Category: Free Essays

Sexism- Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex. Many people are still faced with the absence of equality solely because they are a woman. Sexism is used as a way to keep women submissive in our patriarchal driven society. The three methods that are used to ensure the predominance of submissive attitudes in women are homophobia, violence, and economics. These acts further emphasize the importance of feminism in The United States.

Sexism is enforced through traditional gender roles, or how people are perceived through the eyes of society. For example, Linda is a woman, so therefore she must dress appropriately and stay home and care for her children. People oftentimes forget that we are not born with gender as a genetic trait; it is in how one chooses to present themselves. “Gender is so much the routine ground for everyday activities that for many people, questioning its taken-for-granted assumptions and presuppositions is like thinking about whether the sun will come up” (Lorber 13). “West and Zimmerman’s concept of ‘doing gender’ suggests that women and men are to continuously act out membership in their appropriate gender category. They are expected to submit to traditional gender roles and ‘to do’ gender in ways that are constructed by society as natural” (Murphy 210). Gender is oftentimes misinterpreted by the members of society. It is skewed in a way that is to mean gender is strictly related to sex. “Both women and men are expected to act according to traditional norms, and when they deviate from those norms, they are subject to scrutiny by other members of society” (Lorber and Farrell 210). The vast majority women would more than likely rather avoid the negative judgment by society and remain within the realms of normative behavior.

Gender is considered to be a socially constructed status in The United States. Society tends to overlook the concept of gender because it is so ascribed into our daily lives that it takes a severe disruption to notice. Judith Lorber says, “Gender signs and signals are so ubiquitous that we usually fail to note them- unless they are missing or ambiguous” (112). Gender is looked upon as an issue of black and white, man and woman, provider and supporter. It is related to our roles of “normality” in our society. Gender tends to be stratified in that men are the privileged and women the unprivileged. To be a man is to have a crown, and to be a woman is to make it. We are conditioned at an early age that girls and boys are to look and act differently. Fathers teach their sons sports and how to be “tough”, and mothers teach their daughters how to bake and act “like a lady”.

According to society’s standards of what is “right” and what is “wrong”, many individuals whom fall under the stereotype of how lesbians/gays appear as are scrutinized on a daily basis. “An individual is subject to assessment by others on how well and appropriately one displays his or her gender category” (Lorber and Farrell 210). When picturing a heterosexual woman, what do you see? Maybe it is a slender woman, who appears fragile or weak, dresses in a feminine manner, and is maybe not as intellectual as most men? When picturing a homosexual woman, what do you see? It could be a woman with short, spiked hair that chooses to dress in clothes that are traditionally made for men; and is larger than most “straight” women? In reality, all women, regardless of their sexual orientation are the same; in that, the most feminine women could prefer women and the most masculine women could prefer men. It is sad to say that women keep their sexual identity to themselves and feel forced to present them however they feel society wants them to appear.

From day one, males are conditioned to be masculine and it is the source of oppression not only for women, but to some men as well. Men are each other’s biggest opponents; looking down upon one another for encompassing any aspect of femininity, stemming into homophobia. Therefore, homosexual men are frowned upon in much of the same context as lesbians. Heterosexism prevails once again in labeling these males as “sissies” and “wimps” because they do not necessarily embody the same traditional male mentality as many heterosexual males do. Men view this as a threat because they assume that gay men are working against everything straight men have worked for, in terms of dominance and respect, in societal institutions. If any facet of weakness, or femininity, is observed they are automatically insulted and ranked lower on society’s stratification status. Sociology Professor, Michael Kimmel explains how oppression starts here: men against men, weaker men against stronger women, and eventually women against women (184). Our system of patriarchy strives on power.

Homophobia is used as a means to reinforce patriarchy. “The word homophobia was unknown to me until the late 1970s, and when I first heard it, I was struck by how difficult it is to say, what an ugly word it is, equally as ugly as its meaning. Like racism and anti-Semitism, it is a word that calls up images of loss of freedom, verbal and physical violence, death” (Pharr 1). Homophobia, as defined by Suzanne Pharr, is “the irrational fear and hatred of those who love and sexually desire those of the same sex” (1). Homosexual women all over the country have struggled with gaining respect and equality from many men, and in some cases, women.

Megan Murphy from the University of Albany conducted a survey on heterosexual female’s attitudes toward openly lesbian students on the same college campus (212). Her findings dictate that the majority of the subjects would exclude said lesbians because they do not want other people to get the wrong idea in regards to their own sexual preference (215). Other findings show that some of the students surveyed would only tolerate their existence, but not support it (216). Sorority and Fraternity parties on college campus are examples of gendered erotic markets, places where women and men are required to act in sexually traditional manner. These markets discriminate against homosexual women because they are expected to act in the same way as the other women present, but obviously will not due to their sexual preference.

Women have been conditioned to be homophobic towards other women from the norms set forth by society. The term lesbian oftentimes frightens heterosexual women away from being associated with feminism and women’s liberation. Being a lesbian and being a “man-hater” are used interchangeably to describe the women whom participate in feminist activism. Both are used to identify the women’s movement and continue to give feminists everywhere a bad reputation. Sexism prevails in this aspect on the basis that many women who believe in equal rights and reform are forced by society’s view of traditional gender roles and male dominance to stray away from the subject. Thus, they conform to said gender roles and live life by other women whom succumb to societal pressures.

A graduate student from Northern Illinois University, Wayne Wilkinson, conducted a survey of 269 self-proclaimed heterosexual females ranging from 18-20 years of age at a University in the Midwestern United States. Wayne’s hypothesis was that heterosexual women’s attitudes against lesbians facilitate the patriarchal system dominated by males. Further investigation leads him to confirm that of those surveyed, the conservatives tend believe in traditional gender roles in order to define what is considered natural for females and males alike (141). Those whom identify themselves as conservative generally believe in tradition and women’s role within the household, whereas those who identify themselves as liberal tend to welcome change more easily. “The central focus of the rightwing attack against women’s liberation is that women’s equality, women’s self-determination, women’s control of our own bodies and lives will damage what they see as the crucial societal institution, the nuclear family” (Pharr 17). Nuclear family- a social unit composed of a father, mother, and their children.

Fearing anyone whom identifies with a sexual orientation other than heterosexuality, is a way to keep women “in line” under male power. Lesbians are then considered double victims, of both sexism and homophobia. This is due to misogyny and the patriarchal system induced by men and some heterosexual women who encourage it. Homophobia tends to mirror heterosexism. They work together to enforce the notion that everyone must be “straight”. Those who are not straight must face the consequences by said individuals.

Heterosexism- the belief that since person A is heterosexual, person B must be too. The display of anti-gay attitudes in societal institutions is almost synonymous with homophobia in that they both enforce assumptions that the world and all of its components must remain in a heterosexual state; in that, anything outside of the traditional nuclear family is looked down upon. The nuclear family remains a dominant example of society’s heterosexism and patriarchal structure; it signifies traditional gender roles. Any woman seen to be stepping outside of that role, whether it be providing for herself, not having children, demanding equal pay, and obtaining assertion in any situation that attempts to skew them away from what they believe in, risks being called a lesbian.

In the past, people did not know how to handle the fact that people can love others of the same sex. Suzanne Pharr explains how there have been two main theories created in attempt to “make sense” of their way of life. “My exploration of the sickness theory led me to understand that homosexuality is simply a matter of sexual identity, which along with heterosexual identity, is formed in ways that no one conclusively understands” (Pharr 2). Since many heterosexual individuals cannot relate to homosexual men and women on the basis of love and romantic relationships, it is viewed as taboo. “The American Psychological Association has said that it is no more abnormal to be homosexual than it is to be left handed” (Pharr 2). “[Being homosexual] is simply that a certain percentage of the population is” (Pharr 2). Many heterosexual people, men and women, do not realize that it is not a matter of sickness or health. What is unhealthy is homophobia- “that societal disease that places such negative messages, condemnation, arid violence on gay men and lesbians that we have to struggle throughout our lives for self-esteem” (Pharr 2). It is simply a way they choose to live their lives, and it is unfortunate that just because it is not exactly as those whom are heterosexual, they have to be labeled with such negative connotations.

Dawn Szymanski hypothesized that internalized heterosexism would negatively correlate to feminist attitudes. “The research and study of over 200 self-proclaimed lesbians and/or bisexual women shows that the more heterosexist attitudes a woman holds, the less likely she is to positively relate to feminism” (156). The consequences of heterosexism have been shown to cause stress, depression, and other psychological related disorders in women. Szymanski states, “Internalized heterosexism is related to a variety of psychological difficulties, such as depression, a lack of social support and low self-esteem in lesbians and bisexual women” (146). Homosexual men and women experience heterosexism differently; this could be due to the presence of sexism and traditional gender role socialization.

The second theory often times used to “explain” homosexuality is The Sin Theory. This is often used by religious people backing up their beliefs through Biblical texts. It is interesting that said individuals refer to The Bible on this matter because it is impossible to prove the validity of the texts. “aˆ¦the fact is that the word homosexual does not occur anywhere in the Bible. No extant text, no manuscript, neither Hebrew nor Greek, Syriac, nor Aramaic, contains the word. The terms homosexual and heterosexual were not developed in any language until the 1890’s, when for the first time the awareness developed that there are people with a lifelong, constitutional orientation toward their own sex. Therefore the use of the word homosexuality by certain English Bible translators is an example of the extreme bias that endangers the human and civil rights of homosexual persons” (Mollenkott 383-4 & Pharr 3). If their higher being(s) are described as respectful, all-welcoming, and forgiving, how is it that these homosexual individuals are not treated as justly as everyone else?

The marriage laws in The United States stands as an example of how heterosexism rules much of society. Many people use the Bible to state their beliefs in what marriage truly means, and feel it is meant to be a union between a man and woman. It has been argued that because two people of the same sex cannot physically reproduce a child, it is unnatural. Gay marriage has been illegal in The U.S. for a long time; it was not until recently that a few states legalized the matter. The first six states to legalize gay and lesbian marriage were Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, New York, as well as The District of Columbia. It was not until the 2012 re-election of President Barack Obama that three more states were added to the list: Maine, Maryland, and Washington. Traditional gender roles and religious bias prevail once again, excluding certain individuals from enjoying the freedom that they deserve.

The second component of sexism is violence. Violence is used as a means to keep women submissive and obedient. Men use violence when they feel threatened by a woman’s actions whenever she stands up for herself or attempts to move onward with her life. Violence is used against women in both physical and emotional means. “Work in the women’s anti-violence movement during almost two decades has provided significant evidence that each of these acts, including rape and incest, is an attempt to seek power over and control of another person” (Pharr 13). Women who have suffered through any violence from a male have been belittled to be viewed as something of ownership, or an object.

Resorting to name-calling and pulling on emotions can be the biggest obstacle a woman will go through, even more so than physical violence. Men who refer to women in such a way is attempting to prove that she needs him in her life, or that she will be useless without him. “When a male abuser calls a woman a lesbian, he is not so much labeling her a woman who loves women as he is warning her that by resisting him, she is choosing to be outside society’s protection from male institutions and therefore from wide-ranging, unspecified, ever-present violence” (Pharr 15). Maybe what the abuser in this type of situation is most afraid of is losing his control over her, what he feels he has a natural right to do as a man in today’s society. As Suzanne Pharr put it, “the concern is not affectional/sexual identity: the concern is disloyalty and the threat is violence” (15).

Many feminists agree that economics is the main effect of sexism. Pharr exerts the theory by stating, “Men profit not only from women’s unpaid work in the home but from our underpaid work within a horizontal female segregation such as clerical works or upwardly mobile tokenism in the workplace where a few affirmative action promotions are expected to take care of all women’s economic equality needs” (10). Alongside of affirmative action is the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is a way for supervisors to lure women in to their company, stating that there are many ways for advancement and pay raises, but never allow them to enjoy those benefits. The “glass ceiling” allows the woman-worker to see the proposed benefits, but prevents them from actually obtaining them while their male counterparts reap the rewards. Women are then forced to be dependent on men for economic security, maintaining male domination and put limitations on the options women have for being self-sufficient and determined to advance in society.

Social institutions are at the core of oppression and inequality. Oppression can be accomplished through racism, sexism, classism, ageism, and even how one identifies their sexuality. Women are denied positions of power because it is considered stepping out of the gender role mentality and men, who are usually in charge of said institutions, are petrified of it.

For years women have been ranked in society based on their race, class, and age. Caucasian women go through a form of oppression, but it is different from those whom are African American and vice versa; this does not mean equality cannot be the same for all. It was not until the end of the second wave of feminism that women of all races and religions were brought in to the picture. It is unfortunate that women of every sexual orientation are still not respected by all women. We are in the midst of the third wave of feminism; it is our goal to turn this mentality of inequality for lesbians and bisexual women around.

Homophobia is used time and time again as a weapon of sexism on the basis of economics, violence, and patriarchy. Our socially stratified society continuously enables men to claim opportunities of importance and women what is left. Any woman who turns away from the traditional gender roles created by men and upheld by society as a whole, is looked down upon and faces the risk of being abused physically and/or mentally. Heterosexual women can identify with lesbians on a personal level, but some choose not to openly do so because of the patriarchal society we live in. These acts only emphasize a man’s need to be the sole provider and leave women succumbing to the pressures these males harbor them with.

Feminism is an important concept that all women in this country should endure. It gives heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual women alike a sense of community and strength that they cannot find out in the world we are faced with. Liberal feminism allows individuals to open their eyes wide enough to see past the oppression and discrimination the erotic markets create for them. If one cannot physically overthrow the system, one must learn to work within it.

Just because a woman speaks her mind does not mean that she is a radical feminist. Just because a woman stands for what she believes in does not mean she hates men. Just because a woman is successful and independent does not mean she is a threat to society. Feminism is oftentimes overlooked by many women and the mockery of many men; it is seen as abrasive and nonsensical. Homosexuality is not a mental disorder nor does it need the approval of any biblical reference. What is considered “right” in the eyes of society cannot be justified on the basis of opinion; what are justifiable are facts. It is a fact that women are capable of doing things on their own. It is a fact that women can obtain a higher degree of education than men. It is a fact that women can be happy regardless of their sexual orientation.

Some men feel threatened any time a woman is assertive and independent. It hampers the testosterone driven society and its norms. It gives some women a reason to move forward and others a reason to move back. Sexism is used to keep women apart, keep their voices lowered and their opinions dismissed. Until women of all races, sexual preferences, classes, and religions can work together to cut the root of sexism, it will continue to grow.

Society sets standards for us to strive toward, and offers a limited set of accepted means through which we can reach these standards. Unfortunately, the means accepted by society are not available to everyone. The lack of equal opportunity in our society compels certain groups to resort to deviant behavior in order to achieve their goals, or even just to survive. Deviance or deviant behavior is behavior that goes against accepted formal and informal social norms. Crime falls into the category of deviance that goes against formal social norms, or written laws and regulations. Groups that engage in deviant behavior are generally stigmatized by society, and in turn, are subject to marginalization. One such group is the immense subculture of drug dealers. A subculture is a group that has cultural values and behavioral patterns distinctive of a particular group in a society. In his account titled In Search of Respect, ethnographic researcher Philippe Bourgois goes into the depths of this subculture and examines why drug dealers live the way they do and how their occupation is a not just a personal choice, but a product of society.

In addition to illustrating the social production of blocked opportunities for residents in Bourgois’s ground breaking book, he also provides an interesting new insight into the street culture found in New York City by examining the effects of illegal drugs on a minority group. Specifically, the book focuses on the experiences and lives of Puerto Rican crack cocaine dealers and users as well as their friends, families and girlfriends, each of whom Bourgois depicts as victims of circumstance. In doing so, the author vividly details and analyzes the effects of structural inequality and social marginalization in the United States.

Bourgois, with his wife and child, moved into a tenement apartment in a small neighborhood in New York City named East Harlem in 1985. To residents, this neighborhood was simply known as “El Barrio.” To conduct his study, Bourgois and his family spent the next five years living among the harsh realities of the ghetto streets. The purpose of this was to infiltrate, assimilate, and participate in the daily workings of the community as much as possible to gain a better understanding of the circumstances these poor and suffering Puerto Rican residents faced. As such, the ultimate goal was to gain entrance to a network of Puerto Rican crack dealers as well as their network of relatives and acquaintances.

During his five year stint in “El Barrio,” Bourgois engaged in intensive participant observation among the informants who allowed him to penetrate the secretive culture of the underground economy. He provides the reader with verbatim narratives taken from his conversations with drug dealers, police officers (who occasionally mistook him for a drug addict), and drug users Bourgois uses the account of his subject and friend named Primo to illustrate the circumstances of drug dealers and the reasons they resort to illegal jobs. The norms of drug dealers include street sales, drug houses, violent crime, and respect associated with the status of a drug dealer. Having the identity of a drug dealer attributes a sense of power and pride to a man, even if it is just in his neighborhood. It prevents him from having to bear the humiliation of being degraded or belittled by a superior while working at a legal job.

Bourgois’ book focuses on a relatively unexamined section of the drug industry, the local

dealers, some of whom are, or have been drug users. He notes that most of them started out in

legitimate work, often prematurely by truanting from school, not a difficult thing to do in the

inner city. However their entrepreneurial skills have not enabled them to escape from the most

vulnerable wage sector. The poorest jobs fail to satisfy them while their backgrounds make it

impossible for them to sustain contact with more promising possibilities. Still they are

unwilling to lie down to the system. They have made the most of their limited opportunities by

finding a niche in the illegal drug market. Although nobody is more aware than they are of the

ultimate hopelessness of this, nevertheless in the meantime it gives them the buzz, the status

and the income their yuppie contemporaries find a few blocks away in Wall St.

