【精品】高级英语视听说教程book2听力文本

Book 2 Chapter 1 The Population

Today we’re going to talk about population in the United States. According to the most recent government census, the population is 281,421,906 people. Now this represents an increase of almost 33 million people since the 1990 census. A population of over 281 million makes the United States the third most populous country in the whole world. As you probably know, the People’s Republic of China is the most populous country in the world. But do you know which is the second mo st populous? Well, if you thought India, you were right. The fourth, fifth, and sixth most populous countries are Indonesia, Brazil, and Pakistan. Now let’s get back to the United States. Let’s look at the total U. S. population figure of 281 million in three different ways. The first way is by race and origin; the second is by geographical distribution, or by where people live; and the third way is by the age and sex of the population.

First of all, let’s take a look at the population by race and origin. T he latest U. S. census reports that 75.1 percent of the population is white, whereas 12.3 percent is black. Three percent are of Asian origin, and 1 percent is Native American. 2.4 percent of the population is a mixture of two or more races, and 5.5 percen t report themselves as “of some other race”. Let’s make sure your figures are right: OK, white, 75.1 percent; black, 12.3 percent; Asian, 3 percent; Native American, 1 percent;

a mixture of two or more races, 2.4 percent; and of some other race, 5.5 percent. Hispanics, whose origins lie in Spanish-speaking countries, comprise whites, blacks, and Native Americans, so they are already included in the above figures. It is important to note that Hispanics make up 12.5 percent of the present U.S. population, however. Finally, the census tells us that 31 million people in the United States were born in another country. Of the 31 million foreign born, the largest part, 27.6 percent are from Mexico. The next largest group, from the Philippines, number 4.3 percent.

Another way of looking at the population is by geographical distribution. Do you have any idea which states are the five most populous in the United States? Well, I’ll help you out there. The five most populous states, with population figures, ar e California, with almost 34 million; New York, with 21 million; Texas, with 19 million; and Florida, with 16 million; and Illinois with 12.5 million people. Did you get all those figures down? Well, if not, I’ll give you a chance later to check yo ur figures. Well, t hen, let’s move on. All told, over half, or some 58 percent of the population, lives in the South and in the West of the United States. This figure, 58 percent, is surprising to many people. It is surprising because the East is more densely populated. Nevertheless, there are more people all together in the South and West. To understand this seeming contradiction, one need only consider the relatively larger size of many southern and western states, so although there are more people, they are distributed over a larger area. To finish up this section on geographical distribution, consider that more than three-quarters of the people live in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Houston. That means that only 20 percent, or 2 out of 10 people, live in rural areas. An interesting side note is that some 3,800,000 U.S. citizens live abroad, that is, in foreign countries.

Before we finish today, I want to discuss the distribution of the U.S. population in terms of age and sex. Just for interest, would you say there are more men or more women in the United States? Well, according to the 2000 census, there are more women. In fact, there are more than five million more women than men in the U.S. population. If we consider that more males than females are born each year, how can this difference be explained? Well, for a variety of complicated reasons that we can’t go into here, there is a progressively higher death rate for males as they get older. This is seen in 2003 life expectancy figures: the life expectancy for women is 80.4 years whereas for men it is only 74.5 years. I don’t know how these life expectancy figures compare to those in your countries, but statistically women generally live longer than men worldwide. Now, to finish up, let’s look at the average age of the whole population. Overall, the average age of the population is increasing: from 33.1 years in 1990 to 35.3 years in 2000. The average age has been slowly, but steadily, increasing over the past several decades. This trend toward a higher average age can be explained by a decreasing birth rate and an increasing life expectancy for the population as a whole. Well, I’d like to investigate these two subjects further, but I see our time is up, so we’ll have to call it quits for today. Yo u may want to pursue the topic of the aging U.S. population further, so there are some suggestions at the end of the lesson to help you do so. Thank you.

Chapter Two Immigration: Past and Present

The act of immigrating, or coming to a new country to live, is certainly nothing new. Throughout history, people have immigrated, or moved to new countries, for many different reasons. Sometimes these reasons were economic or political. Other people moved because of natural disasters such as droughts or famines. And some people moved to escape religious or political persecution. No matter what the reason, most people do not want to leave their native land and do so only under

great pressure of some sort, but a few people seem quite adventuresome and restless by nature and like to move a lot. It seems both kinds of people came to America to live. The subject of immigration is quite fascinating to most Americans, as they view themselves as a nation of immigrants. However, the early Britons who came to what is today the United States considered themselves “settlers” or “colonists,” rather than immigrants. These people did not exactly think they were moving to a new country but were merely settling new land for the “mother country.” There were also large numbers of Dutch, French, German, and Scotch-Irish settlers, as well as large numbers of blacks brought from Africa as slaves. At the time of independence from Britain in 1776, about 40 percent of people living in what is now the United States were non-British. The majority of people, however, spoke English, and the traditions that formed the basis of life were mainly British traditions. This period we have just been discussing is usually referred to as the Colonial Period. Today, we’re a little more interested in actual immigration after this period. Let’s first look at what is often called the Great Immigration, which began about 1830 and ended in 1930. Then let’s consider the reasons for this so-called Great Immigration and the reasons it ended. Finally, let’s talk about the immigration situation in the United States today,

As I said, we’ll begin our discussion today with the period of history called the Great Immigration, which lasted from approximately 1830 to 1930. It will be easier if we look at the Great Immigration in terms of three major stages, or time periods. The first stage was from approximate1y 1830 to 1860. Now, before this time, the number of immigrants coming to the United States was comparatively small, only about 10,000 a year. However, the rate began to climb in the 1830s when about 600,000 immigrants arrived. The rate continued to climb during the 1840s with a tota1 of 1,700,000 people arriving in that decade. The rate continued to climb, and during the 1850s 2,600,000 immigrants arrived. During this first stage of the Great Immigration, that is, between the years 1830 and 1860, the majority of immigrants came from Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland. Now let’s consider the second stage of the Great Immigration. The second stage was from l860 to 1890, duri ng which time another 10,000,000 people arrived. Between l860 and 1890 the majority of immigrants continued to be from Germany, Ireland, and Great Britain. However, during the second stage, a smaller but significant number of immigrants came from the Scandinavian nations of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The third stage of the Great Immigration, which lasted from 1890 to 1930, was the era of heaviest immigration. Between the years l890 and l930, almost 22 million immigrants arrived in the United States. Most of these new arrivals came from the Southern European countries of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain and the Eastern European countries of Poland and Russia.

Now that we know something about the numbers and origins of immigrants who came to the States during the Great Immigration, let’s consider the reasons why most of these people immigrated to the United States. Why did such large numbers of Europeans leave their homes for life in an unknown country? It would be impossible to discuss all the complex political and economic reasons in any depth today, but we can touch on a few interesting facts that might help to clarify the situation for you. First of all, one of the most important reasons was that the population of Europe doubled between the years 1750 and 1850. At the same time that the population was growing so rapidly, the Industrial Revolution in Europe was causing widespread unemployment. The combination of increased population and the demand for land by industry also meant that farmland was becoming increasingly scarce in Europe. The scarcity of farmland in Europe meant that the abundance of available land in the growing country of the United States was a great attraction. During these years, the United States was an expanding country and it seemed that there was no end to land. In fact, in 1862, the government offered public land free to citizens and to immigrants who were planning to become citizens. In addition to available farmland, there were also plentiful jobs during these years of great economic growth. Other attractions were freedom from religious or political persecution. Some other groups also came to the United States as the direct results of natural disasters that left them in desperate situations. For example, the frequent failure of the potato crop in Ireland between the years 1845 and 1849 led to widespread starvation in that country, and people were driven to immigrate. Another factor that affected the number of immigrants coming to the United States was improved ocean transport beginning in the 1840s. At that time, ships large enough to carry large numbers of people began to make regular trips across the ocean. Now let’s summarize the reasons for the high rate of immigration to the United States during the years we discussed: first, the doubling of the population in Europe between 1750 and 1850; second, the unemployment caused by the Industrial Revolution; and third, the land scarcity in Europe, followed by religious and political persecution and natural disaster. These reasons combined with improved transportation probably account for the largest number of immigrants.

I would now like to talk briefly about the period of time following the Great Immigration and the reasons for the decline

in the rate of immigration. Although immigration continues today, immigration numbers have never again reached the levels that we discussed previously. There are several reasons for this decline. This decline was in part due to various laws whose aim was to limit the number of immigrants coming from different parts of the world to the United States. The first such law that limited the number of immigrants coming from a certain part of the world was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This law was followed by many other laws that also tried to limit the numbers of people immigrating from various countries or parts of the world. In addition to such laws, certainly economic and geopolitical events as important as the Great Depression starting in 1929 and World War II also contributed to the decline in immigration.

Let’s conclude our talk by discussing the current situation with respect to immigration, which is quite different from that in the past. To understand some of the changes, it’s important to note that in 1965 strict quotas based on nationality were eliminated. Let’s see how different things are today from the past. As I noted, the greatest number of immigrants to the United States have historically been European. According to U.S. Census figures, in 1860, the percentage of immigrants that were European was 92 percent. But by 1960, the percentage of European immigrants had dropped to 74.5 percent, and by the year 2002, it had dropped to 14 percent! In 2002, 52.2 percent of immigrants came from Latin America, that is, from the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Mexico is ordinarily considered part of North America, but the U.S. Census Bureau considers Mexico as a Central American country in terms of immigration statistics, and estimates that more than one-third of the total of all immigrants to the United States in 2002 came from Mexico or another Central American country. The next largest percentage, 25.5 percent, of immigrants came from Asia, mainly from the Philippines, China, and India.

Although immigration dropped sharply when the United States entered World War I and remained low throughout the Depression and World War II years, at the end of the l940s, immigration began to increase again and has, in general, risen steadily since then. It might surprise you to know that the actual number of immigrants coming yearly to the States in recent years is about the same as the numbers coming yearly between 1900 and 1910. Keep in mind, though, that the population of the United States is much larger now than at the turn of the century, so that while the yearly numbers may be similar, the percentage of the population that is foreign-born is considerably smaller today than it was a century ago.

It might be interesting to speculate on immigration in the future. Will the trend continue for non-Europeans to immigrate to the United States? The answer is probably yes for the foreseeable future. Do these non-European people come to the United States for the same reasons that Europeans came? Well, land is no longer plentiful and cheap. Industry no longer requires large numbers of unskilled workers. In fact, the government usually tries to restrict immigration to those people who already have the skills to be successful in U.S. society. Still, people come for politica1 and economic reasons and probably will continue to do so.

Chapter 3 Americans at Work

Whether you love it or hate it, work is a major part of most people’s lives everywhere in the world. Americans are no exception. Americans might complain about “blue Monday,” when they have to go back to work after the weekend, but most people put a lot of importance on their job, not only in terms of money but also in terms of identity. In fact, when Americans are introduced to a new person, they almost always ask each other, “What do you do?” They are asking, what is your job or profession. Today, however, we won’t look at work in terms of what work means socially or psychologically. Rather, we’re going to take a look at work in the United States today from two perspectives. First, we’ll take a historical look at work in America. We’ll do that by looking at how things changed for the American worker from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century, that is, from the year 1900 to the year 1999. Then we’ll look at how U.S. workers are doing today.

As we look at the changes over the last century, we’re going to use a lot of statistics to describe these changes. You will need to write down a lot of numbers in today’s lecture. First, let’s consider how the type of work people were involved in changed. At the beginning of the twentieth century, about 38 percent of the workforce was involved in agriculture; that is, they worked on a farm. By the end of the century, only 3 percent still worked on farms. There was also a large decrease in the number of people working in mining, manufacturing, and construction. The number of workers in mining, manufacturing, and construction went down from 31 percent to 19 percent.

