treatment. Levels of reluctance and willingness will be discussed in terms of the capacity for alternative forms of medicine to provide patients with superior, or at the very least sufficient, cures for their particular injuries, diseases, and/or ailments. I will also discuss the tension that exists between patients’ personal descriptions of their experiences with alternative medicine and more scientific methods of determining whether these medicines are actually affective.

Acupuncture in the U.K., for instance, has become increasingly popular. In 1998, it was estimated that English adults made over 3 million visits to acupuncturists, and that this cost the National Health Service (NHS) £26 million and patients £47 million. It has also been estimated that 7% of adults in England use acupuncture over their lifetime. The popularity of acupuncture is growing in Western countries, not only with patients, but also with healthcare professionals. By 2001, one-third of English general practices offered some form of access to acupuncture, and most of this was provided by a member of a primary health-care team or by referral to an acupuncturist (Paterson 2007).

The urgency regarding assessing the effectiveness of alternative medicines using evidence based methods for testing medicine has also become prominent as well. It should be stated that a great deal of skepticism has also arisen in relation to the power that conventional biomedical modes hold to properly evaluate medical interventions (Jackson and Scambler 2007). However, only 15 percent of biomedical interventions are actually supported by substantial scientific evidence, as many traditional treatments have never been assessed at all. This creates a double standard that favors traditional medicinal practices over alternative ones although with just as little scientific grounding (Jackson and Scambler 2007).

Additionally the premise that random controlled trials (RCTs) provide objective data has also been challenged due to the notions that there may be biased interventions in the funding of research that are more likely to have commercial value and that are dominated by biomedical practitioners and scientists. Generally speaking the methods of which the effectiveness of both traditional as well as alternative forms of medicine can be tested is limited as well as shaped by technical, commercial, and economic biases. For instance, biomedical practitioners are reluctant to accept the existence of ‘Qi’, or the meridians in Chinese medical theory, despite clinical studies that have shown its effectiveness. Additionally, only when the neurophysiological effects of acupuncture were demonstrated did it begin to gain increased acceptance.

In essence there is discussion of both Western patients’ as well as practitioners’ inputs on the legitimacy of alternative forms of medicine, as well as the scientific methods, or lack thereof used to test whether alternative, as well as traditional, forms of medicine are actually affective in terms of providing adequate treatment, and in what ways Western medical practitioners should either be more discerning, reluctant, or open in regards to accepting alternative practices.

Works Cited:

Paterson, Charlotte. 2007. “Patients’ experiences of Western-style acupuncture: the influence of      acupuncture ‘dose’, self-care strategies and integration”. Journal of Health Services Research Policy, 12(1): 39-45.

Jackson, Sue and Scambler, Graham. 2007. “Perceptions of evidence-based medicine: traditional    acupuncturists in the UK and resistance to biomedical modes of evaluation”.  Sociology of Health and Illness, 29(3) :412–429.

INTRODUCTION

The term ‘academic capitalism’  is defined by market activity such as licensing, patenting and industry consulting, competition for public and private foundation grants, reactions to pressures for research entrepreneurship, as well as faculty self-promotion via personal websites and blogs  within institutions of higher education. Academia became increasingly capitalized as commitment to research and development within universities first began to increase during World War II, and was standardized by the upstart of the National Science Foundation in 1950, as well as the Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1958. The federal government also highly encouraged new innovation in biomedical research, which was standardized by the National Institute of Health. When the federal government first proposed the Servicemens’ Readjustment Act, or GI Bill, the president of Harvard University, James Bryant Conant, and the president of the University of Chicago, expressed concern over the possible rapid expansion of higher education. Both Hutchins and Conant argued that opportunities for education should be made available to veterans on the basis of one’s ability, most likely through a form of national examination, and that the GI Bill should be revised to subsidized for only a ‘carefully selected group’ (Bankston 2011).  Although the pool of applicants expanded in the years following World War II, new techniques of selecting students ensured that the elite institutions such as Chicago and Harvard were able to admit students based on their academic preparedness. The GI bill also stimulated enrollments directly subsidizing veterans’ education and shaping college as a realistic option for the veterans’ families, neighbors, and associates. The tools for student selection in the postwar period allowed the most highly reputed schools to draw talent from both wealthy as well as non-affluent families. Before World War II, less than 5 percent of Americans held credentials from institutions of higher education. By 1950 the number of Americans eighteen to twenty-four year olds with college degrees had risen to 11 percent in 1950 to 17 percent in 1960. By 2008 around 30 percent of U.S. citizens were college graduates. By the 1970s a higher proportion of workers held degrees of higher education as well as the elite jobs that came with them (Bankston 2011). This increased number of workers with levels of higher education meant that the steady growth within technical positions could absorb the growing numbers of graduates. However, by 1980 the production of people with college degrees had begun to outpace the available places in professional and technical careers. It is argued that U.S. economic growth has become more dependent on technological sophistication and that the nation must produce more college-trained employees to keep pace between the growth of an increasingly technological society and education. Despite this notion for the last few decades the number of citizens with college degrees has risen more rapidly than the percentage of workers within fields of technology, and most degree holders have entered jobs within the service industry mostly as management. By the start of the 21^st century, more than 40 percent had degrees (Bankston 2011).

