Summary Of Fast Food Nation

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Eric Schlosser's 2001 book, Fast Food Nation, aims to look at the developments of the fast food industry in America and how it has shaped the structure and ideals of the nation. Existing within that nation is the public-school system, and as an institution that is instrumental in educating the masses on societal ideals, it would seem necessary for Schlosser to address the impact of this new McDonaldized nation on the education system as a whole. While Schlosser may not explicitly comment on the role and function of public schools, his analysis of the fast food nation does address several key effects that the fast food nation has had within schools, such as corporate sponsorship, advertisements, and teenage workforces. These key effects can …show more content…

Not only does having sponsored school materials influence kids to like and buy certain products, as products and companies become more familiar, curriculum too conforms more to that familiarity, this being the fast food nation. In Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol notes that a Home-Ec teacher gears her " Advanced Home EC" curriculum towards "job instruction" but only for "Fast food places – Burger King. McDonalds" (Kozol 27). Firstly, this suggests an infiltration of societies ideals into the actual structure of the curriculum: going back to Bowles and Gintis, what is taught revolves around the economic need for certain jobs. Secondly, and most importantly, her Home-Ec class was specifically noted to be within a low-income area and it is implied that she teaches a track to the fast food industry because that is where students will end up. In combining Schlosser's ideas in Fast Food Nation with the real-world appearance of a fast food driven curriculum in Savage Inequalities, it is clear to see the impact of McDonaldization within the structures of school curricula, and a perpetuation of class disparities within those schools, supplied by the ideals of the fast food

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