While the number of people in these goods producing industries went down, the number of people in the service industries went up. As you may know, a service industry is one that provides a service, rather than goods or products. A few examples include transportation, tourism, banking, advertising, health care, and legal services. I’m sure you can think of more. The service industry workforce jumped from 31 percent of the workforce at the turn of the century to 78 percent in 1999.

Let’s recap the numbers: in 1900, 38 percent in agriculture; 31 percent in mining, manufacturing, and construction; and 31 percent in the service industries. That should add up to 100 percent. In 1999, 3 percent in agriculture; 19 percent in mining, manufacturing, and construction; and 78 percent in the service industries. Again, that should add up to 100 percent.

The labor force changed in other important ways. For example, child labor was not unusual at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1900 there were 1, 750, 000 children aged ten to fifteen working full-time in the labor force. This was 6 percent of the labor force. Over the years, child labor laws became much stricter and by 1999, it was illegal for anyone under sixteen to work full-time in any of the fifty states. While the number of children in the workforce went down, the number of women went up dramatically. In 1900, only 19 percent of women were employed; in 1999, 60 percent of women were holding down jobs.

Let’s see what has happened to wages and salaries. All the numbers I will give you are in terms of 1999 dollars. Let me explain. In 1900 the average per capita income was $4,200 a year. That does not mean that the average worker in 1900 earned $4,200, a year, but that what he or she earned was equal to $4, 200 in 1999. That is, the amount of money the average worker earned in 1900 was worth the same as $4,200 in 1999. The average per capita income in 1999 was $33, 700. Not only did people earn a lot more money at the end of the century, they also received a lot more in benefits than at the beginning of the century.One of the important benefits most workers received later in the century was health insurance. Whereas wages and salaries rose over the century, the average workweek dropped. That is, workers, in general, did not work as long hours in 1999 as they did in 1900.

The last area that I’d like to give you a few statistics about is workplace safety. Most of us who go to work every day don’t think a lot about whether we are safe or not, but in 1900 it was a real concern for a lot of workers. There aren’t many statistics available, but the U.S. government does have statistics on two industries that will give you some idea of the differences today. In 1900 almost 1,500 workers were killed in coal-mining accidents; in 1999, the number was 35. 2,555 railroad workers were killed in 1900, compared to 56 in 1999.

People often tend to romanticize the past and talk about “the good old days,” but I think it’s fair to say that by the end of the twentieth century, U.S. workers in general made more money, they enjoyed more benefits, and their working conditions had improved greatly.

Now let’s turn our attention to the current situation for U.S. workers. The picture is not so rosy as the one drawn by comparing U.S. workers at the beginning and the end of the twentieth century. I’m going to focus on the current situation in terms of productivity, working hours, and wages and salaries.

First let’s consider the number of hours worked. According to a 2003 study released by the United Nations International Labor Organization, U.S. workers are the most productive in the world among industrialized nations, but they work longer hours than European workers to achieve this productivity. Europeans typically have four to six weeks of vacation a year, whereas the average American worker has only about two weeks. This study points out that the longer working hours in the United States is a rising trend, while the trend in other industrialized countries is the opposite.

Workers in some European countries actually outproduce American workers per hour of work. It has been suggested that this higher rate of productivity might be because European workers are less stressed than U.S. workers.

At any rate, there seems to be general agreement that U.S. productivity has greatly increased over the last thirty years. However, workers have not seen their wages rise at the same rate. A group of sociologists in their book Inequality by Design point out that there is a growing gap between rich Americans and everyone else in the United States. They write that between 1949 and 1974, increases in productivity were matched by increases in wages for workers in both manufacturing and the service industries, but since 1974, productivity increased 68 percent in manufacturing and 50 percent in services, but real wages stagnated. That is, wages moved up little or not at all. So, where does all the money generated by the increased productivity go then? According to the authors of this book, the money goes to the salaries for CEOs, to the stock market, and to corporate profits. Workers play a great role in increasing productivity, but no longer see their wages connected to increased productivity. In other words, CEO s’ salaries, the stock market, and the corporate profits go up as work productivity goes up, but workers’ wages don’t.

What are the reasons why U.S. workers, who are the most productive in the world, have to work longer hours, have fewer vacation days, and see their wages stagnate and not rising at the same rate as productivity? The answer to this question is complex and controversial, but there are two reasons most people who speak or write about these issues mention: The first is

that labor unions in the United States have lost great power since the beginning of the 1980s, and the second is that the government has passed laws that favor the rich and weaken the rights of the workers.

I see our time is up. So, I’ll see you next time.

Chapter 4 Family in the United States

A hundred years ago, one heard the same kind of comments about the American family that one hears today --- in short, that the American family is disintegrating. Proof of this disintegration at the end of the nineteenth century included three points: the declining birth rate, a rising divorce rate, and evidence that women were not completely content with their domestic role. It’s a little surprising to me that the same claim about the family is being made today --- that it is disintegrating. And often the same points are mentioned as proof: declining birth rates, increasing divorce rates, and discontent of women with domestic roles. Now, in no way do I mean to imply that cultural, demographic, and economic conditions are the same now as they were 100 years ago. On the contrary, the very nature of the family has changed drastically in the last 50 years, not to mention the last 100 years. But I don’t think the average person’s concept of the family has changed very much over the years. A lot of people have on fixed idea of the family: a married couple where Mother stays home to care for the children and Father works. But this idea is challenged by what we see every day in U.S. society. To be sure, the family is a very sensitive barometer for what is happening in the society, the culture, and the economy of the United States. To make this point clearer, we’ll take a look at how the American family has changed in the last 50 years by looking at three different time periods: there are the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s; the mid-60s to the mid-80s; and finally the present. Sociologist Barbara Dafoe Whitehead labels these three periods: the period of traditional familism, the period of individualism, and the period of the new familism. I will try for each period to show how economic, demographic, and cultural elements interact and, in turn, affect the family.

Well, let’s proceed in chronological order and start with traditional familism. We’re talking here of the twenty years from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. This was the period after World War II, a period characterized by a very strong economy. This gave the United States a rising standard of living and a growing middle class. Demographically, the predominant configuration of the family from these years was the traditional one: a married couple with children. Some women worked, but divorce rates were low, and birth rates were high. I guess you could say that the country idealized the family in these years. And what I mean is, there was a commitment to the family from its members and a reverence for it from society. TV programs of the era depicted the family in the classical configuration: working father, housewife, and children. Culturally, three characteristics stand out in this period: conformity to social norms, greater male domination of the family than in the later periods, and clear-cut gender roles, that is, clear and separate roles for men and women at home and at work. Well, things changed quite a bit after this period.

Let’s move on to the second period, the period of individualism. This period is from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Now, because individualism is so often mentioned in our discussion of U.S. culture and people, I should make a little detour here before we discuss it. Individualism brings to mind two other words: independence and self-reliance. Individualism conveys the idea that one should think and act for himself or herself, according to what one feels is right. Individualism is easily confused with egotism or selfishness, but in its best sense, it is much more. Individualism implies that one has the freedom to decide what is best rather than allowing that decision to be made by a group such as the community or society. Individualism does, of course, conflict with the concept of community, which implies that the group shares in making decisions. And this conflict between the individual and the community is one that comes up again and again in our lecture series about the United States. All right, let’s get back to our discussion about the family.

The second period, the period of individualism, saw three important social and political movements. Do you have any idea which movements I might be talking about? Keep in mind that these decades were characterized by a lack of conformity to social norms. Well, the movements have in mind are the sexual revolution, in which sex was clearly no longer reserved for marriage; the women’s liberation movement; and the movement against the war in Vietnam. All three movements---the sexual revolution, woman’s liberation, and the antiwar movement --- were typical of the nonconforming nature of these decades. Now, culturally, it is in this period where we see two important developments: one the idealization of one’s career and work and, two, the drive for self-expression and self-fulfillment. In this period, the feminist movement challenged traditional gender roles and male domination of society. Women began to enter professions previously closed to them like medicine, law, and management. Men, for their part, began at least to consider a more active role in raising their children.

These cultural changes occurred during a time of economic changes, too. This was a time of rapidly rising cost of living. Together, these forces changed the demographics of the family. The former picture of the family had only one configuration: a married couple with children where Mother stayed home. The new picture of the family had to include new configurations, like families in which the husband and wife both worked, families of single parents with children, and families of cohabiting couples with or without children. With more women pursuing careers and making money, there was less economic pressure for them to stay in an unsuitable marriage. Therefore, divorce rates doubled in a decade. Rising divorce rates and more financial independence for women made marriage a less attractive arrangement for many women. Consequently, the number of single-parent households tripled. Less conformity to social norms paved the way for cohabitation. So the number of unmarried couples living together in this period quadrupled. Can you see how economic, cultural, and demographic aspects of the society interact with each other? I hope so. Well, let’s continue with our agenda.

The third period, the new familism, is harder to see because we are living in this period now. And because we are constantly informed by the media about the deteriorating American family, it’s hard to get an objective view of the state of the family. I think that today most people applaud the social changes that came about in the second period of individualism. They are not willing to give up gender equality, the freedom to leave an unsuitable marriage, or the self-fulfillment of an interesting job. At the same time, most experts, if not most people, admit that children paid a high price for the social changes that took place in the second period. It was the children who spent long days in day care or after-school hours home alone while both parents worked. And it was the children who grew up with only one parent or with stepparents in many cases.

Some experts see changes occurring now in U.S. society, changes that affect the family. They see a continuing decline inn divorce rates since the 1980s but also a decline in birth rates after an initial increase in 1980s. The decline in divorce rates could be due to families’ better financial situations. Despite the decline in divorce, a quarter of U.S children today live with only one parent. The birth rate is probably declining because an increasing life span results in fewer women of childbearing age. A more encouraging reason is the reduction in unmarried teen pregnancies. Experts also report an attempt by people to balance work with family obligations, especially the care of children. They see the individualism of the middle period changing somewhat; the concern seems in many cases to be shifting from one’s career to one’s family, from individualism to the new familism. The most optimistic view of this third period would be that Americans have learned from past mistakes: they want to regain the commitment to family of the first period and keep the equality and fulfillment of the second period. It will not be easy to regain the commitment to the family of the first period. It will require changes in how society and the government look at the family. In families where bother parents work, one parent may try to work at home or work only part-time to have more time for the children. Places of work may offer more flexible working hours and on-site day care to allow more time for parents and children. For its part, the government could mandate parental leave, family allowances, and quality day-care centers. Parental leave and family allowances would allow parents to stay home to look after their newborn children. Quality day care would be adequately staffed by professionals who stay at their jobs and with the same children year after year.

None of these changes is guaranteed. But it seems clear that such changes or similar ones are necessary to ensure a healthier U.S. family in the future; and, a healthier family is needed to play the central role that family does in every society. I’ve gone over a lot here, but if you want to pursue the topic further, there are some references that the end of the lesson to help you do so.

Chapter 5

Lecture：Religion

Religion is a complex phenomenon in the United States and often misunderstood by foreigners. Part of this may be because the media, for example, television and films, are often the only ways that foreigners are exposed to American culture. These media, in general, ignore the role and importance of religion in America.