– very well-written, as the author uses a plain, easy-to-read and understand style.

– He is arguing that answers to society’s most pressing issues are a lot more than mere blame-the-system or blame-the-victim approaches. It is far too common for liberals and conservatives, respectively, to blame society or to blame pathological, flawed individuals for social problems. As Bourgois shows in this book, the truth is often a combination of the two. Even his informants admit that they blame no one else but themselves for the situations they are in.

– The book starts off with Bourgois’s own experience of how there is an ‘apartheid’ present in New York working against his subjects

The amount of poverty in this portion of our country is much higher than that in most other areas. Bourgois argues that this neighborhood, which is well known for high rates of violence, does not have widespread violence occurring amongst all of it’s members. The higher crime rate, argues Bourgois, occurs for the most part within the factions of the underground economy. Some insight into this economy would explain the reasons for higher rates of violence.

This book is a summary of the events that occurred during Bourgois’ stay in El Barrio. The original purpose of the book was to write a first-hand account of poverty and ethnic segregation in the heart of one of the world’s largest cities. Bourgois was swept into the area drug economy because of the abundance of information from the dealers and their families who all lived within the immediate area. The problem was so prevalent that the focus of th

The amount of drug dealers or crack houses is an indirect result of the lost jobs in Harlem. Bourgois states that many of the unemployed in the inner-city are not successful in finding work because they lack the skills of working efficiently with people that they don’t already have an every day relationship with, something that factory jobs provided. Factory jobs that moved out of the inner-cities left the large minority groups without a collective workplace where everybody knew their task and how to complete it. The current availability of jobs within the inner-city is mostly within the service sector. These jobs are individualized jobs where independence is required rather than a group effort. The jobs pay little and aren’t generally respected. This tends to lead many people within this community to become involved in the drug economy.

Bourgois argues that, to reduce the violence within the drug community, we should consider the decriminalization of drugs. This would force small time dealers out of business, eliminating the need for them to commit violence amongst themselves, while making the s

Bourgois states that there is a strong feeling of community among the people living in El Barrio. Those people not involved in the drug market rarely encounter violence themselves because the dealers have nothing to fear from them. Bourgois states that, during the day, children are safely left to play in the streets unattended by their parents. At night, when the legitimate working force of the community is eating dinner or asleep, is when the brunt of violence takes place

Bourgois’ portrayal of the dealers and their families makes it difficult for the reader not to feel sympathy and compassion towards them. His argument is well defined and persuasive due to the fact that he moved his family to the area in which he was studying and had the courage to get in and really interact with the people of this community. The way in which he writes also compliments his argument by drawing the reader in and making him feel like he himself were there. Many may not agree with the solution that Bourgois suggests, but everyone who reads the book will re-think their own views before discussing t

This is an incredibly well written ethnography, it’s very accessible and could be read by anyone. Really illustrates the problems of people in ghettoised areas, with restricted access to the job market and a stigma attached to them.

Stigma is a mark of infamy or reproach. Drug dealing is stigmatized because norms of drug dealing completely clash with the norms of society, most obviously by going against written laws. Consuming or possessing illegal drugs is a crime, but the…

The only jobs that provided enough money for the Harlemites to survive on, with out having to engage in some other illegal activity, are high risk construction jobs, which were ran by racist mafia backed unions (ch. 4 pg. 162), or entry level jobs in the F.I.R.E. (finance, insurance, or real estate) sector (ch. 4 pg.142), where the impoverished Puerto Ricans did not have enough cultural capital or the proper ethnic background to survive in the positions being offered.

Although the world of the underground economy is very chaotic, it all seems to revolve around one thing, crack. Everyone’s daily life, that is anyone who is not a member of the poor legal working class, is organized around crack, whether one is fighting rival crews for a spot to sell, or just hanging out at the local crackhouse waiting for a handout. It is prevalent on both the violent and non-violent spectrums of the culture. Obviously, the dealers had the most respect of everyone, and were looked up at by youngsters.

To survive financially outside of mainstream society, one must manipulate all of ones available resources to make a livable income. So, in the underground economy this can mean any thing, from taking advantage of the welfare office, to selling drugs, or robbing people, all of which were employed by most of the subjects in this book.

The only act that stood out to me, as being a ritual was the act of getting high. While getting high served two fold, it served as a method to deal with the reality of not being able to be in control of any part of one’s life, and it severed as a way of opening up the lines for communication, as most of all the testimonials occurred over liquor and some sort of drug.

What caught the eye of the youngsters were their nice shoes and the respect everyone had for the dealer. So at the earliest time possible, the young kids would try and emulate what they have seen as an acceptable, and viable way to get money and respect. Selling drugs, being violent, and robbing people, all were skills that they learned at school (ch.4pg.194).

Bourgois eventually found his way to a storefront called the Game Room where video games provided a cover for the sale of crack cocaine. It was the manager of this establishment, Primo, who became Bourgois’s friend and primary informant about life in El Barrio. Through this intimacy, Bourgois seeks to tell us some things about the symbols and symptoms of urban ghetto life, the Achilles heel of the richest industrialized nation in the world by documenting how it imposes racial segregation and economic marginalization on so many of its Latino/a and African-American citizens. (Bourgois: 1995a; 14) Bourgois painstakingly records and analyzes the exploits of these elements of Puerto Rican diaspora. The culmination of such fieldwork is collected in ethnography about the urban underground economy and social marginalization

Speaking fluently the minority language, he lived for five years in “El

Barrio” and also travelled to Puerto Rico to trace the connections between there and

“Amerikay”.

His analysis starts in Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island at the end of the Cuban±Dominican

chain and therefore of strategic importance to the United States. Colonization by the US has

The

concentration of Puerto Rican immigrants in East Harlem has access mainly to the poorest

service jobs in New York City. East Harlem is a classic ghetto which no self respecting New

Yorker would think of even driving through. Yet, as Bourgois notes, the majority of East

Harlem inhabitants have nothing to do with crime, far less drugs. It is the removal of all local

industry, e.g. garment making, which has exposed a social infrastructure that is too weak to

support the present massive levels of unemployment and casual labor.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the levels of self esteem in Indian adolescents. The study sample was 60 participants that were selected by the random selection method. They were taken from various educational institutions from Hyderabad. Participants completed a Rosenberg self esteem scale that had ten questions about evaluating their overall self and the choices ranged from strong agree to strongly disagree. T-test was calculated between the two groups which were males and females. The results showed insignificant results, which showed that there was no difference in the levels of self esteem between the two groups. Although when the individual means of the genders were found, it turned out that females had higher levels of self esteem then males. Unlike other studies which showed that boys have higher self esteem then girls, this study revealed that there are no differences in the level of self esteem between them.

Self Esteem In Adolescents and Gender Differences

The way one looks at oneself plays a very important role in an individual life, everybody has a humanistic characteristic which is self esteem. Self Esteem can be defined as an individual’s attitude about himself or herself, involving self evaluation along a positive, negative dimension (Baron & Byrne).Generally self esteem is referred as a positive evaluation of ones self in all aspects, overall (Rosenberg, 1990; Rosenberg, carmie & Carrie, 1995). Self-concept and self-esteem are the most widely used words; there are other ways to think about the self too. Self generally refers to ones conscious reflection of identity or ones own being, as an object separate from others or from the environment. Self concept being a cognitive or thinking aspect of self is mostly referred to totality of a complex, organized, and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes and opinions that each individual hold to be true about his or her personal existence (Purkey,1988). Self-esteem is commonly defined as an individual’s sense of self-worth (Baumeister, 1993; Bolognini, Plancherel, Bettschart, & Halfon, 1996; Ponsoda, Abad, Francis, & Hills, 2008) This perception of the self can include evaluations that are both positive and negative, and can also incorporate specific aspects of the self as well as a global sense of well-being (Quatman & Watson, 2001; Wilgenbusch & Merrell, 1999).

Harter (1990a) defined self-esteem as “how much a person likes, accepts, and respects himself [sic] overall as a person” (p. 255). He presented two different views on self esteem: the first one is from William James who viewed self esteem as a ratio of a persons perceived success in a particular area to the importance that the person attaches to that area. The second is that Horton Cooley, he considered self esteem as an originating with the persons perception as to how significant others viewed the self. Two under self esteem there are two types: High self esteem and low self esteem. Low self esteem usually leads to little positive and ambivalent feelings, whereas high self esteem leads to love for one self and fondness. In extreme cases people with low esteem hate themselves, which is very rare. It occurs in clinical populations not in normal people (Baumeister, Tice, Hutton, 1989).

Research conducted in Indian context suggests that problems like socio emotional problems like loneliness, adjustment difficulties with parents and interpersonal conflicts are very common in adolescence which may lead to impaired feelings of Self esteem (Parmar P et al 2008). In cultures that tend to be more individualistic, for example the United States, the whole process surrounding self-esteem in popular and academic areas is that all individuals possess a self, and therefore, self-esteem. In nations with individuated cultural values, “the individual has a right and responsibility, in fact a moral obligation, to become separate, autonomous, efficacious, and in control” (Heine 760). When compared to individualist nations, collectivist cultures, such as Japan, appreciate and honor the interdependent self. The interdependent self is considered to be most complete when the individual is seen as functioning in smooth manner within a larger, more encompassing collective (Heine 1999).

Adolescence

A period of development marked by the onset of puberty and the stage where one attains physiological or biological maturity is Adolescence. However the term adolescence Is less precise because the onset of puberty and the attainment of physiological or biological maturity are impossible to define or specify exactly (Reber, 1995). Adolescence was not perceived as such a unique stage in the previous stages of life in the earlier centuries. distinct; individuals simply moved from childhood into young adulthood. Middle class arises then through the industrial revolution allowed many teens to remain out of work, labor force; therefore education became very important (Henslin 1973). As a result of all the changes that surrounded those times, the term adolescence was created to indicate the gap between childhood and young adulthood (Henslin 1973).

Sociologists like Charles Cooley (1902) and Herbert Mead (1934) expanded upon earlier studies in the psychosocial development of the self. These scholars and other symbolic interaction theorists stressed the way the self is socially constructed in result to interaction, based on people’s shared understandings of social roles, rules, symbols, and categories. Following this symbolic integrationist’s line of reasoning, the social construction of self, then, for immigrant adolescent girls and boys, is based on people’s shared understandings of social roles, rules, symbols, and categories. These roles are played by parents, peers and teachers.

According to Arnett there are many factors in an adolescences life that can have an impact on their self esteem for example school, peer, and family (Arnett, 2004). In his view adolescents self esteem is when their capacity to evaluate their fundamentals as a person (Arnett, 2007). There are various factors that affect the various levels of self esteem in adolescents such as gender, ethnicity, social class etc. as all human beings are different it can also vary from person to person ; in different domains like social, scholastic, athletics’, appearance, and general conduct an adolescent may have different levels of self esteem (Actforyouth, 2003).

The ages which are considered to be part of adolescents vary by culture, geography and other variables. According to the World Health Organization adolescence covers a period of 10-19 years. The values of the large social structure are intrinsically transmitted into adolescents and are derived from it; therefore it is important to study adolescent self esteem (Greenberg et al, 1913). Although previous studies have investigated the role of self esteem in adolescents, little has been to examine whether there are differences between various cultures. Self esteem has been considered to be one of the most common concepts of research in Social Psychology (Buamester, 1993; Wells & Marwell, 1976; W Ylie, 1979). Much of the research and theory conducted on self esteem and self concept is based on western cultures and populations and studies on various other cultures is expanding. . Everybody is different individually and personality wise, so does this even imply on various cultures, different population? There have been numerous studies conducted to discover just that: is there a gender difference in self-esteem during adolescence among various populations?

Gender and Self Esteem

Being in India one understands how important gender plays in their daily lives. Usually men are considered to be the higher authority and most of the time they are being obeyed. Even when a child is born , gender is the first thing that is looked at. If it’s a boy everyone is usually elated, but if it’s a girl then a little disappointed. But in today’s context a lot of Indians are opening up and trying to get rid of the evil gender differences.

Gilbert (1992) states, “Gender refers not only to biological sex but also to the psychological, social, and cultural features and characteristics that have become strongly associated with the biological categories of female and male” (p. 385).

Erik H. Erikson believed that adolescence represents a crucial turning point in the development of an individual in the sense of an identity. The three physical, social and cognitive changes lead to certain questions, for example “who am I”. These types of questions lead to frequent soul searching. This type of behavior leads to insecurity and uncertainty which indirectly promotes conformity into ones “gender Intensification” or gender role. In the early adolescent period, boys may try to enact the macho role models and they can be quite homophobic, on the other hand girls may be more the fashion side, sticking to strict dress codes and playing with their intellectual abilities. The timing of puberty can also play a significant factor for adolescent gender development. For girls they are more prone to encounter social difficulties when they mature early, but for the boys it’s the opposite. According to research a large component of self esteem is satisfaction with psychical appearance; girls seem to have greater dissatisfaction with physical appearance than doo boys (Harter, 1990, 1999).

Albert Bandura developed the Social learning theory which emphasizes the importance of children’s imitation of the behavior of others (models). His theory highlight on how children learn from their parents by observing them, boys especially from their fathers and girls learn from imitating female, their mothers. When children imitate same-sex behaviors, they are rewarded, but imitating the other sex may carry the threat of punishment. Although the research indicates that most parents value the same behaviors for their sons and daughters, some rewards or punishments are given on the basis of gender typing, particularly during play. This is even more true for boys than for girls, with fathers being the most strict if, for example, they observe their sons playing with Barbie dolls or sporting red fingernail polish. Research in the Theories of gender differences are still in the early stages of development and empirical research is only limited. Bem states that Gender is culturally and socially constructed in the society. Socialization is the lifelong process for an individual by a society’s made values and norms, including those referring to gender, are taught and learned (Renzetti & Curran, 1958). Gender schema theory by Bem argues that as children learn appropriate cultural definitions of gender, those definitions becomes the key structure for them around which all other information is organized (Bem, 1981).

In tradition self esteem has been viewed as global, unidirectional and independent of source influence like individuals and contextual factors, specifically the impact which arises due to relationships with significant others (Du Bois DL. Hirsch BJ, 2000). Erik H. Erikson divided the development of personality into eight stages over the lifespan; each stage is characterized by its own possible outcomes and its own crisis. (1) trust vs. mistrust; (2) autonomy vs. shame and doubt; (3) initiative vs. guilt; (4) industry vs. inferiority; (5) identity vs. role confusion; (6) intimacy vs. isolation; (7) generativity vs. stagnation; and (8) integrity vs. despair. According to Erikson all these conflicts in the stages arise because of two factors which are societal and maturational: these factors make new demands on an individual and each conflict or crisis must be sorted out before an individual is prepared to proceed to the next stage. He believed that these stages were the psychosocial stages of development emphasizing that social and cultural factor play an important role in personality development. This was different from Freud, he emphasized psychosexual development. Erickson stressed on the point that that the sequence of the psychosocial stages were the same Invariant across all the cultures, but the ways all the individuals from different cultures met each of the conflict was different. He also highlighted the fact that historical factors, the unique time of the larger societies affected the formation of an individuals personality, formation which is across lifespan.

Everyone from parents to teachers are concerned about students self esteem, its significance is often viewed as low self esteem being bad which causes all evil and high self esteem is the cause of all good (Manning, Bear & Minke, 2006) Adolescents are prone to experimenting; therefore they become a good sample to measure. This study also examines the gender differences in self esteem. Some theorists have supported the idea that adolescence is a difficult and stressful period (Bios, 1962; Erikson, 1950). Studies have shown that adolescent girls tend to have lower self-esteem and more negative assessments of their physical characteristics and intellectual abilities than boys have. These findings may explain why the incidence of suicide attempts, depression, and eating disorders is substantially higher in girls.

The relationships between self-esteem and other variables have been researched extensively. self esteem is often related to anxiety, depression, general satisfaction and motivation with ones life (Harter, 1986; Rosenberg, 1986) Low self-esteem has been correlated with low life satisfaction, loneliness, anxiety, resentment, irritability, and depression (Rosenberg, 1985). Past researches found s correlation between high self esteem and perceived intimacy with parents (Blyth & Traeger, 1988). Others show that high self esteem has been correlated with academic success in high school (O’Malley & Bachman, 1979), internal locus of control, higher family income, and positive sense of self-attractiveness (Griffore, Kallen, Popovich, & Powell, 1990). Another variable which has been studied with self esteem is Exercising.

Self esteem among children and adolescents is a constant topic discussed in both professional and personal spheres of life. In fact, gender differences in teenager years in self esteem are avery widely featured stereotypes and they are popular to and for some time, accepted without actual support from empirical evidence. Such an ambiguous which is so extensively talked about leads to an unclear picture of how adolescents view themselves. Self esteem remains to be the most researched topic in psychology, receives a lot of attention. The most heard and common stereotype is that boys have higher self-esteem then girls (Wilgenbusch & Merrell, 1999). Girls are generally seen as a weak link, which is insecure and easily swayed by the mass media and peers.

