Author: Andre Coleman

Culture is the essential part of the human’s society. Every person is spending his or her life within a certain cultural community. It frequently defines what kinds of person a man or woman is and what values will they have. Does the cultural environment have a direct effect on the values within a community for anthropology, psychology and sociology? Let us discuss this topic step by step.

To understand it better, we can at first define what the cultural environment is and what influence it has on people within it. The very nature of the cultural environment is cultural and social aspects. It is could also be called “a social context” and sometimes “milieu”. It is a culture of a society or a group where a certain person is living or getting an education; it is institutions and people who interact with a certain human. By interaction we can mean not only different types of personal communication (like on a workplace, in class, with neighbors etc.); people could also communicate with each other by means of different communicational media (like phone, internet, newspapers, television etc). In spite of non – personal type of the communication, people whom a man or a woman meets in internet can have an influence on his or her values and point of view. Also television and other mass media form our perception of life and other people little by little. This type of interaction we can call one – way or anonymous. It does not always imply the equality of the social status. Thus, the concept of a social environment is wider that the concept of a social circle or a social class. Nevertheless, it is common that those people who have the same social environment start having a sense of solidarity. They easily help and trust each other; also they tend to create a social group. As a result, those people will always have a similar way of thinking and similar patterns even if they make different conclusions.

It shows us that people depend on society and culture around them very much whether they recognize this fact or not. Let us briefly define what culture itself is. It is going to help us understand what kind of effect it has on the values within a community for anthropology, psychology and sociology.

There is plenty of information about culture and different consequences of it. It is impossible to transmit a culture through genealogy. Culture is not something innate; culture is something that everybody should learn. Different facets of it are interrelated; a culture is spread by those people within a group. Nowadays different cultures could easily exist within a country side by side (like it commonly happens in African countries). According to Hoebel (1960), the definition of a culture is following: “The integrated sum total of learned behavioral traits that are manifest and shared by members of society”. According Lawton (1975), culture includes “age grading, religious rituals and athletic sport”. According to Frow (1995) there are “traditional differences in task and doing business were breaking down and this meant that standardization rather than adaptation is becoming increasingly prevalent”. Probably, a culture is one of the most significant environmental variables that should be considered within a global marketing. Often a culture could not be freely overlooked; it often hiding from a view. Culture consists of some elements; they are language, aesthetics, religion, values and attitudes, education, social organization and material culture. It is necessary to discuss briefly every element of it.

Material culture includes communications, power, transportations and others. Language is the next aspect of culture. It is a reflection of the values and nature of a certain society group. It could be sub-cultural languages, for example, dialects; in some countries it could be two or even more languages. Aesthetics includes art, dancing, arts-music. It concerns good taste, beauty, form and color of it. Education, as it is easy to see, includes the transmission of ideas, attitudes, skills and training in certain disciplines as well. Moreover, education serves as a transmitter of cultural and social values. Sometimes a child was introduced to the cultural value by school or later by university. Religion gives the humans’ behavior the best insight and as well it helps us to answer different questions, for example, why people behave n this way and not in another.

We can see that “culture” is a complicate conception; it includes different aspects. What can we say about “values” conception? What is commonly meant by “values”? Shortly, by values a person may mean something that is really matter to him or her. It is beliefs and ideas somebody holds as special. Social and cultural environment forms one’s values. Home, church school – there are just some places where people could study values that are common for everybody within their cultural environment. Teachers, friends, parents are forming our personal system of values from day to day. As a result we have personal values. Arts et al. (2003) summarized that they consist of something that we accepted from people around as and that part that came with our own life experience. It is too compulsory to accept everything a person is hearing around him or her; nevertheless, values of cultural environment around us has its strong influence on our own system of values.

Now, when we recognize what “values”, “culture” and cultural environment” commonly mean we can examine the direct effect that the cultural environment has on the values within a community for anthropology, psychology and sociology.

Before discussing the influence of a cultural environment on a person according to anthropology let us briefly mention the definition of the science. Saying shortly anthropology is the inquiry of humanity. Its origins throw back in the social sciences, natural science and humanities. The term itself is taken from the ancient Greek language and has two parts: “man” and “study” or “discourse”. The matters of anthropology are “how do people behave”, ‘what are their physical traits”, “why we can see differences and variations between groups of people”, and finally “who was the ancestor of the modern humans”. Anthropology is commonly divided in to four fields; they are cultural, or social, anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology and biological, or physical, anthropology. We can see that anthropology itself is the science that studies social and cultural values, differences, origins, roots etc. Thus, it is important to talk about the influence of culture environment according to this certain science.

According to anthropology, a culture could be seated deeply; unprepared person could take some type of a culture like something senseless, strange and even cruel. Let us give an example. According to the Muslim culture a woman must cover her face with yashmak and hide herself from any alien. Nilaweera & Wijetunga (2005) emphasized that this custom could appear strange and senseless to any person from Europe, United States or numeral other countries where people flaunt a woman’s form openly. Here is another example of the opposite culture. In some African countries (like Congo, Kenya etc) women do not wear top cloths. Oyeshile (2004) explained this fact that according to their culture, their traditions and according to their hot climate they do not consider the top of the female body something that they should cover or hide. There are many other different examples of things and customs that are unacceptable and even criminal in one part of the world; at the same time at another part of it people consider it the culture and commonly do it.

Summarizing this short extract we can see that cultural environment have a direct effect on the values within a community for anthropology. Continue the two examples above, a woman from the African country where there is not common or compulsory to cover her body with upper wear have values that are different from the values that are precious for a woman from a Muslim country. If those women could try to explain themselves their culture, values and reasons why they are keeping those culture values they would hardly understand each other. It is common that Muslim people condemn women from Europe and America. For them even the most modest and restrained American female seems to be a woman without culture values because she shows certain part of her body

What can we say about the influence of the social environment on personal values for psychology? What is psychology? It is the science of the human’s behavior and mind. This science is an attempt to understand humanity by exploring certain specific cases and by discovering some general principles as well. One of the main goals of psychology is to benefit the society. Scientists who involved in it we can divide in to some groups: cognitive scientists, social scientists and behavioral scientists. Among others, social behavior is among different subjects of psychology. The science of psychology explores following concepts: emotion, cognition, phenomenology, perception, attention, brain functioning, behavior, motivation, personality, unconscious mind and interpersonal relationships. As anthropology, the science of psychology is a social science and it has a strong connection with social environment. According to psychology, some type of behavior could be considered normal and other type could be considered abnormal. Commonly, humanity has the same nature. For example, murdering and cruelty is considered abnormal in every social group and community. Nevertheless, within some cultures the conception of cruelty may vary. Let us give an example. In American and European countries violation in any form is unacceptable even within a family. Thus people who keep doing it to others would consider psychologically abnormal. According to the culture of some eastern countries, especially countries with Muslim culture, a husband can beat his wife or punish her or in any other way if she does not satisfy him. What kind of misdeed could a wife do? She may cook a food that her husband does not like; she may say a word that her husband could consider unacceptable. People within the community with such culture are considered psychologically normal even if they commit violence every day. According to their culture cruelty is acceptable. A woman is expecting for it and she has no even right to complain. According to the example above we can see that psychological situation within a community could have a strong negative effect on personal values of a human. A person can look at low values of members of the community around him or her and subconsciously this person could understate those values that he or she had before. Psychologically people inclined to depend on society. That is why we can state that the cultural environment have a direct effect on the values within a community for psychology.

Sociology is the last science that we are going to discuss. It studies the society using different methods of critical analysis and empirical investigations. This science refines and develops knowledge about the activity of human society. One of the aims of sociology is to achieve the social welfare with the mean of the knowledge. Mancheno-Smoak et al. (2009) stated that the field of interests in sociology varies from the micro level of interaction and agency to the macro level of social structures and systems. It is a very broad conception that is focused traditionally on social class, religion, social stratification, social mobility, secularization, deviance and law. It includes all spheres of people’s activity. It is interesting that sociology studies different types of interactions between people. We are living in the age of the world wide globalization when the whole planet is becoming one big house. Different cultural and social communities are not staying separate from each other like it was some hundreds years ago. People are moving, migrating and spreading their culture and different values among other societies.

Why can we state that according to sociology, the cultural environment have a direct effect on the values within a community? First reason is that people like to communicate with each other. It means that they getting some new knowledge and values. Roniger (1995) declared that when representatives of different cultures are staying in contact for some time they will get used to new values. It will stop being new for them. New cultural values will become common and according to sociology people will start accepting it in their lives. In some time they would not remember that one or another culture or value was not imparted to them. And it is the second reason why the cultural environment has an effect on values of people for sociology. In other words, when people move from one place to another they create a new social group with mixed culture and values.

In conclusion of all factors and aspects that we discussed above we can see that anthropology, sociology and psychology are connected between each other. These three sciences are all about the human nature, culture and community. They are examining interactions and cooperation between different people; we can state that the cultural environment have a direct effect on the values within a community for anthropology, psychology and sociology because according to these sciences it is up to people’s nature to take something new from others. According to religion, human society was created as one big family. Let us agree that this statement is right; thus, we need to accept that people within a social community have a direct effect on each other in the same way in which members within an ordinary family have.

Every science that we discussed has one main aim – to make our society better. We need to remember that it is up to everybody to help in achievement of this aim.

Health care like health itself is a dynamic process which can be subject to change over time. There are an increasing amount of tensions within medicine between various groups of health care practitioners, and between the evaluation of treatment and responding to patients views. This reflects the different strains and demands bearing down on medicine from numerous quarters.

I am interested in exploring from the counsellor’s perspective, in this case the occupational therapist, what exactly they do in an effort to socialize people back into society. For example looking at the role of occupational therapist and the patient’s environment: physical access to buildings; availability of family and monetary support for living at home.

To answer the above question I examined areas such as what is the doctor-patient relationship or in this case the occupational therapist-patient relationship, drawing on Goffman’s (1969) work, who states we all play roles throughout our lives, we present ourselves to society, and we are socialized to these roles throughout our lives, especially in childhood. Society has given us our roles- doctor, patient, sick role, etc. – and we as actors can perform the role. I also looked at Occupational therapies link to Functionalism, concentrating on Durkheim and Parsons and also drawing on the work of Marx and Weber and how Marx led to the acknowledgment in occupational therapy that labour is the collective creative activity of the people.

Description of the research strategy

For my research into how occupational therapy contributes to the promotion of health in society, I chose to use qualitative research and in this case qualitative Interviewing. Several researchers have argued that structured interviews are unnatural and restrictive. Informal interviews get deeper. Therefore I used semi-structures face to face interviews. I feel that using semi-structured in depth interviews allowed me use a more open framework, allowing a focus on the conversation and the topics that the interviewee brings up. I started with more general questions and topics to allow the conversation to build up a relationship so the participates felt comfortable and at ease so that they could talk about some sensitive issues if they arose. Semi structure interviews are less intrusive then other methods of research. They allow us to not only gather answers but also reason for the answers, therefore giving a more comprehensive analysis into this area. Therefore I found the major benefits of this type of interviewing where that:

It is less intrusive to those being interviewed. This is because the semi-structured interview encourages two-way communication.

Those being interviewed can also ask questions of the interviewer and feel as though they have their own input.

Using this type of interviewing confirms what is already known but also allows the opportunity for learning other information outside of what’s being asked.

Conducting semi-structured interviews often will provide not just answers, but the reasons for the answers.

When individuals are interviewed they tend to open up more and feel more at ease to talk about sensitive issues.

(Silverman: 2001)

Access

I found access to interviewees a little difficult. Getting contacts was the first step, which was done through another occupational therapist I know who passed on a number of email address of willing participants. Once contacted it was difficult to arrange meeting points, days, and times that suited all, but all these issues where overcome and two interviews were successfully scheduled.

Ethical considerations

Mason (1996) puts forward ways to deal with ethical issues in qualitative

which I tried to follow throughout this pilot. This included, deciding what is the

purpose(s) of my research, e.g. self-advancement, examining which individuals or groups

might be interested or affected by your research topic- in this case it would not be

ethically sound to interview the patients themselves as there seen as a vulnerable group,

and considering what are the implications for these parties of framing your research topic

in the way you have done (1996:26-30).

The main ethical considerations I took when interviewing the Occupational therapist, was that before the individual became a subject of research, he/she was notified of:

a-? My aims, my methods, my expected benefits and possible hazards of the research I was conducting.

a-? I made it clear to the interviewee of his/her right to abstain from participation in the research and his/her right to end at any time that they feel necessary to do so.

a-? The confidential nature of his/her answers.

I also made it clear during my researching, that no individual would become a subject of research unless they have been given notice and that they freely consent that they would like to participate. No pressure of any kind was used to persuade an individual to become a subject of my research. I will make sure that the confidentiality of individuals from whom I gather my information, shall be kept strictly private. I also stated that at the end of my research any information that would reveal any person involved in the interviewing, will be destroyed, unless already consented that this precise information will be used.

http://www.idrc.ca/eepsea/ev-65406-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

Evaluation of Research Process

One important use that pilot studies have in qualitative research is to develop an understanding of the concepts and theories held by the people you are studying- what is often called “interpretation”. This is not simply a source of additional concepts for your own theory, ones that are drawn from language of participants; this is a type of concept that Strauss (1987, pp. 33-34) called “in-vivo codes.2

More important, it provides you with an understanding of the meaning that these phenomena and events have for the people who are involved in them, and the perspectives that inform their actions. These meanings and perspectives are not theoretical abstractions; they are real, as real as people’s behaviour, though not as directly visible. Peoples ideas, meanings and values are essential parts of the situations and activities you study, and if you don’t understand these, your theories about that’s going on will often be incomplete or mistaken (Maxwell, 2004a: Menzel, 1978).

Looking at my research questions, through my pilot study I found I had problems in developing the questions as I often got confused between intellectual issues- what I wanted to understand by doing the study- and practical issue- what I wanted to accomplish. According to LeCompte and Preissle, “distinguishing between the purpose and the research question is the first problem” in coming up with workable research questions (1993, p. 37)

I decided to focus on three kinds of questions that are suited to process theory, rather then variance theory. For example I tried to base my research questions around (a) questions about the meaning for events and activities to the people involved in these, (b) questions about the influence of the physical and social context on these events and activities and (c) questions about the process by which these events and activities and their outcomes occurred. For example “What does your typical working day involve?” Because all of these types of questions involve situation-specific phenomena, they do not lend themselves to the kinds of comparison and control that variance theory requires. Instead, they generally involve an open-ended, inductive approach in order to discover what these meaning and influences are and how they are involved in these events and activities.

Decisions about where to conduct my research and whom to include were an essential part of my research methods. I found “sampling” to be problematic for the qualitative research pilot, because it implies the purpose of “representing” the population sampled. It ignores the fact that, in qualitative research, the typical way of selecting settings and individuals is neither probability sampling nor convenience sampling. Instead it falls into a third category, known as purposeful sampling (Patton, 1990, p.169). This is a strategy in which particular settings, persons, or activities are selected deliberately in order to provide information that can’t be gotten as well from other choices. For example, Weiss argued that any qualitative interview studies do not use “samples” at all, put panels “people who are uniquely able to be informative because they are expert in an area or were privileged witnesses to an event” (1994, p.17); I used this form of purposeful selection by choosing full trained Occupational Therapists to interview. I think selecting those times, settings and individuals that can provide you with the information that you need in order to answer your research question is the most important consideration in qualitative selection decisions.

On the negative side, I feel as though one of my interviews suffered slightly due to it been chosen because of its convenience of where and when the interview could take place. Although convenience and cost are real considerations, they should be the last factors to be taken into account after strategically deliberating on how to get the most information of the greatest utility from the limited number of cases to be sampled. Convenience sampling is neither purposeful nor strategic and I feel as though a different individual could have brought more information to light had I chosen more wisely (Patton, 1990, p. 181)

If conducting this study again I think I would test out the use of participation observation. In this case it would be of that in an open setting, usually public and in this case a hospital. Gold (1958) states that, when using this technique the participant observer enters the setting without intending to limit the observation to particular process or people and adopts an unstructured approach. Occasionally certain foci crystallise early in the study, but usually observation progresses from the unstructured to the more focused until eventually specific actions and events become the main interest of the researcher. It is important to differentiate between significant and relatively unimportant data in the setting.