Driving through the countryside and passing through small towns in the United States, foreigners are often surprised by the number of churches in even a small town of two or three thousand people. That there are so many churches doesn’t seem so strange, perhaps, if we look at the history of the United States. Remember when talked about immigration to the United States? At that time, we pointed out that many people immigrated to escape persecution and to seek freedom to practice their religion. Considering that people from many different countries and religious backgrounds immigrated to the United States, it should n’t be surprising to find a great number of different religious denominations. Even in a small town, there will usually

be several churches representing different religious groups. Today I’d like to give you some facts and figures about religious groups in the United States, then compare the United States to other modernized nations, and, finally, say something about the importance of religion in America, particularly about the increasing role of religion in U.S. political life in recent years.

Estimating the number of people belonging to various religious groups in America can be a little difficult to do. First of all, the U.S. government cannot ask for information on religious affiliation on a mandatory basis in any official capacity, statistical information must be gathered from surveys of the population and from organizational reports, which might, for example, include the number of members belonging to a church, synagogue, or mosque. One survey done in 2002 shows that 76 percent of the total population identified themselves as Jewish and another 1 percent as Muslim. I should pint out that Protestants, who form the single largest religious groups, are found in more than 1,200 denominations.

Another study, called “The American Religious Identification Survey,” showed that the number of people identifying themselves as Christian dropped from 86 percent to 77 percent between 1990 and 2001. The total number of those identified themselves as Jewish declined a little, whereas the total number who identified themselves as Muslims doubled. Other smaller groups such as Buddhists and Hindus also increased their numbers. I don’t want to suggest that these are the only religious groups. Ok, so that’s enough facts and figures about various religious groups in the United States.

Now let’s look at two ways that religion in the United States differs from religion in other modernized nations. The first relates to the number of persons who claim membership in churches or some other religious organization. The second concerns the relationship of religion and government. Let’s consider the first way the United States differs from these other modernized nations. About 60 percent of Americans belong to a church or other modernized nations. This number is surprisingly high in comparison to other modernized nations. For example, the percentage of people who belong to a church or other religious organization is only 22 percent in Great Britain, 15 percent in Spain, 7 percent in Italy, and 4 percent in France. This is not to suggest, though, that religious values may not be important in these countries, but it does suggest how important belonging to a church or other religious organization is to Americans compared to Europeans. However, there is another somewhat contradictory difference that we should also consider. In many of these modernized, European nations, there is no clear separation of religion and government. When discussing religion in America, it’s important to remember that whereas freedom of worship is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, this same amendment also establishes the separation of church and state. Therefore, although this amendment guarantees everyone the right to practice his or her religion, it also tends to keep religion out of the public schools, for example. Religion has been a matter of government, politics, and public education. Of course, religious beliefs and values have always influenced politics and education, but generally indirectly. To sum up, then, the importance of belonging to a church or religious organization seems greater to Americans than to Europeans, but at the same time, religion has no official role in the government as it has in some European countries and has largely been confined to the private side of people’s lives. However, there has been a recent trend leading to an increase in the influence of religion in politics. Finally, let’s take a closer look at this rather sudden rise in the influence of religion on American political life.

Although religion in America seemed to many people to be in decline during most of this country, in the 1970s, there was a religious revival that surprised many, especially those people in academia, the media, and government. This religious revival became known as the “rise of the religious right.” That is, the people involved in this religious revival were politically conservative, or to the right of the center. For a while it seemed that this rise in conservative religion would be largely confined to the private sphere of life. The religious right was generally opposed to abortion, but abortion was made legal by the Supreme Court anyway. The religious right generally favored prayer in schools, but the Supreme Court found that prayer in public schools was unconstitutional. The issues of abortion and prayer were felt by many to be matters of private concern, not serious political issues. However, these issues have become increasingly politicized, and because very politicized and has led to very bitter political debate and even acts of violence. The religious right has also put more and more pressure on politicians to put prayer back in the schools, even if this requires another amendment to the Constitution. This rise of the religious right can no longer e ignored by people in politics. However, whether this group will be able to influence political life fir a long time cannot be known. Perhaps this is a temporary phenomenon, and in time the religious right will become less important.

What the role and importance of religion will be in the future of American society cannot be known, of course. There are those who predict that Americans will become more like Europeans if economic prosperity continues, that is, more secular

and less religious. Others fear that the rise in conservative religious beliefs may lead to a more authoritarian political atmosphere with less personal freedom for individuals. Because religious values have always been important in America in one way or another, it seems likely that religion will continue to play an important role in America well into the future.

By the way, the history of some religious minorities in the United States is particularly interesting and sheds some light on the tougher issues related to the government’s commitment to freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. Some of these better known groups are the Amish, the Mormons, and the Seventh-day Adventists. I don’t have time to go into them today, but for those of you who are interested, I suggest that you do some further investigation of these religious minorities.

Chapter 6 Birth，Marriage, and Death

Customs vary so much from country to country or culture that it’s often bewildering for a foreigner trying to understand the traditions and customs of a new country. Part of what makes it so difficult is that most of these customs are so ingrained in the culture that most local people accept them without ever thinking about them. Some of the reasons for the customs or traditions are historical and may have ever been forgotten by the people who still practice these customs. When pressed for an explanation of some of their customs, people will sometimes be quite surprised that anyone would question their customs. “Doesn’t everyone do it this way?” might be their response, yet some of the customs that seem so natural to the people in the country or culture may seems quite strange and inexplicable to people new to a country. In a country as large as the United States, with people from so many different parts of the world and different cultures, it can be even more bewildering. Many ethnic groups still practice customs and traditions brought by their ancestors from their countries, yet if we look at the country as a whole, its people as a whole, we can find a kind of “general” culture with traditions that are often accepted or least adapted to fit the customs and traditions of each immigrant group as it becomes assimilated into the larger culture. Today let’s look at some widely accepted customs and traditions of most Americans concerning three of life’s most important events: birth, marriage, and death. Please keep in mind that these descriptions are very general and that society is changing quite rapidly in the United States and that people adapt and modify these customs to fit changing societal conditions and their own situations.

The birth of a baby is a momentous occasion in any family and is celebrated in some way or another. There are many traditions associated with this event. One of the most common ones is the baby shower, which is a nonreligious tradition observed by almost everyone in the society. A shower is given by a close friend or relative of the expectant mother shortly before the bay is due. In the past, showers were almost always arranged in secret so as to be complete surprise to the mother-to-be. The mother-to-be was usuall y invited to someone’s home on one pretex or another, where she was surprised by her female friends and relatives who had planned this special party for her. In recent years, the tradition has been modified, at least in some social circles, so that the shower is not always a surprise occasion, but one that the expectant mother know about ahead of time.

Whether the baby shower is a surprise or not, the mother-to-be is showered with gifts for the new baby by her friends and relatives. The gifts may be small ones or very expensive ones depending on the financial situation of the participants, but there is always a very emotional outpouring of good wishes for the expected baby and its parents. The gifts are always opened at the party, and everyone expresses gr eat admiration for them. There’s always a lot of advice from experienced mothers and expressions of envy form those women who do not yet have children. This way, the expectant mother is reassured about the coming event and desirability of her situation. A few years ago, t was almost unheard of for men to participate in bay showers. However, as I mentioned earlier, society is changing rapidly and men’s participation at baby showers is becoming more common. That reminds me of another related change in society in the United States. In the past, when births manly took place at home, it was a strictly female event with men banished from the room where the baby was born. After women started going to hospitals to have their babies, men still never went into the delivery room and were expected to wait nervously in the waiting room for doctor to come and tell them the good news. Today this is changing for many modern couples. Often they attend classes together to prepare them for the birth of the baby, and many men are with their wives in the delivery room and “coach” them through the birth along with the doctors.

After a baby is born, many, if not most, people want to have a religious service for their baby within a few weeks of the baby’s birth, even if they are not very religious themselves. Friends and family will attend the service, which will be held in a church or a synagogue (犹太教堂) . For Christians, this service is ordinarily called baptism.

There are many customs and traditions surrounding marriage and particularly the wedding activities themselves. Once again, it is very hard to generalize about these customs, as they vary so much among different people, but there are some customs that are quite generally observed. It is no longer necessary for a young man to ask permission of s girl’s father for her “hand”, and among modern couples a woman may actually be the first one to bring up the subject of marriage, but most young people still very much want their parents’ approval of the person they hope to marry. It is still traditional for young man to give his fiancée a diamond ring at the beginning of their engagement period. As for the actual wedding ceremony and related celebrations, traditionally it is the bride’s family who pays for these expenses. The wedding c eremony can be very simple one, with only a few family members and close friends present, or it can be very elaborate, with hundreds of people in attendance. The traditional reception that follows the ceremony can be as simple as cookies and punch in the church or as elaborate as a large sit-down dinner held at a local hotel with a dance and private orchestra following the dinner. Sometimes people are invited only to the wedding or only to the reception. At any rate, these events can usually be attended only by invitation. One very popular tradition associated with weddings is, once again, the shower that we mentioned in relation to birth. At this shower given before the wedding, the bride-to-be receives gifts to help her set up her new household, such as electrical appliances, sheets, towels, and pots and pans. In addition to shower gifts, wedding gifts are also expected from people who receive wedding invitations. Occasionally people choose not to have any religious service at their wedding and opt to get married in a civil ceremony in a government building. However, a civil ceremony is not necessary if a couple decides to get married in a religious ceremony. Priests, ministers, and rabbis are legally empowered to marry couples, and it is not necessary to h ave both a civil and a religious ceremony. By the way, there’s an interesting tradition associated with weddings that is rather hard to explain, but then many traditions are. It is said every bride at her wedding should be wearing or carrying “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue.” The bride will be checked at the last minute to be sure that she has one of these. There are some other customs similar to this one that are rather superstitious in nature. For example, people believe that it is bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her wedding dress before the ceremony. And immediately following the ceremony, as the couple leave the church, people at the ceremony will throw rice at them to signal fertility—that is, a hope that they will have many children. Some churches and other places where weddings are held have recently banned the throwing of rice as being hazardous to guests who can slip and fall on it. Some suggest throwing rose petals or some other substitute for the rice.

In addition to birth and marriage, every society has to deal with death. Once again, it is hard to generalize about the customs surrounding death. Each religious group has ways to help its members cope with the loss of a family member or friend. For most people, religious or not, there are many decisions to be made at the time of a death. One decision is whether to have a funeral held in a church or in a funeral home. Another decision is whether to have the body cremated or not. If the body is cremated, a memorial service is held rather than a funeral. If the body is not cremated, a decision must be made about whether to display the body or not at the funeral. A day or two before the funeral, it is also quite common to hold a wake at a funeral home where the body is displayed in its casket. At the wake the family receives those people who whish to express their sympathy to the bereaved.

At the funeral service it is customary for a religious leader to speak some words of comfort for the bereaved. In addition, a eulogy is usually given by someone close to the deceased person. Sometimes many people will speak about the good deeds of the person who has died. After the religious ceremony, the body is usually taken to a cemetery , where it will be buried afte r another brief religious service. Of course, most people learn of the death of someone they know from the person’s family, but notices of funeral services are also printed in the newspaper, and anyone who whishes to attend the service is expected to without a personal invitation from the family. People who knew the deceased casually, but who want to express their condolences, usually send a “sympathy” card to the family. It is traditional to send flowers to a funeral, but it is important to check with a fl orist to be sure to send the correct kind of flowers. It’s sometimes important to know what kind of clothes to wear to a wedding or a funeral. Traditionally the bride wears white, and quests at the wedding are free to wear whatever colors they like, except for women, who do not wear white. At a funeral, it used to be necessary to wear black to show grief, but today this custom is no longer observed.