As the academic labor market has become increasingly marketized, it has also undergone changes in terms of the ratio of tenure-track and tenured faculty to students in the majority of research universities. The majority of teaching work has been replaced by either part-time, adjunct, or graduate student instructors who are being paid on a class by class basis. Additionally, there has been an increase in the amount of administrative staff to manage revenue flows, supervise outreach programs, as well as create accountability and efficiency schemes (Hoffman 2012).  By 1963, the federal government provided more than 70% of the funding for university research and development (Popp Berman 2012). By 1994, a world-wide agreement was signed by 124 countries that aimed to ‘liberalize’ world markets by privatizing providers of state or public status, as well as decentralizing national power structures, and by the development of new, state-free centers of power (Mitter 2004).

Increased corporatization of academia has also created an institutional model which emphases reliance on top down-administration and the dominant perspective of students as customers. By 2009, the number of colleges who charged $40,000 or more for tuition increased from 2 in 2003 to 200. Corporate pressures on academia, including ranking systems have also spurred cheating scandals within particular colleges. Pressures to obtain the so called ‘best’ education for one’s child based on these rankings has also caused parents of middle class children to spend exorbitantly on SAT preparatory courses, college advisors, and athletic coaches to ensure that their students get in the very best, and usually the most expensive programs (Mills 2012).  Currently 74 percent of the student body originates from the top quarter of the socioeconomic scale, while only 3 percent come from the bottom quarter (Mills 2012). The growth of the corporate university is also growing exponentially. In 2010, thirty eight American schools had sixty-five branches in thirty-four countries (Mills 2012). This type of growth has been perpetuated by an increasing global population who sees the necessities of education to survive within in an economy that has become increasingly technological and service based.

One trend that correlates with the increased corporatization of education in the U.S. is the over credentialization of education, or the notion that everyone who has the desire to attend college should be able to (Bankston 2011). One problem that a highly marketized and over credentialized system of education  has on students is that it tends to place emphasis on earning a degree that will grant one employment within a specialized sector of the service economy, rather than exploring or engaging in a variety of topics that may require particular skill and critical thinking that would  engage students with a wide range of ideas and concepts that interact and correspond in ways that are both unique and societally relevant. A notion that is held is that the nation needs an increased number of college graduates, President Obama has even stated his commitment to this by proposing a budget that would transform Poll Grants into entitlements, which would extend the college funds that Poll Grants provide to an additional one million students.

The over credentialization of education is also correlated with the increased marketization of education. More degrees are being given to students in order to grant them opportunities to remain relatively successful within an increasingly service based and technologically dependent economy. However, the cost of higher education remains high and thus relatively unattainable to the majority of working to middle class citizens. Even the majority (56% ) of those who do manage to earn bachelor’s degrees, do not obtain occupations in the fields they desire (TED.com ?). Those who have remained in power and continue to have access to economic and educational resources, may be attempting to assist those who lack the financial as well as cultural means to succeed in the system, but nevertheless continue to perpetuate a system that does not properly acknowledge major issues such as a burgeoning population and lack of institutions whose primary purpose is to equitably distribute goods to the majority of the population.

The more universities collaborate with major corporations to provide them with research either beneficial to businesses or for an extant social problem, there is arguably less time spent on considering the abilities of current students. In either case, a capitalist economy is perpetuated that does not seriously consider alternative forms such as anarcho syndicalism as well as cooperative economies that have been suggested by forward thinkers such as Victor Fresco and Donna Meadows of the Zeitgeist movement. The capitalist system fails to reflect on its major faults which are that it still does not provide equitable opportunities and resources for its members to become critically and actively engaged citizens, with the skills and motivation to engage in extant social issuesl. Thusly, a capitalist system is perpetuated which continuously puts greater pressure on the working and middle classes to succeed based on the goals and aspirations of those in power, including major CEOs and politicians.

How could the history of increased marketization in education  has affected the way in which the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge is defined, framed, and constructed within traditional as well as distance learning programs? Additionally, how are the ways in which these various forms of knowledge are defined, framed, and constructed shaping the way in which students learn?  In other words, are these forms actually effective in educating students? Finally, what type of citizens are these new forms of knowledge dissemination and acquisition shaping current students into and are these the type of citizens that should be considered valuable to the well- being and advancement of society? Would future systems of education that utilize distance learning be able to engage students with a form of education that accurately and properly informs them of current social problems, as well as other crucial elements of education including the physical sciences, engineering, and mathematics. Additionally, would future forms of education integrate the various fields of education (the physical sciences, humanities, and arts) into programs that could properly motivate, engage, and stimulate students imaginations and critical thinking?. Currently, distance learning programs are not widespread in use and only a small percentage of students have taken distance learning courses within the U.S. (20%) and less than 2% are enrolled permanently within a distance learning program. It is obvious that highly trained educators would be most adept at making use of distance learning, as well as adapting programs to suit their own syllabi and coursework. Distance learning programs would also benefit from continuation of pre-testing in programs to verify whether they are actually successful in terms of students’ retention of the material.

Works Cited:

Bankston, Carl L. 2011. “The mass production of credentials: subsidies and the rise of the higher education industry”.  Independent Review. 15(3) 325.

Hoffman, Steve. G. 2012. “Academic Capitalism”. Contexts 11(4): 12-13.

Mitter, Wolfgang. 2004. “Rise and decline of education systems: a contribution to the history of the modern state” Compare, 34(4).

Popp Berman, Elizabeth. 2012. Creating the Market University: How Academic Science. Became an Economic Engine. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.