I also feel several other valuable things were brought to my attention on conducting this pilot study. I found that I need to revise my interview guide, adding questions about issues I hadn’t realised were important, such as asking respondent to go through a typical day. I also discovered additional useful questions, such as asking participants to describe specific medical terminology that would illustrate what they had been saying. For example, probing more around phrases such as sensory function, neuromusculoskeletal function, body structure, and client centred. I found that taking a step back and listening to participant’s experiences in new ways was very important to the collection of the data and feel as though in the future it will help me if I put everything know about Occupational Therapy to one side and do the interview as if I know nothing about this area.

Codes

Equipment

Environment

Medical language

Patient Life

Intervention

Medical OT/Patient

Academic

Skills OT/Patient

Social- Work

Physical- Work

Role of Occupational Therapy

In qualitative research, the goal of coding is not to count things, but to “fracture” (Strauss, 1987, p. 29) the data and rearrange them into categories that facilitate comparison between things in the same category and that aid in the development of theoretical concepts. Above is a diagram of the codes produced after my interviews once the data had been worked through in a systematic manner.

Through doing this, many connections were highlighted. For example, looking at the codes Medical Language and Medical OT/Patient. “Basically, all patient information, evaluations, and interventions must be documented.”(Interview 1, p.3) ” ..Help them overcome the effects of disability caused by physical or psychological illness, ageing, or accidents” (Interview 2, p.2)

Therefore this process of coding is the process of combing the data for themes, ideas and categories and then marking similar passages of text with a code label so that they can easily be retrieved at a later stage for further comparison and analysis. Coding the data makes it easier to search the data, to make comparisons and to identify any patterns that require further investigation.

http://onlineqda.hud.ac.uk

Main Findings

After conducting this pilot study and fieldwork, I found that Occupational therapy and Sociology are two completely different sciences. While this is true they encompass a strong underlying relationship. According to Alice J. Punwar and Suzanne M. Peloguin, Occupational therapy is a diverse profession and is hard to define because it has undergone many changes since its beginnings. Early definitions emphasize the use of occupation as a remedial activity to help restore the individual to an improved state of physical and mental health. Now occupational therapy is defined as “the use of purposeful activity or interventions designed to achieve functional outcomes which promote health, prevent injury or disability and which develop, improve, sustain, or restore the highest possible level of independence of any individual who has an injury, illness, cognitive impairment, psychosocial dysfunction, mental illness, developmental or learning disability, or other disorder or condition. It includes assessment by means of skilled observation or evaluation through the administration of interpretation of standardised or nonstandardised tests and measurements.” On the other hand Sociology is understood as “the study of human social life, groups and societies” (Giddens: 2001) coalescing both of these definitions.

Durkheim and Parsons are two of the main theorists whom contributed to the elements of functionalism. Each society has particular social needs or functional prerequisites that must be met in order for the society to strive and survive. Included in these prerequisites, is the need to reproduce new generations, meaning the need for food, clothing, control conflict and the maintenance of social order and of social solidarity.

Societies achieve these social needs by developing structures and institutions that have valuable functions. The purpose of any activity or structure is the roll it has in the maintenance of society itself.

Society can be viewed as one main structure wit many interrelated and inter-pendent parts. For example, the family, economy and education all work together in an effort to help society survive.

Institutions can be seen as being beneficial to societies as the institutions exist for survival of societies. Most literature suggests that they shouldn’t come under criticism and instead should be supported. Relating this back to occupational therapists, they should be seen as having a positive role in society.

Within a functionalist perspective, roles and social roles are important. The belief is that individuals are socialised through these social roles into society, parent, student, occupational therapist. These social roles largely determine an individual’s behaviour. Looking at Kavanagh & Faves (1995), two occupational therapists working with homeless people, they stated that ‘Roles are a source of identity and are the frame work of everyday life.’

Sociologists and Occupational therapists have put this view under criticism. They have argued against the determinism inherent in this view. Mocellin (1995) is an occupational therapist who believes the focus on roles to be stereotyping and that carrying out occupational roles, for example that of a housewife, may not always be therapeutic.

Looking at Talcott Parsons model of roles and his theory of the Doctor-Patient relationship, in Bury, M. (2005), he began with the idea that being sick/ill was a type of dysfunctional deviance and that this required reintegration with the social organism. Being ill allows individuals to be excused from their occupation and other responsibilities such as looking after the family, cooking and cleaning. This was seen as potentially detrimental to social order if it wasn’t controlled.

The development of Parsons sick role was seen as being essential to controlling this deviance to make “being ill” a transitional state back to the individuals usual role.

For Talcott Parsons, Physicians demonstrate Parsons the shift to “affect-neutral” relationships in contemporary society, with physician and patient being protected by emotional distance. Medical education and social role expectations teach normative socialization to Occupational therapist to act in the interests of the patient instead of their own material interests, and they are lead by an egalitarian universalism instead of a personalized particularism. Physicians have mastered a body of technical knowledge, it is seen as functional for social order to permit physicians professional autonomy and authority, controlled by their socialization and role expectations.

Weber and Marx, look at how people exist within the world and are concerned with how that existence is shaped. Marx believes that the problems in society come from different social organisations instead of being a natural phenomenon. This is what is meant by people being constrained by circumstances, but it is important to remember the other element that stresses people’s ability to act. Drawing on earlier work of the philosopher Hegel, Marx identified that we create ourselves ‘in a historical process, of which the motive force is human labour or the practical activity of men living in society’ (Bottomore & Rubel 1963, p.18). Marx noted how the division on labour traps us into particular lifestyles or activities and the influence of Marx led to the acknowledgment in occupational therapy that labour is the collective creative activity of the people (Wilcox 1993)

Conclusion

After conducting this pilot study it is clear that my research question is still unanswered but it has provided me with ideas, approaches and clues I may not have foreseen before conducting this study. I feel this may increase the chances of getting clearer findings in my main study and has permitted a thorough check of my planned statistical and analytical procedures, giving me a chance to evaluate their usefulness for the data. I also feel it has greatly reduced the number of unanticipated problems as I now have an opportunity to redesign parts of my study to overcome these difficulties again. Overall, carrying out this smaller scaled study will hopefully lead to a rich and in-dept qualitative research project, and the end result being my research question being answered in great detail.

Industrial revolution and development in the areas of information and communication technology, in Europe especially and in the world as general, had formed a major turning point in all aspects of human life. These changes have affected the family structure and its patterns (Maani, 1990).

Due to the rapid social changes, in light of domestic information and communication revolution within the context of globalization that included all aspects of life, and given the predominance of the individual, scientific interest began to focus on studying the ability of the individuals and the families to face their challenges (Lesthaeghe and surkyn, 1998).

Here appears, at the end of the twentieth century, the question that has faced many researchers in the field of family: Is the family still able to meet the emerging challenges faced while doing its functions? Efforts of researchers had continued to show that the family has become unable to meet these challenges, particularly in the area of upbringing of children. At the beginning, studies started focusing on the ability of families to carry out their functions. In addition to developing theoretical concepts in the field of upbringing, as one of the most important functions of the family (Luthar et al., 2000), these studies started to focus on the ability of the individual to face the challenges and adversities. Poor children were the initial primary subjects of the studies, but then the attention spread to examine the capacity of adolescents and then expanded the issue to the elderly (Johnson and wiechelt, 2004).

Freud and a large number of followers have given a major importance to childhood behavior, considering it the critical determinant in defining an individual’s personality. A personality is identified or proved at the age of five and at the beginning of six, and experiences undergone by the child in those years play a key role in the formation of the personality of an adult human being (Turki, 1988).

There has been an increased attention to the subject of single-parent families due to the importance of the role parent plays in childcare. The living and parenting arrangement of single parents diverse. When parents separate, one party usually parents for the majority of the time but most continue to share parenting to some extent with each other.

As some studies suggest, the subject of separation or divorce comes at the top of the reasons behind the increasing numbers of families with one breadwinner in the modern civil societies. There are some other causes such are wars and natural disasters, in which children are the first victims, which lead to the loss of a breadwinner.

In the case of the State of Kuwait, during the exposure of the Iraqi invasion on the 2nd of August 1990, the war left about one thousand and two hundred single-parent families due to death or prison, in a society that does not exceed a population of 650,000 at the time of abuse (Information Systems Unit – Amiri Diwan -1997).

2.Definition:

What is a single parent?

A single parent (also lone parent and sole parent) is a parent who cares for one or more children without the assistance of another parent in the home. Single parenthood may occur for a variety of reasons. It could be chosen by the parent (as in divorce, adoption, artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood, or extramarital pregnancy), or be the result of an unforeseeable occurrence (such as death or abandonment by one parent). (Paul and Birks, 2006).

3.Rates of high single-parent families in some communities:

While social phenomenon of single-parent families is invincible in any society, the number of these families has been continuously rising. Kareka (1988) reported that the number of single-parent families is increased throughout the world, especially families with childbearing single mothers.

A study by Myrna and Judith (1994) indicated that the number of single-parent families was doubled within the last two decades in the United States, and that approximately 59% of people live within one these families. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of single mothers increased between 1970 and 2000, from 3 million to 10 million; over the same time frame, the number of single fathers increased also, from 393,000 to 2 million.

In the UK, the proportion of families headed by a single parent has topped 25% for the first time, reflecting a huge growth in the number of never-married mothers and a significant rise in the divorce rate over the past 30 years (Jehovah`s witnesses Official web site, 2009)

In Australia, nearly 1 in 4 children live with only one of their biological parents. This is usually the result of a breakdown in the parents’ marriage or relationship. It has been projected that one-parent families will increase between 30% and 66% over a 25-year period (ibid).

4.Research Question:
What are the implications of the rise of single parent families?

Single-parent families suffer from multiple problems including the decline in income and educational level, which consequently lead to economical, social and psychological complications (Essa, 1995). According to Al-Zufairi (2000), children of single-parent families suffer from a decline in the level of educational achievement in 44% of the 180 total samples. This later study has also shown that children who live in an intact family are less likely to abandon school at the high school level when compared to children who live in single-parent family. If fact, it was shown in other studies that children of single-parent families as twice as likely to abandon their school at some level compared to other children (Waite, 1995).

Children from single-parent families are more likely later to take jobs at the bottom of the occupational grade with the lower income, and they have high rate unemployment. Some studies show that children rose in single parent families are more likely to live and grow in insolvent economic conditions. Also that these children not only suffer from deprivation at the economic level, but also suffer from a lack of parental care and high rate of change of address, which could negatively affect their development (Smock et al., 1999). Social science shows that the primary cause of poverty and income disparity correlates to the marriage status. Broken families earn less income, and suffer from low educational attainment. To worsen the situation, such families pass these conditions to their children, which would exuberate these effects through generations (Fagan, 1999).

In 1981, a study by Clay regarding single-parent families, which took place in 47 states in the US and included a sample of 1200 cases, had shown that 62% of parents believe that their children are not perceived as being normal by their teachers in school. Moreover, most single-parent families suffer from the inability to provide proper experienced guidance to their children to face and solve any social or psychological complications (Al-Zufairi, 2000). Additionally, single-mother families can face some issues in the upbringing of male children, especially when some side-factors contribute to a decline in the educational success of children such as the emergence of tensions and conflicts within home, and the inability of the mother to manage the family. Such difficulties can be multiplied due to the presence of some external and internal factors such as the presence of young children, lack of good income, in addition to the negative community standing towards the family (Anthony, 1987).

A single care giver will usually develop a sense of loneliness and tension, especially when he/she needs to make important and decisive decisions to the family or one of its members. Certain conditions can increase the worry about raising the children, and the feeling of guilt due to the inability to meet all family demands. Examples of these conditions are the presence of children with special needs, such as disabilities, mental disorders, permanent physiological conditions, or children who are in critical stages of adolescence or at the age of marriage, or an increased number of children within the family (Al-Rashidi, 1994). Anthony, in 1987, has confirmed such facts in his study about stress and anxiety on 147 children, which estimated the existence of this tension and anxiety to about 65.5% compared to normal children. The Al-Zufairi (2000) also found that the widowed women live in a state guilt toward their children being deprived of the presence the father, and this feeling resulted into maternal care based on pampering treatment and provision, or sometimes the excess of cruel punishment as a reaction to the fear of lose of control.

The general system theory is based on that the system parts are related to each other organically in the sense that means if the change is considered in one part of the system, this change inevitably will affect the interaction between all other parts. This assumption can be applied to whether the system of family or the community as a whole. For the family as a social system, this means that the vulnerability of its personnel to any event will positively or negatively affect the rest of its members, since family members are closely linked to each other. Consequently, the problems faced by the family are also reflected on society, and with the increased number single-parent families, we would expect to find increased number of these problems in the community (Olson and DeFrain 2000).

Due to these facts, an important question arises: Since the family is part of the community, what are the implications upon the society are due to the problems experienced by single-parent families.

Because of these problems, crimes are produced, but what is a crime? The issue of determining what is the crime has received plenty of attention by scientists in various fields, particularly criminal sociology and criminology, which resulted in more than one definition. These definitions can vary in their forms, but not in their core idea. Such differences in interests and approaches by scientists in the definition and interpretation of crime may be related to several factors, most importantly is the multiple dimensions of phenomenon of a crime. Crimes are a discharge of multiple factors, which affect and are affected by different social, cultural and legal aspects ( Salem, 1991).

Different researchers and scientists addressed different concerns related to crime. Some gave care to the systems and institutions combating crimes, while others cared for the individual patterns of the crimes and the offenders. Different group of researchers focused on certain conducts such as the addiction of drugs, commitment of suicide or bribery. Some only looked at accused individuals, while others combined the accused and the convicted together. Recently, some took a direction into the understanding and interpretation of crimes. Some only looked at the criminality of males, others at the females, and some combined the two.

Such differences in interests resulted in variation of the results, differences of interpretations and views, and the branching of the subject. This article will deal with two types of definitions for the crime: the legal definition and the social definitions:

Legal definition:

Almost all bodies of law share the same ground in defining the crime as “any act or omission of the behavior that is criminalized by the legislator, and is stated as a public law that penalize the outlaws” (Faraj, 1993, p.48).

Social definition:

The socialists tend to criticize the legal definition of crime. This criticism is highlighted by: the neglectance of this definition to the social dimensions of crime, as they consider the crime as a social phenomenon, and that criminality is not limited to the legislator, but is also derived from the social reality with what it includes of values and standards (Jafar, 1993). And on this basis, schools of sociology had differences, as well as scholars, in the definition of the crime. These differences have led to the emergence of a number of definitions of crime with social trend. Most known of these is a definition by Sallin, where he says: Crime is a violation of social norms. The fame of this definition comes from being a collection of many of the social considerations since habits, traditions, customs and laws are all social norms (Mizwah, 2000).

5. Relationship between poverty and crime:

One of the Social phenomena that has a strong link with low economical status, and which in turn plays a major role in pushing the individual to exercise the crime is the phenomenon of poverty. Economists often classify poverty as a fundamental economic entry to the interpretation of crime. Poverty connection with crime is not a modern concept. For centuries ago, philosophers and social reformers stressed on that poverty plays an important role in pushing the individuals to the practice of crime. In the past, Socrates said that “Poverty is the father of the revolution and crime.” Recently, Clark stated that the crimes of poor and deprived people are often empowered by the resentment and hatred towards the rich, and the poor may be carried to exercise crime in order to become rich and gain wealth. This means that the inhuman conditions of poverty, as Clark says, are what drive the poor to practice crime (Mizwah, 2000).

Many recent studies try to show that poverty is the basic cause of crime. Of the most recent and highly recognized ones is William Bonger’s study. It adopted and tried to support the idea, through scientific research and study, that the mental state of offenders can be linked to the economic decline on one hand, and to the disintegration of class on the other ( Hasan, 1997).