Looking at the past researches, higher levels of self-esteem have been associated with better coping skills, emotional stability, positive affect, and an increased improvement in quality of life perceptions. On the other hand, lower levels of self-esteem have been known to encourage anxiety, depression and criminal behavior which are all emotional and behavioral disorders. (Quatman & Watson, 2001)

Past researches suggested that an African American adolescent is comparable to if not greater than that of ethnic majority peers (Harter, 1999). For instance, white girls appeared to be most vulnerable to a fall in low self esteem in adolescence when compared to any other group (Harter, 1999). A study conducted by Donahue and Benson (1995) revealed that, self esteem as a predictor of social problems in the researches psychological and social development. According to Holly (1987), self esteem is influenced by child rearing practices, culture, achievement related attributions, various interactions with teachers and parents. Adolescent is a period of turmoil in which childrens self esteem increases and is highly influenced by surroundings, environment. women are always conditioned in a way to suffer low self esteem and inferior status, in Indian culture women had always been held high in self esteem throughout many ages and they have also been worshipped. With these fast changing times gender perceptions seem to be a societal construct, these are dependent upon socio-cultural practices in which the children, youth and adult grow up (NIHFW, 2005).

The results of research in the past by Yabiku et al 1999 found that children have higher self esteem when their parents are loving, supportive and deeply involved in their lives. Self esteem has also been found to have a direct correlation with, quality and strength of a parent-child relationship. Children with families who have poor communication tend to have low self esteem and trouble finding their own identity (Nunley, 1996).

There have also been studies that show in the past that address the question whether self esteem changes over time, they have produced conflicting results. Some research has shown that self-esteem rises during adolescence and early adulthood (Bachman, O’Malley, & Johnston, 1978; Cairns, McWhirter, Duffy, & Barry, 1990; Chiam, 1987; Labouvie, Pandina, White, & Johnson, 1990; McCarthy & Hoge, 1982; O’Malley & Bachman, 1983).

Cindy Carlson et al (2000) conducted a study in America on Ethnic differences, the mean levels and sources of global self-esteem for Hispanic, African American, and White early adolescent girls were examined. The data was from survey administered to students in attendance at three public middle schools. The techniques used were Path analytic to assess processes that contribute to self-esteem. High self esteem was predicted for all ethnic groups by authoritative parenting and perceived teacher support and related inversely to family stress. The significant predictor in the study was the Ethnic identity among the minority girls. Hispanic girls reported significantly lower self-esteem, which appeared to be related to lower overall scores on the predictor variables. Results are discussed in terms of the theoretical importance of ethnic identity and reflected appraisals from teachers as factors contributing to self-esteem among minority youth, along with the need for additional research on Hispanic girls.

Past research in Nigeria, investigates the influence of gender differences on the expression on self esteem among Youruba adolescents. Their sample consisted of 120 adolescents, 60 males and 60 females, with a mean age of 16.02 years (S.D.=1.63), the results reveal that male adolescents express higher self-esteem than female adolescents. This finding is attributed to the differing socialization processes for males and females in Yoruba societies.

Kearney-Cooke A. presented a study in which they sought to understand gender differences in adolescent self-esteem in terms of its component parts. As predicted by them boys attained slightly higher global self-esteem scores that girls did, by a difference of 22 standard deviation units. A study performed in Puerto Rico by Sumru Erkut et al on Puerto Rican girls and boys their mean levels of self-esteem were generally similar to those found among Harter’s sample of predominantly Anglo middle school students from the suburbs of Denver except that Puerto Rican youth did not show gender differences in overall self-esteem. . Gender differences in mean levels of self-esteem in different domains were similar to those of Anglo youth, regardless of the Puerto Rican youth’s individual level of psychological or behavioral acculturation. When differences by acculturation emerged, psychological acculturation appeared to play a more protective role for girls (Hispanic- or Latino-oriented girls reported being better behaved and having greater confidence in their scholastic abilities) and behavioral acculturation operated as a risk factor for boys (boys with preference for English reported low Behavioral Conduct and Scholastic Competence scores). On the other hand, greater acculturation (both psychological and behavioral) was associated with girls’ lower confidence in their physical attractiveness. Finally, the structure of self-esteem varied by gender, and psychological and behavioral acculturation.

It is necessary to be aware of the distinctions between Western and Eastern cultures because they are instructive for understanding the self-processes, but it should also be pointed out that there is considerable variation within each culture regarding self-processes. For example, within the United States and other Western countries women are more likely to have an interdependent self-concept and they consider themselves at a certain being and men are more likely to emphasize an independent self-concept (Markus and Oyserman 1989).

It is important to acknowledge that most of the theories of adolescent development are based on research with a limited population: primarily white, male subjects (Gilbert, 1992; Gilligan, 1988; Hare-Mustin & Marecek, 1990; Kaschak, 1992; Richardson & Johnson, 1984).

In a study by Emda Orr and Batia Dinur (1993) in Israel on the effect of two multidimensional systems-namely, social setting and the self-upon adolescents’ growth and development. They hypothesized that gender differences in adult social status are greater in the kibbutz than in the Israeli urban setting, and that this gap is associated with gender differences in global self-esteem among kibbutz youth. Kibbutz mothers were found to have significantly lower social status than fathers, while kibbutz girls had significantly lower self-esteem than kibbutz boys and urban adolescents of both sexes. The organization of the self-concept of kibbutz females differed from the other groups: self-esteem was predicted not only from self-concepts in the domains of scholastic achievement and peer support, but also from the domain of parental support, from academic achievement, and from father’s occupational status. Literature on the subject of self esteem in adolescents and gender differences has revealed different results for adolescents belonging to different cultures and backgrounds. These results show different dimensions as they are culturally different. For the current study based on previous literature we hypothesized that there boys have higher levels of self esteem then girls.

Method

Participants

The sample comprised of 60 respondents (males=30 females=30) from various educational institutions from Hyderabad aged 13-19 (adolescents), 16 percent of the sample were 13 &14 year olds, 11 percent were 15years old, 28percent were 16 year olds, 25percent were17years old, 20 percent were 18 years old. The subjects were from various economics statuses but it was not as diverse, 30 percent belonged to the upper class, 25 percent were from the Upper middle class and 46.6 percent from the middle class. The sample also consisted of adolescents from various different religions such as Hindus which consisted of 31 percent, Jains were 5 percent, Sikh were 1 percent and subjects belonging to Christianity were 6 percent. The majority out of the sample were Muslims who constituted 53 percent.

Measures

Self-esteem is defined as “a positive or negative orientation toward oneself; an overall evaluation of one’s worth or value” (University of Maryland, 2004). The instrument used for the study was Rosenberg’s Self Esteem Scale (1965). The Rosenberg self esteem scale consists of ten questions that address questions which pertain to ones feelings about him/her. The Rosenberg self esteem scale takes approximately 8 minutes to complete. The scale consists ten questions which is a form of the likert scale. The questions require the subjects to respond with one choice out of four, ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. The scores on Rosenberg’s self esteem scale range from 10 to 40. A high score on the scale for the survey points out that the participant feels that he or she is a person of value and is worthy of self-respect. A low score on this scale indicates the feelings of self-rejection, self-dissatisfaction, and self-contempt (James, n.d.) Rosenberg has not specifically mentioned any cutoff for the scores to distinguish between high and low self esteem. Generally, researchers considered 15-25 to be the normal.

This scale is known to generally have high reliability and test-retest correlation in the range of .82 to.88, and Cronbach’s alpha for various samples are in the range of .77 to .88 (Owens, 2001;University of Maryland, 2004; Wells & Marwell, 1976). This scale was developed mostly to test adolescents (Rosenberg, 1965). The Rosenberg Self Esteem scale is the most widely used scale in research and practice due to its administration ease, brief properties, good reliability and validity.

Procedure

The participants were selected on the basis of random sampling method. An informed consent was taken from all the participants who agreed to participate in the survey. On the consent form clear description of the study was stated. At the same time they were allowed to quit the any time if they wanted to. The participation was completely voluntary and not forced in any way. However the participants could not be compensated due to the economic constraints of the researcher

Results

The hypothesis was that boys have higher levels of self esteem, the results are insignificant. Therefore the hypothesis stated has been rejected. The analysis failed to confirm our hypothesis, showing that there was no significant difference in the levels of self esteem between the genders. Although the results show that there are no differences in the levels of means between the genders in adolescents. The mean is used to compute the average; it is basically the sum of all the values of the items in a series divided by the items. of the two groups are -1.73. A t-test is any statistical hypothesis test in which the test statistic follows a Student’s t distribution if the null hypothesis is true. To find the result T-test was applied. The t-value, t = 1.7148 and df = 58 and the Standard error of difference is 1.011.

Showing the statistical value of the two genders.

Figure 1

Group

Male

Female

Mean

20.13
21.87

SD

3.76
4.07

SEM

0.69
0.74

N

30
30

Discussion

The results show that the difference in the levels of self esteem in Indian adolescents is quite insignificant. There is no difference in both the genders level of self esteem. There is not Much research done on this. Interestingly if one looks at the individual results of both the groups of genders then the mean of female is 21.87 where as the mean of male adolescents is 20.13. This implies that the mean of the level of self esteem in girls is higher then that of boys. Out of 60 subjects who participated in the study only 6 percent had low self esteem and 92 percent of the subjects had high self esteem. In most of the researches conducted on the gender differences in self esteem, the results have shown that female adolescents have lower self esteem when compared to males.

The study clearly specifies that there is no difference even though the results are insignificant. Since one is trying to find out whether there are differences in the level of self esteem in various adolescents around the world: looking at the research which has been conducted in the Nigerian adolescents, the results show that females have lower self esteem levels, here there could be pointed out that Indian adolescents showed no difference in their levels of self esteem. Another study by Kearney-Cooke A in America showed that that adolescent girls tend to have lower self-esteem and more negative assessments of their physical characteristics and intellectual abilities than boys have.

There is a general assumption that where one lives has an impact on the individuals overall development, this is leading to say that everyone is different and unique and that when looking at adolescents and self esteem it is varied. Meaning that the study is trying to prove that Indian adolescents are different. Their levels of self esteem, and that the levels of self esteem between boys an girls is not much different. One can see the results of Quatman & Watsons research in which they sought to understand the gender differences in adolescents self esteem with other components, their results showed that boys attained slightly higher global self-esteem scores that girls did, by a difference of 22 standard deviation units.

Implications

Even though we did not find a significant result for the study, we could see the individual group results of the genders showed girls having higher levels of self esteem. The so hyped stereotype that boys have higher levels of self esteem has been proved wrong in this study. It could also be implied that adolescents from various cultures, populations are different. Perhaps the society needs to be less strict on gender related self esteem. However if people keep a less biased environment for their children then there wont be any differences. Wide population, limited research on Indian adolescents.

Limitations

The sample just included 60 adolescents (30=males 30=female) using random sampling selection. If there could be a larger sample number maybe the study would of showed significant results. Another aspect of this study is, as the researcher is trying to show that there are no differences in adolescent’s level of self esteem between genders, and then when comparing with the other researches should be very detailed. For example the type of scale used the instruments and etc. Even though our study was a good representation from the adolescent population, it did not show a good representation of the socio-economic status. Since religion also plays an important part in a individuals life other researches could take a equal distribution of subjects.

Suggestions for further research include a careful collection of sample and also a more detailed study regarding self esteem on a Global Stage.

Conclusions

The present study focused on whether there is a difference in the levels of self esteem in adolescents in genders and also whether the general stereotype that males have higher level of self esteem then girls. The study is contrary to findings in literature. There was no significant association between the levels of self esteem between the genders. many factors must be discussed. Firstly, clear definitions must be made in order to integrate multiple viewpoints on the topic.

Title: “Judging from Appearances: The Search for Identity through Body Modification”

I. Introduction

Body modification has been practiced in a number of ways and for a variety of reasons since ancient times; it has existed on some level for thousands of years. Historical evidence suggests that red dye extracted from hematite was used to paint the body as many as 20,000 years ago. Archeological evidence proves that as many as 10,000 years ago, parts of animal bones, animal teeth, and colorful stones were used to decorate the body. Hair combs date back to nearly 5,000 years ago. Water served ancient peoples as mirrors until 4,500, when the first mirror is believed to have been invented (Ehsan, 1999, 49-52).

Society has progressed since those early days. One need only turn on the television or leaf through a magazine to be bombarded with all kinds of advertisements for body modification. Chemical treatments can straighten hair and change skin tone and texture. Surgical procedures can decrease or (more often) augment breast size. Penile implants claim to enhance sexual performance. Unwanted fat can be removed in any number ways, ranging from dietary changes to liposuction. Some signs of ageing can be temporarily reversed with injections of Botox; others can be permanently altered, again through surgery.

Today in the western world, body modification is widely practiced in all classes of society. Often it is the result of societal pressure to achieve perfection. At times it is a ritual or rite of initiation within a group or social hierarchy. Less often, although this is steadily increasing, the body is modified to change its gender; this is done through surgical procedures supplemented by hormonal and similar supplementary treatments.

Women are considered the most frequent targets of this pressure to achieve somatic perfection, and therefore they are the most frequent practitioners of body modification. However, this pressure affects men as well. This paper will examine four specific types of body modification: tattooing and scarification; piercing; diet and exercise; and aesthetic surgery.

Although these are by no means the only methods of body modification, they are among the most widespread and they cover a wide spectrum. Still, whether it takes the form of a minor dietary modification or an extreme makeover, it is clear that most individuals in the western world practice some sort of body modification. For this reason, it is a practice which merits close study and consideration. How far will some individuals go in this pursuit for perfection? How much of this will society sanction? What are the implications for our future and that of future generations? These are the questions to be explored throughout the course of this research.

Tattoos and Scarification

The word “tattoo” is derived from a Tahitian word meaning “to mark.” The act of tattooing is believed to be over ten thousand years old, and it has had a variety of uses throughout history. Tattoos have played an important role in various tribal and cultural rituals. For example, ancient Greeks used them as part of a sophisticated espionage system. Romans used tattoos to clearly mark criminals and slaves. In Borneo, women would have symbols of special skills or talents tattooed on their forearms, thus alerting potential marriage partners of their marketability.

Although tattooing has flourished consistently in many cultures, its popularity in western civilization has fluctuated widely. After waning for several centuries, it was reintroduced in the late seventeenth century, but it was not until the late eighteenth century that it once again became widespread, Even so, it often had negative associations and tattooed individuals were mostly relegated to the fringes of society, such as freak show oddities and carnival workers.

In the 20^th century, the art of tattooing waxed and waned as society rapidly changed with the proliferation of new and better technologies. By the late sixties it was still primarily an underground operation, often the provenance of biker groups and criminals. From the late twentieth century until today, however, tattooing has enjoyed renewed popularity as body decoration, and is seen in a much more positive light, often as an art itself. In addition to the more traditional ink tattoos, there are those caused by puncturing and/or burning the skin. In this process, known as scarification, scalpels or cauterizing tools are applied to selected areas of the skin, and the resulting scar tissue is the desired result.

Better technology has improved technique and ease of application for all kinds of tattooing; in addition, more sanitary conditions have lessened the risk of diseases such as hepatitis. These two points have no doubt contributed to the revival and renewed respect for the practice of tattooing. However, as it will be discussed, changes in attitudes toward the body have also played a part in its reawakened popularity.

Body Piercing

Body piercing also has a long and varied history, dating back to ancient times. There are mentions of body piercing in the Bible. In addition, it was a frequent practice of ancient Romans. Roman warriors often pierced their nipples, considering this to be a sign of strength and masculinity; it was also a practical measure, a way of attaching cloaks to the body.

Roman gladiators, who usually held the status of slaves, also underwent body-piercing, though as slaves they had little choice. Often gladiators would be subjected to genital piercing, primarily through the head of the penis. This was partially a protective measure, allowing the ringed penile tip to be tied close to the body during battle, protecting it from injury. But it was also a territorial measure, since they were considered property of their owners. Placement of a larger ring through the penile tip could also prevent sex, making it essentially a male chastity belt, to be removed at the discretion of the gladiator’s owner.

Aztec and Mayan Indians were known to have pierced their lips as part of religious ritual, believing this brought them closer to their god. They also pierced the septum, believing this gave them a fierce, intimidating appearance during battle. Aztecs and Mayans were also fond of lip labrets, which were often made of precious metals and served highly decorative purposes.

During medieval times the art of body piercing lost favor, regaining popularity during the Renaissance period. It enjoyed unprecedented popularity during the Victorian Era, due to the sexual pleasures it was known to enhance.

Until recently, body-piercing, like tattooing, was primarily associated with fringe groups in western society. However, today it no longer exists solely in the realm of punk rock and fetish scenes. Nose-, nipple-, and navel- piercing is now common in contemporary western society, alongside the more traditional pierced ears and the less visible genital piercings.

Diet and Exercise

Diet and exercise—often used together—are another form of body modification.

The diet industry is huge in western countries. Appetite suppressants, both prescription and over-the-counter types, are extremely popular. Fad diets such as the South Beach Diet or the Atkins Program attract and retain large numbers of followers. Health clubs and gyms are another large part of this industry, selling memberships which promise buyers a new way of life and a fit—and thin—future. To members of a society who desire this more than anything else, it is not a hard sell.

Excessive dieting can lead to life-threatening eating disorders. The primary disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia, and they primarily afflict women, mostly in their teens and twenties. Although “anorexia” itself literally means “loss of appetite,” this disease often has more to do with a denial of appetite rather than loss of desire for food.

Its sufferers will go for extended periods of time without eating, or will eat just the barest amounts of food, in an effort to become and/or remain thin. The most tragic aspect of anorexia is that often the sufferer loses a sense of her own body, refusing to acknowledge that she has gone way beyond “thin”—anorexics are often emaciated.