As I said before, in a society so large and diverse as the United States, customs can vary greatly from area to area, among different social, ethnic, and even from generation to generation. I have tried to give you some idea of customs and traditions that are generally accepted, but, of course, it’s always wise to ask if you find yourself in a situation where y ou

might be invited or expected to participate on one of these events. When in doubt, ask.

Chapter 7 Multiculturalism

Foreigners from older cultures with traditions. dating back hundreds and hundreds of years sometimes react with surprise and skepticism when the topic of U.S. culture comes up. Commenting on the United States, they sometimes say things like “But the United States has no culture.” People in the United States find comments such as this one amusing at best, and sometimes downright infuriating. In a way, I understand why a foreigner might react skeptically to the United States, especially if the person comes from a more ethnically and racially homogeneous society. Or if the person comes from a society whose culture is reinforced by state institutions—government, church, and schools, for instance. It would be hard for this foreigner to understand a multiracial, ethnically diverse country like the United States, whose institutions do not strongly reinforce the culture. However, it seems na?ve or even perverse to deny the existence of a culture that has such great impact on other cultures, for better or worse. The clothes that Americans wear, the food they eat, the music, films, and books they produce, and even to some extent the religions they practice influence how many people in other countries live and think. One may easily disapprove of the influence that mass American culture has on the world, but one cannot objectively deny that influence.

In all fairness, I have to say that it’s understandable that foreigners have trouble identifying an American culture because not even the best minds in the country—writers, educators, and politicians—agree on the basic nature of U.S. culture. Now today I’ll try to contrast three ways that U.S. culture has been perceived over the years. Then perhaps you can decide which point of view seems the most logical to you. We’ll take a look at the older monoculturalist view; a newer, multiculturalist view; and finally a third view, which I’ll call the pluralistic view.

First in our discussion is the monoculturalist view of the United States as a melting pot. A melting pot, literally a pot in which metals like aluminum and copper are milted in order to blend them, is the traditional metaphor for the way the different groups of immigrants came together in the United States. Now, theoretically, the result of many nationalities blending together is one big unified common culture, an alloy of all the parts in it. In other words, the result is a combination of all the different parts, which have mixed together and are no longer recognizable as separate parts. However, many people today feel that the idea of one common U.S. culture is a myth and has always been a myth. To support their view, opponents point out that many groups, notably African, Asian, and Native Americans, have at times been excluded from participating fully in society through segregation and discrimination. Furthermore, a trademark of U.S. immigration has been that the most recently arrived group, whether Irish or Italian or Chinese or Jewish, typically faced strong discrimination from those already in the United States. We know that all these groups have made important contributions to culture, that is not the point. The point is, given the climate of discrimination at different times in the past (and even now), U.S. society does not assimilate new cultural input until much later—after the new immigrants are viewed with less prejudice. Let’s move on to another view of U.S. culture.

The second view of U.S. culture that we’ll look at today is the multiculturalist view. The multiculturalist view focuses on the many subcultures that make up the U.S. population—all the different ethnic and racial groups we talked about in a previous lecture. Now, each group brought its own distinct culture when it immigrated to the United States. The multiculturalist view does not see U.S. culture as a milting pot; rather, the metaphor that multiculturalists often employ is the patchwork quilt, a bedcover made of numerous pieces of differently-colored material. (Have you seen quilts like these on beds?) The metaphor of the patchwork quilt is appropriate in that the multiculturalists see the United States as a mosaic of separate, autonomous subcultures, each one distinct from the other. U.S. culture, in this view, is a sum of the distinct parts, with little or no mixing of subcultures. Opponents of this view, those who disagree with it (and there are many who do), say that the multiculturalist view ignores the characteristic mixing of groups, both ethnic and racial, that has been common in the United States. Americans of European background have always intermarried, many people are a combination of four or more ethnic backgrounds—and often of more backgrounds than they can keep track of. I do not want to imply that the United States has overcome its race problems—far from it. But recent census statistics give two indications of somewhat more mixing than previously. First, one in fifteen U.S. marriages is now interracial. An interracial marriage would be any combination of white, black, Asian, and Native American spouses. Admittedly, there are many more marriages between Asians or Native Americans and whites than between blacks and whites. Second, of the 1.6 million children who are adopted, 17percent make their families multiracial because of the adoption of local children of another race or of children from abroad,

especially from Asia or Latin America. Intermarriage and adoption of children of another race make a difference in how people in a family look at themselves. The point here is, the ethnically and racially pure individuals implied by the multiculturalist view are more the exception than the rule. Take, for instance, an African American man married to a Filipina, whose two sons married white women. Where in the patchwork quilt do the grandchildren of the African American former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall belong? This is an extreme example, but I think it shows that Marshall’s grandchildren share many subcultures; they do not represent just one square on the quilt. For this reason, many people prefer another, more satisfactory, view of U.S. culture.

The last cultural view we’ll discuss today, the pluralistic view, is a combination of the first two views. The pluralistic view says that individuals have a number of cultural influences, some of which they share with others and some of which are different from one person to another. These cultural influences have three distinct sources: we inherit some of our culture from our families; we absorb some of our culture unconsciously from living in the culture (television figures importantly in this unconscious absorption); and third, we choose some cultural influences that we find attractive from the many subcultures in the United States. In this way, the population shares a large portion of common culture, but people also have individual cultural characteristics that make them different from others. The pluralistic view of culture recognizes the strong role of assimilation, becoming part of the larger group. In assimilation, one becomes part of a larger, dominant culture by accepting much, if not all, of the culture. The pluralistic view differs from the monocultural view in that pluralistic assimilation does not mean that immigrants must deny their original cultures or that they must forget them. But in all likelihood, immigrants become a little less Mexican, Chinese, or Arab as they assimilate parts of the new culture. Assimilation is not required by the dominant culture, but we do know that it occurs regularly among immigrant groups. If assimilation does not take place in the first generation, it most certainly does by the second or third generation.

Opponents of the pluralistic view of culture cite Latinos especially Mexican immigrants, the single largest immigrant group since the 1990s. These opponents say that instead of assimilating as other groups have, Mexicans maintain strong ties to neighboring Mexico through frequent visits home. As a result, opponents fear a fragmentation, or even destruction, of U.S. culture as we know it. On the other hand, proponents of the pluralistic view point out that even Latinos follow the pattern of previous immigrants; indeed, a fifth of Latinos in the United States intermarry. If this seems like a small number, I think we could safely predict higher intermarriage rates in future generations.

It would be wrong to assume that the dominant, or common, culture we’re been speaking about reflects the culture of only one ethnic or racial group that makes up the United States. At the same time, if U.S. society is an open one, as Americans like to believe, it would be hard to deny the changing nature of U.S. culture. It has always reflected the cultures of its immigrants and will likely continue to do so. If we accept this premise, the continuation and possible increase in Latino immigration will change the character of the U.S. culture somewhat. Not as drastically as monoculturalists fear, I think, but a change no doubt will occur. I suspect U.S. culture, to use another metaphor, will continue to seem like the same dish—but it will be a dish with a somewhat Latino flavor in the future. The real test of the future of the United States as a culture may well be whether its cultural ideal of tolerance is a reality. Well, I really have taken much more of your time than I should have. Good-bye for now.

Chapter 8 Crime and Violence in the United States

According to a Gallup poll in 2001, Americans, for the first time in twelve years, believed that there was less violent crime that year than the year before. To be sure, many said that there were areas near their homes where they were still afraid to walk at night. And a number of people worried about having their car stolen or their home burglarized. So far, we are only talking about people's perceptions about crime—what they believe to be the case. How closely do people's perceptions match reality? Well, let's look at some statistics. When we compare crime statistics between 1994 and 2001, we see that violent crime decreased in the United States. Between 1994 and 2001, violent crime—homicide, rape, arson, and aggravated assault—fell 52 percent. In 1994, there were 51 victims of violent crime per 1,000 people over the age of twelve. In 2001, that number dropped by over half, to 24 per 1,000. Some experts attribute this drop in crime to demographics: the U.S. population is getting older, and older people commit fewer crimes than younger people. At the same time, in recent years there has been stricter law enforcement in cities like New York and Boston, and very stringent penalties have been imposed on repeat offenders in general. But, I don't want to get off the topic here. The fact remains that crime is still an issue in

people's lives. And the encouraging statistics about violent crime may not hold true for white-collar crime, crimes that in-clude embezzlement, bribery, political corruption, and corporate policies that endanger workers and the public. Statistics on white-collar crime are hard to come by, and it doesn't put fear in people's hearts the way violent crime does. But it certainly needs to be included in a discussion of crime in the United States.

Crime is such a difficult issue to discuss because it can be looked at in so many different ways. Today I'd like to take a philosophical, sociological look at society and crime. There are two theories of crime that are based on one's feelings about the nature of human beings. The first theory says that people are good by nature. If a person turns to crime, the cause lies outside the person, not inside. In other words, crime and violence come from the environment, or society. The second theory says that people are basically aggressive by nature, and therefore, predisposed to violence. The theory doesn't say that we are violent; rather, it says that we are aggressive and can be violent. Before we go on, I want you to decide in your own minds which of the two theories, if either, you agree with. One, are people basically good by nature? Or, two, are people aggressive and predisposed to violence by nature? Or do you think the nature of people lies somewhere in between the two theories? Have you made up your minds yet? Well, let's go on and take a closer look at both theories. We'll finish with a discussion of possible solutions to the high level of crime in the United States.

To start off with, liberals—in politics, sociology, and other fields—typically embrace the first theory: that people are good by nature. It follows, then, that if someone commits a crime or behaves violently, it is because that person's environment has put violence or evil into his or her heart. If a person commits a crime, society is to blame because society's shortcomings are the cause of the criminal behavior. In the United States, we don't have to look very far to find shortcomings that are seen by many as causes of crime. There are root causes like racism, poverty, and injustice. And there are more obvious causes like the breakdown of the nuclear family, violence on TV, inferior education for some children, unemployment, child abuse, and a proliferation of drugs. In this liberal theory, criminals are alienated from society because they have been deprived of the benefits that most Americans have. Their alienation leads them to strike out at the society that has, in a sense, forgotten them.

The existence of an underclass in U.S. society lends support to this liberal theory of crime. The underclass is that small part of the population that typically fits the following profile: poor, unemployed, badly educated, disproportionately black, inner-city youth. Both gangs and drugs are prevalent in the underclass. Liberals are quick to point out that the shortcomings of life in the underclass help explain how 70 percent of all U.S. crimes are committed by just 6 percent of criminals. Like any theory, this one has critics who disagree with it. The critics point out that most people who grow up as part of the under-class—that is, those in poor, inner-city settings—do not become criminals. Moreover, there are people from rich families, with all the benefits of society, who do become violent criminals. So we need to look a little further into the causes of crime; let's look at the second theory.

The second theory, often embraced by conservatives, sees people as innately aggressive and predisposed to violence. According to this theory, society curbs this aggressiveness and potential violence in two ways: by socializing us and, if that fails, by punishing us. Society socializes us by giving us values. Values against killing and stealing, values against inequality and injustice, for example. And society gives us positive values for honesty, compassion, and kindness. Now, this is important: it is largely the family that socializes us, acting for society. And the result of socialization is a conscience, a sense of right and wrong. Our conscience functions as a curb on violence and criminal behavior because we have been taught right from wrong. If socialization fails, the fear of punishment should act to curb crime, according to the theory. In this conservative view, a criminal is someone who is not adequately socialized or one who isn't afraid of the punishment he or she might receive for a crime. Because of the family's role in socialization, the amount of crime and violence depends greatly on how we bring up our children—that is, how well we pass on important values. It also depends on how punishment is used as a deterrent to crime— that is, how effectively the criminal justice system functions.