Ray Jeffery shows the importance of economic factors in the motivation to commit a crime by stating “the main approach to control and prevent a crime has a strong connection to what is known today as the economic analysis of crime. There is also the belief that children of poor families face problems associated with health status, evasion of the school, possibility of drug abuse, theft and others (Hasan, 1981).

In the United States, 50% of children who are sponsored by a single-mother live under the line of poverty, compared to only 1% of children who live in an intact family that live under similar conditions (Craig, 1999). These single-parent families, suffering from a decline in the level of income, are forced to live in poor areas, and it is in those areas where high concentrations of criminals are expected to be found. Edwin Sutherland’s theory of differential mixing sees that: the individuals become offenders through mixing with other members who carry values of crime. In areas of sub-cultures, some environments encourage illegal behavior, while is not encouraged in other environments (Almeharib, 2009).

According Ackerman (1994), the family and through the process of upbringing, is orientating the children towards either a successful and fruitful future, or a vague and failed one. When the family fails to properly raise children, so their future will be marked with numbers of characteristic associated with crime, delinquency, and lack of values, and psychological and emotional deprivation.

Thornberry (1987) had introduced his interactive theory of delinquency. In his theory, he tried to unite multiple other theories to give a comprehensive explanation of delinquency. He designed a dynamic scheme to delinquency, which takes into consideration some factors that have different effects on adolescent behavior during different periods of life. Thornberry suggested three types of delinquency: one is for the early adolescence, a second one for middle adolescence, and a third type for late adolescence.

In Thornberry’s first form, the model highlights three important factors that influence the behavior of adolescents in this stage of life (age 11-13):

First is the parental influence. Parents who have a strong influence on their children, whom are in a constant relation with them, and whom are exercising appropriate parental skills with them are more likely to lead their children to adopt the good values, faith, trust and to practice socially accepted behaviors, as the children are kept away form the delinquent friends and acts. While in the case of single-parent families, and in the absence of the father or the mother, an imbalance of the family is likely to happen, which therefore may reduce the positive impact on children.

Secondly is the faith in values and traditions, which has an impact on behavior, and this impact is more apparent in school through creativity. This factor influences the establishment of relationship between the child and other groups of offenders or criminals. The lack of attachment to school does not directly lead to the formation of the bad values of delinquency, but this will occur indirectly, as the non-attendance at school will bring the individual into a direct contact and association with delinquent environment and behavior. So, the adolescents who are attached to their parents, at regular attendance to school, and believe in values and social norms are less likely to be involved in delinquency than those who do not enjoy the relationship with their parents, do not continue to go to school, and do not have faith in these principles. According to Thornberry, attachment to parents, attendance at school and having faith certain beliefs and values are not permanent and fixed forever. These aspects may continuously interact with each other, and thus may either get weaker or stronger during the process growth of the individual. Thornberry also found that the various constraints could be the cause, when interacted and blended with other causes, to lead to delinquent behaviors.

During middle adolescence, Thornberry’s second form of delinquency concentrates more on the relationship between the child and the parents, which might reach a relatively excessive and overstated degree of the strength. At this point of the life cycle, the middle period of adolescence, a person may take somewhat delinquent acts for the purpose of expansion beyond home. This is usually observed through the involvement in some certain youth activities in school or at the surrounding of the peers. At this stage, the ties between the child and the parents, which were once strong, begins to weaken as the child starts to discover new boundaries and additional attractions.

According to Thornberry, another basic change is in the growing seriousness of the delinquent values, and when the delinquency is at its peak, those values become more pronounced and have a stronger influence than any other variables. Such values promote additional delinquent acts. Furthermore, there are some indicators suggesting that young people, who hold those values, are less likely to be any more connected or attached to their parents, and are less likely to care to study for school.

During late adolescence, Thornberry points to new variables that begin to enter his model. Most important of these variables are: participating at ordinary activities including the jobs, attending collage, or military service. Parallel to the transition to one of these new atmospheres, there is also a similar shift from the original family to a new family that a person starts to establish of his own. Thornberry states that during this stage, circumstances of a person’s life will usually change, and the person will encounter some milestone events. It is also likely that the person will take responsibility of new social roles, and will start to establish new interests and new communication networks.

Finally, Thornberry noted the important role of social classes, as he believes that children who come from a lower social class are less attached to the healthy community, more exposed to the values of delinquent friends, and more prone to practice delinquent behaviors. This is in turn related to the fact that children of weak social background (as is the case of single-parent families) are more likely to have torn-apart families. They are inactive at school, and the environment where they come from influences their traditional beliefs, resulting in the prevalence of high crime rate among this group.

Conclusion:

As it was shown, the world is witnessing a rise in the number of single-parent families, and that there are complications experienced by these families. These complications are parts of other problems that greatly affect the society, which result into an imbalance of its structure and function. It was also demonstrated that crimes are one of the end results that we expect to get as an outcome form these families. With the increasing proportion of these families, would also predict an increasing rate of crimes in the society. This is unless attempts are made to correct these behaviors, and reduce the rate of formation of single-parent families, especially through limiting the rate of divorce.

Results of longitudinal studies on broken families due to divorce, abandonment, desertion, or separation for whatever reason indicate that such homes are more likely to produce delinquency when compared to uni-parent families due by death. Wadsworth suggests that this negative effect is at its peak when children are young. It is likely however that the age at the time of the destruction of the family is irrelevant, since the effect of divorce could probably be a direct cause any way in the creation of delinquencies and crimes.

To the complete contrary, a study by Eisenstadt et al (1989) suggests the exact opposite results; as the deprivation of maternal affection, warmth of family and the surrounding social environment can sometimes translate into bigger ambitions in some individuals, making them more distinct than their peers who were privileged to enjoy living within a normal family. The study also shows that a considerable number of pioneered scientists, engineers, writers and prominent politicians who placed a significant impact in changing the face humanity and the history of relations between cultures, were among those who suffered from family problems focused mostly on the loss of one or both parents. This fact does not advocate for family disintegration as a motive for achievement, but it clearly indicates the existence of hope for the reformers to convert the senses of fear, hesitation, loneliness, introversion, asceticism, hatred and revenge against the society, as a consequence of deprivation, into positive courage that awakens the motivation for becoming overwhelming forces, opening the doors widely for the systematic and methodological interventions to put the appropriate solutions.

In 1981, Atlas reviewed the results of his study on 768 parents and 483 children single parenthood, and he reported that 75% of these families managed to overcome the difficulties as a result of their efforts to cope with their conditions.

Despite the previous discussion, it is clear that the structure of a normal intact family has a positive impact on all components of the welfare of the child, which means greater educational opportunities, and better emotional and physical health.

In short, as stated by McLanahan & Sandefur (1994, p.190) “Children who live with both parents do better, on average, than children who live with only one parent.”

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Majority of Afghanistan’s nationalities profess Islam as their religion. Originally Islam religion regards men more superior than women in every aspect of life. Due to civilization across the world, Islam reformed and some of its doctrines were changes in favor of women. Equality among human beings was included in Islam, regarding men and women equal in various ways. Since then Islam women acquired different rights that allow them to choose marriage partners, inherit, vote and work among other rights. In Afghanistan, women have experienced continued denial of such rights despite acceptance according to Islam doctrines (Mittra and Kunar 267). Fathers, husbands, brothers and government decrees are some of the factors that hinder women from enjoying their human rights in Afghanistan.

Most of these restrictions were rampant during rule of Taliban who forced Afghan women to abandon their decent jobs such as teaching and remain indoors or when outside they ought to be in a man’s escort. Since 2001, a new era began with end of Taliban reign; an improvement was recorded in regard to cultural and political position of women in Afghan. Human rights accepted under Islam law, so far are practiced in various parts of Afghan though in rural and remote areas many population regard women unequal (Zama and Sifton 25). For instance, cases of forced marriages, death threats due education matters and denial of chance to participate or enjoy public life are recordable according to research. Inequality and repressiveness of women in Afghanistan can be further be illustrated by statistics that show 75% of women are forced into marriages, 87% of women are illiterate, 33% of women experience sexual violence or physical assault, in every 30 minutes death occurs in relation to child birth and only 30% of girls access education in Afghanistan.

Literature review

Introduction

Afghanistan remains one of many Islamic regions where women are denied their rights and freedom. Despite acceptance by Islam Laws and governmental regulations and policies to uphold Afghan woman’s rights throughout in Afghanistan, many Islamic men have continued to oppress women. Most of women’s rights have been upheld following intense campaigns by human rights activities from Afghan and other parts of the world (Thomsen 227). Also government efforts have helped in promoting equality by criminalizing oppression of women despite their originality and religion. Most of these changes are focused on matters that concern education, marriage and public life. In literature review section of this research, rights of Afghan’s woman in regard to freedom of live, dressing, education, marriage and expression will be discussed. Recommendations and conclusion will follow this discussion as part of this research work.

Communication freedom

Currently, Afghanistan is undergoing reconstruction after many years of war and reign of Taliban. During 1995-2001, Afghan remained under dictatorial leadership by Taliban who encouraged oppression of women and girls through out Afghan. Taliban’s brutality was to extent of denying women a chance to communicate with other women apart from family members. In most cases, women remained locked in their houses with small dark windows hence disallowing public intermingling. According to research, an Afghan woman could only walk to public with a company of a male counterpart who was supposed to be of the family (OsmaA„czyk and Mango 2708). These men act as a barrier to communication and information flow among women and men in public. Information could only be acquired from husbands, brothers and fathers who also were women oppressors according to Taliban’s regulations. Harsh circumstances under which afghan women lived in were not conducive for effective communication. Women associations that encourage information sharing in regard to social affairs are not allowed in most parts of Afghanistan. Information flow from one Woman to another is difficult in such situations hence hindering effective communication. As much as right of expression is among rights upheld by Afghan government, many women are denied such rights by men close in their lives.

Woman’s opinion is regarded inferior and a chance to speak out is not availed to many women willing to do so. Rising of voices is made difficult due to widespread of discrimination against female gender in other major areas that contribute towards information flow. Lack of education for girl-child is a major hindrance to free flow of information. Many Afghan women can only converse in their vernacular languages due to illiteracy (Mittra and Kunar 143). Lack of access to education continues to pin many women down in decision making even those concerning their own plight. Lack of ideas coupled with fear is a key factor that makes Afghan women lag behind in raising their voices beyond their homestead.

Freedom of communication by women is also prevented their lack of voting freedom. Many women are hindered fro acquiring voting cards to prevent them from taking part in political decisions. Instances of murder of electoral commissioners who tried to register women for voting processes show how far brutalism and discrimination against women has extended in Afghanistan (Thomsen 270). Such situations block women’s effort to communicate their views in regard to type of governance they want. Similarly, women candidates can not be enrolled easily for similar positions to those held by men due to repression in association to voting rights. Women representatives in other parts of the world represent other women opinions therefore ensuring plight of female gender is communicated to authorities. In Afghan such chances are not provided hence continued lack of communication freedom.

Additionally, lack of media freedom is another obstacle that contributes to communication problems in Afghanistan. Widespread violence coupled with political wrangles in Afghanistan prevents media efforts in steering women in fighting for their rights by speaking out loud. For instance, many journalists have been killed including and others such as Kambakhsh imprisoned for exercising their expression rights (Afkhami 179). Such situations leave women threatened and in fear of going against their male counterparts hence remain silent and oppressed. A country without freedom of expression by non-Taliban has efforts by women to communicate their views to governing bodies. Such strictness by rulers and men in the society has hindered efforts for free communication among women and men.

This situation is changing as women with the support of their men, actively create awareness in regard to human equality across Afghanistan. Formation of RAWA in 1977 was an effort to eradicate violence against women and air their voices to the world. RAWA is an organization established by women and its goal is to promote Afghan women rights (Silkenat and Shulman 64). The organization major objective is to create awareness throughout Afghanistan concerning plight of girl-child and women. It also aims at reaching as many women as possible by communicating benefits of treating women with equality. Organization airs women’s voices through conferences, public campaigns, internet and demonstrations. RAWA efforts have been realized over the years though right of expression by Afghan women is yet to be gained fully.

Freedom of women and girls lives

Since the seizure of power by the Taliban in Afghanistan, over 9 million women and girls have been denied basic human rights. This government has imposed laws against women citing religious purity while in the real sense it is persecution against women. For instance, Afghan women are not allowed to either go to school or work away from home a move which has led to closure of several schools owing to shortage of teaching staff as prior to the invasion of the Taliban about 70% of the teaching fraternity comprised of women (Afkhami 201). Devastating effects have been advanced towards widowed women who were the only source of livelihood for their families. In case women and girls want to leave their homes, then they must be escorted by a male relative. A whole body covering known as burqa must be worn. Instances of killings and beatings of the women have been witnessed due to failure of the women to be fully covered or escorted. Specific aspects of life on which Afghan women are oppressed and to be discussed under this heading include education, marriage and dressing

Education

A large percentage of women in Afghanistan are illiterate due to banning of schooling for all women and successive wars in the nation had completely paralyzed the Education system. During the reign of the Taliban, community schools were opened and ran by women where girls were taught literacy skills, numeracy skills and such like subjects as Biology, English, cooking, and knitting (Zama and Sifton 27). Unfortunately instances of torture and killings of women teachers by the Taliban were witnessed. After the overthrow of the Taliban administration, substantial aid was advanced to the Karzai administration in order to restore the girl-child education. Lack of funding poses major setbacks to girl-child education with many girls opting to drop out as the facilities are not conducive. For instance, the learning facilities under unprotected structures like tents.

Lack of women teachers’ means that majority of the girls do not attend school as their parents fail to place the care of the girls under men teachers. Since most of the girls schools were destroyed during the Taliban administration, girls and boys learn in the same facilities: a move which has caused massive criticism especially from high ranking government officials (Thomsen 184). This largely translates to discrimination and lack of freedom. Several Afghanistan women have consistently risked their lives by running clandestine schools for the women population. From 2001, Education facilities have recorded increased numbers of female students though persistent attacks by the Taliban as well as other forces present in the area continue to demean the progress achieved in the female Education sector. Cases girls dropping from schools before completing primary level education have been witnessed due to early marriages and family obligations

Dressing

The Afghanistan women have continually suffered turmoil especially in the type of dressing they are supposed to constantly wear. A specialty made traditional garment known as “the Burqa” which covers the whole body with a small grind for seeing and breathing must be worn by the women. The Burqa is extremely uncomfortable especially during hot weather (Silkenat and Shulman 58). The excessive covering may instigate illnesses such as asthma due to the discomfort of the dress as dust sticks thus enhancing dampness during breathing. The visibility of the wearer is largely limited as the size of the mesh opening does not provide adequate perceptibility. Afghanistan women claim that when they are wearing the burqa, total invisibility is exuded. It is impossible to know the kind of emotion displayed by a woman during normal conversation.

Marriage

In this patriarchal society, decisions are largely made by men fraternity. Women do not have the freedom to choose their marriage partners. Arranged marriages are largely advanced in this country based on economic and political reasons. Instances of girls being engaged before they are born are widespread (Zama and Sifton 54). The authority of who should marry a girl lies with the father who can opt to wed his daughter to a person who may be very old but rich. In areas badly hit by poverty, girls are sold off or exchanged for meals. Women are treated as properties as once the marriage contract is signed the girl cannot marry another man. In case she dies a suitable replacement must be offered. Violent cases have resulted when multiple betrothing is done so as to collect dowry from several men. Dowry payment is regarded as compensation for the care and upbringing of the bride. A married Afghanistan woman is controlled by the mother-in-law who makes such critical decisions on her behalf as whether to attend hospital or not and the activities to undertake (Thomsen 130). Women do not receive custody of children in case of a divorce. Though obtaining a divorce is largely difficult for women who are in abusive marriages, the divorced Afghanistan women are regarded as outcasts especially due to the Islamic beliefs and traditions.