Bulimia is a disorder which is characterized by ingestions of large amounts of food—binging—followed by a period of purging, to rid the body of the unwanted calories. Purging may be achieved by vomiting, either self-induced or through chemicals such as syrup of Ipecac. Excessive laxative use is also associated with this disorder. Often bulimics will have a low-to-normal body weight as compared to anorexics, but sufferers of both disorders face similar health problems due to electrolyte imbalance, nutritional deficiencies, and related complications.

Susan Bordo sees eating disorders as complex, multi-layered disorders in which the sufferer sees her body as alien, as a threat to control, as an enemy. She also sees it as a gender/power issue and a protest against the confines of femininity.

Exercise, on the other hand, can be seen as a way of actively asserting control instead of passively denying oneself. It can be argued that exercise is taken by some for the sake of exercise, but there is no doubt that it is also an activity that is undertaken to combat corporeal excesses and to exert control over the body.

Some forms of exercise—for example, body-building and weight-lifting, can also be a form of exerting control without the concomitant existence of an eating disorder, and are more commonly undertaken by men, though women are involved in this as well.

Surgical Modification

Surgical modification can be called many names, among them: plastic surgery; reconstructive surgery; or, as Sander Gilman prefers to refer to it: aesthetic surgery. Indeed, this type of surgery includes a wide variety of procedures, from surgically correcting a birth deform such as a cleft palate, to disfigurements due to accident or injury…or from a subtle removal of “crows’ lines” or other signs of age, to more dramatic adjustments to a too-large nose or an unacceptably sharp chin. The most extreme result of this type of surgery involves gender modification.

Surgical body modification is different from most other forms in that it generally implies a level of secrecy that the others do not. The procedure and the recuperation period that follows both take place behind closed doors, sometimes even in foreign lands. Furthermore, the reappearance of the individual after the procedure is not accompanied by any sort of fanfare; there is an implicit assumption that the individual has always appeared thus, or if the change is dramatic, that it is not to be spoken of.

Discussions of surgical body modification in this paper will focus primarily on elective surgery undertaken for purely cosmetic purposes, so that it may be explored and assessed as part of the larger societal trend towards achievement of physical perfection at any cost.

II. Literature Review

Sander Gilman’s comprehensive body of research is well worth exploring, particularly two of his books: Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul: Race and Psychology in the Shaping of Aesthetic Surgery, and Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery. His works provide a broad and thorough base for any study of body modification, though his primary focus is on surgical enhancements.

Yet while Gilman thoroughly addresses the subject of aesthetic surgery, the focus is on the surgery itself, as well as upon the need for it and what that need signifies. Discussion of the body itself is limited in Gilman’s work; it is seen only in terms of its potential for surgical alteration. In addition, other types of body modification—such as piercing, tattoos, weight-loss regimens, exercise—are only briefly covered in his work. While he speculates on the significance of aesthetic surgery thoughtfully and articulately, his ideas do not go beyond surgical issues (though, to be fair, they do not pretend to; he is very clear about the scope and limitations of his research).

For broader looks at the concept of the body and the various modes of modification now prevalent in society, we can turn to other researchers. Much of the current literature seeks to approach the concept of the body from a different angle, focusing on the body itself. Interestingly enough, many of these researchers find significance in the fact that focus on the body seems to be missing in much of the earlier literature, or, if not missing, submerged.

Bryan Turner begins his book The Body and Society by immediately introducing the duality of the body, opening with what is at once a seemingly simple yet very complex statement: “There is an obvious and prominent fact about human beings: they have bodies and they are bodies (Turner 1996, 37). He goes on to point out that despite this very obvious fact, there is a seeming lack of information about the body in sociology; he explains that beyond a wealth of historical and mathematical data, there is really no actual investigation of the body in and of itself—or, rather, that this information is there, but deeply encoded: “in writing about sociology’s neglect of the body, it may be more exact to refer to this negligence as submergence rather than absence, since the body in sociological theory has had a furtive, secret history rather than no history at all (Turner 1996, 63).

Joanne Entwistle cites Turner several times in her own work, though her perspective is clearly focused on the significance of clothing and fashion. In “The Dressed Body,” she addresses, as the title of her essay suggests, the symbolic meaning of clothing. She points out that there is an abundance of straightforward description concerning the particulars of style: colors, hemlines, cut, accessories—but this rarely goes beyond details of style. There is very little literature that looks at the very subtle and complex relationship between the body and clothing. Since social norms demand that bodies must (almost) always be dressed, she finds this lack telling: “dress is fundamental to micro social order and the exposure of naked flesh is, potentially at least, disruptive of social order” (Entwistle 2001, 33-34).

In fact, Entwistle, like many of her contemporaries, views the body as an entity in and of itself, asserting that “we experience our bodies as separate from others and increasingly we identify with our bodies as containers of our identities and places of personal expression. (Entwistle 2000, 138).

Chris Shilling echoes both Turner and Entwistle about the seeming lack of focus on the body itself. However, Shilling points out that this is now changing, and that academic interest in the body itself is steadily growing: “the sociology of the body has emerged as a distinct area of study, and it has even been suggested that the body should serve as an organizing principle for sociology (Shilling 1993, 1).

As for what has brought about this new and much-needed shift in perspective, Shilling and others agree that it seems based on conflict. It is perhaps Shilling who best describes the paradox at the core of this change: “We now have the means to exert an unprecedented degree of control over bodies, yet we are also living in an age which has thrown into radical doubt our knowledge of what bodies are and how we should control them (Shilling 1993, 3). This paradox is a recurring theme in the literature, both in the writings about the body as well as the multitudinous passages about the various procedures to which it is subjected to in today’s world.

There is, however, a general consensus that surgery is the most dramatic form of body modification—in particular, cosmetic surgery (Gilman consistently refers to it as “aesthetic surgery,” which seems a much softer and much more positive term). Cosmetic surgery for most of these researchers includes any kind of surgical enhancement that is performed solely for aesthetic ends, although the definition of “aesthetic” can vary widely.

Other types of surgeries are considered as well, including those involving gender modification. However, most of the literature studied for this paper has tended to focus on the more mainstream applications of aesthetic surgery. Transsexual operations, and the many issues therein, are acknowledged by virtually all researchers, but they are not explored in any depth in the sources considered for this paper. Considering the many procedural and ethical issues involved in transgender procedures, this is not surprising. It is a rapidly changing surgical sub-specialty, and one with wide-ranging sociological and psychological issues, none of which can be adequately dealt with in a footnote to a more general piece of research.

The Body as Object

Indeed, the body seems to have become a thing separate from the self, a continual work-in-progress with a growing number of options and “enhancements” to choose from.

The theme of body-as-object is echoed throughout the current sociological literature and in other disciplines as well. Speaking of the body as art, Lea Vergine posits that

The body is being used as an art language by an ever greater number of contemporary painters and sculptors….It always involves, for example a loss of personal identity, a refusal to allow the sense of reality to invade and control the sphere of the emotions, and a romantic rebellion against dependence upon both people and things (Vergine 2000, 1).

Entwistle explores the relationship between the body and societal pressures, asserting that there are “two bodies: the physical body and the social body” (2001, 37).

To understand the role of dress, she further notes, “requires adopting an approach which acknowledges the body as a social entity and dress as the outcome of both social factors and individual actions” (2001, 48).

Entwistle explains that in contemporary culture, the body has become the “site of identity”: “We experience our bodies as separate from others and increasingly we identify with our bodies as containers of our identities and places of personal expression” (Entwistle 2000, 138). However, when we consider that society pressures us to achieve a single, consistent ideal of perfection, it seems a contradiction to accept the concept of body as a vehicle for personal expression. What personal expression is there in sameness?

Vergine reconciles this seeming contradiction by perceiving the body as a vehicle for art and language:

The use of the body as a language has returned to the scene of the world around us in new and different forms, and it speaks through altered declinations….By way of tattoos, piercings, and citations of tribalism. Through manipulations of its organs. The instrument that speaks and communicates without the word, or sounds, or drawings. The body as a vehicle, once again, for declaring opposition to the dominant culture, but also of desperate conformism. (Vergine 2001, 289).

Shilling explores the concept of the body as machine, particularly in the world of sports: “The ‘body as machine’ is not merely a medical image, however; one of the areas in which the body is most commonly perceived and treated in this way is in the sphere of sport” (Shilling 1993, 37). He explains that the vocabulary used in the field of sports serves to depersonalize the body, to transform it into an object whose sole purpose is optimum performance: “the body has come to be seen ‘as a means to an end…a factor of output and production…as a machine with the job of producing the maximum work and energy’ (Shilling 1993, 37).

Turner also addresses the concept of body mutilation as an attempt to assert control in a chaotic world, relating it back to Christianity. He describes the body as “a genuine object of a sociology of knowledge.” (Turner 1996, 64). He explains that the Western world customarily treats the body as “the seat of unreason, passion and desire,” and goes on to discuss the battle of the flesh with the spirit: “flesh was the symbol of moral corruption which threatened the order of the world: the flesh had to be subdued by disciplines, especially by the regimen of diet and abstinence” (Turner 1996, 64).

Chaos vs. Order

The concept of chaos is another recurrent theme in recent discourse on body modification. Entwistle sees fashion as one way in which individuals attempt to assert control over the ever-increasing chaos of today’s world” “If nakedness is unruly and disruptive, this would seem to indicate that dress is a fundamental aspect of micro social order” she asserts (2001, 35).

This is echoed by Armando Favazza in Bodies Under Siege: Self-mutilation and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry. “Chaos is the greatest threat to the stability of the universe,” he writes (1996, 231). He goes on to explain how we need social stability to co-exist, that it gives us the framework for appropriate sexual behavior, the ability to recognize and negotiate among various social hierarchies, and the tools necessary to successfully make the transition from childhood into mature adulthood. “The alteration or destruction of body tissue” asserts Favazza, “helps to establish control of things and to preserve the social order” (1996, 231).

Favazza sees self-mutilation as an attempt on the part of the self-mutilator to control the chaotic world around him or her. He also points out that self-mutilation is often culturally sanctioned. Whether or not a practice falls under the category of “mutilation,” according to Favazza, depends on whether or not there is a change to or eradication of body tissue. Clearly tattooing, scarification, body-piercing and surgery meet this criterion.

This focus on the body is particularly significant, as Shilling points out, questioning why, “at a time when our health is threatened increasingly by global dangers, we are exhorted ever more to take individual responsibility for our bodies by engaging in strict self-care regimes” (Shilling 1993, 5). As he and other researchers point out, our inability to control outer chaos seems to have resulted in our focusing on our bodies as disparate parts of our selves and of our universe: this is one small way we can assert control, or at least feel as though we are.

Surgical modification can be called many names, among them: plastic surgery; reconstructive surgery; or, as Sander Gilman prefers to refer to it: aesthetic surgery. Indeed, this type of surgery includes a wide variety of procedures, from surgically correcting a birth deform such as a cleft palate, to disfigurements due to accident or injury…or from a subtle removal of “crows’ lines” or other signs of age, to more dramatic adjustments to a too-large nose or an unacceptably sharp chin. The most extreme result of this type of surgery involves gender modification.

One point that should be reiterated here is that surgical body modification is unique. It is different from most other forms in that it generally implies a level of secrecy that the others do not. Both the procedure and the recuperation period that follows both take place behind closed doors, sometimes even in foreign lands. Furthermore, the reappearance of the individual after the procedure is not accompanied by any sort of fanfare; there is an implicit assumption that the individual has always appeared thus, or if the change is dramatic, that it is not to be spoken of.

III. Body Modification: History, Significance, Implications

Sander Gilman offers the most comprehensive history of aesthetic surgery, along with a broad and varied perspective. In his books Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul: Race and Psychology in the Shaping of Aesthetic Surgery, and Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery, he addresses the complex reasons behind the growth of aesthetic surgery, and explores its significance and complexity. In the first volume, he clearly focuses on it primarily as a form of psychotherapy. The second work is rich in historical detail and thoroughly traces the development of aesthetic surgery from its earliest days to modern times.

Gilman follows the development of aesthetic surgery over the course of the nineteenth century, and notes that during this time “the idea that one: could cure the illness of the character or of the psyche through the altering of the body is introduced within specific ideas of what is beautiful or ugly (1998, 7).

He also asserts that the lessening of the stigma of mental illness is directly related to the fact that in today’s society, the view of aesthetic surgery as a type of psychotherapy is gradually becoming accepted. According to Gilman, “psychotherapy and aesthetic surgery are closely intertwined in terms of their explanatory models” (1998, 11).

He explains that the lessening of the stigma of mental illness has resulted in healthier attitudes towards psychotherapeutic intervention as well as a growing acceptance of aesthetic surgery, and he discusses the issue from a variety of viewpoints: the patient, the physician, society at large. Addressing the concept that “happiness” is the primary motivation that spurs individuals to pursue this avenue of change, he is careful to study the various definitions people offer for “happiness” and discusses these within the larger societal context. “Aesthetic surgeons operate on the body to heal the psyche,” asserts Gilman. “Being unhappy is identified in Western culture with being sick. In our estimation only the physician can truly ‘cure’ our spirits and our souls’ “(1998, 25).

According to Gilman, it was during the Enlightenment that the concept of happiness ceased to be one of a collective morality. During this period, he writes, “the hygiene of the body became the hygiene of the spirit and that of the state” (1999, 21).

Today, he asserts, the “pursuit of happiness” is no longer a collective goal but an individual desire” (1998, 27). This equating of unhappiness with pain is a concept that began to be formulated in the second half of the nineteenth century, and is closely tied to social and cultural attitudes toward the body and the blurring of the distinction between “somatic and mental pain,” as he phrases it.

Indeed, it is remarkable how often aesthetic surgeons cite “happiness” as the goal of the surgery. “Happiness” for aesthetic surgeons is a utilitarian notion of happiness, like that espoused by John Stuart Mill, who placed the idea of happiness within the definition of individual autonomy… Happiness, the central goal of aesthetic surgery, is defined in terms of the autonomy of the individual to transform him- or herself (Gilman 1999, 18).

In Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery, he states that “body imagery follows the lines of political and cultural power,” and he offers a clear, in-depth history of aesthetic surgery in the western world, carefully noting its connection to social, political and technological changes (Gilman 1999, 105).

He also carefully traces the history of aesthetic surgery, explaining its strong affiliation with syphilis. Apparently, one of the results of a syphilitic infection was damage to the nose, and that attempts to surgically reconstruct the nose were therefore strongly and inextricably tied to venereal disease and the concomitant loose morality. The association made between nose surgery and syphilis was so deeply ingrained that it continued to taint aesthetic nose surgery for many years: “The rise of aesthetic surgery at the end of the sixteenth century is rooted in the appearance of epidemic syphilis. Syphilis was a highly stigmatizing disease from its initial appearance at the close of the fifteenth century” (Gilman 1999, 10).

Gilman also discusses the impact of important historical events on the development of surgery in general and on reconstructive surgery in particular; he describes the effect of the American and French Revolution and the American Civil War on body image and on the role of aesthetic surgery in restructuring it. Significant changes in aesthetic surgery took place following the upheaval that resulted from these political revolutions. In a society thus destabilized after years of repression, radical changes in thinking occurred, including changing concepts of the body: “It is not that the reconstructed body was invented at the end of the nineteenth century,” explains Gilman, “but rather that questions about the ability of the individual to be transformed, which had been articulated as social or political in the context of the state, came to be defined as biological and medical” (1999, 19).

Later developments, such as globalization, have had a huge impact on aesthetic surgery. For reasons of privacy, availability, and/or cost, many people will travel to foreign surgery sites. Since they often spend considerable amounts of time in these locations, they often end up bolstering the economy as tourists, hence spurring an entirely new and thriving industry of medical tourism. Gilman describes medical tourism as a thriving business due to the widespread and increasing popularity of elective aesthetic surgery.

“Fitting In”

“You can become someone new and better by altering the body,” Gilman tells us as he plunges into a lengthy examination of the role body modification has played in society. He begins by discussing the assimilation of foreigners into society, and the steps to which people will go to achieve the goal of “fitting in” or “passing” for something they are not: “the transformation of the individual, such as the immigrant, into a healthy member of the new polis” (Gilman 1999, 20).

According to Gilman, happiness may be sought through aesthetic surgery because it offers individuals the opportunity to redefine themselves. Categories of inclusion and exclusion, whether tacit or broadly delineated, impact strongly on societal hierarchies. “Happiness in this instance exists in crossing the boundary separating one category from another,” explains Gilman. “It is rooted in the necessary creation of arbitrary demarcations between the perceived reality of the self and the ideal category into which one desires to move” (Gilman 1999, 22).

The categories are defined so that there is no question about which category is most beneficial. Of course, the advantages of each constructed category are subject to change as society changes. The ideal is to be to move from the negative category to the positive category; the “catch” is that categories are subject to frequent change.

Gilman and other researchers refer to “the discourse of ‘passing.’” This discourse came into existence during the racially charged nineteenth century, and is, according to Gilman, “the very wellspring of aesthetic surgery.”

Citing the research of sociologist Max Weber, Gilman discusses the concept of validity and acceptance, which are only gained when one is recognized and accepted by the prevailing social group: “validity through group consensus.” In this light, Gilman posits, we can see “passing” as a type of “silent validation” (Gilman 1999, 26).