This second theory helps us understand white-collar crime, I think, because those who commit white-collar crime are not part of the underclass. Typically, white-collar criminals are businessmen, politicians, and financiers. Unlike the underclass, white-collar criminals have enjoyed the benefits of society. What may be lacking, however, is a well-developed conscience. Without a strong conscience, a person's innate aggressiveness takes over and leads to crime, at least according to the theory. Critics of this theory, however, point out that there are children from families with apparently sound values who still become white-collar criminals. They may become criminals because they feel they won't get caught, so obviously they do not fear punishment.

I think you can see that an issue like crime is far too complex to explain with a simple theory, or even two theories. It's likely and logical that both the family and society can play a part in reducing crime. But I think the theories help in identifying solutions to the problem of crime in the United States.

As for solutions, I think most of us would agree that the family can play a role in reducing crime in the United States: through socialization, which leads children to respect themselves, others, and the values of their society. Moreover, I think society, in the form of government, has a role to play in reducing crime: by overcoming the alienation of the underclass, by helping these people to feel that they are part of the society instead of its victims. Many experts feel that ending the alienation of the underclass can come about only if the underclass has the same benefits that the majority of the population take for granted: good education, health care, and employment. The government, in the form of the justice system, can also contribute to curbing crime by instilling the fear of punishment in those who might become criminals. In another chapter, we look at the justice system, but we don't have any more time today.

Chapter 9 Lecture: Public Education: Philosophy and Funding

Most young people in the United States, like most young people around the world, attend public school. Indeed, young people in the U.S. have to attend school because education is compulsory, in most states to the age of sixteen or until the students reach ninth grade.

A small percentage of American youth attend private schools, wither religious or secular schools, but the vast majority attend public schools. One distinguishing feature of U.S. public education that surprises many foreigners is that although there are some standardized examinations, there is no nationwide curriculum set by the government ministry of education determines the curriculum that all students study and the examinations that all the students take at a set time. Of course, U.S. students follow a curriculum, and they take examinations as all students do. Although the federal government does influence public education by providing funds to schools for special programs such as education for the handicapped and for bilingual education, the federal government does not determine the curriculum or the examinations. Today I’d like to talk about the three levels of control within each state and then spend some time discussing where the money for education comes from and three issues related to funding.

Control of education in the United States is mainly exercised locally at three levels. Let’s begin with the state department of education. The department of education of each of the fifty states has two basic functions. First, each state department of education sets basic curriculum requirements for all the schools in its state. For example, a high school might require four years of English, three years of math, two years of social science, and so forth. The state also sets the number of credits a student must complete in order to graduate from a high school. This total number of credits includes both required courses and electives. So much for the state part in education.

The second level of control is the school district. The number of school districts a state has depends on the size of its population and the size of the state. A large metropolitan area would have several school districts. A smaller community might have only one district. Each school district is run by a school board that is elected by the citizens of the district. The school district is responsible for the specific content of courses taught in its schools. In other words, the school district determines what the students will study in each of their, let’s say, four years of high school English. The school district also decides what electives will be available for students. Besides determining course content, the school district is responsible for the operation of the schools in its district, for example, the hiring if teachers and administrators. The third level of control is the individual school itself, where teachers have primary responsibility for deciding how to teach the content of each course and for preparing and giving examinations to the students.

Local control of schools may seem very strange to some of you, but it will seem less strange if you consider how public schools in the United States are funded- that is, where money to run the schools comes from. Only about 7 percent of the money comes from the federal government. The rest of the money comes from state and local taxes. The percentages supplied by the state and by the local districts fluctuate over tome and from state to state. Currently appropriately 49 percentage of school funding comes from the states and about 44 percent comes from the local communities, that is, the school districts. Finally, I’d like to discuss three issues related to the funding of schools that have been receiving a lot of attention recently in the United States. The first issue deals with the inequality of educational opportunity that students face. Because public schools are funded to a great degree by local taxes, this means that schools in poorer communities or poorer parts of large cities do not have the same amount of money as schools located in richer communities. This, in turn, means that children

from poorer areas are less likely to receive a good education than children from wealthier areas. The second issue, one that has been controversial since the beginning of public education, is the issue of funding for private schools, which are generally run by religious organizations. As you already know, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution mandates separation of church and state. A little background on the history and development of public education will be useful here.

During colonial times, education was largely a religious concern and most schools were supported by religious organizations. However, during the nineteenth century, there was widespread support and acceptance of public education paid for by taxes as the best way to provide equal educational opportunity for all children. Nevertheless, some parents have always chosen to send their children to either private religious schools or private schools devoted to academic excellence. Because private schools are not funded by the government, parents have had to pay tuition to send their children to private schools. People who have wanted to send their children to private schools have long questioned why they should have to pay taxes for public schools at the same time as they pay private tuition for their children’s education.

Although this issue is not new, during the last twenty years or so, more parents have become unhappy about what they perceive to be the increasingly secular nature of public education and prefer to send their children to schools where they will receive an education more in line with their religious beliefs. Other parents are concerned about the questionable quality of education in public schools. These concerns have led to efforts by the school system, and the government, to offer alternative educational opportunities, that is, educational choices. Two of the most important responses to these concerns have been charter schools and school vouchers. Both of these alternatives to regular public education are based on the idea that competition in the educational market is a good thing, but otherwise, they differ quite a bit. Charter schools are nonsectarian public schools that compete with regular public for students. Charter schools operate under contract to a sponsor, usually a state or local school board. Charter schools are accountable to their sponsors, the parents who choose to send their children to them, and the public that funds them through their tax money. In turn, charter schools generally have greater autonomy, that is, independence, over selection of teachers, curriculum, resources, and so on, than regular public schools. The first charter schools came into existence toward the end if the 1980s. By 2003, there were 2,695 charter schools with almost 685,000 students enrolled. This was a 15 percent increase over the year 2003, which shows how fast these schools are growing. There are many issues surrounding charter schools, but a study published in 2003 found that charter school students did a little better than their public school counterparts on a standardized exams.

The school voucher concept is a much more controversial one than charter schools. The idea behind school vouchers is that the government provides students with a certain amount of money each year that they can use to attend whatever school they choose, public or private. The idea again is that competition will improve the education students receive. Voucher schools in reality are largely private schools, and most often religiously based schools. They are quite different from charter schools, which as public schools are first of all, nonsectarian, that is, not religious. Second, charter schools cannot apply restrictive admission standards, as public schools do. To date, voucher programs funded by taxpayers are operating in only three U.S. cities, and there are many court battles over the voucher system. Supporters of the voucher system feel very strongly that private schools offer better education than public schools. Those opposed to the voucher system claim that vouchers rob public schools of needed funding and that voucher schools do not truly provide school choice because of restrictive admissions standards, which can include academic performance, religion, sex, and other factors. Opponents of vouchers also strongly believe that using taxpayer funds for private religious schools violates the separation of church and state built into the U.S. Constitution.

The third and final issue I’d like to touch on today is also very controversial. I mentioned earlier that United States does not have a nationwide curriculum nor nationwide exams set by the government. However, in the past fifteen or twenty years, there has been an increased emphasis in various states on raising standards and on giving students standardized exams to monitor their progress. The federal government in 2002 passed a sweeping education bill that requires states that wish to receive certain federal funding to develop and put in place extensive testing programs and other systems to ensure adequate yearly progress of students. Although the percentage of funding for schools from the federal government is relatively small, it still represents a lot of money that schools do not want to lose. Some people support this movement toward standardization and accountability in the educational system, while others see it as a dangerous step away from local control of schools.

No one can predict the future of public education in the United States, but it appears that emphasis on educational choice and on accountability of educational system for student results will be with us for a long time.

Chapter 10 Postsecondary Education: Admissions

In this lecture, I’m going to talk to you about postsecondary education in the United States. Today I’ll give you some facts and figures about colleges and universities in the United States and some general information about admission policies. I will also make a few remarks about community colleges and finish up by giving you an idea of what kinds of students make up the student body on a typical U.S. campus.

Let’s begin with some facts and figures. The most recent figures I have reveal there are 4,182 public and private four-year and two-year colleges in the United States. These range from full universities with diverse programs to smaller four-year colleges to two-year community colleges. Most of them are accredited, which means the schools meet certain standards set by institutional and private evaluators. When applying to a school, you would probably want to make sure it was accredited. Even though there are more private colleges than public ones, over three-quarters of students, precisely 78 percent, are enrolled at public colleges and universities. Some of the small private schools may have fewer than 100 students, whereas some of the large state university systems may have 50,000 or more students. Most of these schools are coeducational although some of them are primarily for women and others are primarily for men. Some schools may offer only one program of study and others have a great variety of programs. The total cost for attending one of these schools may be less than $5,000 a year or as much as 30 or 40 thousand dollars a year for one of the prestigious private schools. These schools are located all over—in industrial areas, agricultural areas, large cities, and small towns in a wide variety of climates.

With such a wide variety of sizes, kinds, and locations of schools, it probably won’t surprise you to find out that admissions requirements at these colleges and universities vary greatly also. Some are relatively easy to be admitted to whereas others are highly competitive. However, most schools will ask undergraduate applicants to submit their high school transcripts with a record of their grades and test results from one of the standardized tests regularly offered to high school students. The most common of these standardized exams is the Scholastic Aptitude Test, commonly known as the SA T. Students who are applying to graduate school are usually asked to take other, more specific standardized exams depending on which college they are applying to. For example, some students are required to take the Graduate Record Exam, or the GRE. Students applying to a business college will probably have to take the GMA T, and students applying to law college will have to take the LSAT. You probably know about the TOEFL exam, which most foreign students have to take before being admitted to American colleges or universities. These exams, including the TOEFL, are all prepared by a company that is independent of the school system. These exams have come under a lot of criticism lately, but they are still widely used as one way to determine who will be admitted to various schools. However, most schools try to look at the whole student and consider factors other than simply grades and test scores. Some of these factors may be extracurricular activities in school, ethnic background, work experience, and so on. Some schools will have personal interviews with students they are considering for admission. Many schools, private as well as public, try very hard to have a student population with a wide variety of backgrounds and ages. Even the most prestigious and most highly competitive colleges and universities will not take only those students with the highest grades and standardized test scores but will consider these other factors. Nevertheless, schools of this type, such as Stanford and Harvard, have so many more people applying than they can possibly accept that students who want to get into such schools take grades and SAT exams very seriously. In general, medical and law colleges, both private and public, are very difficult to get into, and, once again, test scores on standardized exams can be extremely important to those applying to these schools.

However, for students who want to attend a state college or university in their own state, it may be enough to graduate from high school in the upper third or even upper half of their high school class. This may surprise those of you who come from an educational system that is highly competitive, a system in which only a small percentage of students who pass a very difficult nationwide standardized high school examination can enter a university. You may be even more surprised by what I have to tell you about community colleges.

An interesting feature of education in the United States is the two-year community college. Community colleges that are publicly supported offer somewhat different educational opportunities than those offered by a senior college or a university. First, admissions requirements at public community colleges are usually much more lenient than those at a four-year college or university. It’s usually enough to have graduated from an A merican high school to be admitted. Second, it is also cheaper to attend a community college. The tuition and fees are usually quite a bit lower. Students often live at home because this type of school does not have dormitories. For these two reasons, many people who are unable to go to a four-year college or

university can have an opportunity to take classes for college credit. Finally, community colleges offer two-year programs that can lead to an Associate of Arts degree. Many of these programs, but not all of them, are vocational in nature. People attend community colleges for many different purposes. Some people may be taking on a course or two in some field that particularly interests them and may not be planning on getting a degree. Other people may be going to community college full-time and planning to transfer to a four-year college or university upon successful completion of two years at a community college. Well, so much for community colleges.

