Introduction
Objectives:
•Relate the social and economic developments that preceded McDonaldization.•Apply the reasons for the spread of McDonaldization in contemporary society to your own life.•Explain Weber’s theory of rationalization.•Assess the validity of claims that McDonaldization will decrease in the future.
Task
Use various resources that can be found on the Internet to answer the lesson focus questions. Work in your assigned group to complete the webquest. Each student will individually submit the answers to all 10 webquest questions in their online journal.
Process
Use the Internet to find the answers to the following questions. Decide which group members will be responsible for researching each question and presenting their findings for group discussion. Each individual group member will post the answers to all 10 questions in their online journal.
•What are the advantages of bureaucracy, according to Max Weber?•How does the Holocaust epitomize the extreme rationalization of the modern world?•How did scientific management and the assembly line pioneer McDonaldization?•How do suburbia and shopping malls facilitate McDonaldization?•How did the McDonald brothers and Ray Kroc apply bureaucratic principles, scientific management, and the assembly line to their chain?•What forces in contemporary society explain the spread of McDonaldization?•How does McDonaldization fit with the claims of postindustrialism, post-Fordism, and postmodernism?•How has mountain climbing become rationalized and even McDonaldized?•What are the main characteristics of McWorld?•What are the main characteristics of Jihad?
Evaluation
Submissions will be evaluated for completeness and accuracy of response. Each question is worth 10 points for a possible maximum total of 100 points.
Conclusion
Like any social transformation, McDonaldization did not happen in a vacuum. Taking a look at the processes that led to it, and its relation to other contemporary processes, is a way for us to examine how our society has changed, and anticipate how it will change in the future.
The purpose of making this a group assignment with individual submissions by all group members is to facilitate cooperative learing, save time in researching the information, and to facilitate and assess each member's understanding of the content.