Race and Feature

In Customizing the Body: The Art and Culture of Tattooing, Clinton Sanders writes that “in western societies body sculpting to attain beauty or to avoid identification with disvalued groups is a common practice” (Sanders 1989, 7). He then goes on to describe the many ways in which people try to merge into the desired social group. Kinky hair is chemically straightened, while “ethnic” noses are permanently reshaped through plastic surgery. Less invasive procedures are dietary changes and exercise routines, which will reduce or increase body measurements in

The purpose of doing this research is to determine the factors that influence the saving behavior towards private and public university students in Malaysia. There is an introduction regarding the research background about the factors influence the saving behavior towards private and public university students in Malaysia. For information, it determines the objectives of entire research and also justifies significant of research which outlines the purpose of this research. In addition, it also provided the definition for important terms throughout the research.

With the rapid development of the financial system and the broader array of financial products and services available to consumers, there is an increasing need for Malaysians to make wise savings and investment decisions that will have lasting implications for their financial well-being. Due to the many people’s lack of the skill to manage their financial status, financial problems increase day by day. As a result, the understanding of the important of saving behavior and a clear picture of this matter is an important element to us. We are required to get a full answer from the problem. Previously there are a lot of researches had been done by other researcher. However, the studied is not well enough to give an insight or the key for the problem.

The research is going to identify research problems by gathering all relevant and appropriate sources to support the statements and see how other researchers have perceived regarding the topic area. All data collected from previous studies are used to demonstrate the relationship between independent and dependent variables and it will show how independent variables make impact on the dependent variable.

Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.2 Independent Variables

2.2.1 Demographic Factors

Soo (2009) explained that demographic variables played a significant role in explaining attitude toward saving. However, when demographic variables were not considered, characteristics of saving goals and individual regulatory orientation were significantly related to attitude toward saving. In addition, the effect of saving goals was moderated by a household’s regulatory orientation. Moreover, it was concluded that saving goals affect attitude towards saving and saving behavior among peoples. Based on Jehad (2007), understanding the demographic problem behind the saving patterns is benefits for designing effective public policy.

Age

According with Joe, Hadley & Balasundram (2002), many college students were unworried about their own financial status, future wealth, and retirement planning. Thus, the attitudes of the preschool children toward saving can consider an important personal characteristic because it may give an impact to them for their future life. (John & Andrew, 2002).

Nowadays young generation have low level of financial literacy, which due to their uncontrolled expenditure behavior. In the advancing ages, it would be quite difficult for an individual to develop the habit of systematic manage their financial planning (Pillai, Rozita & Rachel, 2010). Due to the age factor, youth lack of the skill of financial literacy compared to middle-aged and older adults who have more experienced in financial planning (Pillai et. al., 2010).

Besides, based on Elsa, Annamaria & Chiara (2009), older individuals may have little discretionary saving the reason is because the amount of saving is already providing for their future retirement needs. From the research of Mohamad & Maurice (2010), students who had late enrolled in their childhood consumer experience were considerably less likely to report financial problems.

Moreover, Students are never required to educate themselves on personal finance. Once they enter the workforce, they will likely not take the time to become more financially literate and will not adequately prepare for their retirement (Chris & Oliver, 2011).

In contrast, the younger generation and the elderly save very little primarily due to their lower income, respectively. Thus, the life cycle hypothesis implies that private saving rises with a higher percentage of the working population, and falls with a higher percentage of the younger generation and aging population .According to the life cycle hypothesis, the middle age groups were categories to be the best in managing their saving. The life cycle hypothesis also suggests that young and old groups are the least likely to save because of their situation (Jehad 2007).

A positive relationship between age and saving has been reported in many studies (Chang, 1994; Johnson & Widdows, 1985; Browning & Lusardi, 1996). Browning andLusardi documented a complex relationship between age and saving. Using crosssectional data, they concluded that elderly savings can be complicated by a cohort effect. Generally, people reaching maturity at different times might vary their attitude toward risk and borrowing, consequently affecting their saving rate. Using panel data, Hurd (1990) reported a decline in wealth among the elderly, suggesting a negative relationship between age and saving. Other studies compared the actual saving rate of different age groups with the expected saving rate based on economic models. Browning and Crossley (2001) concluded that while the elderly dissave, their actual dissaving rate is not as large as that predicted by an economic model. Avery and Kennickell (1991) found that age groups older than 65 saved more than what would be expected based on an economic model.

Gender

According with Maria & Stephanie (2002), studies in the field of psychometrics had found out that female attitude toward risk differs from male and demonstrates that gender is a powerful determinant of risk attitudes and judgments. The Study of John & Andrew (2002) had show that the mothers’ attitudes are systematically both more important and than man. It can be said that female students were more likely to engage in savings behavior than male students (Maria et. al., 2002)

In addition, according from Mohamad, Maurice, Jariah, Tahira & Mohd (2008), female students had greater financial well-being than male students. From Angela, Urvi & Erik (2008), it stated that women wealth has historically been lower than men. Moreover, the results of the current study had showed that there has an existing of the differences within saving behaviors between men and women (Angela et. al., 2008).

Patti (2010) had reported that women who were in poor health condition were seldom to make their saving in the short period, while poor health condition did not significantly influence the short term saving of men.

Furthermore, Patti et. al., (2010) has shown that the economic wellbeing and financial behaviors of male and female differ significantly. Female hold lower levels of wealth and have significantly lower earnings than male. Gender based differences in behavior that are systematic and widespread can influence consumptions, savings, investment and the level of risk taking at aggregate level were mentioned by (Szekeres et. al., 2010). The researches on developing countries proved that women may have a stronger preference than men for buying goods and services that contribute to the human capital of their children, such as food, education, and health care (Valeria, 2010). The study of Szekeres (2010) show that the term of gender refers to socially learned behaviors that are associated with females and males.

Parents Marital Status

David (2010) the analysis indicates that marital-status transitions play an important role that can impacts on personal saving decisions especially in the cases of widowhood and divorce. It stated that, when people get married, form a family, or separate through divorce or widowhood, they can experience dramatic changes in their financial positions.

Therefore, the marital status and children almost certainly affect household resources, preferences, and background risk, and these elements lie at the heart of any analysis of optimal asset allocation and wealth buildup over the life cycle. In addition, households experience an increase in wealth due to the merging of the spouses’ assets after they marriage. Moreover, household heads of each gender must engage one of five states at the beginning of each age. They can be married, divorced, widowed, never married, or deceased.

According to Berkay (2010), it suggested that the legalization of divorce led to a significant increase in the propensity to save by married individuals, which is consistent with individuals saving more as a response to the increase in the probability of marital breakup. Moreover, from the same research, some theoretical work has made a challenge to introduce marriage and divorce explicitly in a model of savings. It argued that different channels through which marital transitions can have an effect on consumption and savings.

Avery and Kennickell (1991) reported that during a three-year period the wealth of those married or single (for the entire period) increased, which indicated saving. However, wealth decreased for those whose status changed between 1983 and 1986. Rha, Montalto, and Hanna (2006) discovered that households with single heads and children, households with married heads and children, and households with single female heads

without children were less likely to save, relative to households with single male heads without children. Households with children tend to save less (Douthitt & Fedyk, 1989; Bosworth et al. 1991; Browning & Crossley, 2001; Freyland, 2004; Deaton, 2005).

Ethnicity

According to Yusof, Erik & Bart (2000), there were large fraction of the ethnic Malay work in low-wage industries, whereas the ethnic Chinese and Indians frequently work in high-wage industries. For information, Mohamad & Maurice (2010) were found that it has a negative coefficient indicating that Chinese students were substantially less likely to have effective financial behavior than the reference category such as Malay, Indian and others.

Perry and Morris (2005) used data from the 1999 Freddie Mac Consumer Credit Survey to examine responsible financial behaviors, such as saving money. They found low-income African Americans were more likely to engage in responsible financial behaviors than their low-income White counterparts. The research did not find a significant interaction effect between race and income with respect to responsible financial behaviors for the Asian and Hispanic groups. Rha, Montalto, and Hanna (2006) found that households with a White respondent were more likely to save than those with Black or Hispanic respondents. They also found that Black households were significantly less likely to save than White households. However, Hogarth and Anguelov (2003) found that Hispanics were more likely than Whites to be savers. Their results showed no differences among Blacks, Whites, and other races in likelihood of being a saver.

2.1.2 Family Structure

An additional child might cause a negative influence on a family’s ability to save while. On the other hand, it may boost up the parents’ desire to save more (Tim, Sandra, Roslyn, Robert, 2006). The studies of Kathy (2009) had mentioned that the geographical redistribution of financial infrastructure, away from lower income communities, has resulted in geographical pockets of financial exclusion, economic decline, poverty and deprivation, as low-income households often do not have access to financial institutions and savings incentives.

Additionally, low-income consumers often have to suffice with lower quality goods and services. They may have no choice but to purchase second hand goods, an option that is almost always viewed as second best (Joseph et. al., 2009). Besides, Additionally one can speculate about whether students from wealthy families might have had more and earlier consumer experience and greater financial socialization, so that those who scored higher on those predictors might also be able to rely more on their parents to assist them after graduation (Mohamad & Maurice,2010)

From the research of John & Andrew (2002), it shows that parents’ wealth residuals are correlated to children’s wealth residuals. In other words, parents who save more than expected are more likely to have children who also save more than expected even after controlling for parental wealth. In addition, the first prediction of the model of the research were the savings behavior of children should be similar to that of their parents, controlling for income, age and other demographic variables. Thus, children observe parents’ consumption and planning behavior and may learn, or simply absorb, particular attitudes that affect savings behavior. Furthermore, homogeneity within communities and heterogeneity across communities could lead to relationships between parent’s and children’s behaviors. In between, the parental wealth may have direct effects on children’s behavior.

Household income or lifetime earnings are positively associated with increases in household savings (Browning & Lusardi, 1996; Chang, 1994; Rha, Montalto, & Hanna, 2006; Hurd & Zissimopoulus, 2003). Perry and Morris (2005) found that people with higher incomes were more likely to engage in responsible financial management behaviors, such as saving money. Avery and Kennickell (1991) reported that individuals with incomes more than $50,000 saved more than economic theory would suggest. Chang (1994) noted that income had a positive effect on saving. Rha, Montalto, and Hanna (2006) found a positive relationship between household income and the probability of saving. Browning and Lusardi (1996) noted that households with greater income uncertainty possessed higher savings from current income.

2.2 Spending Pattern

Pillai et. al., 2010 With availability of generous pocket money, personal credit cards, access to credit cards of family members or high-paid jobs at prime age, young people are faster becoming impulsive spenders and prove reckless often. Moreover, strategic marketers are designing products and services targeting young generation. With the ease of information access through the Internet and web technology, marketers have managed to capture a significant market of youth through online store sales. In the Asian subcontinent, new trends in fashion, electronic gadgets, sports, video games, mall culture and music are important contributors to wasteful spending among the youth. Most of today’s young adults, although smart and independent, scarcely understand the value of money because of the desire to adopt extravagant lifestyles, in addition the above mentioned factors. Young adults under the age of 30 are now the fastest growing age group filing for bankruptcy. Besides, evidences show that college students tend to spend their discretionary income on instant gratification of their wants rather than save money for their further education.

Hibbert, Beutler & Martin (2004) examine the influence of parental financial prudence on the attitude and behaviors of the next generation toward their finances. The study underscores the importance of family atmosphere to inculcate the necessity of being rational in personal financial management from the very early life of a person. Moreover, keeping personal financial records makes one to keep track of his or her various expenses and also develop the qualities of a cautious spender because one is constantly aware of how much he/she has spent probably during the last week, month or year. For information, spending in excess of their earnings is one of the most common problems faced by young adults today. The youth are following the “I want” philosophy, that is, they are more interested in accumulating material possessions than saving money and this leads to the domino effect of making impulsive purchasing decisions resulting in overspending and shortage of money. In addition, credit card use habit has grown phenomenally among young adults. This increase in the number of youth holding credit cards and incurring credit card debt has generated concern that these young people are over extended and unaware of the long-term consequences associated with severe indebtedness.

Moreover, John & Andrew (2002) had mentioned that children are always be able to observe parent’s spending and planning behavior and learn the behavior from them. Mohamad & Maurice (2010) stated that more than half of the respondents did not save any money when they received their scholarship or education loan. More than half of the students used their money for shopping. The data showed that 45 percent of them spent all their money before the end of the semester.

2.3 Educational Qualification

It is obvious that people who are educated would be more aware about their future life. Thus, the important on saving might be one of the factors that make them taking into their consideration (Joseph, Clifford & Annette, 2011). In addition, Masud, Husniyah, Laily, Sonya (2004) had pointed out that it is possible for educators to offer a course that teaches the financial skills necessary to overcome the financial problems among university students.

For information, John & Marco (2000) explored that the parents education levels would have a causal effect on child’s education. Moreover, Mohamad & Maurice (2010) stated that those students with higher financial knowledge were more likely to engage in saving behavior. Furthermore, the research said that the college-educated parents are strongly associated with higher residuals, it may effect that survives controlling for wealth (John & Andrew 2002). Angela, Urvi & Erik (2008) predictable a bargaining model of household saving behavior and found out those households where the husband had more education than the wife had lower levels of net worth.

Higher rates of tertiary education – which could perhaps be counted as another form of investment – have also contributed to increasing debt (Janice,2007)

2.4 Sibling Rank

Keister (2003) found that the number of siblings a person has is a significant predictor of the importance one places on saving for retirement. The more siblings one has, the less time each child has devoted exclusively to them from their parents. Parents with more children tend to save less and have less time to educate each child about saving. Also, the more siblings one has the less likely their parents are to pay for college, give them a car, or put the down payment on their first home. This causes them to have to pay for these items with no financial assistance from their parents. They are forced to start their finances off in debt and once someone is in debt, they often remain there for the rest of their lives. In addition, the more siblings one has the less likely they are to receive an inheritance when their parents pass away. In addition, it also finds that overall, the more siblings one has the less wealth accumulation they are likely to achieve.

2.5 Place of Origin

Masud, Husniyah, Laily & Sonya (2004) had mentioned that when the place of origin was compared, a higher percentage of those from rural areas reported experiencing more problems compared to those from urban areas. Students from rural areas may have a limited amount of resources in comparison to urban area students.

Soo(2009). A student’s residential status can also influence the problems he or she faces. A higher percentage of those living off campus did not have sufficient money to last until the end of semester compared to those living on campus. Students living off campus spend more money on items that students on campus do not have to pay for, such as gasoline for commuting. Yet, a higher percentage of students living on campus reported skipping meals to save money. Since their money was not sufficient to last until the end semester, several students have to borrow money from friends. Thirty percent of males and no females indicated that they plan to pay off their debt when they get the money.

Tikanga refers to the correct way of doing things. It refers to how researchers enter the research community, negotiate their study and methodology, conduct themselves as a researcher and as an individual, and engage with the people requires a wide range of cultural skills and sensitivities. Researchers have to be respectful and culturally appropriate when engaging with indigenous communities.

2. Kawa

Kawa refers to primary values or protocols such as working with Maori health providers. Maori committees who have iwi and Hapu reps. This group can support the research through: Tika, checking the research design; Manaakitanga, advising about cultural and social matters; Mann, ensuring justice and equity for Maori and support with participants.

3. Quota

A quota sample is conveniently selected according to pre-specified characteristics specific to the research topic. Characteristics may be according to age, gender, profession, diagnosis, ethnicity and so forth. For instance, a quota sample may be selected according to the comment as 30 Maori females and 20 Maori males diabetes whose age is from 35 to 55 in a group.

1.2 sampling strategies are validated in accordance with kaupapa Maori
Maori on diabetes

For this research, the topic of the research is for the death rates due to diabetes of Maori aged 45 to 64 years old. The simple will be selected from Maori health; diabetes is almost three times more common in Maori than non-Maori. Those kind of research can show the actuality of Maori health, provide the information of Maori health, support the evidence and statistics, make more people to notice this status and encourage relevant department to take action to make those people health. That also can be a long term improvement for Maori people health. For example, after research, people may know the needs of Maori people. It may help to amend the law or policy to give a long-term benefit for Maori people.

For the benefit of Maori people, they can find wellness-balance of hinegaro, tinana, wairua and whanau for Maori people. Also it can improve access to health service. In this case, Maori people can be taken care by some medical department or organisation. Those department or organisation may assist Maori people taking some prevention, maintaining normal glycaemia and providing some services for screening and early diagnosis. For instance Ngati Porou Hauora (NPH) on the East Coast is implementing a programme called Ngati and Healthy, aimed at reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus by promoting a lifestyle characterized by healthy eating and regular exercise.

In the research, Maori people may play many roles such as researchers, participators or advisors. Of course, Maori researcher also can be a leader researcher in the team. Because they are as Maori people who have the knowledge and the cultural background, they may more clearly notice about what the problem is, the view of the research, how to find the incisive point to start and who can provide the information. They are more likely to give a direction for whole researcher team. The must be a great leader for this kind of research. The Maori participators can get all the benefit for Maori people which the research will make. Also they can get some financial income for working or providing information. The non-Maori participators also can gain an opportunity to acquaint Maori cultural with the research.

2.1 sampling strategies are implemented in accordance with kaupapa Maori
1) Quota sampling

Quota sampling is a method to select the survey participants. In quota sampling, the population is first divided into mutually exclusive subgroups. And judgment to select the subjects or units of each segment based on the specified ratio. For example, the interviewer may tell sample 50 female of Maori diabetes and 30 male Maori diabetes between the ages of 45 and 60. This means that individuals can put a demand on who they want to sample.

The selected sample is non-random sampling in quota sampling, and can be unreliable. For example, the interviewer may be tempted to interview those people who in a hospital where looks most helpful, or may choose to use or accidental sampling question those who closest to them, for time-keeping sake. The problem is that these samples may be biased because not everyone has the opportunity to be selected.