I promised to tell you a little about the actual stud ent body on a typical U.S. campus. Let’s start with some statistics, and then we’ll discuss two items that surprise many foreign students. Among the 2.8 million high school graduates in 2002, 65.2 percent were enrolled in college the following October. More than 90 percent of those attended full time. Young men represented half of the high school graduates, but more women than men went on to college. The exact statistics are:68.4 percent of female high school graduates and 62.1 percent of male high school graduates. If we break down the statistics racially, we find that white students enrolled in college in greater proportions than black or Hispanic students. The figures are 66.7 percent for white graduates, 58.7 percent of black graduates, and 53.5 percent of Hispanic students. My next statistic may be surprising. 42.6 percent of full-time students in 2002 were either employed or looking for work. That number jumps to 75.7 percent for part-time students. That last statistic makes more sense when we consider that besides the students who are from eighteen to twenty-two years old that one expects to find on a college campus, there are also many older married students. They may be people who attend part-time to upgrade their skills, people who are changing careers, or retired people who still have a desire to learn. Also, foreign students are often surprised at how poorly prepare American students are when they enter a university. Actually, at very select schools the students are usually very well prepared, but at less selective schools, they may not be as well prepared as students in your country are. If you will remember the educational philosophy we discussed in the last lecture, you will understand why. Schools in the States simply admit a lot more students than is usual in most other countries. Also, most young American university students have not traveled in other countries and are not very well versed in international matters and do not know a lot about people from other countries. Foreign students usually find them friendly but not very well informed about their countries or cultures.

In brief, you can see that educational opportunities and admissions standards vary greatly in the United States. While it may be quite difficult to gain admission to some colleges and universities because of the very large number of applicants, probably any student graduating from high school with reasonable grades can find some accredited university or college to attend. Those students hoping to enter graduate school will often face very stiff competition, whether at private or public schools. Many students who start at a college or university will not finish in four years. Some will drop out to work or travel and may never finish. Others will return to school a few months or a few years later. Some will go to school full-time and others part-time. Some will not work while going to school, but most will work at some time or other during their school years. We’re out of time, I see. In my next lecture, I’ll talk to you about a r elatively new development in education, distance learning. It should be of interest to those of you who want to attend college but can’t because of living far from a college, busy schedules, or for other reasons.

Chapter 11 Lecture: Distance education

One of the most exciting changes in education in the United States today is the incredible growth of distance education at the post-secondary level. Let me begin the lecture by asking you a couple of questions. First, can you imagine getting a college, or university, degree, without ever once setting foot on a college campus? Second, would you believe me if I told you there are a few higher education institutions that grant degrees that don’t even have a campus? Some of these schools even grant graduate degrees, that is, a master’s degree or even a Ph.D.

What is distance education? A publication called Distance Education: A Consumer’s Guide defines distance education this way:”Distance education is instruction that occurs when the instructor and student are separated by distance or time, or both,” That sounds a little strange, but it’s not really new.

As early as 1840, it was possible to take a correspondence course in shorthand; that is, a student could learn shorthand by mail. And the University of Wisconsin offered the first correspondence catalog in 1892. This meant that a student could take university courses by mail over 100 years ago. So distance education is not really new; however, modern technology, such as audio, video, and computer technology, has changed distance education a great deal. Today almost all distance education programs are online or have an online learning component to take advantage of the technology.

As I mentioned, distance education is now growing at an incredible rate, Peterson’s 1994 Guide to Distance Learning listed 93 accredited distance education programs available at community colleges and universities across the United States and Canada, whereas its 1997 guide listed more than 700 programs. In 2003, almost 1,100 programs were listed. According to the U.S. college and universities with 10.000 students or more offer distance education programs with new ones coming online continuously.

Distance education is quite a complex subject with many aspects to look at. Today let’s look at the reasons why distance education is growing so rapidly, how distance education works, that is, what the modes of delivery are, and some things people considering distance education need to be aware of.

To start with, why is distance education growing at such an incredible rate?

First, rapidly changing economic conditions require many professional people to upgrade their knowledge or skills on an almost continuous basis. For example, a person who graduates with a degree in engineering or computer science may find it necessary to take courses to upgrade his or her skills every few year. Or a person who begins his or her career with a B.A. or B.S. degree may find it desirable to pursue an M.A. after some time, or even a Ph.D. Busy working people often find it difficult or even impossible to take courses they need or to pursue degrees on campus. Thus, there are a lot of people wanting post-secondary education who don’t find it convenient to study in the traditional on-campus setting.

At the same time that demand for postsecondary education is growing, many U.S. colleges and universities are facing budget crunches; many U.S. colleges and universities are facing budget crunches; that is , they just don’t have as much money as they had in the past, but at the same time they have more students. They have to find ways to deliver instruction in the most economical way possible.

The final reason is modern technology, which is the key to making the desired postsecondary education available to the millions of people who have access to audio, video, and computer technology. Many institutions offer distance education courses, certificate programs, and degree programs. How does distance education work at the postsecondary level? What are the usual modes of delivery?

The modes of instruction can vary greatly and different courses in a program may use different modes. And any given course may use several different modes. Some of the modes include video, audio, CD-ROM, Internet, bulletin boards, chat rooms, and e-mail. Let’s consider some of the possibilities among these technologies. Video, for example, can be as simple as videotape the student plays on his or her VCR. Or it could involve video conferencing where the student is able to see and interact with the instructor and other students. Audio works similarly. A student may have a set of audiotapes to play on a cassette player or may be connected to an audio conference where he or she interacts with other students and the instructor. When students study on their own, at a time convenient to them to them, from a video-or audiotape, it is asynchronous learning, asynchronous meaning not at the same time. Video and audio conferencing, on the other hand, are called synchronous learning; that is, the instructor and the students are engaged in the teaching and learning process at the same time. Let’s look at two other popular modes used in distance learning: bulletin board anytime of the day and night, read what other students have written, and respond, by either adding his or her ideas or asking a question. Chat rooms, on the other hand, offer a discussion forum where students can interact in real time, that is, synchronously. CD-ROMs may come to the student via mail or the student may download materials from the Internet. E-mail provides a very convenient way for students to submit assignments or to ask the instructor questions. There are many more modes of instruction, but this should give you an idea of the possibilities.

Students interested in pursuing distance education degrees need to consider the following six points:

Number 1. Many distance education programs have a residency requirement. The students may be required to take two courses on campus, that is, six hours of credit, or students may be required to spend several days on campus several times during the program.

Number 2. Distance education courses generally have time limits. Courses and programs must be completed within a certain time limit. Assignments must be submitted on time.

Number 3. Admissions requirements are the same as those of an on-campus education.

Number 4. Distance education can save students money in terms of not having to travel to campus for classes, and the like, but the academic fees about the same as for traditional education. Fulfilling the residency requirements may be quite costly in terms of travel and lodging for students who live far from the campus.

Number 5. Online study requires students to have access to a computer that meets minimum requirements such as the latest version of Windows, a microphone, sound card and speakers, adequate hard drive and RAM, a modern, browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape), and Internet connection. Connection speed is very important and many schools recommend having high-speed Internet access like a cable modern or DSL.

And finally Number 6. Distance learning requires that students be disciplined and independent learners. Distance education is not easier than traditional education. Not everyone is temperamentally suited for distance education. The dropout rate from distance education courses and programs is higher than for traditional courses and programs.

Before I close today, let me just say that many people are still suspicious of distance education believing that it cannot possibly be equivalent to a traditional classroom education, although there are studies that indicate that distance education can be as effective as traditional education and some times even more effective. However, some suspicions are well founded. There are many unscrupulous and disreputable universities advertising on the Internet with very alluring Web sites. Therefore, it is important for everyone wishing to take a course or pursue a degree to check out the credentials of the school they are considering very carefully.

We have an expression: Let the buyer beware. That means that anyone who wishes to buy something should be very careful! And that includes online or distance eductation.

Chapter 13 LECTURE: Government by Constitution:

Separation of Powers/Checks and Balances

The year 1987 marked the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution. We all know that United States is a comparatively young country, but the interesting thing is that its constitution is the oldest written one that has been in continuous use. For over 200 years, it has provided a basis for a stable government and has remained basically unchanged. Today we will try to understand the U.S government better by looking at two important principles provided by the Constitution. These two principles so important to understanding the U.S government were written into the Constitution 200 years ago and are still in effect today. These two principles are (1) the division, or separation of powers; (2) a system of checks and balances. Before we begin our discussion of these two principles, let’s first take a look at the three branches that compose the U.S. government. To start, the Constitution provides for three branches of government. These three branches are (1) the legislative, (2) the executive, and (3) the judicial. First, the legislative branch, which is the congress of the United States, is primary responsible for enacting, or making, new laws that are to be followed by the fifty states of the country. Second, the executive branch, which is headed by the president, executes these same laws that originate in the legislature. By signing the laws, the president actually puts the laws into effect. After the president has signed a new law, the executive branch of the government is also responsible for seeing that the new law is enforced, or carried out. Well, these are the first branches, so we are ready to discuss the third branch. Do you recall what the third branch is? You are right if you said the judicial. What do you think the judicial branch does? Well, the judicial branch is primarily responsible for dealing with persons or corporations that are accused of breaking a law or that are involved in any kind of legal dispute. The judicial system also handles trials and other types of court cases. Another very important responsibility of the judicial branch is to review existing laws to make sure that they are consistent with the U.S. Constitution. In other words, the judicial branch must judge the legality of laws, using the Constitution as a guide.

You already have an idea of what is meant by division of powers from the preceding discussion. Each branch of the government has its specific task in relation to the country’s laws. Each branch has its own specific power, then, that is not shared by the other two branches. This division of power was invented by the writers of the Constitution to make sure that no single branch of the government could abuse its power or become more powerful than the other two branches, a system of checks and balances was written into the Constitution. This system of checks and balances gives each branch of the government a specific way to check, or keep some control on, each of the other branches. The best way to understand this system of checks and balances might be to discuss a few examples of how it works.