Recommendations

Afghan women should fight for a chance to speak out and join others international women who are fighting against women oppression. By communicating their views to their spouses, brothers and the public will be a major start step towards their social life improvement. Freedom of expression is known as an effective tool for resistance against practices that oppress women. Lack of such freedom, means Afghan women may continue to tolerate discrimination by men under religious grounds which are used for personal political benefit. Social oppression can be overcome through speaking out in any context cultural, political or religious. Granting of women rights in education, employment , leadership and other roles in public life come as a primarily result of women expression against discrimination. Opening of communication channels in Afghanistan is a basic step in eliminating injustices that surround lives of many women and girls.

Of importance is the right to vote, that has been used by many countries in defining future of women in those countries. I recommend Afghan women to retain and utilize their rights to vote intelligently as it is part of decision making. Through voting women elect leaders in support of their rights therefore acquiring access to equal opportunities similar to those awarded to men. Continued efforts by women by speaking out, eventually leads to liberation of girls and women from oppressive societal rules. Again, society starts to appreciate need to uphold plight of women and girls hence creating a balanced society that pays attention to both genders.

International community should offer greater support to women organizations working with minority women at the grass roots. Awareness creations through educational programs are essential effort towards liberation of Afghan women from social, cultural, religious and political injustices in Afghanistan. International support through funding and enlightenment of few educated afghan women should be upheld as away of developing strong women leaders in Afghanistan.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Afghanistan is a region known for oppression of women and girls in various aspects of life. Existence of connection between Islam and governance of Afghans facilitates dehumanization among Afghan women. Most life rights and expression freedom are denied to female gender despite acceptance by Islam doctrines. Afghan constitutional rights are not upheld due lack of commitment by authorities concerned and political instabilities hence impacting on women by denying them their legal and human rights. International intervention has calmed Afghanistan human situation but majority of Afghan women and girls remain discriminated and repressed.

Work-cited

Afkhami, Mahnaz. Faith and freedom: women’s human rights in the Muslim world. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995.

Mittra, Sangh and Kunar, Bachchan. Encyclopaedia of Women in South Asia: Afghanistan. New Delhi, India: Gyan Publishing House, 2004

OsmaA„czyk, Edmund and Mango, Anthony. Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: T to Z. London, UK: Taylor & Francis Press, 2003

Silkenat, James and Shulman, Mark. The imperial presidency and the consequences of 9/11: lawyers react to the global war on terrorism. Westport, U.S.A: Greenwood Publishing Group. 2007

Thomsen, Natasha. Women’s rights. New York. U.S.A: Facts On File publisher, 2007

Zama, Coursen-Neff and Sifton, John. We want to live as humans”: repression of women and girls in western Afghanistan. Washington, D.C: Human Rights Watch, 2002

The aims of this paper are evaluate the research approaches adopted and methodology used in assigned research reports. Moreover, reflect and point out the strengths and weaknesses of reports.

Social research is a scientific study of society and it purposes are exploring, describing or explaining the social phenomena. Thus, there are major methodological approaches which are quantitative approach and qualitative approach.

Firstly, according to Alan Bryman (2008), the quantitative research can be construed as a research strategy which emphasis the quantification in collection and analysis data and involves a deductive approach to the relationship between theory and research which the accent is placed on the theories testing. Moreover, it has incorporated the practices and norms of the natural scientific model and of positivism in particular and there is an external, objective, social reality (or entity).Objective reality exists beyond the human mind (researcher).

Secondly, qualitative research can be construed as a research strategy which emphasis in the words in collection and analysis data and involves an inductive approach to the relationship between the theory and the research which emphasis is placed the generation of theories. Thus, it has rejected the practice and norms of the natural scientific model and emphasis on individuals interpret the social world. There is no absolute external, objective, social reality (or entity) which is constituted by how the human mind (researcher) perceives, thinks, interprets or experiences about it.

Furthermore, the most common methodologies within the social research include experiments, survey, in-depth Interview, participant observation

Part 1
Youth-this research aims to investigate the factors conductive to the success of young people growing up in low-income families and exam the factors that help them to their lives from failure, poverty and social exclusion. It also identifies a range of indicators and necessary conditions for the positive development of them. Thus, evaluate the way which the functions of service participation, friendship networks and various family factors support them in different areas.
Youth-the research focus on the effects of service participation, friendship networks, and family support on developmental outcomes in a study of young people from low-income families in Hong Kong. In this research, there are three research hypotheses as follow, firstly, a young person who has received vocational training, services provided by social workers or other helping professionals will have greater opportunity for positive development despite his/her deprived family background. Secondly, a young person who has better friendship networks will have a greater opportunity for positive development despite his/her deprived family. Lastly, a young person with better family support will have a greater opportunity for positive development despite his/her deprived family background.
Youth-In this research report, it used the survey research. According to Earl Babbie (2008), the survey research is the popular social research method which is the administration of questionnaires to a sample of respondents selected from some population and it is appropriate for making descriptive studies of larger population. Thus, the questionnaires can be administered through the self-administered questionnaires, face-to-face interviews or telephone surveys. For this report, the research used the quantitative survey of 405 young people recruited from the schools and integrated youth service centres in Hong Kong. Furthermore, as the researcher investigates the factors based on the youth development indicators which are according to the scholars, therefore, this research study used the deductive analysis which is a form of reasoning in conclusions are formulated about particulars from general or universal premises.
Youth-In this report, researcher used the survey as the tool in social research. According to Babbie (2008), the survey includes a question which is either open-ended or close-ended and employs an oral or written method for asking these questions. The goal of a survey is to gain information from the selected group and the result is used to investigate the social phenomena. Thus, in this report, a quantitative survey of 405 young people from the low-income families was conducted to explore the factors relevant to their development and success. Also, the respondents were between 17 to 21 years old -the critical age range from teenage transit to young adulthood. Therefore, the result can investigate the factors conductive to the success of young people growing up in low-income families and exam the factors that help them to their lives from failure, poverty and social exclusion
Youth-In the findings of research report, over a half of the respondents were female, their average age is 18.33 years and around 55% are completed senior secondary education and 36% has matriculation qualification. Also, most of the respondents are students at the time of the data collection. For the family background of respondents, most of their parents are low educated and employed, living in public housing and low-income. Thus, the result showed that receipt of social work service has positive effects on academic achievement, work performance and mental health. In Addition, the data demonstrated that the size of friendship networks had a significant positive impact on work performance and showed that having more friends with better educational achievement, high employee status and positive social experience contributed to pro-social behaviour. Finally, it evaluated the prediction of youth development resulting from various factor that parents’ material status had significant positive effect on respond
ents’ financial adequacy and their social behaviour.
Part 2

Youth-In this report, it is used the quantitative approach as the research methodology and used the survey as the tool in the research. As the researcher set the quantitative survey and hypothesis for given topic, the answer of respondents should be present in numerical. Therefore, in quantitative approach, the data collection is easier to summaries, analysis and measurable because the answer for respondent converting to numerical format. However, there is some weakness of quantitative approach. Firstly, since the respondents recruited from the school and integrated youth centers, some of the youth may not be counter as the respondents (e.g. Hikikomori).it implies that the survey research represents the least minimally appropriate to all respondent and it is often appear superficial in coverage of complex topic. Secondly, the validity of quantitative research is heavily rely on the sampling because most of the quantitative research used survey as the tool, in this report, researcher only recruited 405 youth people as the respondents for investigate the factors conductive to the success of young people growing up in low-income families and exam the factors that help them to their lives from failure, poverty and social exclusion, compare to the large population of the youth group, the result cannot be representing for the group. Moreover, the quantitative research is inflexibility caused the study design is standardized, it would be unaware the new variable’s importance. As the researcher focus the study on testing the hypothesis and indicate the several factor, the research should be neglect the other factors which related to the positive development of the youth.

Part 3

Youth-The study just mentioned the respondents are recruited from 13 secondary school and 18 integrated school located in different districts, however, It has blurred to explain the method for sampling the agency for data collection. Moreover, the definition of the factors of service participation and social capital are undefined. For example, there is no illustration of the positive social experiences in the friendship network, the term seems to be obscure .Also, since the research has targeted the respondents between 17-21 years old which is the critical age range in the transitioj to young adulthood,and the time that is chart

Reference
Babbie, Earl R. (2007), The practice of social research, 11th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth
Crotty Michael (1998), The foundations of social research: meaning and perspective in research process, London: Sage Publications
Bryman Alan (2008), Social research methods, New York: Oxford University Inc

The relationships between individualism (I), nationalism (N), ethnocentrism (E) and authoritarianism (A) have been discussed amongst others in the political, philosophical and sociological literature. However, empirical analyses of their interdependencies are still scarce. That is why the main purpose of this thesis is to analyse empirically these interdependencies on the basis of the General Election Study for Belgium in 1991, 1995 and 1999.

Chapter 2 provides essential background information on Belgium, the country to which the case study relates. Belgium became an independent country in 1830. It is located in the mid-western part of the European continent; it consists of the three federal regions: Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels. The reforms of the 1970s and afterwards gradually transformed Belgium into a federal state, giving the majority of essential governmental powers to the three regions.

Each region is divided into provinces which in their turn are divided into municipalities. In Flanders, most of the people (known as Flemish) speak Dutch; in Wallonia, most of the people (known as Walloons) speak French. In Brussels, both French and Dutch are official languages. Along the eastern border, German is the official language of a small minority. There are also three cultural communities: the Flemish, the French and the German-speaking community. The communities have powers in areas where public services are highly dependent on language use, such as education, health and culture. The communities and regions each have their own Parliaments and their own Governments. Each region has a great deal of autonomy but frictions about language, ethnicity, and national identity between Flemings and Walloons continues to the present day, especially in the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde region.

The voting right in Belgium is a “one man, one vote” system: every Belgian national, male or female, who has reached the age of 18 has the right, and is obliged to cast one vote (unless this right has been suspended or the individual is ineligible) in the elections at the six different levels.

Today, there basically are no longer national parties in Belgium, except for some small unionist parties. All parties are homogeneous Flemish or Francophone and are present either in the Flemish or in the French-speaking constituencies, or else in the undivided bilingual electoral district of Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde. The Belgian multi-party system usually leads to a coalition government.

In a cross-sectional study, Billiet (1995) found a relationship between individualism and ethnocentrism among Flemish Roman Catholics while Meloen (1996) empirically addressed the issues of authoritarianism and modern political racism in a survey of 900 Flemish high school students. In a sample of adults, also administered in Flanders, Van Hiel and Mervielde (2005) found that right wing authoritarianism was positively related to prejudice. In a longitudinal study Billiet et al. (2005) found a moderate and rather constant across time correlation between nationalism and ethnocentrismin in Flanders. The author did not address the question whether nationalism leads to ethnocentrism, ethnocentrism to nationalism, or both effects operate simultaneously in a reciprocal causal relationship.

The background and rationale of the above studies was the voting behavior in Flanders, particularly the support for the extreme right-wing party Vlaams Blok (Fraeys, 2004). Nationalism, authoritarianism, and political protests are all supposed to play an important role in the support for the Vlaams Blok. The main problem in the ideology of the Vlaams Blok is the choice for an ethnic national state, where the ‘state’ is understood as an ‘ethnic community which is biologically determined’ (De Witte & Klandermans, 2000). The Vlaams Blok has been convicted for racism by a Belgian court in 2004.

The present study is inspired by, and extends, the research on the development of political ideologies in Flanders. Particularly, it presents longitudinal analyses of the relationships between individualism, ethnocentrism, nationalism and authoritarianism.

Chapter 3 presents the conceptual model of interdependencies between the four key concepts of individualism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, and authoritarianism on the basis of a literature review. I define the notions of individualism, ethnocentrsim, nationalism and authoritarianism as follows:

Individualism: the pursuit of personal happiness. According to this political ideology the core task of a community or state is to foster the rights, and improve the development, of individuals and to assure their freedom. Community and state are seen as devices to individuals to achieve those objectives. The community exists for the sake of its individual members. Individualism implies that the government should not unduly intervene in individuals’ lives. Instead, it should guarantee that individuals do not harm each others’ interests.

Ethnocentrism: a belief in the superiority of one’s own group and a corresponding disdain for other groups. Ethnocentrism implies a strong distinction between “ingroups” (groups with which the individual identifies him or herself), and “outgroups” (typically minority groups, toward which he or she has no sense of belonging or which are perceived as antithetical to the ingroup).

Nationalism: an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. As an ideology, nationalism holds that ‘the people’ are the nation, and, that as a result, only nation-states founded on the principle of national self-determination are legitimate. In many cases nationalist pursuit of self-determination has caused conflict between people and states including war (both external and domestic), secession; and in extreme cases, genocide.

Authoritarianism: a political philosophy that negates democracy and an ideology that accepts a political system that is not based on the consent of the governed but on the will of the rulers. Moreover, it accepts a monopoly of power, and discussion and voting are replaced by the decisions of leaders.

The postulated relationships among the above concepts are depicted in Figure 7.1. Specifically, the hypotheses are:

Individualism has a negative effect on authoritarianism.

Authoritarianism has a positive effect on ethnocentrism.

Nationalism has a positive effect on authoritarianism.

Individualism has a negative impact on nationalism.

Ethnocentrism has a positive impact on nationalism.

Figure 7.1. The postulated recursive structure between latent state variables

7.3 Methodology and data set

In this section, I explain why I have used continuous time modeling (CT) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to estimate the parameters of the CT model. At the end of the section I describe the data set.

Most studies of the interdependencies among individualism, nationalism, ethnocentrism and authoritarianism (or of a subset of these variables) are cross-sectional, e.g. Billiet et al (2005), Fraeys (2004), Spruyt (1995) and Billiet (1995). However, cross-sectional research has a disadvantage in that there is no control over the autoregression effects and the directions of cross-effects between the variables are difficult to assess. Longitudinal research based on repeated measurements of the same variables at different points in time make it possible to reduce or overcome these problems.

The arguments for continuous time modeling have been summarized by amongst others Bergstrom (1988). The rationale of continuous time modeling is that a social or political system does not only function at quarterly or annual observation points in time, but also during intermediate intervals. Hence, the model should also relate to the intermediate intervals. Gandolfo (1993) added that the results of a model should not depend on the length of the observation interval and must remain the same when the interval is doubled or halved. If the results should not depend on the period length, he concluded, they should remain valid when this length tends to zero (that is, when one switches over from discrete to continuous time analysis). According to Oud (2007), the most compelling reason for analyzing cross-effects in continuous time is that equal effects found in discrete time do not guarantee at all that the underlying continuous time effects are equal. Particularly, equality at a single point in time may be consistent with quite different cross-lagged effect functions across time. For example, the cross-lagged effect functions of a pair of reciprocal effects, say indivdualism on ethnocentrism and vice versa, although having equal values at one specific point in time, may have quite different forms and maxima across time.

Continuous time models are estimated on the basis of observations in discrete time (in this study the General Election Studies in 1991,1995 and 1999). Estimation requires a tool that links the discrete observations to the continuous time model. One possible tool is the approximate discrete model (ADM). An advantage of the ADM is that it utilizes only simple linear restrictions to approximate the differential equation model and allows estimation by means less nonlinearly oriented SEM programs like LISREL.

An alternative to the ADM is the Exact Discrete Model (EDM). The EDM links in an exact way the discrete time model parameters to the underlying continuous time model parameters by means of nonlinear restrictions (Bergstrom, 1988),. Oud and Jansen (2000) showed how the nonlinear SEM program Mx (Neale, et al., 1999) can be employed for maximum likelihood estimation of the continuous time state space model parameters. Oud and Jansen (2000) also generalized the EDM to cover not only time-invariant parameters, but also the parameters that vary continuously over time according to a general polynomial scheme.

The data set in this thesis is obtained from the General Election Study for Belgium in 1991, 1995 and 1999. The data set contains two types of respondents, Flemish respondents and Dutch speaking respondents of the Brussels-Capital Region. The sample was selected as a two stage sample with equal probabilities of the secondary units. The total sample size avaiable for all three waves is 1274. The geographical distribution of the respondents is given in Table 7.1.