2) Random sample

Random sampling is a random selection of individuals from a subset of the population. Because researchers are often unable to get the data from each individual in a small part of the population which is randomly selected to be representative of the entire group as a whole. Our goal is to obtain a sample which can represent the larger population. Subjects in the population are sampled by a random process, using either a random number generator or a random number table, so that each person remaining in the population has the same probability of being selected for the sample.

3) Stratified random sampling

Stratified sampling is a sampling technology in which the researcher separate the entire target population into different groups, or levels, and then randomly selects the final subjects proportionally from the different level. Using this type of sampling, the researchers want to highlight specific subgroups within the population. For example, to get diabetes stratified sampling of Maori, the researcher would first organise the population by age group and then select appropriate numbers of 20 to 30, 30 to 40, 40 to 50 and 50 to 60. This ensures that the researcher has adequate amounts of subjects from each age gap in the final sample.

2.2 sampling strategies are implemented in accordance with local iwi or hapu requirements

1. The researcher should try to develop a cooperative working relationship with local iwi and Hapu, for example, take some food or financial reward to share with people who participates in the research and whanau.

2. Maori culture should be respected by researcher during the period of research. Researcher should use the material carefully which is from the participants. Make sure using them correctly and appropriately.

3. After all the researches are finished, the researcher should inform the participants and whanau what has been chosen and written in the report and ask the permitting for using those information in the report.

3.1 the impact of colonisation on hauora at regional and national levels is analysed in accordance with cultural customs
Maori Regional

Tahoe traditional lands is in Te Urewera ( Te Urewera National Park) of the eastern North Island, a steep, heavily-forested area where includes Lake Waikaremoana. Tahoe traditionally relied on the forest to get their needs. The tribe had its main population center in the small mountain valleys of Ahikereru and Ruatahuna, with Maungapohatu, the inner sanctum of the Urewera, as their seared mountain. The Tahoe country had a great reputation among the neighbouring tribes as a graveyard for invading forces. After 1864, Tahoe lost 5700ha of land on its northern border from a total of 181,000ha of land confiscated by the Grey government from Tahoe, Te Whakatohea and Ngati Awa. The Crown took Tahoe’s only substantial flat, fertile land and their only access to the coast. The Tahoe people retained only harsh, more difficult land, setting the scene for later famines.

Maori National

The influx of settlers led to a demand of land, and since the 1840s Maori were under great pressure to sell their ancestral territories. Loss of Maori land – through expropriation after the 1860s wars, Crown purchase and the Native Land Court – led to the displacement of large numbers of Maori Their land and tribes were deprived and in many cases reduced poverty, there is no choice,but live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Loss of land, they also lost their traditional food sources. Due to lack of resources, overcrowding and poor diet which can help to maintain and spread the disease.. In New Zealand, diabetes is almost three times more common in Maori than non-Maori. In addition, for Maori aged 45-64 years death rates due to diabetes are nine times higher than for non Maori New Zealanders of the same age. Maori are diagnosed younger and are more likely to develop diabetic complications such as eye disease, kidney failure, strokes and heart disease.

Other indigenous
Canada aborigine Regional

The legacy of colonial rule, is not only false history, a distorted image or racist attitudes. This is fundamentally the loss of land and resources. It also forced them to take action. Contemporary conflict Caledonia, Burnt Church, Gustafson Lake, Ipperwash and Oka are indications that the indigenous people trying to save their land and resources, so that they can have some self-determine their identity for present and future generationswhat is left.

Canada Aborigine National

Indigenous peoples suffered the loss of land alienation, poverty and industrial pollution. Also racism is deadly. Indigenous youth suicide 6 times the national average, and countless people died in a racially motivated murder. Many Canadians still do not know or indifferent to the history, racism and nature of colonizationl. Canadians do not deal with racism, effective or always sympathetic. Many people continue to deny the existence of racism, accusing their social and economic marginalization of the indigenous people.

3.2 the impact of colonisation on the cultural base and the effects these have on health are analysed in accordance with cultural customs
Customs

Colonisation by European had a significant effect on traditional Maori healing. Tohunga had limited ability to combat the diseases brought by Europeans. Though Western medicine was also relatively ineffectual at the time, this failure still strongly affected Maori confidence in Tohunga.

Language

By 1903, the new Inspector of native schools saw no reason for any delay in using English and imposed a ban on the use of Maori in school, aiming the implement the Direct Method for the teaching of foreign languages. These assimilation languages polices were a major factor in the Development of bilingualism and the growing status of English. Maori was only permitted back into the school curriculum as an optional subject in 1909. By 1953, some 40 years later, the assimilationist policies of government had certainly exceeded expectations. Only twenty six percent of Maori school children could speak te reo Maori. New generation may feel difficult when they inherit culture from old generations, which part used to be thought by Maori language such as tohunga.

Lifestyle

Through urbanisation, Maori suffered as those who migrated to the cities left behind not only their extended family unit, but also their tribal support of customs, culture and language. Maori families who moved from a rural setting into urban centres were not permitted to live together in Maori communities, as they had done in rural areas.

Spiritual health

In the early 1900’s the military outlawing of Maori spirituality and healing came into effect with the Christianity implement in New Zealand. Tohunga the law banning strength to stay in more than 60 years of age and Maori health and spiritual decline since then, has a serious impact on the cultural, spiritual, psychological, physical and psychological well-being of indigenous people in this land. The public health system continues to refuse to New Zealand Maori traditional spirit of the effectiveness of the treatment services phenomenon is because there is no scientific evidence. Instead, the Maori signed as a western service provide the same services, but with brown, even in the face of the current system is not working in place of Maori. Maori health is a serious decline, and statistics is expected to rise.

Psychological health

Psychological causes for social problems were first identified around the 1920s and attention turned to the place of the child in the family. Traumatic family relationships or a lack of family affection could all lead to child abuse or neglect. The high level of abuse of Maori children was noted but largely unexplained in the 1960s. The Maori ‘renaissance’ of the 1980s led to culturally-based explanations for abuse, including racism and the effects of colonisation.

Physical health

In the 1890s the Maori population had fallen to about 40% of its pre-contact size. Decline accelerated after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 and settlers began to arrive in greater numbers. This influx of people exposed Maori to new disease, leading to severe epidemics. Newly introduced illnesses that were common in Europe such as measles, mumps and whooping cough, took a terrible toll among Maori, who had no immunity to them. Introduced respiratory diseases, particularly bronchitis and tuberculosis, also killed large numbers of Maori in the 19th century.

Other indigenous (Australia aborigine)
Customs

When the white settlers came, the Aborigines were dispossessed of their land and, much later, “encouraged” onto reserves, supposedly for their protection. They were forced off their traditional hunting grounds, and certainly herded away from the fertile coastal areas where there was plenty of food. White settlers wrecked the very effective native fishing traps, cleared native habitats and reduced the native food supplies, as well as polluting their water. And under several federal and state programmes that continued into the 1970s, the government forcibly removed Aboriginal children from their families and sent them to white families and church-run institutions for cultural reprogramming.

Language

When indigenous children were taken from their families by force, which led directly to cause the loss of Aboriginal culture, language, customs and traditions. When Europeans first came to Australia, there are about 250 different indigenous languages in Australia. There is now a small part of this figure. Many stories from the Aboriginal dream (creation legends) disappear forever.

Lifestyles

When Europeans began to improve the stock at the ranch some changes took place. Many indigenous people have lost their land. Spread in the vast area, the European livestock industry is also restricted in the way of life of the indigenous people. A new supply of fresh meat from the ranch, the indigenous people, thus changing their nutrition, their eating habits and the way in search of food. Therefore, the indigenous people began to rely on their food and livelihoods of the European colonizers.

Spiritual health

The reason most Indigenous people endure unhappy and unhealthy lives has nothing to do with government powers or money. The lack of these things only contributes to making a bad situation worse. The root of the problem is that we are living anomie, a form of spiritual crisis, caused by historical trauma that has generated an “Aboriginal” legal-economic response that is not authentic and is designed by non-indigenous people to serve the interests of the colonial regime and capitalism.

Psychological health

In particular, Indigenous men’s difficulties in comprehending and dealing effectively with the source of their own disempowerment has led to a compounding of the problem for Indigenous women and children, who are frequently the targets of men’s raging manifestations of internalized self-hatred. This problem exists in various forms and intensities across the entire economic and social spectrum in Aboriginal, and in spite of other recent politico-legal advances in the empowerment of Aboriginals enterprises and governments. Women express colonised mind sets as well, but mainly through self-destructive behaviour. Men tend to channel their rage externally, and as a consequence gendered violence has become endemic within aboriginal communities.

Physical health

Europeans also introduced foods and diseases, all of which are completely harmless white settlers, but reduce the life expectancy of indigenous people. Simple disease, such as measles, influenza, aboriginal peoples had a devastating impact. Wheat and sugar-containing foods indigenous Australians lead to heart disease and obesity. Europeans introduced the the new flora and fauna which took over local habitat, and leading to eliminate many plants and animals in the place where the aborigines relied on.

3.3 contemporary issues affecting hauora as a result of the colonisation process are analysed in accordance with cultural customs.
Maori

1. In recent years, New Zealand has made significant progress in promoting the rights of Maori and address concerns. The New Zealand’s expression of support for the declaration of United Nations on indigenous peoples’ rights , its steps to repeal and reform of the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004, efforts to carry out the process of constitutional review issues related to Maori.

2. With respect to Treaty settlement negotiations, the government should make every effort so that all groups which have an interest in the matter under consideration. In addition, the Maori Treaty reconciliation in consultation with Maori, the Government should explore and develop the means to solve the negotiation process, especially between Maori and the imbalance between the powers of the government negotiators.

3. Further efforts to promote the rights of Maori – should consolidate and strengthen. The necessity of the principles laid down in the Waitangi and international – New Zealand within the domestic legal system of the Treaty on the protection of human rights, therefore, that these rights are not easy to violations of political discretion addition, the new Marine and Coastal Area Bill should be consistent with international standards, the rights of indigenous peoples with their traditional lands and resources.

Other indigenous (Plain Cree, Canada)

1. Recognising that thunder child is only one of many First Nation communities, this project is only a beginning step toward understanding Aboriginal peoples, specifically the Plains Cree, perspective of health. The insights gathered from their perspectives, identifying their current perception of health, health practices, health concerns, and perceived barriers to obtaining optimal health are essential, if not critical, to plan effective health promotion.

2. The Public health Agency of Canada (PHAC) (2003) lists the following as key determinants of health: Income and social status; Social support networks; Education and literacy; Employment/working condition; Social Environments; Physical environments; Personal health practices and coping skills; healthy child development; Biology and genetics endowment; Health services; Gender; Culture.

One of the drivers of this study was that the primary researcher wondered whether the Social Determinants of Health were reflective of and an appropriate framework for addressing Aboriginal health concerns.

3. Using the determinants of health and the principles of the Canada Health Act would suggest that these disparities need to be addressed and the accessibility of health care to be more equitable across all Canadian populations.

4.1 conclusions about the impacts of colonisation on the hauora of the indigenous people are drawn and substantiated in accordance with the analysis
Education

indigenous people who had been colonized have the right to establish and control their chosen education system. It should be ina manner appropriate to their cultral methods of learning. Everyone, especially children should be given equal right to all forms of education. Since education is in the the development of an individual. After colonization the education moved to British system, children went to school which provided by government and taught in English,

During the past 20 years educational qualifications have become an increasingly critical determinant of employment and occupational status. Programmes such as te kotahi tanga have been developed to mitigate the inequitable teaching provided to Maori students for many decades and lift the teacher performance and engagement with Maori students. However, such programmes are not yet widespread and recent statistics show that too many schools are still failing to provide high quality education to Maori children. The three wananga, Te Wanaga o Raukawa, Te Wananga o Awanuiarangi and Te Wananga o Aotearua, have been critical in providing Maori controlled and Maori medium tertiary education and stair casing Maori students to higher education.. Nevertheless, failure of the school system to perform equitably for Maori transfers the cost of attaining an education onto Maori. The lifetime cost of obtaining an education is thus disproportionately higher on average for Maori. The right to health cannot be realized if structural inequities in the presence of social, economic, environmental and political determinants of health exist.

Urban migration

There is a policy for migration in Maori society that if Maori families moves from a rural setting in to urban centres, then they are not permitted to live together in Maori communities, as they had done in rural areas. Instead, houses were found for them in mainly Pakeha neighbourhoods, giving little possibility for them to speak te reo Maori, this government policy was referred to as ‘pepper potting’ the pepper potting policy of the government provided assurance of linguistic dominance for the English language.

Employment

Unemployment rates for Maori have decreased from 2001 to 2007 but remain three times higher than that of Pakeha aged 15 years and over, and similar to that of the pacific population. Unemployment and redundancy are associated with poorer health outcomes. There are evidences that Maori face discrimination in the labour market- in getting a job, in the type of job obtained, and the wages paid for a particular type of work.

Housing

For the safety, well secured high quality housing is an important determinant of good Health. There are lots of differences between quality housing for Maori and non-Maori in New Zealand and there are some major problems. For example, discrimination in renting or buying a house was the most frequent type of ‘unfair treatment’ discrimination reported by Maori in the 2002 to 2003 New Zealand Health Survey. However it was hard to solve the problem because Maori has a bit different lifestyle on housing. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs identified that “Maori are more likely to be in rental or temporary accommodation, and to be living in crowded housing environments than non-Maori”. Housing discrimination was significantly associated with a higher risk of smoking and poor mental health.

Other indigenous
Education

In early childhood education, poverty youth are failing behind more than privileged youth in the school. However, consideration must be given to Aboriginal youth who experience the compounding effects of colonisation that goes beyond poverty-stricken communities to include addiction, diminished family ties, crime and violence, and suicide. These kind of factors greatly affects the potential for academic success. Aboriginal youth are disproportionately affected by poverty and Aboriginal students are getting lost in the school system. Studies reveal that 83% of non-Aboriginal youth are attending school, while only 63% of Aboriginal youth are attending.

Urban migration

The Canadian Council on Social Development reports that Aboriginal people in urban settings are more than twice as likely to live in poverty in comparison to non-Aboriginal people. Aboriginal people in Canada live in difficulty and impoverished conditions which is unimaginable to the average person in Canada.

Employment

In contrast to other Canadians high participation rate in the labour force, Aboriginal people are not likely participating. Also they are not likely to be employed in society. Aboriginal people are not employed well enough. Their level of unemployment is between two and three times higher than it is for other Canadians if they are in the labour force,

Housing

Overcrowding and lack of access to clean water and poor sanitation on reserve housing contributed to very high rates of infectious diseases. The lack of access to traditional foods weakened health further; diets became less varied, and healthy traditional staples were replaced by refined foods like flour and sugar, causing further deterioration in First nations’ health status and dependencies on government and health bureaucracies that continue to this day in all First Nation communities.

4.2 conclusions about the social status of the indigenous people resulting from colonisation, and its related impacts on hauora, are drawn and substantiated in accordance with the analysis
Maori

In New Zealand, ethnic inequalities between Maori and non-Maori are the most consistent and compelling inequities in health. Inequalities between the health status of Maori and other New Zealanders are well documented. Research confirms Maori are disproportionately represented in almost all negative health and social statistics and are, in general, poorer, sicker, and more socially deprived than non-Maori. Maori do not access primary care services as often as or as early as non-Maori and are not referred for secondary and tertiary procedures at the same rates as non-Maori. This concept of health equity focuses attention away from the individual and her or his health. Instead it monitors how resources including health services, are distributed to the community. This includes evaluation the processes that determine how resources are shared and the underlying values of society. It is impossible to understand Maori health status or intervene to improve it without understanding colonial history. Evidence repeatedly suggests that Maori are receiving lower levels of health services and poorer quality of service. If Maori are getting less, non-Maori are getting more. Unequal Maori health outcomes are often represented in terms of increased Maori health needs. It is more appropriate for people to frame Maori health needs as arising as a consequence of indigenous rights being breached.

Other indigenous

Over 550 American Indian tribes are currently recognized by the federal government. In addition, many other tribes are recognized only by state governments, and still others are working to obtain official governmental recognition. What we refer to as “colonialism” is actually a theoretical framework for understanding the complexities of the relationship that evolved between Indigenous peoples and Europeans as they came into contact and later sustained those initial relationships in building a new reality for both peoples in North America. Specifically, colonialism is the development of institutions and policies by European imperial and Euro American settler governments towards Indigenous peoples. Indigenous social sufferings are explained away through deflective strategies of denial, projection, or misappropriation. Health crises, racial discord, criminality, physical violence, and all other manner of conflict are attributable to strictly material causes or to dysfunctions within First Nations communities. Yet informed opinion on the matter is clear, as the most recent compendium of top-level medical and social science research on mental health issues in Indigenous populations confirms that it is not indigenous dysfunction that is the root problem, but the dispossession of Indigenous people from the land and their subsequent oppressive treatment on reserves in the Indian Act system and in residential schools, and through other government policies: Although it is difficult to prove a direct casual link, it is likely that the collective trauma, disorientation, less, and grief caused by these short-sighted and often self-serving policies are major determinants of the mental health problems faced by many Aboriginal communities and populations across Canada.