First, let’s consider how the executive branch can check the power of the legislative branch. The most obvious example is the presidential power of veto. Suppose the president feels that a law enacted by Congress is unwise. If he feels very strongly that this new law is wrong, he may refuse to sign it. Now Congress can override a presidential veto, but it is a very difficult thing to do, so a presidential veto may put an end to this new law forever. Now, let’s look an example of how the legislative branch, or Congress, may check the power of the executive branch. Many of you have heard of the Watergate scandal, which took

place in Washington, DC, in 1973. IN the Watergate affair, President Richard Nixon and his stuff were suspected of illegal actions to re-elect Nixon. In such a case, where the executive branch is suspected of illegal or unconstitutional activities, the legislative branch is given the power by the Constitution to investigate these activities. If Congress believes that illegal activities have actually taken place, it has the power to remove the president from office. This, in fact, did not happen to President Nixon because he resigned, but the steps to investigate the legality of his actions had already been initiated by Congress at the time that he resigned. For two more examples of checks and balances, let’s take a look at two instances in which the judicial branch checked, or limited, the power of the legislative branch. The first example concerns the legality of abortion. Some years ago, most states in the United States had laws that made abortion illegal. In reviewing these laws in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court, which is the highest authority in the judicial branch, found these laws unconstitutional. By finding these laws unconstitutional, the Supreme Court in effect made abortion legal; therefore, women has the right to obtain an abortion in all fifty states today. Our next example concerns civil rights. The Supreme Court declared unconstitutional state laws that discriminated against Africa Americans. As a result, it became illegal for any state to practice racial discrimination in any form. Probably the most important effect of this change was the desegregation of the public schools. These are some examples of how the judicial branch checks the power of the legislative branch. These two examples concern state laws, but the Supreme Court also reviews and determinates the constitutionality of federal laws originated in Congress, so you can see how powerful the Supreme Court really is. You might wonder what check the executive or the legislative branch has on the judicial branch. Well, first of all, the president is the person who nominates the candidates for the Supreme Court. After the president nominates a candidate, Congress must approve the choice. Because there are only nine Supreme Court Justices, the opportunity to nominate even one candidate for the Supreme Court is an opportunity to change the balance of power on the Court itself. Any candidate nominated for the Supreme Court by the president can expect to be questioned very extensively by members of Congress about his or her record on such issues as abortion, gun control, separation of church and state, and so on, depending on current political concerns in the country. Under the Constitution, each branch of the government, then, must answer to the other two branches. Therefore, ideally, no one branch can exercise too much power or abuse the power that it has. From time to time, one branch of the government appears to be quite a bit more powerful than one or both of the other branches, but this imbalance of power does not usually last a long time. In the long run, each branch guards its own power quite vigorously, and all three branches check and balance one another’s power.

Chapter 14 LECTURE: Common law and the Jury System

The legal system of a country—that is, its system of justice—reflects the history and culture of the country just as much as other topics we have discussed so far. When we start to discuss law, courts, trails, and concepts of innocence and guilt, there are some broad philosophical questions that come up, questions that might be interesting to think about before talking more about the legal system in the United States. Because people from different cultures might answer these questions differently, let’s take a few minutes and see how you would answer these for your country.

Now, the first question: Is it preferable for a dozen guilty people to go free than to punish one innocent person unjustly? Or is it sometimes necessary to punish innocent people so that no guilty person escapes justice? Here’s the other question for you: Is a person guilty until he is proved innocent? Or does it seem more logical to you that he is innocent until he is proved guilty?

I suspect that the average person in the legal profession in the United States would say that it is better to let a dozen guilty people go free rather than to punish one innocent person unjustly. In addition, the guiding principle for the U.S. legal system is that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty. Now that you’ve had a chance to think about these two philosophical questions, let’s look at the U.S. legal system in terms of what makes it different from the legal systems in many other countries. First, we’ll look at U.S. common law and how it differs from civil law as practiced in many countries in the world. Then we’ll look more closely at the jury system, a system that many foreigners find quite curious. Then, if there’s time, I’d like to make a few concluding remarks about plea bargaining—the way that most cases, in fact, are settled out of court. I think, then, you’ll be able to get a feeling for how the United States’ approach to law is different fro that in your country.

To begin with, the U.S. system of justice is not unique. We have to remember that it is a system brought over by the first settlers from England. At that time, there were two basic law systems in Europe, common law as practiced in Great Britain and civil law as practiced in other European countries. To simplify greatly, civil law depends on a written code of laws. In deciding a case, under civil law the judge consults this code, a complex set of written laws, to decide whether the defendant is

innocent or guilty and, if guilty, what sentence the defendant will be given. On the other hand, common law, generally practiced in English-speaking countries including the United States, has developed case by case. Besides considering written law to determine the defendant’s guilt, under common law the judge also considers the precedent set by other court decisions. In deciding a case under common law, then, the judge looks at what other judges have decided in similar cases in the past. So the judge is guided not only by a legal code but also by previous court decisions. And very often, it is not the judge who brings a verdict under the common law but the jury.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees the right o trial by jury. A jury is a group of six to twelve ordinary citizens. The jury hears testimony in either civil or criminal trials and reaches a verdict. A civil trial is one that deals with disputes between private parties, often involving contracts or property rights. Criminal trials are ones where the government, representing the public, prosecutes those accused of a crime. In a civil trial, the jury decides which side is right and how much money should be paid in damages. In a criminal trial, the jury decides guilt or innocence. There are two other big differences between criminal and civil trials. First, the defendant in a criminal case does not have to testify. It is the government’s job to show guilt, not the defendant’s job to prove innocence. In a trial, the defendant must testify. Second, for a jury to convict a person in a criminal case, they must believe the person guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The government must present a high degree of proof. The jury in a civil trial decides which side has presented more evidence to support the case. This is a lower degree of proof than “reasonable doubt.” The reason that the degree of proof is much higher in a criminal trail is that a person’s liberty and even life can be taken away if he or she is convicted, that is, found guilty, of a crime.

The judge at a trial and the jury have very different responsibilities. The judge’s main responsibility is to see that the trial is conducted according to the law. Part of this responsibility is excluding irrelevant remarks and questions by lawyers and witnesses and deciding what kind of evidence is admirable. The jury, on the other hand, decide whether they believe the testimony they hear and whether the evidence presented to them is valid.

Some of you may remember the trial of the American former football star O.J.Simpson for the murder of his ex-wife and a friend of hers named Ron Goldman. Mr. Simpson was found innocent in 1995 by the jury at his criminal trial. However, a year later, he was back in court. The families of his ex-wife and Ron Goldman brought a civil suit against O.J.Simpson. at the end of this civil trial, the jury awarded millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages to these families.

Most people favor the jury system. However, it also comes under criticism. Some people criticize the way juries are selected. Some believe that juries make decisions based on emotion rather than facts or that jurors may not have the education or background to understand some complex legal issues. One serious problem is that if the required number of jurors cannot agree on a decision, it is called a hung jury, and the law requires a new trial with a new jury.

I don’t want to leave you with the impression that every legal case is tried in court with a jury in the United States. In fact, only about 20 percent of legal cases actually reach the courts. What happens is that in civil cases, most often the two sides settle their dispute out of court with the aid of their lawyers. And in criminal cases, very often a person accused of a particular crime will plea bargain. What actually happens in plea bargaining is that the accused pleads guilty to a lesser crime. Why is this allowed to happen? This is allowed to happen because there is a large number of civil and criminal cases. If all of these cases went to trial, the courts would be very crowded. If an accused person agrees to plead guilty, there will, of course, be no trial in court. This saves the state time and money. Also, the accused person who plea-bargains often is allowed to do so only if he or she also cooperates with the prosecutor in bringing other criminals to justice. From the accused person’s point of view, the sentence might be less severe than if he or she went to trial and were found guilty.

Though what goes on in court is often routine and not exciting to observe, jury trials often have very dramatic moments. In fact, courtroom drama has been the subject of many films made over the years. If you have the opportunity, I wound encourage you to watch one or two to get a better idea of how a jury trial works.

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Not Your Average Teen Lots of teenage girls dream of becoming rich and famous. But it's not a fantasy for Michelle Wie. Just before her 16th birthday last fall, she became the highest-paid woman golfer in history simply by turning professional and lending her name to commercial endorsements that will pay her between $10 million and $12 million a year, most of which will go into a trust fund until she becomes an adult. Wie has been a celebrity since she was 13, when people began predicting she would become the Tiger Woods of women' sgolf. But, as correspondent Steve Kroft reports, that has never been enough for Wie. She wants to become the first woman ever to successfully compete with men in a professional sport. She has tried a couple of times on the PGA Tour without embarrassing herself. As you will see, she has changed a lot since we first talked to her way back in 2004, when she was 14. At the time, Wie told Kroft her ultimate goal was to play in the Masters. "I think it'd be pretty neat walking down the Masters fairways," she said. It was a neat dream for a 14-year-old kid. Nothing has happened in the last two years to change Wie's mind or shake her confidence. She is stronger now, more mature and glamorous. She has already demonstrated that she can play herself into the middle of the pack against the best men on the PGA Tour and has come within a shot of winning her first two starts on the LPGA Tour this year as a part-time professional. The day before 60 Minutes interviewed her at the Fields Open in Honolulu, she shot a final round of 66, coming from six strokes off the lead to just miss a playoff. "You won your first check yesterday," Kroft says. "Uh-huh," Wie says. "It was, it was really cool. I mean, I was like looking at how much I won. I was like 'Oh my God.' " Wie says she won around $72,000. Asked whether she gets to keep that money, Wie said she didn't know. "I'm trying to negotiate with my dad how much I can spend of that, and stuff like that. We're still working it out. But, you know, I'm definitely gonna go shopping today," she says, laughing. Half of her life is spent in the adult world, competing with men and women twice her age for paychecks they may need to make expenses and dealing with the media, sponsors and marketing executives. The rest of the time she is a junior at Punahou High School in Honolulu, where she is an A student and claims to lead the life of a typical 16-year-old.

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Lesson 1 Section one News item 1 A. b,c,d B. 1c,2d,3b,4a News item 2 A. b B. running behind News item 3 A. d, B. 1.president,had died in a plane crash 2.ruling,130 3.Foreign Minster,47 4.Portugal,1975 5.Prime Minister,9,transitional Section two A. FTFFF B. C,C,B,A,D,B,C,B C. 52,hospital director,married,good,US Air Force Hospital,Wiesbaden, W.Germany,this moring,undertermined,U.S.A D. 1.precisely,freedom 2.take up,reporters,six-mile jog 3.evaluation,had coped extremely well 4.evidence,tortured,physically ab used Section three A.1.Most Chinese thoughtt mao tsetong as a very good poet,according to the speaker. 2.poetry was considered abysmal because of the restriction of publicatio n during the ten years of the cultural revolution. 3.leaders in china,as well as in the east,are expected to be accomplished p oets. 4.it is about getting rid of a disease that was a plague in china. 5.willis barnstone is a professor of comparative literature at Indiana unive rsity in Bloomington. 6.mao’

高级英语视听说教程第二册听力文本

Book 2 Chapter 1 The Population Today we’re going to talk about population in the United States. According to the most recent government census, the population is 281,421,906 people. Now this represents an increase of almost 33 million people since the 1990 census. A population of over 281 million makes the United States the third most populous country in the whole world. As you probably know, the People’s Republic of China is the most populous country in the world. But do you know which is the second most populous? Well, if you thought India, you were right. The fourth, fifth, and sixth most populous countries are Indonesia, Brazil, and Pakistan. Now let’s get back to the United States. Let’s look at the total U. S. population figure of 281 million in three different ways. The first way is by race and origin; the second is by geographical distribution, or by where people live; and the third way is by the age and sex of the population. First of all, let’s take a look at the population by race and origin. The latest U. S. census reports that percent of the population is white, whereas percent is black. Three percent are of Asian origin, and 1 percent is Native American. percent of the population is a mixture of two or more races, and percent report themselves as “of some other race”. Let’s make sure your figures are right: OK, white, percent; black, percent; Asian, 3 percent; Native American, 1 percent; a mixture of two or more races, percent; and of some other race, percent. Hispanics, whose origins lie in Spanish-speaking countries, comprise whites, blacks, and Native Americans, so they are already included in the above figures. It is important to note that Hispanics make up percent of the present U.S. population, however. Finally, the census tells us that 31 million people in the United States were born in another country. Of the 31 million foreign born, the largest part, percent are from Mexico. The next largest group, from the Philippines, number percent. Another way of looking at the population is by geographical distribution. Do you have any idea which states are the five most populous in the United States? Well, I’ll help you out there. The five most populous states, with population figures, are California, with almost 34 million; New York, with 21 million; Texas, with 19 million; and Florida, with 16 million; and Illinois with million people. Did you get all those figures down? Well, if not, I’ll give you a chance later to check your figures. Well, then, let’s move on. All told, over half, or some 58 percent of the population, lives in

