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Consumerism and Global Cultures
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by Sharon C. Cohen
Springbrook High School
Silver Spring, Maryland
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Buy This Teaching Unit ($8.00)
Abstract
This unit explores the impact of consumerism on world history in the twentieth century with case studies focusing on Mexico and Iran. The unit demonstrates that the emphasis of advertising and consumerism on middle-class populations has been a worldwide phenomenon for over a century. In the first two lessons, students analyze visual and printed sources to learn how advertising at the beginning of the century was directed toward the growing middle class on all continents. The advertising used popular culture and ideas about "raising" one's class or prestige by using certain products. In the third lesson, students participate in a scripted role-play to investigate how rock music was redefined in Mexico and how Mexican youth's attraction to rock affected family structure and gender identity there. In the fourth lesson, students analyze the rejection of Western popular culture in the speeches, writings, and government documents produced by the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent modification of that rejection by the citizens and leaders in Iran. In the fifth lesson, students write a comparative essay about the reactions to consumerism and popular culture in the twentieth century.
Main Points of the Unit
Big Questions
Best Practices
Lesson Summary
Assessment Overview
AP World History Course Description Connections
Objectives
Materials
Big Questions
- How did media technology cause the increase in consumption in the twentieth century?
- What were some patterns of resistance to global cultural forces as the twentieth century proceeded?
- Which is the best model for understanding increased intercultural contact in the twentieth century -- an emphasis on cultural convergence, on diversity, or some other approach?
Best Practices
Best Practices are teaching strategies that are interactive and involve high-level thinking skills (see AP World History Best Practices Guide, eds. P. Manning and D.S. Johnston). The appropriate Best Practices vary widely with teacher strengths, school environment, student population, and experience. But all student populations will benefit from experience with strategies showing that world history is much more than lectures and more than a survey of facts and dates. This unit, within its individual lessons, includes the following examples of Best Practice teaching strategies:
- Read visual documents
- Jigsaw groups
- Simulation
Lesson Summary
Lesson 1. Advertisements Around the World, 1900-1930
Exercises in visual literacy and developing perspective and point-of-view prepare students for the analysis in subsequent units. Students view images of leading entertainment figures at present and in the period 1900-1930 and discuss how they became famous. Then they analyze advertisements from around the world from 1900-1930 in jigsaw groups.
Lesson 2. The Middle-Class Basis of Consumerism
Students read and interpret a table listing dates of earliest advertisements in newspapers outside of Europe and the U.S. Following a lecture based on Handout 2A (or student reading of Handout 2A), class discussion focuses on connections between consumption and middle-class culture, especially in the early twentieth century.
Lesson 3. Global and Local Culture in Mexico
After briefly discussing advertisements from current teen magazines, students enact a pre-scripted role-play that reveals the elements of the "culture wars" in Mexico during the 1960s. Students are divided into participants and active listeners. Following the role-play, students discuss the interaction of global and local culture in Mexico.
Lesson 4. Consumerism and Revolution in Iran
Students discuss responses they have written (as homework) to a statement arguing that U.S. exports of media have become the principal contribution of the U.S. to the global economy. Then they read a handout on the role of consumerism in the Iranian revolution of 1975 and prepare to make a comparison of reactions to mass consumer culture in Mexico and Iran.
Lesson 5. Comparing Experiences with Consumerism
Students write a comparative essay in class, interpreting the place of mass consumer culture in the twentieth-century world through the cases of Mexico and Iran.
Assessment Overview
The teacher may assess students' understanding of newspaper advertising strategies in the discussion of Lesson 2. For Lesson 3, students assess their own and others' work in the role-play, and the teacher may assess student presentation in the role-play and the observations of active listeners. For Lesson 4, the teacher assesses student written responses on U.S. export of media. For Lesson 5, the teacher assesses student comparative essays.
AP World History Course Description Connections
Themes
- Cultural and intellectual developments
- Change and continuity
- Systems of social and gender structure
Habits of Mind
- Using texts and other primary documents
- Seeing local and global patterns
- Assessing diversity of interpretations
Major Developments
- Globalization of science, technology, and culture
- Social reform and social revolution
Objectives
Content objectives
- Define consumerism and mass culture
- Analyze examples of global culture, e.g. Charlie Chaplin, Elvis Presley, Coca Cola
- Analyze the connections between advertising and consumerism
- Find examples of consumerism and mass culture that affected identities in the twentieth century, especially the middle class and teenagers in Mexico and in Iran
- Compare the reactions to consumerism in Mexico and Iran
Skill objectives
- Primary source analysis
- Developing perspective and point-of-view
- Inference skills
- Presentation skills
Materials
- Handouts, included and described in each lesson
- Web sites that include advertisement images
- Optional reading on advertising and consumerism
- Photos of popular entertainment figures, past and present, to be gathered for display by the teacher
- Advertising images from summer 2003 teen magazines, to be gathered for display by the teacher
General Editors: Patrick Manning and Deborah Smith Johnston; World History Center, Northeastern University
Buy This Teaching Unit ($8.00)
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