4.3 conclusions about underlying issues for the indigenous people attributable to colonisation, and which have impacted on their hauora, are drawn and substantiated in accordance with the analysis
Maori
Social structure

After colonization Maori social structure tended to change from extended family to single unit. Maori eventually lost their land and the financial support that went with it, so a large proportion of Maori migrated from rural to urban regions in search for work. Maori suffered in the cities, with high levels of unemployment, low socioeconomic status and living in poor housing conditions without access to the large gardens which were frequently grown in the past. The social structure of the Maori is closely related to their demographic position, their economic status, and their political relations in the New Zealand community. A minority group within the general population, showing differences of cultural interest from other New Zealanders and suffering at times from mild discrimination, the Maori people demonstrate considerable unity. Maori were unable to continue practicing many Maori cultures and customs, leading to a break-down of the Maori social structure, and some differences in their structure occur according to whether they are in urban or rural situations, and tend to be related also to their educational level. Moreover, in major respects the modern Maori are increasingly regarded by themselves and by their fellow citizens as New Zealanders who, descended from early inhabitants, participate in and contribute effectively to the community life of the country.

Political structure

Maori political structure influence many aspects of life. These may include the health, economic, and lifestyle. Maori politics have been dominated by the necessity of making terms with the way of life and European world. Although there are complicated problems for tribal differences and the land problems, Maori politics aften hinge on the social and economic aspects of this central problem. Maori Parliament movement, advocating a completely autonomous Maori race, flourished in the early 1890s, when it was considered The Maori Council members can not accept their views by the European Member. The Ratana group held the balance between 1957 and 1960. Maori arty which entered Parliament in 2004 has three members of Parliament and it has a confidence and supply arrangement with the Nation-led government. The party’s founding was an initiative of Maori for the benefit of all citizens of this land. It supports Maori people to achieve their aspirations for health and disability support. Also it also committed to reducing the health inequalities that exist between Maori and other New Zealanders through effective partnerships with Maori and active Maori involvement in the sector. DHBs will be the key agents in achieving these aspirations.

Religion

Religion is an important source of values and education. “Maori spirituality is that body of practice and belief that gives the spirit (wairua) to allthings Maori. It includes prayer and spirit.

Certain practices are followed and relate to traditional concepts like tapu. Certain people and objects include mana – spiritual power or essence. In earlier times, tribal members raised higher rankings that do not have to touch the object which belongs to a member of the lower ranks. This was considered to be the “pollution” and those of lower ranks can not touch the belongings of a highborn people, without put themselves under the risk of death.

Tapu can be interp

ROYAL AHOLD:1. Introduction

Headquartered in the Netherlands, Royal Ahold is one of the world’s largest international retail grocery and food service companies. At its peak in 2001, Ahold’s reported sales and profits were ˆ66.6 billion and ˆ1.1 billion and it operated 5,155 stores in 27 countries with nearly a quarter of a million employees. Ahold was started as a family firm in 1887 by the Heijn family. It was a family-controlled business, operating primarily in the Netherlands for over 100 years. The company went public in 1948. In 1989, Ahold underwent a major transition from a family-controlled to a management controlled firm. This transition resulted in a phenomenal period of success for the firm. It generated over a 1,000% return for its shareholders and had a market capitalization of ˆ30.6 billion by November 2001.

In February 2003, Ahold witnessed a reversal of fortunes and suffered a complete meltdown. The firm was in a complete disastrous state with nothing going in their favour: a failed strategy, an accounting scandal, the firing of professional management, and litigation filings from all parts of the world. Shareholders lost most of their returns generated since 1989. Ahold scandal gave Europe a reason to believe that corporate governance and accounting problems were not restricted U.S. only. Ahold became “Europe’s Enron” (The Economist, March 1, 2003). It caused Dutch and European policymakers to rethink their approach to corporate governance and accounting policy. The Royal Ahold scandal, along with the accounting fraud at the giant Italian firm Parmalat, caused the European Union (EU) to impose more extensive and rigorous regulation on the financial reporting system and independent audit function within its member nations. The Royal Ahold debacle also reignited the debate regarding the need for more uniform accounting and auditing standards around the globe.

In the Netherlands, a committee on corporate governance was installed on March 10, 2003 (Tabaksblat Committee, 2003) to restore the lost confidence in public companies.

This report aims at studying the inter-relationships between the lack of corporate governance and of accounting transparency which led to the downfall of Ahold. The subsequent policies and strategies of the firm which aimed at reviving the firm are also aptly covered in the report.

2. The Growth Story: Expanding Boundaries

Over the years, Ahold evolved from a single grocery store in 1887 to a food company with a dominant position in the Netherlands. By the mid-1970s, Royal Ahold’s management realized that for the company to continue to grow it could not limit its operations to The Netherlands. Since the Netherland market was already dominated by Royal Ahold, the company’s top executives, who had long been known for their conservative operating and financial policies, announced their plan to expand its operations into other countries.

Royal Ahold’s expansion efforts got off to a slow start but then accelerated rapidly in the 1990s after the company hired a new management team. Until the late 1980s, members of the Heijn family had occupied the key management positions within the firm. In 1987, two grandsons of Albert Heijn, served as Royal Ahold’s two top executives. Later in 1987 when the brothers retired, a professional management team was hired to replace the Heijn brothers. The team recognized that the quickest way for Royal Ahold to gain significant market share in the grocery retailing industry outside of The Netherlands was to purchase existing grocery chains in foreign countries. To finance their growth-by-acquisition policy, Royal Ahold’s new executives raised large amounts of debt and equity capital during the 1990s. By 2000, Royal Ahold had purchased retail grocery chains in Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Portugal, Scandinavia, South America, and the United States. This aggressive expansion campaign made Royal Ahold the third largest grocery retailer worldwide by the turn of the century. At the time, only U.S.-based Wal-Mart and the French firm Carrefour SA had larger annual retail grocery sales than Royal Ahold. Royal Ahold completed its most ambitious acquisition in 2000 when it purchased U.S. Foodservice, a large food wholesaler headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Although Royal Ahold had previously purchased several retail grocery chains along the eastern seaboard of the United States, including New England-based Stop & Shop, U.S. Foodservice was easily the largest U.S. company it had acquired. The U.S. Foodservice acquisition was also important because it signalled the company’s commitment to becoming a significant participant in the food wholesaling industry.

In 2003, after purchasing two smaller U.S.-based food distributors, Royal Ahold ranked as the second largest food wholesaler in the United States—Houston-based Sysco Corporation was the largest. In fact, the three U.S. acquisitions caused food wholesaling to be the company’s largest source of revenue, accounting for slightly more than one-half of its annual sales. The company’s more than 4,000 retail grocery stores located in 27countries accounted for the remainder of its annual sales.

3. Problems Due to Expansion

The aggressive growth strategy adopted by the new professional management gave rise to a number of unexpected and unanticipated problems. Among these the major problems were caused primarily due to the expansion in the global regions. The differences in the cultural norms hampered the ability of the management to manage its worldwide retail grocery operations.

As the firm ventured into new markets, especially the markets outside of Western Europe and the United States, it faced new challenges in the face of wide range of laws, regulations and cultural differences. The management team also faced difficulty in dealing with human resource policies regarding hiring, appraisal, and other employee benefits. The policies which were successful in The Netherlands failed to live up to the expectations of the new managers and employees in the countries of Asia, Latin America and South America.

Furthermore the cultural norms of grocery shopping among the consumers in global markets also exacerbated the misery of the firm. Some consumers out rightly rejected the “Dutch: idea and way of organizing the grocery store. The consumers also did not appreciate the idea of “foreign invader” replacing the local grocery stores which existed there for years.

4. Response towards the Problems and Further Issues

Since the problems were primarily the result of cultural and social issues, the management at Ahold decided upon the strategy of using the management personal of the local grocery chains and retaining them when those chains were acquired by Ahold. The new mangers were empowered with the authority to make major decisions.

The Royal Ahold ambitious plan to become a major player in the wholesaling segment of the huge food industry in the US gave rise to new problems. Most of the company officials were unfamiliar with that segment. Therefore they adopted the “hands-off” mindset to the acquisition and depended primarily on the executives of U.S. Foodservice who were retained following the buyout to oversee the subsidiary’s day-to-day operations. But the firm adopted a policy of following the same rigorous performance standards that were imposed on the company’s domestic operations. The company’s established goal of 15% annual growth rate in profits was used to decide upon the annual sales targets for each of the company’s operating unit in Netherland and also at global locations.

The units were pressurised to achieve their target and there were significant rewards on meeting the specified targets. But due to increased competition and the relatively lower profit margins within the food industry prevented many of those units from achieving the annual earnings goals that had been assigned to them.

­­­­­­5. Accounting Issues

During the fiscal 2002 audit of Royal Ahold, Deloitte Accountants uncovered evidence suggesting that the company’s consolidated revenues had been inflated and overstated.

When Royal Ahold invested in a foreign company, it often acquired exactly a 50 percent ownership interest in the given company. Nevertheless, Royal Ahold would fully consolidate the company’s financial data in its annual financial statements.Dutch accounting rules at the time permitted a parent company to fully consolidate the financial data of a joint venture company if the parent could control that firm’s operations. Such control could be evidenced by a more than 50 percent ownership interest in the joint venture company or by other means.

Royal Ahold persuaded their Deloitte auditors by providing them with “control letters” officially signed by the officials of joint venture companies. This was accomplished by taking the officials to their side by bribing them. Further in order to placate the company’s executives, the Royal Ahold’s management team signed “side letters” addressed to the company’s executives of the JV. These letters affirmed that the decision making was mutual rather than by Ahold exclusively. Thus for Dutch accounting purposes, the joint ventures’ operating results should have been “proportionately consolidated” in Ahold’s annual financial statements.

Apart from such improper accounting, Royal Ahold was also accused of not sharing the full information among the stakeholders. It did not reveal its obligations to purchase the ownership interests of certain investors in those companies. This was because of the default on the part of the joint venture companies to pay off their outstanding debt.

Fraudulent Accounting at U.S. Foodservice

Deloitte Accountants’ U.S. affiliate, Deloitte & Touche, audited the financial statements of U.S. Foodservice after that company was acquired by Royal Ahold in 2000. Before the acquisition, KPMG was its auditor. Deloitte uncovered anomaly in the account books which distorted the consolidated net income of Ahold group. Subsequent investigation revealed that US food Service had misrepresented their financial statements for several years before the acquisition.

The misrepresentation was because of improper accounting of the “promotional allowances.”

Since the food wholesaling industry is intensely competitive, so the profit margins on their sales are relatively small. This led to the concept of “promotional allowances” (refund on purchases) being paid to food wholesalers by their suppliers or vendors.

Another common practice or rather malpractice was “front-loading” promotional allowances.

This means accounting for all the allowances prior to its actual period.

The absence of proper internal controls over promotional allowances provided an opportunity for dishonest employees to overstate those allowances for accounting purposes.

6. The Aftermath

In 2003 when the company issued the restated financial statements for the preceding there years, the fraud was uncovered. The net income figures for the years 2000, 2001 and 2003 had been overstated by 17.6%, 32.6% and 88.1% respectively. The corresponding figures for the reported revenues were 20.8%, 18.6% and 13.8%.

Soon after the disclosures were made the regulatory agencies, law authorities, investment companies and other stakeholders began seeking more information regarding the fraud. Following the public disclosure both Dutch and U.S. law enforcement authorities filed criminal charges against the company and several of its former executives. Upon investigation, the responsibilities for the fraud lay on the top executives of the firm. The so called “professional management” which replaced the Heijn-family management in the 1990s were the forces responsible for the crisis. They over estimated their growing potential and set unrealistic targets at the company level. These targets where passed on to the individual units which were pressurised to achieve these unrealistic targets by hook or by crook. This was further enhanced by a significant level of rewards attached to the meeting of targets.

Role of the Auditor

Though it was because of the Ahold’s auditor Deloitte that the crisis was finally ended, but it cane under severe criticism for letting this fraud flourish to the extent it had reached. There were many lawsuits filed against Deloitte for the shear reason of negligence on their part which required them to prove their integrity. The loosely organized operating units under Ahold group made the auditing task a tough one.

Regulatory Bodies

The following controversy also revolved around the inefficiency and loopholes of the present in the regulatory system. The Ahold case re-affirmed the need for cooperation among the different regulatory bodies across countries. This was evident in the wake of rapid globalization which had taken place in the 1990s. Also the need for a common framework of regulations was further enhanced to maintain the comparability aspect of the account books across globe.

7. The Verdict

The fraud charges against the Royal Ahold corporate house were finally settled in September 2004. The verdict required the firm to pay a fine of 8 million Euros. Further after investigation the Royal Ahold’s former executives (CFO and CEO) were found guilty and were penalized as well as were sentenced to four to nine months of imprisonment

8. The Road to Recovery program

Press release is issued by Royal Ahold N.V

“Our highest priority now is to rebuild the value of our company. We will do everything in our power to create a company of which you can once again be proud….

Reinforcing accountability, controls and corporate governance…

Ahold is replacing a decentralized system of internal controls that had many weaknesses with a one-company system with central reporting lines. Internal audit will not only report to the CEO, but also to the Audit Committee of the Supervisory Board. In addition, Ahold has nominated Peter Wakkie to the position of Chief Corporate Governance Counsel on the Executive Board, to serve as the driving force behind improved internal governance policies and practices, for legal compliance as well as conformance to ethical and social standards…. ”

Introduction

Sociologists disagree over what poverty actually is. In this essay I aim to discuss and criticise Seebohm Rowntree’s theory from 1899 -1950 then I will discuss and criticise, Peter Townsend’s theory. The next section will be to discuss and criticise, Mack and Lansley’s theory, and the ideas of Herbert Spencer (social Darwinism) There will then be a discussion of regressive and progressive taxation and an explanation of Marslands theory. Finally I will explain and criticise, John Wetergaard and Henrietta Resler’s arguement that there is a myth surrounding the welfare state. This myth is that the welfare state is progressive and redistributes from the rich to the poor.

Poverty and Seebohm Rowntree

In the time of Queen Elizabeth the first it was people’s duty to help alleviate poverty. They did this by feeding the poor and visiting the sick and trying to ensure that people were not destitute. After the Reformation things changed and laws were passed to regulate the amount that was spent on the poor. In 1601 the Elizabethan Poor Law was passed and made provision for “the setting of the poor on work”^[1] The Poor Law also said that the poor were responsible for caring for each other. Overseers were appointed in every area to decide how much poor relief would be needed. In the amended Poor Law of 1834 overseers knew the circumstances of the poor in their are and those who were considered lazy would not get much help. These amendments to the Poor Law gave those in power a greater degree of control over the lives of the poor.

In the 1860s, Joseph Rowntree, Seebohm Rowtree’s father conducted two studies into poverty.^[2] This led Seebohm Rowntree to later conduct his own study which was published in 1901. He made an early distinction between primary and secondary poverty – a distinction which sociologists still use today. Primary poverty meant that a family did not have enough money coming in to cover the basic necessities of food, shelter and clothing. Secondary poverty was where families earned enough but spent their money on things other than the basic necessities. So some spending was regarded as alright while other spending was seen as wasting money, on drink for example. He believed that wages should be increased because then people would be well fed and healthy and would be an efficient workforce. He raised the wages of workers at his own company and said that businesses who refused to do this should be closed down as they were doing the country no favours. His second study which he carried out in the 1930s was published as “Progress and Poverty in 1941.” He argued in this study that the main cause of poverty was unemployment, the conclusions of his report influenced the founding of the welfare state.

Although Seebohm Rowntree did a lot to further the cause of the poor and to point out the causes of poverty. His remarks about primary and secondary poverty, while still influential today, were typical of those in power. That is to say they carried the message that the poor were irresponsible and needed to be told how to spend the money that they had earned.

Peter Townsend – Poverty as a Social Problem

Townsend (1979) has defined poverty in the following way:

“Individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diets, participate in the activities and have the living conditions which are customary, or at least widely encouraged and approved, in the societies to which they belong.” Townsend(1979:31).

Townsend’s work makes it quite clear that poverty is not just a lack of money but encompasses things other than strictly material needs. Those who are poor often live in poorer areas with badly performing schools and poor housing. This often results in ill health. Townsend said that there were two types of poverty, relative poverty and absolute poverty. Research undertaken for the Rowntree Foundation (Howarth et al,1999) found that in local authority housing more than two thirds of the heads of those households were not in paid work and since 1991 there has been an increase of 40% in the number of local authority areas with above average mortality rates. Absolute poverty is not really seen in the west.

In underdeveloped countries people are often denied thenecessities e.g. food and shelter which maintain existence. Giddens (2001:311) argues that the idea of absolute poverty is grounded in ‘subsistence’. Anyone without sufficient food, shelter and clothing could be said to be living in absolute poverty. One of the ways in which absolute poverty is measured is by the poverty line which is based on the price of goods in a given society that humans need for survival. Those who cannot afford these goods live in poverty.

Not everyone agrees with this and the idea of absolute poverty is highly contested because the use of a single criterion fails to take into account the differences between societies. Needs are not the same in all societies, or even in the same society, nutritional needs are different for people working in different jobs, a labourer for example may need more calories than a bank clerk. Drewnowski and Scott (1966)^[3] argue that absolute poverty should also include a lack of cultural needs. This is often argued over because a fixed standard on such needs is bound to fail. These people are more interested in relative poverty.

Relative poverty looks at peoples incomes and compares them to a national average. Relative poverty means that people are living in poverty when their life is compared to those of the average family this is because lack of income also means poorer housing. People who live in relative poverty usually live in deprived areas also. Since 1979 increased unemployment and a rise in benefit payments and earnings that are index linked to prices rather than wages, has resulted in a huge rise in the number of people living in relative poverty.^[4] In a report inThe British Medical Journal (2000) the writer looked at absolute and relative child poverty in developed countries where some peoples incomes were more than fifty percent lower than the average. It also said that in the league table of relative child poverty one of the four bottom places was held by the UK.

