Short Answer Comprehension Assessment (SACA) on Prominent Concepts and Themes

Description And Instructions

All of the SACAs will consistent of a few, short answer questions that draw on prominent concepts and themes introduced in the readings and lectures for that Section. Students are expected to develop thoughtful, structured responses to these questions that use full sentences, integrate insights from the lectures and readings and include academic referencing (APA or ASA format).

Each short answer should be between 350-500 words in length and must refer to at least one of the assigned and optional readings (see descriptions below for the specific number of readings). Please include a reference list. (The reference list will not be included in the word count.) The first SACA, worth 25% of your grade, covers material addressed in Section Ai lures l-5). It will be distributed during Lecture 5 and you will have two weeks to complete it. It will be due the week after reading week on the day of Lecture 6.

There is no one right answer to these questions. There are a variety of ways that you could answer these questions by discussing a particular theme or themes that are present in the lecture and literature. The purpose of this exercise is simply to show that you have watched the lectures and read the readings and are able to synthesize and discuss some of the information contained in them. Your response will not be able to cover all of the material covered. 

References and referencing:

Your responses to all of the Questions (1-3) must refer to a total of four (4) of the assigned  or optional readings. You will be graded specifically on the presence of reading references. Each individual question must reference at least one of the assigned or optional readings. (You may, of course, use more citations.You may refer to the same article multiple times.

For example, you may refer to the same reading multiple times in the same response and you may cite the same reading in your response to different questions. 

1. Describe what the Industrial Revolution was and how it is related to the evolution of the capitalist economic system (350-500 words). 

• Mercantilism and colonialism

• Wage laboura and Tenant farmers

• Feudalism

• Development of infrastructure (transportation, energy sources, communication networks)

• New social classes (factory owners. factory workers) 

• Globalization

• Factory system

• World systems theory

• Critiques of world systems theory

• Technological developments

• First, Second and Third Industrial Revolutions

• Primary resource extraction (cash crops, precious metal).

2. Industrialization introduced a new way of organizing the labour process, particularly visible in the way that the labour process itself (the production of good) was initially divided into multiple parts on the factory floor. Discuss how industrialization changed the organization of the labour process (350-500 words). 

• Putting out system

• Factory system

• Taylorism and scientific management

• Fordism

• International division of labour 

• Organization of time

• Organization of space

• Emergence of new social classes and roles

• World systems theory.

3. The increasing division of the labour process - coupled with other factors such as increasing technical and social advancements - has led to an increasing need for different forms of formal education in order to obtain the professional credentials necessary to do a job. This phenomenon has been described as "professionalization" and is a major characteristic of our current economy that has been discussed extensively in the sociology of work literature.

What is your position on the process of "professionalization" and how it currently impacts the job market? Do you agree with Collins' (2019) argument that we live in a 'sinecure' society (350-500 words)?