Table 7.1 Geographical distribution of panel respondents in Flanders and Brussels

interviewed in 1991, 1995 and 1999

Province
Respondents

Antwerp

331

Flemish Brabant

187

Limburg

187

East Flanders

311

West Flanders

223

Brussels

35

Total

1274

(Source: Interuniversitair Steunpunt Politieke-Opinieonderzoek K.U. Leuven, General Election Study 1991, 1995 and 1999)

7.4 The main empirical results

The first empirical chapter 4 Measuring authoritarianism with different sets of items in a longitudinal study deals with measurement of authoritarianism. As defined in chapter 3, authoritarianism is a form of social behavior characterized by strict obedience to the authority of a state or organization and adherence to enforcing and maintaining control through the use of oppressive measures. It refers to a complex of nine sub-syndromes (Adorno et al., 1950), of which conventionalism (strict adherence to conventional values), aggression and submission are the most important (Meloen, 1991).

The sets of items in the data set at the three time points (1991, 1995 and 1999) were not the same. In total 12 different items were used over the three waves. The purpose of chapter 4 was the identification of the items that consistently and adequately measure authoritarianism over time. The items 1 and 2 are the core items and were used in all threee waves (1991 C 1995 C 1999). These items are: “Obedience and respect for authority are the two most important virtues children have to learn”, and “Most of our social problems could be solved, if we could somehow get rid of the immoral, crooked people”. Items 3-6 and item 9 were used only twice (in 1991 C 1995 and in 1995 C 1999, respectively); the remaining five items only once (in 1991 or 1999).

I applied the congeneric measurement model by Joreskog (1971, 1974). Congenericness between items means that their underlying latent variables have a correlation coefficient approximately equal to 1 and thus can be considered to measure the same underlying phenomenon. I found that Joreskog’s model performed well. The main empirical result was that the core items measure authoritarianism well in all three waves

The second empirical chapter 5 is Assessing the relationships between nationalism, ethnocentrism, and individualism in Flanders using Bergstrom’s approximate discrete model. The reciprocal relationships between the three concepts individualism nationalism, and ethnocentrism was analyzed by a cross-lagged panel model. I hypothesized strong autoregressions for individualism, nationalism and ethnocentrism and, on the basis of the theoretical considerations in Billiet (1995) and Billiet et al. (2005) and the conceptual model presented above, the following causal cross-lagged structure:

A negative impact of individualism and a positive impact of nationalism on ethnocentrism

A negative impact of individualism on nationalism.

The recursive cross-lagged structure is summarized in Figure 7.2.

Figure 7.2 The recursive cross-lagged structure among individualism, nationalism and ethnocentrism

As a starting point I did not hypothesize reciprocal cross-lagged effects between the variables.

Individualism was measured by five items with 5-point-scales; ethnocentrism by eight items with 5-point-scales, and the third latent variable, nationalism, was measured by four items in a somewhat more complicated fashion.

Estimation was done by means of the LISREL program by estimating the approximate discrete model (ADM), from which the exact discrete model (EDM) was derived and used in subsequent computations. For the measurement model, all loadings turned out to be highly significant, indicating that every item contributes to the latent variable. Moreover, the reliabilities as measured by R2 ranged from 0.230 to 0.670.

The autoregressive effects for all three variables turned out to be rather strong, as hypothesized.

Regarding cross-effects, there are substantial differences between Figures 7.2 and 7.3, particularly:

The hypothesized negative relationships from individualism on nationalism and ethnocemtrism turned out to be positive. A possible explanation is that by changes in society individualism got a less liberal character and developed into a more nationalistic and ethnocentric direction.

There is a reciprocal relationship between individualism and ethnocentrism whereas we hypothesized a unidirectional relationship from individualism to ethnocentrism. A possible explanation is that the growing ethnocentrism in the society of Flanders stimulated the less liberal kind of individualism mentioned above.

Figure 7.3 The estimated relationships between individualism, ethnocentrism, and nationalism

Furthermore, both individualism and ethnocentrism have small effects on nationalism. Nationalism was found to be dependent only with no significant effect on the two other latent variables.

Standardized cross-lagged effect functions (unit-impulse responses) revealed the maximum impact of individualism on ethnocentrism (0.235) to occur after 17 years and the effect in the opposite direction (0.190) after 16.4 years. The smaller maximum impacts of individualism on nationalism (0.105) and ethnocentrism (0.099) are expected to occur later, after 22 and 23.2 years, respectively.

Chapter 6 The relationships between individualism, nationalism,

ethnocentrism, and authoritarianism in Flanders by means of

the continuous time EDM/SEM model extends the analysis presented in Chapter 5 to all four key variables presented in the conceptual model. The EDM/SEM is estimated by the Mx program with all four concepts handled as latent state variables that influence each other continuously across time. Although nationalism, ethnocentrism, individualism, and authoritarianism in Flanders have been the subject of several studies before, a longitudinal analysis has not been performed on all four concepts simultaneously nor have their relationships and the direction of their relationships been studied in continuous time.

Figure 7.4 The hypothesized relationships between individualism, nationalism, ethocentrism and authoritarianism

The basic hypotheses in Figure 7.4 are:

Individualism has a negative effect on authoritarianism.

Authoritarianism has a positive effect on ethnocentrism.

Nationalism has a positive effect on authoritarianism.

One important result of the chapter is that the SEM model is identified with three time points.

The estimated measurement model showed that the latent variables are well measured. The structural model is presented in Figure 7.5:

I

Individualism

A

Authoritarianism

0,0319

(0,0065)

0,0357

(0,0093)

0,0386

(0,0062)

E

Ethnocentrism

N

Nationalism

Figure 7.5 The estimated relationships between nationalism, individualism, ethnocentrism and authoritarianism

As in chapter 5, we find substantial differences the hypothesized model (7.4) and the empirical findings (7.5). Particularly:

Nationalism is an “isolated” variable in that it neither has an impact on any of the other variables in the model nor is impacted by any of them. This is a consequence of the introduction in the model of the fourth concept authoritarianism. Apparently, authoritarianism is the the key variable in the model. It impacts on individualism and ethnocentrism and, in its turn, is impacted by ethnocentrism. In the present-day Flemish context, the traditional notions of nationalism, individualism, ethnocentrism and authoritarianism and their relationships do no longer apply. Tradtional nationalism does not fit into this model any longer

In the conceptual model we specified a relationship from authoritarianism to

ethnocentrism. The empirical results confirm this relationship but also reveal an even stronger relationship from

ethnocentrism to authoritarianism. Apparently, ethnocentrism is the key driver in the model .

7.5 Reflections on the methodology and the implications of the empirical results

The empirical analysis has dealt with four latent variables, each measured by different sets of indicators. For one variable, authoritarianism, I used Joreskog’s (1971, 1974) congeneric model to identify the indicators that measure this variable consistently over time. I found that this model performs well to test whether or not different items used in a longitudinal analysis can be used to measure the same underlying latent variable.

The next important methodological result is that continuous time modeling is appropriate to analyze the development of the interdependencies among individualism, ethnocentrism, nationalism and authoritarianism over time. Continuous time makes it possible to fill the gaps between the discrete time points and evaluates the auto-effects and cross-effects of the variables for intermediate time intervals. It thus allows comparing effects for unequal time intervals between waves, obtained in the same study or in different studies. The reason is that the autoregressions as well as the cross-effects do not depend on the time interval used . In particular, in a stable model autoregression goes down for an increasing time interval, while cross-effects first increase and next go down (Oud, 2002).

A third methodological finding is that a model with four latent variables observed at three points in time is identified.

A fourth major methodological finding relates to the performance of structural equation modeling (SEM). A SEM is made up of two submodels: a measurement model where the relations between the observed and the latent variables are specified and estimated; and a structural model that presents the relationships among the latent variables. In SEM, we can use cross-sectional and longitudinal data. The present study has shown the advantages of SEM in longitudinal analysis, particularly adequate estimation of autoregressions and of cross-lagged effects controlling for autoregressions.

The main result as regards content is that we have gained more insight into the relationships among individualism, ethnocentrism, nationalism and authoritarianism. Particularly:

Compared to Billiet (1995), a major achievement of this thesis is the finding of a reciprocal relationship between the authoritarianism and ethnocentrism and not just a one-way relationship. This is due to the fact that we used a longitudinal analysis while Billiet only used a cross-sectional analysis..

Regarding the relationship between individualism and authoritarianism, in this study we found a positive impact from authoritarianism to individualism instead of a negative effect from individualism to authoritarianism, as hypothesized on the basis of theory. In line with Billiet, et al (1996), we observe that the traditional hypothesis of a negative effect from individualism to authoritarianism does not fit anymore the present Flanders situation where many guestworkers are seen as a threat to the lower class and the bad economic situation in Wallonia is considered a threat for the people in Flanders who are worried that a substantial amount of social security goes to Wallonia. These developments have created a kind of individualistic selfishness which is not captured by the traditional theory of individualism. In this regard it would be interesting to analyze the relationship between individualism and authoritarianism by social class, as the perceptions of the future of social security may differ by social class.

Regarding the relationship between authoritarianism and ethnocentrism, we did not expect a reciprocal relationship. Our original hypothesis is confirmed but there is also another relationship: from ethnocentrism to authoritarianism. In the original grand theory by Adorno, et al (1950), there was the hypothesis that authoritarianism as character structure was the “mother” of many attitude configurations as for example anti-jewishm, ethnocentrism, conservative thingking about the economy and labour relation. In present-day Flandres it is ethnocentrism that drives, and in its turn is driven by authoritarianism.

Regarding nationalism and authoritarianism, the empirical results showed no

relationship between both variables while we postulated that nationalism has a positive effect on authoritarianism. Apparently, the notions of nationalism and authoritarianism are less closely linked in present-day Flandres than hypothesized in traditional theory.

The following policy recommendations can be derived from the empirical results:

The results can be used in educational and information programs. Specifically, when adressing the issue of ethnocentrism it is important to consider the entire complex of relationships in which it is embedded rather than considering it in isolation. So if a program aimed at the reduction ethnocentrism is entertained, individualism (in the sense of egocentrism) and authoritarianism need to be considered as well.

The positive relationship between individualism and ethnocentrism found in chapter 5 should be taken into account in the context of privatization programs which have taken place in Europe and elsewhere. Privatization and the accompanying philosophy of individualism may undermine the sense of Gemeinschaft which may lead to ethnocentrism and ultimately to racism. Of course, further research on this issue is needed

In the context of unemployment policies and reform of social security the wider political impacts on ethnocentrism and authoritarianism should be taken into account. For instance, a reduction of unemployment may go together with less ethnocentrism.

7.6 Some suggestions for further research

In this study I used maximum likelihood (ML) to estimate the parameters. However, because some degree of nonnormality was found in the data, instead of ML alternative estimators like weighted least squares (WLS) or diagonally weighted least squares (DWLS) procedures should be tested.

In this study I have applied the ADM/SEM and EDM/SEM procedures. However, there are two alternatives to solve the continuous time estimation problem. One alternative is the linear stochastic differential equation approach (LSDE) (Singer, 1991) The LSDE approach involves repeated calculation of the latent state vector for all subjects whereas in the EDM-Mx procedure, the latent state vector is derived on the basis of the loglikelihood function. It seems worthwhile to compare these different approachs in terms of estimation results. Another alternative is the multivariate latent differential equation (MLDE) (Boker et al.,2004). The degree of similarity between ADM/SEM and MLDE is dependent on the actual time interval between measurements. An interesting question is how similar the results are for intervals as in the present study.

Extension of the four variables model to include racism. As described above, ethnocentrism is a very broad variable and in the extreme it goes to racism. By extending the model the similarities and differences between ethnocentrism and ethnocentrism can be identified as well as their relationships to the other variables in the model.

This study is based on three waves. When new waves become available, it is worthwhile expanding the analysis by adding the new observations (e.g for the years 2004 and 2009). If we have more time point, then the precision of the analysis can be increased.

Reconsideration of the notions of individualism, nationalism, ethnocentrism and authoritarianism and their dependencies in the light of the empirical findings for Flanders. In this context it is also important to consider disaggregation of the analysis by social class. It could be that the relationships between variables are different for different classes and, moreover, that they vary over time.

Social class is one of the oldest and most persistent inequalities in British society. In the past, people were very aware of their social class and their expected roles and responsibilities. People would have worn different clothes, behaved in different ways and had a very different culture from each other and they would have accepted this as a perfectly normal element of behaviour.

We are still aware today of some of the cultural differences between the social classes so that rich people and poorer people have different accents, are educated differently and wear different styles of clothes from each other. These cultural differences that separate the classes are known as indicators of class. In the past, many people also believed that people of the highest social classes were better than other people and should be respected because of their social position. This idea is known as deference.

People nowadays are less willing to admit that social class is important. Poorer people may imitate the styles and behaviour of wealthy people by buying copies of their expensive clothes in cheaper shops or buying replicas and fakes. However, rich people often copy the ‘street style’ of the working class people and their fashions.

The differences between the classes seem to be blurred to such an extent that many people would not define their social class in the same way that sociologists might. Sociologists mostly believe that despite the way that people reject the idea of social classes, it is still important in our society. We are just less aware of it than people were in the past. It affects our life chances and our life styles, with high earning people enjoying a superior standard of living and better life chances than those from more deprived backgrounds.

Subjective class can be measured by attitudes, beliefs and political opinions. This generally consists of the vague notions upper, middle and working class and most people would identify themselves as belonging to one of these groups. This type of description does not explain the full range of differences between these groups. People may be middle class and have access to huge wealth, whereas others have the education, lifestyle and manners of the middle class but are relatively poor. Equally, people from a working class background who achieve very good professional jobs may well still feel themselves to be working class. In contrast, sociologists are concerned with objective class. This refers to our occupations, education, possessions and our wealth. It can be measured in the data put out by the Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys such as mortality lists.

Sociologists have had limited success in attempts to measure social class objectively. There are two generally used scales of social class, though a very wide number have been devised by sociologists in the past. The Registrar General’s Index of Social Class was used by government statisticians till 2001, and is still widely used as a rough indicator of people’s background. It uses occupation as the basis of differentiation. People are placed in a five point scale. This is still used by advertisers and manufacturers who target products to certain markets. There are weaknesses with this class indicator because it does not take into account people’s income or their job security. In addition, women take their class from their male relatives. Most people are in class C or class 3. Since 2001, the class structure has been amended to take into account employment conditions including: job security, promotion opportunity and the ability and opportunity to work on their own and make own decisions about tasks. This new scale is known as the NS-SEC.

Goldblatt suggested alternative measures of class including home ownership, access to a car and educational status and he has shown that all of these can be correlated to inequalities in health. One of the most recent attempts to define the class system in a new and radical way was by Will Hutton (18995). Hutton is a critic of the New Right. He argues that social inequality, in the form of low wages, low skill and high unemployment, has resulted in a clearly divided and economically unstable society. Hutton has put forward the 30-30-40 thesis to show the three-way split in contemporary British class relations. He says our society can now be seen to consist of: 30% – unemployed, low paid, insecure work; 30% with some job security and quality of life; 40% – privileged workers in secure and regular employment.

In addition, the nature of work which is a traditional measure of a person’s class position is changing so the debates have become complex and theoretical. Certainly, inequality is an important social dynamic, but there is a question mark over whether this is related to social class or whether people even recognise class as significant in their lives. Marxists argue strongly that it is but that people do not recognise it for reasons related to deskilling and proletarianisation; feminists suggest other dynamics influence inequality and post-modernists suggest that the important dynamic is not class but the ability to spend money.

What is the link between class and occupation?

Traditionally class has been linked to the type of work a person does. The debate as to the nature of class has therefore become more complex as the nature of work has changed. The upper classes are able to live off unearned income such as rents from land or property. There are so few of the upper classes that they are more or less invisible to sociologists. Very little research has been done on these people. Upper class people usually keep themselves to themselves and are not willing to participate in studies.

