Summary of “Working Atmcdonalds” by Amitai Etzioni

847 Words4 Pages
Summary of “Working atMcDonalds” by Amitai Etzioni In "Working at McDonalds" Amitai Etzioni argues that the jobs undertaken by teenagers in this fast food franchise are bad for them. In as much as they contribute to the aims of education by making the teenagers self- reliant, these jobs have a myriad of negative impacts in their lives. These positions do not teach any entrepreneurial skills, self-supervision, self- discipline and even self- scheduling. In order to justify his arguments, Etzioni provides a number of worrying facts including; twenty-one percent of all employees in America are the minority and that most teenagers do not pay attention to school work as they should. As such, the quality of education that they receive is quite poor and degrading instead of building. Without quality education, these teenagers do not proceed further in their career ladder. By making these low paying jobs take precedence over their education, the teenagers end up paying a high price when they are grown- ups. Etzioni provides explicit evidence showing that most of these teenagers end up as school dropouts and the only place they can work in is the same fast food restaurants that they worked in when they were teenagers. Basically, his argument is that fast food industries such as McDonalds offer a wide field of employment for teenagers which is beneficial as it makes them self responsible. However, these jobs affect the way the teenagers view education, and how they assimilate it and thus the jobs are harmful in the long run. The author believes that these jobs should be done away with, and instead, teenagers and youngsters should be allowed to engage in activities such as sport which are highly beneficial. Critical response The author begins his article in a very persuasive way by providing an outlook of the

More about Summary of “Working Atmcdonalds” by Amitai Etzioni

Open Document