高级英语视听说(上册)听力原文

United 2 A plan to build the world's first airport for launching commercial spacecraft in New Mexico is the latest development in the new space race, a race among private companies and billionaire entrepreneurs to carry paying passengers into space and to kick-start a new industry, astro tourism. The man who is leading the race may not be familiar to you, but to astronauts, pilots, and aeronautical engineers –basically to anyone who knows anything about aircraft design –Burt Rutan is a legend, an aeronautical engineer whose latest aircraft is the world's first private spaceship. As he told 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley when he first met him a little over a year ago, if his idea flies, someday space travel may be cheap enough and safe enough for ordinary people to go where only astronauts have gone before The White Knight is a rather unusual looking aircraft, built just for the purpose of carrying a rocket plane called SpaceShipOne, the first spacecraft built by private enterprise. White Knight and SpaceShipOne are the latest creations of Burt Rutan. They're part of his dream to develop a commercial travel business in space. "There will be a new industry. And we are just now in a beginning. I will

英语高级听力lesson 13 文档翻译

LESSON 13 SECTION 1 1.A special committee of twelve senator s today began the impeachment trial of Federal Judge Harry Claiborne. It's the first such proceeding in fifteen years. Claiborne is serving a jail sentence for tax evasion. 一个由十二位参议员组成的特殊委员会今天开始启动对联邦法官Harry Claiborne的弹劾。这是十五年来第一次发生这样的诉讼。Claiborne因为被判逃税而收押在监。 2 President Reagan today continued his campaign for a drug-free America. He ordered mandatory testing for federal workers in sensitive positions. And he also sent Congress a legislative package that would increase federal anti-drug spending by nine hundred million dollars, much of that on increased border patrols. The President said the legislation is the federal government's way of just saying no to drugs. "We're getting tough on drugs; we mean business. To those who are thinking of using drugs, we say 'Stop.' And to those who are pushing drugs, we say 'Beware.'" Mandatory drug testing for some federal workers is the most controversial part of the President's plan. It's been condemned by some employee groups. 里根总统今天继续他的全国性禁毒行动。他要求对所有处于敏感部门的联邦政府的职工进行强制性毒品检查。他还送给国会一份关于国家反毒品增加9亿美元预算的法案，其中很大部分是用于边境巡逻。总统说立法是联邦政府坚决反对毒品的有效方法。“我们要严厉打击毒品，我们不是随便说说的。对于那些在想着使用毒品的人，我们说：…停止！?对于那些做毒品买卖的人，我们说：…当心！?”对于部分联邦工作人员的强制药检是总统计划中最受争议的部分。它受到部分职员团体的谴责。 One person was killed and more than fifty injured today in Paris when a bomb exploded at the drivers' permit office at police headquarters. It was the fourth blast in seven days in the French capital

Part 2 高级英语听力材料

Listening Comprehension Exercises Part Two. Directions：You will hear 26 talks or conversations. Complete the sentences or answer the questions while you listen. Use not more than 3 words for each answer. You will hear the recording twice. You will be given some time to read the questions before each recording begins. 1. You will hear a talk about dictionaries. Besides telling you the meaning of a word and giving you examples, a dictionary will tell you how to 1) _______________ What will take you a little time but is worthwhile to learn? 2) _______________ You?re sure t o find the right spelling through 3) _______________ Another thing to help you with your writing, the dictionary will tell you where each syllable of a word 4) _______________ With a dictionary, you can find out if you?re separating the word in the 5) _______________ 2. You will hear an introduction about the American musician George Gershwin. What kind of boy was George Gershwin? 1) _______________ To what did George Gershwin begin to pay attention through Hambitzer?s influence? 2) _______________ What kind of work was La, La, Lucille? 3) _______________ What did the first performance of Rhapsody in Blue bring to George Gershwin in 1924? 4) _______________ George Gershwin had enriched American popular music with 5) _______________ 3. You will hear a lecture on language problems facing learners of English. Students who learn the language in their own countries had very little everyday opportunity to 1) _______________ Every-day spoken English is different from English used for 2) _______________ What does the speaker suggest students should use as much as possible?… 3) _______________ According to the speaker, most English people will respond if a foreign student has the courage to 4) _______________ What will the speaker talk about in other talks? 5) _______________ 4. You will hear an extract from a talk about ways to avoid headaches. What?s the principal cause for headaches according to one study? 1) _______________ What creates the conditions for a headache for most people? 2) _______________ How will you feel when working in a bad light? 3) _______________ What does the speaker suggest you should do before bed? 4) _______________ Smoky places encourage headaches, and the smoke may do you quite 5) _______________ 5. You will hear a talk about the country of Switzerland. Besides its beautiful scenery and excellent manufactured products, Switzerland is

英语高级视听说下册 unit 10

Burning Rage This story originally aired on Nov. 13, 2005. When they first emerged in the mid-1990s, the environmental extremists calling themselves the "Earth Liberation Front" announced they were "the burning rage of a dying planet." Ever since, the ELF, along with its sister group, the Animal Liberation Front, has been burning everything from SUV dealerships to research labs to housing developments. In the last decade, these so-called "Eco-terrorists" have been responsible for more than $100 million in damages. And their tactics are beginning to escalate. Some splinter groups have set off homemade bombs and threatened to kill people. As correspondent Ed Bradley first reported last November, things have gotten so bad, the FBI now considers them the country's biggest domestic terrorist threat. 错误! The biggest act of eco-terrorism in U.S. history was a fire, deliberately set on the night of August 1, 2003, that destroyed a nearly-completed $23 million apartment complex just outside San Diego. The fire was set to protest urban sprawl. "It was the biggest fire I have ever responded to as a firefighter," remembers Jeff Carle, a division chief for the San Diego Fire Department. "That fire was not stoppable. At the stage that the fire was in when we arrived, there were problems in the adjacent occupied apartment complexes. Pine trees were starting to catch fire. Items on patios were starting to light up and catch fire. And we had to direct our activity towards saving life before we could do anything about the property." Hundreds were roused from their beds and evacuated. Luckily, nobody –including firefighters – was injured. By the time the fire burned itself out the next morning, all that remained was a 12-foot-long banner that read: "If you build it, we will burn it." Also on the banner was the acronym: E-L-F. When Carle saw the banner, he says he knew he had a problem. A problem, because he knew what ELF stood for: the Earth Liberation Front, the most radical fringe of the environmental movement. It's the same group that set nine simultaneous fires across the Vail Mountain ski resort in 1998 to protest its expansion, causing $12 million in damage. And it is the same group that has left SUV dealerships across America looking like scenes from Iraq's Sunni triangle, their way of protesting the gas-guzzling habits of American car buyers. The ELF is a spin-off of another group called the ALF, or Animal Liberation Front, whose masked members have been known to videotape themselves breaking into research labs, where they destroy years of painstaking work and free captive animals. In recent years,

上外版英语高级视听说(上册)听力原文

Unit 1 Pirates of the Internet It’s no secret that online piracy has decimated the music industry as millions of people stopped buying CDs and started stealing their favorite songs by downloading them from the internet. Now the hign-tech thieves are coming after Hollywood. Illegal downloading of full-length feature films is a relatively new phenomenon, but it’s becoming easier and easier to do. The people running America’s movie studios know that if they don’t do something----and fast---they could be in the same boat as the record companies. Correspodent: “What’s really at stake for the movie industry with all this privacy?” Chernin: “Well, I think, you know, ultimately, our absolute features.” Peter Chernin runs 20th Century Fox, one of the biggest studios in Hollywood. He knows the pirates of the Internet are gaining on him. Correspont: “Do you know how many movies are being downloaded today, in one day, in the United States?” Chernin: “I think it’s probably in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.” Correspondent: “And it’s only going to grow.” Chernin: “It’s only going to grow. √Somebody can put a perfect digital copy up on the internet. A perfect digital copy, all right. And with the click of mouse, send out a million copies all over the world, in an instant.”

高级英语听力4

Obese state workers to be charged more for health insurance Overweight is definitely, definitely a problem issue for a lot of people, me being one of them. Those extra pounds add up to health care cost. State officials say that the leading causes of preventable death are tobacco use, lack of exercise and an unhealthy diet. There has been a shift upward in terms of the percentage of members who have signs of disease. Starting in July of next year, the state will put those tar-heeler employees who smoke on a PPO basic 70-30 plan. In July of 2011, those who have a body mass index of 40 or more will be put on the same limited coverage too. I understand that no one likes to be singled out; however, that is willfully choosing ill health. Most people agree with the penalties for smokers. A lot of companies have already started instituting similar policies. It's the plan for obese-state employees that has everyone talking. I honestly think that is completely ridiculous, that, um, to charge somebody more for their weight, I don't see what that's even constitutional, to be honest. You need to take many different things into consideration for that it could be, um, just an illness. The States have preventable diseases, like diabetes and heart disease, increase health care cost astronomically. These conditions that we are both seeing on now, um, are too, um, that have some the greatest impact on cost of health care. The State believes giving folks an incentive to stop smoking and lose weight will not only save their lives, but also the tax-payer money. In Ashville, Charu Kumarhia, News 13.

(完整版)高级英语视听说2参考答案(1)

Chapter 1 The Population I 2 populous 3 race 4 origin 5 geographical distPrelistening B 1 census ribution 6 made up of 7 comprises 8 relatively progressively 9 Metropolitan densely 10 decreased death rate 11 birth rate increasing 12 life expectancy D 1 a 18.5 mill b 80% c 1/2 d 13.4 mill e 2: 10 f 4% g 1990 h 40% i 3/4 j 33.1% 2 a 3 b 1 c 2 d 5 e 4 II First Listening ST1 population by race and origin ST2 geographical distribution ST3 age and sex III Postlistening A 1. People’s Republic of China, India 2. 281 mill

3. Hispanics(12.5%) 4. Texas 5. the South and the West 6. 20% 7. by more than 5 million 8. about 6 years 9. 2.2 years 10. a decreasing birth rate and an increasing life expectancy Chapter 2: Immigration: Past and Present PRELISTENING B. Vocabulary and Key Concepts immigrated natural disasters/ droughts/ famines persecution settlers/ colonists stages widespread unemployment scarcity expanding/ citizens failure decrease

英语高级视听-上-听力原文-Unit1-pirates-of-the-internet

5 And it’s all free. If that takes hold, kiss Hollywood goodbye. Chernin recently organized a “summit” between studio moguls and some high school and college kids---the people most likely to be downloading. Chernin: “And we said, ‘Let’s come up with a challenge. Let’s give them five movies, and see if they can find them online.’ And we all sat around and picked five movies, four of which hadn’t been released yet. And then we came back half an hour later. They had found all five movies that we gave them. ” Correspondent: “Even the ones that hadn’t even been released yet?” Chernin: “Even the ones that hadn’t even been released yet.” Correspondent: “Did these kids have any sense that they were stealing?” Chernin: “You know it’s… it’s a weird dichotomy. I think they know it’s stealing, and I don’t think they think it’s wrong. I think they have an attitude of, ‘It’s here.’” The Internet copy of last year’s hit Signs, starring Mel Gibson, was stolen even before director M. Night Shyamalan could organize the premiere. Correspondent: “The movie was about to be released. When did the first bootleg copy appear?” 6 Shyamalan: “Two weeks before it or three weeks before it. Before the Internet age, when somebody bootlegged a movie, the only outlet they