Recent work by Adonis and Pollard (1998) stresses the significance of the upper class in modern British society and they consider that there is an emerging ‘superclass’ that consist of an elite of extremely high paid managers and professionals. According to Adonis and Pollard, this new superclass is linked financially to the City of London, a male and upper class world that has many links with the traditions and heritage of public school and Oxbridge elites of the past. This superclass emerged from the financial changes of the 1980s and is composed of people who benefited from low taxation and privatisation of industry to become significant in international trading with global companies. They earn multi-million salaries and have large financial bonus packages. Papers tend to refer to them as Fat Cats.

The middle classes live off professional work such as law, medicine or the ownership of a business. Generally they earn more and have better working conditions than the working class. Working class people work with their hands as tradesmen or labourers. Work with the hands is known as manual work. We still call professional people who sell knowledge rather than skills, non-manual workers. This is the basic social class division in society – between manual and non-manual work.

Middle class work requires educational qualifications and skills. Most people who are members of the middle classes will have been to university and gained higher level professional qualifications as well. Generally, middle class professional work is well paid or has good conditions and terms of service. In the past, there would have been quite serious differences in pay between professional workers and manual workers though these differences have been eroded.

C Wright Mills (1956) and others have seen the middle classes as divided into two groups. The higher professions have the potential for high earnings and who are self-employed or employed by large corporations. These are people such as judges, accountants, lawyers, dentists, doctors. These people tend to control entry into their occupations. The lower professions are often, though not exclusively, feminised and work in the public sector. They have limited access to high earnings and include teachers, nurses, and social workers.

The lower middle classes have become more like the working class according to the Marxist, Braverman (1974) who points out that many of the professions, such as architects, have become vulnerable to redundancies. He also claims that skills are being lost (de-skilling) because mechanisation means that individuals are now being taken over by technology. People are no longer required to undertake tasks that traditionally required talent. Tradesmen have lost their skills to machines, and architects’ plans can be created by computer programmes. Others, such as teachers or opticians who are unable to control entry into their professions are no longer able to claim high rates of pay as there is always demand for work and people who are willing to accept low rates in return for employment. Oppenheimer (1973) has also suggested that the middle classes have lost power and authority in work.

Working class work may require high levels of skill and effort: however, because it is manual work, it is not generally well paid and often is of relatively low status. In addition, although years of on-the-job training may be involved in such work, people will not have been to university or college. Hairdressing, for example, is one of the worst paid occupations on average. Unskilled work is very low value, low status work and there are few openings for people who have no educational qualifications. Work which once was done by people is now done by one person with a qualification who operates a machine. In the 1930s, digging was done by teams of men with shovels. We would be surprised to see people do work of this kind today. Even much check-out work is now done by machine alone.

In the 197Os, it was commonly believed by many commentators that the working class were becoming more middle class as their incomes were higher than previously earned by the working class. This theory was known as the affluent worker thesis or embourgeoisement and was supported by Galbraith. This theory was disproved by Goldthorpe, Lockwood, Bechofer and Platt (1968) who conducted detailed research on car workers in Dagenham. They found that that the workers worked longer hours and had different attitudes to work from middle class management. Fiona Devine (1992) repeated the work and found that redundancy and unemployment were a real concern for working class families. The gap between professional work and working class work was widening.

Another debate has opened up in terms of occupation and class in the last thirty years. Unemployment and benefit dependency has become more common in British society. This has led to the development of a significant underclass of people who have never earned their own money. In the early 1970s, the term was used sympathetically by Giddens and other members of the developing New Left (1973) to describe those who faced massive deprivation and social inequality with working conditions and income levels below even those of the working class. At the same time, other social commentators from the New Right were using the term underclass negatively to describe a class of people who have little self-sufficiency but rely on social security benefits to survive. The term ‘dole scrounger’ was widely used in the press to describe those who lived on benefit.

What is the relationship between work, class and income?

There is a common belief that those who earn more money have worked harder for it. In reality, the low paid are often extremely hard working but unable to gain an acceptable income from the work that they do. One of the reasons is to do with the changing nature of the work that is available.

The structure of the British economy has undergone radical change since the end of World War 2. There has been a massive move away from employment in primary industries such as agriculture and coal mining. Manufacturing or secondary industry has also experienced a drop in employment. There has been a reduction in traditionally male heavy industry and a growth in light industry and assembly work that can be automated and which employs more females. The real growth sector in the economy has been in service sector jobs. Many of these are middle class jobs in management and training; however, more are jobs which offer long hours, low pay and casual part time work in restaurants and pubs.

Ivan Turak (2000) points out that the actual number of manual jobs fell by 11% between 1981 and 1991 while non-manual jobs have expanded. Certain sectors of the workforce have been more vulnerable to unemployment, and he points to the older male manual worker as being particularly vulnerable. Paul Gregg (1994) has claimed that one of the main causes of poverty in Britain is unemployment and that the UK had a third more families out of work than other developed countries. Statistics suggest that in a fifth of households, there is no adult in employment and although in the rest of Europe, 80% of single parents work, in Britain the figure is closer to 40% of single parents in work.

Figures based on social class alone are difficult to access, as emphasis is placed on other forms of inequality in official data. However, there is a clear link between a person’s social class and the opportunities or life chances that they may experience. As Wilkinson (1996) identified, people at the bottom of the stratification system in the UK have severely reduced life chances:

“In Britain people in the poorest areas have death rates that are – age for age – four times as high as people in the richest areas. Among Whitehall civil servants, junior staff were found to have death rates three times as high as the most senior administrators working in the same offices.”

In 1994, it was established that 2.2 million workers in the UK earned less than 68% of the average gross weekly wage that stood at less than A?6.00 per hour in that year. These low paid workers tended to be female, the young, the disabled, single parents and members of ethnic minorities. Their work was part-time, homework or casual labour and they tended to be found in certain areas, and in smaller firms.

After much pressure on government, National Minimum Wage legislation was introduced by the Labour government with effect from April 1999. It is currently set at A?5.73 (2009). Employers’ organisations had predicted a massive increase in unemployment following the introduction of a minimum wage, but this did not occur. Even so, people still resort to desperate measures to obtain satisfactory income. Evidence presented to the Low Pay Commission by the Greater Manchester Low Pay Unit (2000) described one woman who had taken on three low paid jobs at one time in order to ‘make ends meet’. Wadsworth (2007) suggests that around 10% of British households rely on minimum wage income. He also points out that many minimum wage earners take a second job to supplement income. Bryan and Taylor (2006) suggest that those who earn National Minimum Wage (NMW) tend to stay in NMW work jobs when they change employment. In addition, low pay workers spend time out of work. More than 80% of NMW workers are female, and many are over the age of 50. Most of these workers had no qualifications. There is also some evidence that employers can evade minimum wage legislation through a variety of semi-legal tactics and pay their workers less than they are entitled to. Migrants are very vulnerable to this kind of abuse.

We are clearly a long way from Tony Blair’s claim in 1999 ‘we are all middle class’. Where class convergence has been greatest it has been at the margins of the classes with a blurred area between the upper working class and lower middle class. The term embourgeoisement is less discussed than it used to be, but Goldthorpe et al’s conclusion that the working class has fragmented into a new and traditional working class commands general support to this day. Another factor worth remembering when considering the embourgeoisement debate is what is happening at the other end of the working class. At the bottom of society many see an impoverished underclass of those living on the minimum wage or in receipt of long-term welfare. This impoverished group has seen their living standards deteriorate relative to the rest of society.

How does social class affect educational attainment?

As the ESRC point out, British sociologists all tend to agree that qualifications are the best predictor of whether a child will gain a high earning middle-class job. However they also point out that there are unequal success rates between social classes at school and unequal entry and success rates in post-compulsory education.

Government data reveals significant differences between the educational attainments of the differing social classes. In 2008, 35% of the working class pupils obtained five or more good-grade GCSEs, compared with 63 per cent of children from middle class families. While the proportion of poorer children getting degrees has risen by just 3 per cent, the increase among those from wealthier backgrounds is 26 per cent. The reasons for the development of this pattern are complex. It could be to do with home or schools, or it could be related to cultural or material deprivation. Sociologists, Bynner and Joshi (2002) used longitudinal birth cohort data and discovered that the link between class and educational underattainment is clear and years of government policy have had little impact on this inequality.

In 1999, West et al found that there was a 66% correlation between free school meals and low school attainment. Levacic and Hardman in 1999 also pointed out the relationship between free school meals and poor GCSE grades. O’Keefe found that there was a measurable relationship between free school meals and higher levels of truancy. Jefferis (2002) found an unarguable link between class and attainment. She studied nearly 11,000 children born from March 3 to 9, 1958. Maths, reading and other ability tests measured the educational attainment of the children at ages seven, 11 and 16. At the age of 33 their highest educational achievement was recorded. Her research team found the gap in educational attainment between children of higher and lower social classes widened as time went on – it was greatest by the age of 33.

At university level, social class inequalities still have an effect. Wakeling suggested in 2002 that a lower class degree and rich parents are more likely to lead to a student taking up post-graduate studies than the highest level university degrees and a modest background. Boliver (2006) found that only 35% of candidates from semi/unskilled manual class origins applied to a Russell Group university (one of the top 100 universities in the UK), in contrast to 65% of those from professional backgrounds. Machin and Vignoles (2005) conducted research on links between higher education and family background, focusing particularly on the experiences of two cohorts of individuals born in 1958 and 1970. They claim that links between educational achievement and parental income / social class strengthened during this period.

The Social Mobility Commission, reporting in 2009, found that social class accounts for much of the gap in attainment between higher and lower achievers. They reported that the gap widens as children get older. In addition, it was claimed that increased spending on education has favoured the middle classes. In other words division between the social classes is widening.

What is the relationship between social class, criminality and inequality in the UK?

Maguire points out that the prison population tends to consist of young, male, poorly educated people who are likely to have experienced difficult or deprived childhoods and many of whom come from ethnic minority or mixed ethnic backgrounds. In 1992, 40 % of male prisoners had left school before the age of sixteen. People from lower social class backgrounds are significantly more likely to appear in victim and conviction statistics than people from wealthier backgrounds and it is a matter of argument as to whether they commit more crime, or they are more likely to be convicted if they do commit crimes.

In the past, much analysis of criminal behaviour worked on the false assumptions that crime statistics were an accurate representation of crime and that conviction rates gave a fair representation of criminal behaviour. Self report studies show that the majority of the population have broken the law and that middle class crimes can often be very serious indeed. For example, Murphy et al (1990) showed that football hooliganism is not limited to the working classes and Pearson (1987) found that drug offences occur in all social classes. White collar crime and corporate offences receive very little attention from the news media in comparison with youth crime such as knife crime. Levi (1993) pointed out that official statistics do not include tax fraud cases as these are rarely prosecuted by the police or followed up by the criminal justice system. Snider points out that capitalist states are unwilling to pass laws that regulate business or challenge the rights of the rich to make money. Karstedt (2004) estimates that middle class crimes such as car tax avoidance, tax fraud and damaging items once worn in order to return them to shops may cost the UK something in the region of A?14 billion each year. Braithwaite, as early as 1979, concluded that working class children and adults commit the types of crime that are targeted by the police and do so at higher rates than middle class people.

There is also research evidence to show that some forms of crime are linked to poverty and deprivation. Gang crime is especially prevalent in areas of deprivation where there are fewer opportunities for work. Brodie et al (2000) and Hope and Shaw (1988) found disadvantaged communities to be vulnerable to youth crime. It is estimated that 40% of crime takes place in about 10% of local authority areas. Stratesky (2004) links this phenomenon to the concentration of power and social exclusion in post industrial communities. Willott and Griffin (1999) found that working class men in prison justified their criminal behaviour by claiming that they were supporting their families. Furthermore, because they were effectively excluded from society, they could not then be expected to follow its rules. It could be argued that these accounts are self- serving because the victims of crime are often the very weakest in the community. Living in a poor and deprived community is also to live at risk of being a victim of crimes such as car theft, vandalism, anti-social behaviour, burglary and violence. Hughes et al (2002) suggest that more than half of victims of crime have already previously been victimised. This acts as evidence that some types of crime are more likely to be associated with working class status than others, particularly crimes against property and the person.

Are there class inequalities in the experience of health?

The over-arching factor affecting health inequality in the UK is social class. Study after study shows that people born in poor families are low birth weight, are more likely to die as babies, grow up with poor health, are vulnerable to disabling disease and impaired development and they die early. Their children will experience poor life chances so health inequality runs in families. Some of these health inequalities are due to patterns of poor life style so that obesity and smoking related illnesses are also diseases of poverty and deprivation. Children born in poverty and deprivation are also vulnerable to high risk behaviour such as drug abuse, binge drinking and sexual transmission of disease. Furthermore, in 2002, the Office for National Statistics said that inequalities of health and life expectancy between social classes were widening.

Spicker points out that figures from the UK show that people in lower social classes, including children, are more likely to suffer from infective and parasitic diseases, pneumonia, poisonings or violence. Adults in lower social classes are more likely to suffer from cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease. He also underlines the point that there are inequalities in access to health care according to social class, so that the poorest people live in areas with fewer doctors, more difficult access to major hospitals and poorer services. Wheeler et al, working on 2001 Census data also found that areas with the highest levels of poor health tend to have the lowest numbers of doctors and other health professionals (other than nurses). They also discovered that areas with high levels of poor health tend also to have high numbers of their population providing informal care for family and friends. There is lower take-up of preventative medicine such as vaccination and routine screening for disabling conditions among working class people. This called the inverse care law.

Discounting theories that suggest the working class are genetically weaker, then the unavoidable conclusion is that poverty leads to ill health through poor nutrition, housing and environment. This is exacerbated through cultural differences in the diet and fitness of different social classes, and in certain habits like smoking. Tim Spector (2006), an epidemiologist found that social class has an impact on how the body ages, irrespective of diet and bad habits. In a study of 1,500 women, he discovered that there is a link between class and poor health. He claims that the cause is that people from lower social backgrounds are more likely to feel insecure, especially at work, and suffer low self-esteem and a sense of lacking control over their lives. He claims that the stress this causes creates damage at a cellular level that accelerates ageing. Support for this theory can be found in the fact that studies consistently show that people from lower social classes experience higher levels of mental ill-health, with particularly high rates of depression and anxiety. There is additional health risk from many working class jobs. Males in manual jobs are more than twice as likely to get occupational lung cancer. Bladder cancer is also work-related, associated with work in industrial settings. For nearly all conditions the risk of heart disease, cancer, stain injury and stress is higher for those in working class occupations rather than managerial jobs in the same industry.

Class change and sociological theory

Social class is undoubtedly changing significantly and this has prompted a number of debates as to the meanings of these changes and the impact that they have on class. Marxists have a problem because Marx suggested that people would develop a class consciousness and overthrow capitalism. Clearly, this has not happened, in fact people are less aware of class as a social dynamic. There are different explanations for this.

What is proletarianisation?

Proletarianisation is a Marxist concept that sees the middle-class as identifying increasingly with working-class identity. Applied research has focused upon using case studies to examine whether non-manual work is becoming increasingly similar to manual work. Neo-Marxists like Erik Wright or Harry Braverman claim that proletarianisation is progressing at a reasonable pace. In contrast, neo-Weberians like David Lockwood and John Goldthorpe have always vigorously argued against it. One reason for this conflict of views is that different meanings of proletarianisation are adopted in order to measure it.

Neo-Marxists such as Wright and Braverman argue that routine white-collar workers are no longer middle class. They consequently see such jobs and even some ‘professions’, such as nursing and teaching, as particularly prone to proletarianisation. Braverman argues that deskilling in the workplace affects both manual and non-manual work, causing him to argue that routine white-collar workers have joined the mass of unskilled employees. As such they are part of the working class, they are ‘proletarianised’. Braverman argues that deskilling and the loss of the social and economic advantages non-manual jobs enjoyed over manual work, are the key factors behind the growth of proletarianisation. In addition, many workers have lost the control and autonomy they enjoyed 20 years or so in the workplace. A good example is the university lecturers Wright cited as example of ‘semi-autonomous workers’ in a contradictory class location. Many university lecturers are very poorly paid and on short term contracts. Many earn less than primary school teachers. In addition they are subject to performance scrutiny and time monitoring. Many professionals in education are now subject to clocking in and out like factory workers.

