Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Video Links:

1. Video 9.1: Is Wal-Mart Good For America?
Description: Wal-Mart is a ubiquitous and controversial presence in American consumer-culture. Though many decry the retail giant for its labor practices and believe it has played a significant role in loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs, many of us continue to shop there because we want the low prices and convenience it offers. Through interviews with economists, manufacturers, retail industry experts, and business analysts, this program offers an even-handed consideration of how Wal-Mart has affected and been affected by U.S. consumer-culture.

2. Video 9.2: Inside Small Schools
Description: Adlai E. Stevenson High School in The Bronx was once a dangerous school that had poor performance ratings. In an effort to improve student safety and educational outcomes, the school was divided into nine “small schools” that would be more flexible and allow more personal interactions between educators, administrators, and students. This New York Times video examines the successes and failures of this “small schools” experiment.

3. Video 9.3: The Legacy of Tailhook
Description: This New York Times video revisits 1991’s Tailhook scandal, an incident that drew attention to the little-discussed problem of sexual assault in the U.S. Navy. It provides a look at how the Navy responded to allegations of sexual assault at the time and how things have (and have not) changed since then.

4. Video 9.4: The Tragedy of Commons
Description: This brief video from Khan Academy explains the Tragedy of Commons.

Audio Link:

1. Audio 9.1: ‘It’s Going To Get Worse’: How U.S. Countertop Workers Started Getting Sick
Description: From NPR’s All Things Considered, a look at a growing phenomenon of lung illness associated with counter top installation work. Work place safety and the complicated and sometimes overlooked, responsibility of employers to provide safe working conditions is explored in this brief piece.

Web Links:

1. Web 9.1: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Description: The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the principal fact-finding agency for the Federal Government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics.

2. Web 9.2: Pentagon Buries Evidence of $125 Billion in Bureaucratic Waste
Description: In this article, the Washington Post explores the bureaucratic nature of the U.S. military and examines the staggering waste associated with this powerful organization.

3. Web 9.3: The National Congregations Study
Description: The National Congregations Study used the model of the NOS to generate a nationally representative sample of religious congregations. Congregations—the relatively small-scale, local collectivities and organizations in and through which people engage in religious activity—are a basic unit of American religious life.

4. Web 9.4: McDonaldization.com
Description: McDonaldization.com—Exposing the Iron Cage! is a website whose purpose is to help spread the word about McDonaldization and explore the wide-ranging impact this process has on our society [self-characterization].

5. Web 9.5: OSHA
Description: Resources for young workers from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration including information on employer responsibly for providing a safe work environment and other employee rights.