It has been argued by some feminists, such as Rosemary Crompton, that women are more prone to proletarianisation than men, in the sense that they experience poorer promotional opportunities. In examining the work of clerks (Crompton and Jones) they found that only a low level of skill was required and that computerisation seemed to accentuate proletarianisation. However, Marshall et al have challenged the idea of proletarianisation. They found both male and female routine white collar workers reported greater levels of autonomy than those in the working class. They found that it was mainly manual workers who felt their work had been deskilled. In contrast, the perceptions of over 90 per cent of male and female non-manual workers were that neither skill levels nor autonomy had significantly diminished. However, they did find that personal service workers such as receptionists, check-out operators and shop assistants lacked a sense of autonomy in a manner similar to the working class. Since this group is composed primarily of female workers, this supports the idea that women are more prone to proletarianisation.

Recent research by Clark and Hoffman-Martinot (1998) has highlighted a growing number of casual or routine workers who spend their working day in front of a VDU and/or on the telephone.

Marxists would see such workers, especially those is call centres as working class despite the ‘white-collar’ working environment. They would see the low morale and general worker discontent as evidence of class consciousness and a sense of collective work-place identity.

A Weberian analysis would identify class in terms of a group sharing a weak market position in the labour force. Weberians might identify any internal competition between workers and factors such as performance-related pay as designed to fragment the workforce. Any attempts at unionisation, they might argue, could reflect the pursuit of sectional interests (party) rather than evidence of class consciousness.

How have contemporary models of class developed?

As we have seen a range of neo-Marxist and neo- Weberian models of class have developed in the past 50 years or so adapting and interpreting the ideas of Marx and Weber. There is a consensus that the size and make-up of the working-class is shrinking as we move to a post-industrial society, however, there are markedly different interpretations about the meanings and consequences of this change.

Neo-Weberians such as John Goldthorpe and David Lockwood have focused upon occupational categories within a market power context.

Neo-Marxists argue that the critical issue is whether the working-class are ‘falsely conscious’.

A third group, the postmodernists have argued that class is dead; having lost its significance as a source of identity. Consumption, they argue, has become the main definer of people in society.

What do postmodernists say about class changes?

Postmodernists would question whether class and class identities are meaningful concepts anymore, arguing it makes more sense to speak of a fragmented society with identity increasingly derived from consumption rather than issues associated with production, such as occupation. According to a Postmodern vision, people are seen to acqu

This paper discusses some issues on gender. The analyses are taken from four different articles. This paper is divided into four parts. The first part begins with the relationship between language and gender, the second describes variation in language use across gender, the third part talks about gender revolution in society and the final part discuss about how gender shapes social relationship.

Mhute, Isaac (2008). Language and Gender. Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. Vol 2 (3). Retrieved on August 30, 2010 from: http://www.osisa.org/resources/docs/PDFs/OpenSpace-Nov2008/2_3_language_p060-063_isaac_mhute.pdf

This paper attempted to examine how language authorized or unauthorized people of different genders in society. The author also discussed how this authorization associates to the aspect of gender and women’s rights proportionality. The author addressed the issues by stating the other scholars’ opinions on the differences of language use by females or males group and how these differences portray the fairness judgement in society and associate this matter with the condition in Southern Africa.

There are several aspects where language may power the authorization of women’s language at the expense of men. Morgan (1986) drawn an example in the characterization of a country as “she” and in expressions of “mother tongue”. These illustrate that women have significant position and responsibility in society. In Shona language, this perception of woman as polar also contributed to the issue of women’s authorization, such as musha mukadzi, an expression that expressing women as the most vital components at home; vakadzi ndivo vachengetedzi vetsika dzedu, an expression that suggested women as the protector of the norms and values. On the other hand, some terms and expressions show manifestation that authorized men at the expense of women. As an illustration, Goddard and Patterson (2000) identified term such as “bachelor” and “spinster” refers to “unmarried adult male” and “unmarried adult female”. Explicitly, “bachelor” connotes a man who preferred to stay single; in contrast “spinster” connotes a woman who has been unsuccessful in finding a spouse. In chiShona, when one give birth to a girl, elders will say “hwakovanwa wafa woga wafa woga” meaning “now life has been divided each can die alone”, implying that the girl will get married and leave the house. On the contrary, when one give birth to a boy, the elder will say “makorokoto musha wakura” meaning “congratulation, the home has grown; it implies that men have greater value than women.

As a conclusion, the author suggested in changing perspective of woman in language and society, can only be re-composed by women. In line with this, McKenna (1992) indicates that assertive language should be adopted by women and declined to have their subordination as unavoidable.

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Bell, C.M., McCarthy, P.M. & McNamara, D.S. (2006). Variation in Language Use Across Gender: Biological versus Sociological Theories. Retrieved on Thursday, September 2, 2010 from http://csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/proceedings/2006/docs/p1009.pdf

Arguments over expenditure, feelings, labour division and male detachment during conflict have existed between men and women since long time ago. Biological theories determine gender as biological sex with independent contextual and stable roles. On the other hand, the social constructionist theory of gender presumes that gender roles are unstable and situated contextually where men and women are not limited to a specific language style, but interchangeably based on the context of social interaction.

In this paper dissimilarities in language use in perspective of biological and social construction of gender theories are briefly analyzed. Method used in this paper is qualitative linguistic approach to inquire differences in language use by both genders in marital conflict. A 54-text principles, brought by 27 males and females from counselling copies of relationship column “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” from Ladies Home Journal.

The texts were examined using the Language Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) and noted the percentage for self-referential, social phrases, positive emotion, that are shown in every text. As a result, there is no substantial difference between both genders in the number of variable percentage. This result is confirmed with the prediction that some features of stereotypical language use, as simulated by biological theory of gender, do not preserve in marital conflict context. This study contribute to the field by rendering empirical prove for the growth of gender theories and language use.

(Word count: 250)

England, Paula (2010). The Gender Revolution: Uneven and Stalled. Gender and Society. 2010 24:149. Retrieved on August 22, 2010 from http://gas.sagepub.com/content/24/2/149.

The author identifies that the gender system has altered greatly and provide explanation for why the alterations were uneven. These changes occurred since 1960s and identified as “a revolution”. There were several indicators causing these changes. The author argues that in reduction of female activities and jobs, there were few cultural or institutional changes, and as a consequence, women posses greater inducement than men to proceed to gender-non-traditional activities and perspectives.

The changes in reduction of “female” activities and asymmetric inducements for men and women affected by education. Current study found that in 16 developed countries in 2000, women with more education were more likely to be hired. For instance, data in USA in 1970, 59 % of college graduated women, but only 43% women with less than high school education were hired. In 2007, the estimation increased to 80% for college graduated and 47 % for less than high school education.

Given these facts, the author generates two broad explanations. Initially, since the devaluation of cultural and institutional characteristics and activities related to women, men have few inducements to proceed into traditional female activities such as home-making or female-dominated occupation. On the other hand, women had economic inducement to proceed into male domains and occupations. Finally, the impacts of the co-occurrence of equal opportunity individualism and gender essentialism create opportunity for women to proceed into non-traditional fields of study or work when potential female fields are unavailable. While the reason for stalling is poorly stated with no relentless resultant. Change has seen as unintended impacts of institutional and cultural forces of effort of the feminist organization.

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Ridgeway, Cecilia L (2009). Framed Before We Know It: How Gender Shapes Social Relations. Gender and Society, 23:145. Retrieved 23 August 2010 from http://gas.sagepub.com/content/23/2/145.

This article indicates the argument stated by the author that gender is a cultural mainframe in organizing and forming social relation. Her argument is expressed by describing how gender frames social relations and how this frame differs in context of implication for gender inequality. This issue is defined using two empirical illustrations. Firstly, gender as social mainframe, is defined as a particular type of general cultural knowledge as a way to categorize and specify each other in a particular situation so that each can expect how to behave and align the actions consequently. Secondly, how gender pattern behaviour, is defined as implicit prejudices into expectation and behaviours that resulted in the setting of gender inequality.

In explaining the significance of gender mainframe, the author describes some examples from the previous studies. For instance, Whittington (2007) found that in an industry where gender-typed is not strong, such as Information Technology industry, the informal context and flexible organizational form bring more benefits to the females group than the hierarchical structure (Whittington and Smith-Doerr, 2008). On the other hand, in engineering and physical sciences, where gender-type in favour of men, there is stronger implicit biases against women’s competence. Another example is taken from Charles and Bradley (2009) analysis on the sex segregation of field of study, found that in wealthy post-industrial society, there is a larger gap between boys and girls in expressing kinship in math.

As a conclusion, the author suggested that when it concerns to gender, the impact of the processes at one level cannot be comprehended without mentioning the other levels. It is also suggested that modification in gender system of a society will be continuously repeated and may not move fluently.

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Human, animals and plants are created to have a good relationship with each other to make a better and beautiful life. Without animals and plants, human cannot eat anything and probably we cannot live anymore. Without human, some animals and plants also cannot live for long time because no one takes care of them. Therefore, we as a human must protect animals and plants to grow up with us together. Currently, many animals are extinct because many reasons to make them live in short life such as many people kill animals for their collections, pollution, natural disaster, the changes of weather, or killed by stronger animals. Therefore, many people are doing animals science to help, take care, protect and prevent animals to be extinct.

In this era, people are smart compared last era because of the rapid improvement in technology. Last time people do not understand how to fly, cure themselves and do networking. They just understand how to survive in this life. However, since many people realise it and go hard for education, they become smart and know how to do everything. Therefore, to come out with the best idea for a whole world, they must do many researches and tests. In order to undergo a good research we need to familiar ourselves with 3 main facts that is associate ourselves with new knowledge, educate the animal, and analyze the efficiency of the chemicals and animal’s tissue (Giridharan, Kumar & Muthuswamy 2000, page 2).

Researches spend high costs where they need a lot of money to buy all important tools for them to research in their laboratory. However, to do the improvement in medication, people use animals or plants. The cost to do research is not high but many animals and plants are being sacrificed. Although many people said that we are being immoral but we also cannot stand without doing anything with people who are needed medicine from animals. The common name for experimental use for animals is vivisection. Actually, There are a lot of reasons why researchers do animal science such as to make a medicine, test whether the new trial chemicals are good for human body or not and protect as well as the improvement in the future (The national anti-vivisection society 2004). Although we have to sacrify many animals but we could cure many people for a long period and save many lives for a billion of people.

For example, the first time scientist produced insulin by using the dog’s pancreas, cows and pigs but the improvement began continued until now they are not using animals anymore, where it depends on the technology as well as the human protein (Advameg Inc. 2010). Insulin is “a hormone that regulates the amount of glucose (sugar) in the blood and is required for the body to function normally” (Advameg Inc. 2010). Nowadays, highly purified pancreas extracts change into animal insulin that is sold as ‘natural’ insulin (Makame, 1992). According to AVERT organization (1986), there are three reasons that animals are used for experiments such as making sure the new medicine, drugs, and other pharmaceutical product are safe and usable, guaranteeing that the manufactured goods are efficient to human being, and studying the biology of the animal together with the function and response of certain disease to human body (AVERT organization 1986).

Although we could save people life but we also must think how about if all animals are gone away. If it happens we could not use them as our research anymore and have a good medicine to help people. People are now being selfish that could not look at the pity life of animals where they use them only for research without taking care about them. There are two categories that could be divided for animal in science, which are the use of vivisection can be split into two general categories such as living & undamaged animal and animals’ tissue. Moreover, those categories can be divided into several issues as well. Animal are used as lab tester to study human disease or in medical research, as test subjects, as living incubators for substances that are used in medicine; such as insulin, as modality of ideas, and as heuristic devices. In addition, the animals are also studied to educate people on dissection exercises in life science classrooms, guide medical doctor in some actions, and gain the knowledge of the part of the animals. The animals’ tissues are also used as additional parts for human or as the ingredients to make new vaccines and drugs. The scientist use the animal as their experiment to study all of them, but they do it to benefit many people, so that the scientist can save many people lives or make something that is useful to human being (The national anti-vivisection society 2004).

Actually, in the real life, people could accept the animal science if researchers use them as the good purpose such as to cure dead live people who are effected by cancer, AIDS, AIDS drugs or hepatitis. No one in this life could be able to see the increasing in dying people. Therefore, to develop and create the cures and treatment, scientist must use a lot of animals from rare until the common one to test, research and experiment about those deceases (aˆ¦.). People are deserved to live in this world although many deceases could happen inside their body. Even though, animal science is not allowed by religious where we kill animals for research but it is all depends on the purpose of using animals in scientific research. When people kill animals for unnecessary situations such as barbeque event, festival, and religious ceremony, it means people harm their lives and do not have any respect to them although they are animals. PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is one of the powerful groups that is very concerned about animal rights with their motto “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on or use for entertainment (PETA, 1980). PETA is a non-profit organization that helps human or non-human being to not be harm especially animals. Therefore, this organization always keeps on tract to reduce the animal abuse in the world and support the several types of treatments for animals (PETA, 1980). For example, The Medicines Act of 1968 states that the scientist have to tested all their pharmaceutical products to at least two different genus of live and intact mammals that one of them should be a large non-rodent. It means that most of countries allow scientists to do animals in scientific research to produce a better medicine and to ensure the safeness of the created medicines.

In America, scientists are used many animals more than 100 millions to do their experiments project over a year but those animals, such as bird, fish, mice, and other cold blooded, are not under the Animal Welfare Act. Animal Welfare Act is the only Federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research, exhibition, transport, and by dealers (United States Department of Agriculture 2010). Therefore, there is no record for those killed animals under the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA). It means people do not know the flow of animals’ populations such as how many dogs are being killed and still alive in America. Animal Welfare Act is not included those animals because they continue to multiply until cannot countless by human except we are using a modern technology. Based on Lin, the reason that those animals could not be included in Animal Welfare is 95% of the vivisection is mice and rats with nine billion land animals killed in order to get food in US, and a huge majority of animal experimentation that are used by humans are rejected from AWA’s protection. However, although there are a lot of animals that are not recorded but other animals (e.g., dogs, cats, non-human primates, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, and farmed animals used for biomedical research) are recorded to know the populations for those animals (Lin), that could refer to the data in the table 2.

Table 1: Animals Used in Research by Category of Pain and Distress- 2006

Animals used in research by catagory of pain and distress

(The American Anti-Vivisection Society 2010)

Based on the table 1, The USDA states the number of animals that are put in the pain and distress category during the experiments on 2006. In the category of No Pain, No Drugs, the USDA means that the animals that got experiment without any pain and distress on them. With Pain, With Drugs category means that the animals were used in research that affects pain and distress, but the animal will receive the medication after the test to release the pain n distress. Furthermore, in the With Pain, No Drugs category, the scientist gave the animal constant pain and distress as part of the experiment. Lastly, over 73,000 animals, seven percent of the total, feel unalleviated pain and distress in 2006.

Table 2: Number of animals used by research from the first reorting year (FY 1963) to 2006.

In Australia, animals are oppressed and harmed in many ways such as raising them for food and clothing, using them in the entertainments such as rodeos and circuses, slaughtering of local animals, and testing them on behave of medicines, cosmetics, and households. Animals are often considered as commodities, and many people believe that their existence is very crucial since the animal effects productivity and profit, but they are living things, so they need a lot of consideration (Animals Australia, 2010). After killing 10 of 29 pigs, the team from the Institute of Mountain Emergency Medicine in Italy and the Medical University of Innsbruck in Austria stopped the experiment since many people became angry of this experiment (mail online 2010). According to Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher (2010), the use of animal research might be validated if only the scientist follow and meet the stringent conditions such as the harm that the animals receive should be very little, the human and animal need that using animals should be extremely interesting, and the chance of success on using the animal should be very huge (Australian and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research & Teaching 2010).

The Australian citizen desire more benefit that can be brought from animal experiment in the future. However, they also believe that any pain and distress on animal on vivisection should be kept to the minimum level it can be. The main way to do it is by applying 3Rs Principles of replacement, reduction, and refinement. Replacement means the animals are only used when not-animal substitutes are not suitable. Reduction denotes that the scientist must use the animal in very low number to get their goal on experiment. Moreover, Refinement indicates that the scientists have to make the pain, suffering, and distress as low as possible (Australian and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research & Teaching 2010).

Animal science has many goals such as improving the health and well-being people for entertainment, sport, recreational, and service animals, discovery a better ways to guard and manage the range of animal species, especially endanger animals, to keep the balance in the ecologically stable, developing endangered animals to prevent extinction, and broadening the knowledge and understanding of biology science and life processes for all animal species (Australian and New Zealand Council for the Care of Animals in Research & Teaching 2010).

In the conclusion, animals in scientific research have been discussing since long time ago until now. It could be accepted by people when the research is useful for helping to cure the illness such as AIDS, drugs or diabetes. It is also being accepted by many countries to take animals for doing experiments that may be able to have a good result for the countries and citizens. Animals could be extinct if many animals are being killed for unimportant things. However, if animals are used for save people lives, there is a good purpose of it. Therefore, animals in scientific research are used to improve the quality, safety and human practice.

Development, which implies positive values, has been the concern of mankind from time immemorial. Many renowned thinkers devoted efforts to understand development better – consequently theories of development have emerged. Ingemar Fagerlind and Lawrence J. Saha (1983) cited at least four clusters of development theories, namely, the (i) classic cyclical theory, which includes the Greek and Roman views of the never ending cycles of growth and decay of all material things, including nations and civilization; (ii) Augustinian Christian theory, which represented the views of “doomsdayer” who sees the world as heading toward major catastrophe, including the threat from a nuclear war or the explosion of the population bomb; (iii) linear theory, represented by optimists who see development as a never-ending progress; and (iv) cyclical linear theory which combines the essence of the conflict orientation of the cyclical theory and the optimistic orientation of the linear theory.

By and large, people who see a dynamic interactive relationship between education and development are advocates of the linear model theory. Within this model, however, are three groups of social scientists, namely, the so called structural functionalists (e.g. Talcott Parsons and Robert Merton), the human capitalist theories (e.g. Theodore Schultz), and the modernization theorists (Alex Inkeles).

The human capitalist theory and to a certain extent the modernization theory constitute the framework for building cases to show that education enhances development.

The human capital theory postulates that the most efficient path to national development lies in the improvement of a country’s population. And of course, educators and almost all socio-economic planners are convinced that the best way to improve the population is through various forms of education and training

Those who think of education as crucial to development also draw inspiration from the modernization theory. Alex Inkeles and his colleagues think that to modernize is to develop. Society cannot develop unless its population holds modern attitudes and values. They see a direct relationship between education and socio-economic development, in that education brings about a change in outlook in the individual which promotes productivity and work efficiency. Education has a modernizing influence on values, beliefs and behaviours which make human beings more development-oriented. Viewed from the modernization theory, education is called upon to re-orientate and/or suppress beliefs, attitudes and values which tend to obstruct the initiation of the modernization process.

EDUCATION, DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN CAPITAL THEORY

S.G. Strumlin first attempted to quantify the role of education in economic growth in 1925. It was not until the late 1950s and early 1960s that interest in the study of the nature of the changes occurring in the different sectors of the economy in the United States of America pushed economists to search for explanations. Some of these economists such as Denison and Solow found out that a large part of growth in Gross National Product (GNP) in the United States over the first half of the 20th Century remained unexplained when they tried to attribute the growth to conventional economic factors. Even after taking into account increases in real physical capital like equipment, structures and the like, and total number of hours worked, a large residual still remained to be explained. However, they came to realize that important qualitative changes in the labour force had occurred. People were more productive for each hour they worked because of the greater skills and knowledge they possessed. The assumption was made that formal education was instrumental to these high levels of productivity that

they were observing in the economy.

Economists such as Schults and Becker, and economists of education such as Welch and

Hoffman explained a part of the residual by what they called “Human Capital” of which

education through formal schooling was considered a major factor. It is the view of Fagerlind and Saha that one of the first systematic articulations of the Human Capital Theory occurred in 1960 in Theodore Schultz’s Presidential Address to the American Economic Association on the topic “investment in Human Capital.” In the address, Schultz suggested that education-was not to be viewed simply as a form of consumption but rather as a productive investment. He also argued that an educated population provided the type of labour force necessary for industrial development.

Proponents of Human Capital Theory assume that formal education is highly instrumental to the improvement of the productive capacity of a population. The improvements of the productive capacity of the human work force in this sense is a form of capital investment. Human capital theorists postulated that the most efficient path to national development lies in the improvement of human capital through education. They also contended that the two pre-conditions for economic growth and development in any nation were investment in education and improvement in technology. Klees and Wells put this argument as follows:

Human Capital Theory considers educational activities explicitly as investment that contribute to efficiency now and growth over time. From this perspective, education develops an individual’s productive skills and therefore yields benefits over time to the individual and to the society as a whole. Thus we can evaluate, at least in part, the relative worth of allocating resources to educational activities compared to other alternative uses of these resources by examining educational costs and benefits. This framework has provided the basis for a considerable amount of educational resource and policy through the developed and developing world. This orientation championed by Schultz and Associates dominated the thinking in Economics of Education throughout the sixties. It formed the basis for manpower planning models used in forecasting educational enrollments required for specific development needs.

Human Capital Theory also gave economists the conceptual tools with which to link man -power demands, their changes over time in response to economic growth and the educational system; and to incorporate them into elaborate national development plans and growth targets.

Four manpower planning strategies or guidelines emerged from Human Capital research. They are the Social Demand Approach, the Manpower Requirements Analysis, the Cost-Benefit or Rate of Return Analysis and the Optimum Allocation of Resources Method.

The social demand approach assumes that education is a social good. It is believed that its

expansion as the demand arises will eventually result in benefits for the society. Therefore the state should bear the costs of educational expansion. Demographic data and social conditions are used in planning educational provisions when using this approach. Manpower require-ments for certain economic production targets can be estimated and produced through the formal education system. Planning education using this technique

involves estimating skill requirements for certain occupational categories needed for economic development over a period of time.

In cost-benefit analysis, estimates of the costs of acquiring various levels and kinds of education and the benefits associated with each kind and level are made. The assumption is that the value of the ratios so estimated would guide planners in decision-making with respect to the kinds of education to be offered or changed. In so doing, competitive rates of return on investment in education relative to other investment portfolios in the conventional capital markets can be maintained.

The method used in optimum allocation of resources is to describe the principal relationships between education and other sectors of the economy and then to allocate resources optimally, given some objective functions and constraints. In general, linear programming techniques are used to derive the education production functions.

In most developing countries, the manpower requirements approach was used as a guideline to relate educational planning to economic needs. A survey in 76 countries in 1968 showed that 65 of them had educational plans modeled after the manpower needs of the country. How-ever, as Sobel pointed out, protagonists of the manpower planning approach subsequently developed systematic mathematical models integrating manpower needs and educational planning which resulted in a proliferation of single-occupation studies in virtually all societies by each university or national university system, governmental manpower department, education ministry or vocational training department. Linear programming techniques were used to combine rates of return or cost-benefit analyses approaches with manpower requirements techniques to generate models of demand for education from the expected level and distribution of output in a given economy. These were done in an effort to ascertain whether the resultant manpower and education mix would maximize the growth of Gross National Product, maximize the excess of benefits over the costs of education. Most of the research findings showed that in country after country, a correlation exists between levels of education and subsequent lifetime earnings. In a comprehensive research study, Psacharopoulos standardized

53 rate of return studies for 32 different countries and sought to determine what generalizations could be made from the results. Some of the findings are as follows:

* rates of return are generally higher in less developed countries;

* primary education tends to yield the highest returns;

* returns to human capital exceed those on physical capital in underdeveloped countries but roughly equal those on physical capital in developed countries; and

* differences in per capita income can be explained better by differences in human than in physical capital.

This theoretical orientation of the Human Capital Theory, as Kless and Wells point out

“provided a basic justification for large public expenditure on the expansion of formal school systems in developing countries. Its appeal was based on the presumed economic returns to investment in education both at the macro and micro levels. Thus governments intensified efforts to invest in Human Capital so as to achieve rapid economic growth and development.”The obvious policy implication for most governments given the results of such empirical research was to expand enrollments and to provide for a longer period of schooling in order to maximize the benefits from schooling.

In Africa, a Conference of African States on the development of Education in Africa was organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) from May 15 – 25, 1961. The Conference, as Thompson noted, “firmly grasped the concept that education was an investment in productivity” and urged that “educational provision should be planned continuously in relation to manpower needs at all times.”

EDUCATION, DEVELOPMENT AND MODERNITY THEORY

Another dimension from which the relationship between education and development was

vigorously examined and explicated during the 1960s was in the social psychological and

sociological formulations of modernity theory. Modernity theorists argued that modernization is essentially a social-psychological process through which a country becomes modern only after its population has adopted modern attitudes, values and beliefs. They tried to show that there were causal links between modernizing institutions, modern values, modern behaviour, modern society and economic development. They maintained that the creation of modern values can be planned. Particular social institutions like the school, the family, the media and the workplace were identified as being of extreme importance in the emergence of modem values. However, most modernity theorists placed considerable emphasis on education because the school was perceived as a major agent in producing the skilled manpower and the modem

attitudes and values necessary for the existence of a modern society.

In the early postaa‚¬”World War II era, approximately twenty societies were regarded as highly modernized and roughly another ten to twenty were depicted as having passed a threshold on the path to modernization.

Definitions of modernized varied. Some noted structural features, such as levels of education, urbanization, use of inanimate sources of energy, and fertility. Others pointed to attitudes, such as secularization, achievement orientation, functional specificity in formal organizations, and acceptance of equality in relationships. Conscious of the ethnocentric nature of many earlier explanations for growth in national power and income, social scientists in the 1950s and 1960s generally omitted cultural traits associated closely with Western history from definitions of modernity. Yet, given the rhetoric of the Cold War and a preoccupation with democracy in U.S. national identity, political institutions became a central factor in many definitions.

The theory of modernization normally consists of three parts: (1) identification of types of societies, and explanation of how those designated as modernized or relatively modernized differ from others; (2) specification of how societies become modernized, comparing factors that are more or less conducive to transformation; and (3) generalizations about how the parts of a modernized society fit together, involving comparisons of stages of modernization and types of modernized societies with clarity about prospects for further modernization. Actually, reasoning about all of these issues predated postwar theory. From the Industrial Revolution, there were recurrent arguments that a different type of society had been created, that other societies were either to be left permanently behind or to find a way to achieve a similar transformation, and that not all modernizing societies had equal success in sustaining the process due to differences in economic, political, and other institutions. In the middle of the 1950s, these themes acquired new social science and political casting with the claim of increased rigor in analysis.

(Modernization Theory – Defining Modernization Theory

Modernization Theory

Modernization theory is a description and explanation of the processes of transformation from traditional or underdeveloped societies to modern societies. In the words of one of the major proponents, “Historically, modernization is the process of change towards those types of social, economic, and political systems that have developed in Western Europe and North America from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth and have then spread to other European countries and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the South American, Asian, and African continents” (Eisenstadt 1966, p. 1). Modernization theory has been one of the major perspectives in the sociology of national development and underdevelopment since the 1950s. Primary attention has focused on ways in which past and present premodern societies become modern (i.e., Westernized) through processes of economic growth and change in social, political, and cultural structures.

In general, modernization theorists are concerned with economic growth within societies as indicated, for example, by measures of gross national product. Mechanization or industrialization are ingredients in the process of economic growth. Modernization theorists study the social, political, and cultural consequences of economic growth and the conditions that are important for industrialization and economic growth to occur. Indeed, a degree of circularity often characterizes discussions of social and economic change involved in modernization processes because of the notion, embedded in most modernization theories, of the functional compatibility of component parts.

Although, there are many versions of modernization theory, major implicit or explicit tenets are that (1) societies develop through a series of evolutionary stages; (2) these stages are based on different degrees and patterns of social differentiation and reintegration of structural and cultural components that are functionally compatible for the maintenance of society; (3) contemporary developing societies are at a premodern stage of evolution and they eventually will achieve economic growth and will take on the social, political, and economic features of western European and North American societies which have progressed to the highest stage of social evolutionary development; (4) this modernization will result as complex Western technology is imported and traditional structural and cultural features incompatible with such development are overcome.

For example, in the social realm, modern societies are characterized by high levels of urbanization, literacy, research, health care, secularization, bureaucracy, mass media, and transportation facilities. Kinship ties are weaker, and nuclear conjugal family systems prevail. Birthrates and death rates are lower, and life expectancy is relatively longer. In the political realm, the society becomes more participatory in decision-making processes, and typical institutions include universal suffrage, political parties, a civil service bureaucracy, and parliaments. Traditional sources of authority are weaker as bureaucratic institutions assume responsibility and power. In the economic realm, there is more industrialization, technical upgrading of production, replacement of exchange economies with extensive money markets, increased division of labor, growth of infrastructure and commercial facilities, and the development of large-scale markets. Associated with these structural changes are cultural changes in role relations and personality variables. Social relations are more bureaucratic, social mobility increases, and status relations are based less on such ascriptive criteria as age, gender, or ethnicity and more on meritocratic criteria. There is a shift from relations based on tradition and loyalty to those based on rational exchange, competence, and other universally applied criteria. People are more receptive to change, more interested in the future, more achievement-oriented, more concerned with the rights of individuals, and less fatalistic.

Educational Reform and Human Capital Development.

Aga Khan University Examination Board (AKU-EB) is a Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education established by Aga Khan University (AKU) in response to demand from schools for more appropriate school examinations. AKU-EB was founded in August 2003. It offers examination services to both Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary School Certificate (HSSC) throughout Pakistan. Its primary purpose is to improve the quality of education by making examinations of reputable standard more accessible to Pakistani students and having them increasingly valued by leading higher education institutions in and outside the country.

In 2000, AKU-BOT approved the recommendation of the task force to establish and examination board. Its principal aim was to offer high quality public examinations using modern methods of assessment to test achievement within the national curriculum in order to enhance the quality of education. AKU-EB from the beginning was envisaged as a small undertaking which would be able to serve as a role model to have positive impact in field of education.

There has been great amount of funds poured in to AKU EB. Besides AKU, USAID supported through the Government’s Educational Sector Reforms throughout Pakistan . After the initial start-up period of five years, the University expects to become solely responsible for AKU-EB’s financial affairs.

The general objective of the AKU-EB is to design and offer high quality public examinations in English and Urdu based on the national curriculum for secondary and higher secondary education. It also arranges training sessions for teachers to develop appropriate learning materials to prepare teachers and students for the new examination system. It is intended to serve as a model of internationally recognized good practice in order to enhance the country’s capacity for educational assessment and tests, and therefore to improve the quality of education in schools, and through them, the quality of education in the national universities.

The concept of human capital and education revolutions intertwined because formal education is an important factor in human capital formation.

One of the objectives of AKU EB is to improve school environment by improving their curriculum by changing assessment strategy. Generally an individualaa‚¬a„?s levels of human capital are raised producing better school results. Hence this effect the policy making in public and privte sector involved in educational reforms.

Education is an investment in human capital, that is, in the skills and knowledge that produce a return to the individual in the form of higher earnings. Education also has social returns or spillovers. The presence of educated workers in a region enhances the earnings of those who, regardless of their own educational level, work with or near educated workers.

I would be interested to know about how AKU EB is measuring its impact on schools and teachers. How it can be explained by human capital development theory perspective? How is it investing in building infra structure and equiopment and training? What are individual and social returns of AKU EB efforts? And what are its effects on changing other local boardsaa‚¬a„? assessment strategies and curricula. How are teachers and parents looking at AKU EB as source of human capital development?