An article in the Daily Telegraph (27/08/02) says that the idea of relative poverty is a problem. The article suggests that instead of using household income as the regulator it might be better if statisticians calculated the prices of basic goods and services. Under the present system the rich were becoming richer and the poor were paying for it in increased taxes and a lack of services. Another approach to measuring relative poverty is through people’s perceptions of the necessities of life which is what Mack and Lansley did.

Mack and Lansley

The work of Mack and Lansley (1985, 1992) listed those things that were considered to be necessary to modern day life if a person was not living in poverty. They did two studies on relative poverty in the UK. Mack and Lansley carried out an opinion poll to find out what people thought were the necessities of modern day life. There were twenty six things that most people considered important these things included new clothes, heating, a bath and indoor toilet. Relative poverty was thus measured by the presence or absence of the things that had been listed. Mack and Lansley’s research found that the number of people living in poverty in the 1980s went up quite a bit, this poverty was defined by the lack of three or more of the basic necessities mentioned earlier. Between 1983 and 1990 when the two studies were undertaken the number of people who were living in poverty went up from 7.5 million to 11 million and the number of those living in severe poverty or who were lacking more than 7 of the items that were considered essential, went up from 2.6 to 3.5 million (Mack and Lansley, 1992). Poverty is also defined by how far people can afford to participate in social activities such as school trips. In recent years this has been called social exclusion. Social exclusion does not look at poverty just in terms of a lack of material things. It looks at the wider picture and this includes wheter people are able to participate in society.

There are no clear ways of measuring poverty. Absolute and relative poverty are both complex and ways of measuring what it is to be poor, and not everyone agrees on them. Policy makers say what poverty is and then make laws for it but few of them experience what it is to be poor. A report published by the Rowntree foundation says that what the poor have to say needs to be taken into consideration in research on poverty. Taking into account the opinions of those who actually lived in poverty would provide useful information for existing organisations that might help shape policy making in the long term.^[5] In all this there is a feeling that the poor are somehow to blame for the circumstances in which they find themselves. A point which Herbert Spencer writing in the nineteenth century would have agreed with.

As far as Spencer was concerned people lived in poverty as a result of dissolute living. He had no sympathy at all for the poor and regarded many of them as criminals and drunks. He believed it was unnatural to help people who lived in poverty as a result of their own behaviour and irresponsibility. If people were too lazy to work then they should not be allowed to eat. He believed that the cause of poverty could be found by an examination of the moral character of an individual. The Poor Laws were wrong because they encouraged the poor to be lazy and to rely on somebody else’s hard work to provide them with the necessities of life. This allowed moral decline to spread through the population. The result would be that both society and the economy would suffer. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century thought was heavily influence by Darwins work “ The Origins of the Species” and Spencer was no exception. He believed in Darwin’s idea of the survival of the fittest. Society could only evolve properly and morally if the honest and hard working members of society were allowed to keep the fruits of their labour. The week and lazy members of society should be condemned to live in poverty because that was what they deserved. Falling into poverty was a necessary evil in society because without poverty work would not exist.

Although this may seem repugnant to a lot of people Spencer’s ideas are still rife in modern society. Peter Golding (1978) has said that media reporting of poverty in the nineteen seventies portrayed the poor as welfare scroungers living off the backs of others. The press portrayed people as having a comfortable existence living off social security at the expense of tax payers.

The New Right

The Conservative Government headed by Margaret Thatcher were voted into power in 1979. Political debates of the time were concerned with a free market economy versus the welfare state. The tory government brought in measures to roll back the welfare state and control spending. This was done through the introduction of marketing and business strategies into policy making. At the same time there was an intense process of privatization because it was thought that public ownership of companies, and the public sector worked against market forces. Introducing marketing principles into social care allowed the Governments to in theory improve services. It also enabled them to retain a greater degree of control. Giddens (2001) says that:

…the momentum of Thatcherism in economic matters was maintained by the privatising of public companies…..(this)..is held to reintroduce healthy economic competition in place of unwieldy and ineffective public bureaucracies, reduce public expenditure and end political interference in managerial decisions (Giddens, 2001:434).

The introduction of market forces into social care was considered the best method of Government spending because free markets were considered to be self organising (Olssen 2000).They thought this would increase productivity and improve care and be cost efficient. Government discourses, both Conservative and New Labour have revolved around the notion that the introduction of market mechanisms would result in a more equitable system benefiting all. However, Alcock (1994) says that the Conservative policies resulted in greater unemployment, a rise in the number of homeless people, and a general growth in social inequality. Marsland (1996) disagrees and says that in Britain poverty has been exaggerated.

David Marsland

Marsland says that the Rowntree foundation deliberately confuse poverty with inequality and that they exaggerate the amount of poverty in Britain. He says that who say poverty is increasing act out of their own self interest because the evidence is not examined impartially. He does not believe in relative poverty but says that in order to truly be poverty it has to be absolute and this is disappearing from Britain because of the increase in living standards that has come about through capitalism. He is also critical o universal welfare provision i.e. those benefits such as education which are available to everyone regardless of their income as he believes they create a dependency culture. Marsland (1989) believes that relying on the government to take care of the people results in an abdication of personal responsibility and welfare hand outs are just another reason for remaining unemployed.

Jordan (1989) says that Marsland is wrong in what he says about universal welfare provision creating a dependency culture and that if such a culture exists it is targeted with means tested benefits that only the very poor get. Rather than poverty being the result of an over generous welfare system, Jordan says that it comes from one that is too mean.

Westergaard and Resler (1976) argue that the welfare state does not make the distribution of wealth more equal. Poverty is not being eradicated. Any money or benefits that the working class receive will eventually be paid back in tax by themselves. They believe that the welfare state is simply another tool of capitalism and poverty exists because of that system which prevents poor people from obtaining the resources to stop being poor. In Westergaard’s view the policies of the eighties and nineties and the hold that market forces had over Britain meant that even the aim of redistributing wealth through the welfare state had been abandoned. Kincaid says that it is not just a matter of rich and poor it is the fact that some people are very rich while some are very poor. Poverty therefore is a result of the capitalist system. However, such theories do not really explain why some people become poor nor do they differentiate between poor working class and other members of that class. So we have plenty of theories but no real solutions.

Conclusion

This essay has looked at different theories of poverty. Seebohm Rowntree in the nineteenth century who wanted to improve the lives of the poor and believed that increased wages would change things. Herbert Spencer on the other hand believed the opposite. He thought it was wrong to help the poor and believed that if people were hard working and honest then they should keep all of the money they had earned. Some people were born to be richer than others, it was the survival of the fittest. Peter Townsend distinguished between absolute and relative poverty but relative poverty is not easy to define and is still being contested. Even Macky and Llansley’s work on relative poverty does not solve the problem.

New Right approaches have contributed to the problems of poverty but Marxist criticisms do not provide answers as to who the poor really are or how they became that way. Clearly this is not an easy question. Howver, if we look back at the definitions of absolute poverty then we can say that this type of poverty does not really exist in Britain today.

Bibliography

Giddens, A. 2001. (4^th ed). Sociology. Cambridge, Polity Press.

Haralambos, M and Heald, R. 1985 Sociology: Themes and Perspectives. London, Bell and Hyman.

Howarth,C. et al 1999 Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion. York, Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/1210/poverty.html

Mack, J. and Lansley, S. 1985. Poor Britain. London, George Allen and Unwin.

Mack, J. and Lansley, S. 1992. Breadline Britain 1990s The Findings of the Television Series. London, London Weekend Television.

Nickell, S. RES conference paper April 2003 Poverty and Worklessness in Britain http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp0579.pdf

O’Neale Roache, J. 2000. “One in Six Children Live in Relative Poverty.” BMJ 2000;320:1626 ( 17 June ).

The Daily Telegraph 27^th August 2002

Townsend, P. 1979. Poverty in the United Kingdom. Harmondsworth, Penguin.

Giddens, A. 2001. (4^th ed). Sociology. Cambridge, Polity Press.

Haralambos, M and Heald, R. 1985 Sociology: Themes and Perspectives. London, Bell and Hyman.

Howarth,C. et al 1999 Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion. York, Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/1210/poverty.html

Mack, J. and Lansley,S. 1985. Poor Britain. London, George Allen and Unwin.

Mack, J. and Lansley,S. 1992. Breadline Britain 1990s The Findings of the Television Series. London, London Weekend Television.

Nickell, S. RES conference paper April 2003 Poverty and Worklessness in Britain http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp0579.pdf

Olssen, M. 2000 “Ethical liberalism, education and the New Right” Journal of Educational Policy Vol 15No. 5 2000 pps 481-508

O’Neale Roache, J. 2000. “One in Six Children Live in Relative Poverty.” BMJ 2000;320:1626 ( 17 June ).

The Daily Telegraph 27^th August 2002

Townsend, P. 1979. Poverty in the United Kingdom. Harmondsworth, Penguin.

Sociological Review

1

This assignment is going to discuss the roles and purpose of British welfare state. This assignment will look at what welfare state is and the problems which society faced in the past century about the poor people. Also, the first administrative unit of Britain alongside with how poor law passed and the beverage report.

This assignment is based on roles and purpose of welfare state. The United Kingdom welfare state was established in 1942 by William Beverage due to the Second World War which caused social problems to the British citizens. The Government stepped forward as to provide for its people by introducing Welfare State as a way of controlling these problems. Welfare state is a response to social problems whereby government undertakes the responsible to safeguard the health and well-being of its people, particularly those in financial or social need, by means of grants, pensions, and other benefits( Lutz Leistering and Robert Walker 1998). It is based on the principals of equal opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth and public responsibilities of people that lack provision for a good life.

The origin of the welfare state was from the 16th century. Britain expected the worst when the Second World War broke up in 1939. Due to war many people were affected by poverty and many lost their jobs which resulted in high unemployment. The majority of the people were living in overcrowded poor housing facilities such as (slums) because council houses were not enough. Diseases were spreading because of lack of clean water, and sick people could not have money to seek treatment and this resulted in many people dying. Due to these events the government policy brought a change towards the care that was provided for the people. Welfare legislation was developed to make sure that everyone had access to quality of life due to the world war.

Elizabeth government realised that they would create some system to support people. Parish was the first basic administrative unit in Britain to take responsibility for the people who were poor and also power to force people to pay a local tax to help the poor. People who could not work such as old people and disabled were provided with accommodation in parish houses and also given money called the ‘outdoor relief’. However, this caused an impact on the increase of the cost of poor relief. The outdoor relief pay which was given to the poor over in hard times and was regarded as encouraging workers to remain inactive undermining the 19th century principles of thrift and hard work (Frohman, 2008). It was also argued that that the poor law encouraged the growth of poverty.

In 1834 a new Poor Law was introduced. People assumed that it would reduce the cost of looking after the poor and they welcomed it. People thought that beggars were going to be taken off the streets and for those people who were poor were going to be encouraged to work hard to support themselves. The new poor law help people to be independent; they should help themselves by making ends meet. The new Poor Law ensured that the poor were housed in workhouses were the ones getting assistant in terms of clothes and food .Children who entered the workhouse would receive some schooling. In return for this care, all workhouse paupers would have to work for several hours each day. The new poor law also help children who entered the work house to be educated it also ensure that the less privilege to get house in return.

In reaction, the poor law of 1834 introduced a poor relief which imposed the principle of’ less eligibility’. This new system act took a much harsher line towards help for the poor people whereby strict rules and regulations were put in place for people to follow (Harris, 2004). Families were separated and were not allowed to see each other. The Law stated that no able-bodied person was to receive money or other help from the Poor Law authorities except in a workhouse and the unemployed benefits was to be provided as a last resort. Conditions in the workhouse were intentionally made harsh, in the hope that the poor would seek work elsewhere.

In 20th century the poor law was gradually replaced by a new welfare state. During 1906 a liberal government was elected and introduce some reforms.1n 1908 an old age pension came to existence which allow pension to be given to people over 70’s, from 1925 pension were paid to men that is over 65 and to women over 60.

The national insurance act was passed in 1911 and all employees were made to contribute from their wage and the aim was to build and also for every worker who felt sick was entitled to free treatment were given to every worker that feel sick. The contributions were to help the workers in future in situations when they become ill or out of work.
In 1920 the scheme was extended to most people but not all work house became unnecessary and then poor law was abolished.p43 Social Policy & Welfare (2000) published by Stanely Thornes ltd. United kingdom

By Mark Walsh, Paul Stephens, Stephen Moore

In 1920 the scheme was extended to most people but not all work houses became unnecessary and then poor law was abolished.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

In 1941 an enquiry was established to plan how best to tidy up state welfare. Beveridge seized the opportunity, rewrote the script, and then redesigned the contours of British welfare. By accident the report of the publication of his report was delayed. When it was produced in November 1942 it followed hard on the heels of the Allies first major victory of World War Two. Although largely a creation of ideas including Beveridge’s which had been around for some time, it was the blueprint for successful to tackle social problems such as the five giants.

In 1942 William beverage prepared a report called the Beveridge report regarding the welfare of the individuals on how the government could help people in poverty and also to reduce inequality. This report focused on how Britain could be rebuilt after the war and also how the government should find ways of fighting the five ‘Giant Evils’ of ‘Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. The government was committed to provide care for the people of Britain to ensure that everyone had quality of life. The 1942 beveridge report started in the introduction of welfare state, and involved the main changes and these included the national health service act of 1945 which make benefit available to children and families and the National insurance act this act provides unemployment and sickness some benefits and housing The welfare state was not a response to poverty but was produced to encourage the provision of services for the public. Implementing Beveridge was immediately seen as part of winning the peace and also served as the blue print for the British welfare state.

In 1945 labour was elected and promised to introduce a welfare state. The welfare state involved introducing new services these included family allowances, the (Laybourn, 1995) this is where a major criticism lies within debates regarding the welfare state within current governments. The government introduced the Education Act 1944 which tackled lack of schooling. The 1946 National Health Act was concerned with improving the quality of health among the population. The 1946 National Insurance Act was created to cover all personal risks such as unemployment and illness.1948 labour government extended the social security and a program of free medical care, Housing, Education and the Welfare of the Children. The National Assistance Act 1948 means- tested for people in lower income below a standard set by government and for unemployed people. In the 1950’s the provision of welfare state services became problematic, government interventions at the time didn’t help and caused further problems so the Conservative government took over and cut the help given to the poor and sick. This then made the distribution of income more imbalanced and although attempted to make the poor more hardworking and self sufficient it didn’t work.

The rolling back the state was revolved around the need to cut public spending as a way of reducing impact on public affair. Thatcher (1979-97) promised to reduce taxes and to lower the level of public spending and less state intervention. Thatcher opposed a welfare system and the welfare state began to break down resulted in retreat for housing and pension. The Conservative changed the balance of welfare spending towards health and social security at the expense of education and housing. Thatcher revolution was less radical welfare spending remained stationary between the late 1970’s. Thatcher stated that welfare spending was weighing down the international competitiveness and also creating a ‘dependency culture’ which also was supported by the government and acted to cut back the welfare state (Clasen, 2003). They were some cut back in Housing such as in building, maintenance and subsidization as a way of driving up local authority rent levels (Maclennan and Gibb, 1990). In Social Security welfare bills were introduced by cutting entitlements such as Unemployment Benefit and people were pushed on to means-tested support (Clasen, 2003). Under Child Support Scheme absent parents were required to contribute towards the child maintenance as a way of serving some of the welfare state money.

When new labour came into office in 1997 welfare remained in the top priority. Regardless of Conservative critics of the welfare, new labour argued that new welfare policies were needed to improve poverty, inequality, health and education.

In conclusion the welfare state was developed due to the number of factors contributed by world war such as unemployment, sickness and poverty.

Do you think that Afghan nation from the outset needs only men to serve it? Before Islam, women were treated like slaves or property. Their personal consent concerning anything related to their well-being was considered unimportant, to such a degree that they were never even treated as a party to a marriage contract. Women were used for one purpose, and then discarded. They had no independence, could own no property and were not allowed to inherit. In times of war, women were treated as part of the prize. Their condition was unspeakable. In addition, the birth of a daughter in a family was not an occasion for happiness, but was regarded as embarrassment. The practice of killing female children was uncontrolled. With the arrival of Islam a verse came from the Quran criticizing those who practiced female infanticide: “And when the news of (the birth of) a female (child) is brought to any of them, his face becomes dark, and he is filled with inward grief! He hides himself from the people because of the evil of that whereof he has been informed. Shall he keep her with dishonor or bury her in the earth? Certainly, evil is their decision (An-Nahle 16:58-59).”

Afghanistan is the only country in the world where women are symbolized to all other countries. Afghan women’s current situation is not only the result of Taliban, but there exists a history over the centuries of Afghan women’s situation. Afghanistan is a country that lost all its economical infrastructures passing three decades of war, has been faced with Economical, Social and cultural problems. One of the major problems that Afghans are suffering is violence against women’s rights. Taking in to consideration that many activities have been accomplished since 2001 by international and governmental organizations but statistic show that problems have been remained and vast number of women are still suffering from violence. Many of women are deprived from education. A few women participate in political and social activities. As observed in Kabul, a woman suffers from violence every 30 minutes and 3% of women participate in governmental decision making activities. Only 11 percents of women were candidates in the 2010 parliamentary elections. Some of the challenging facts Afghan women faces in daily life are listed as following:

Every 30 minutes, an Afghan woman dies during childbirth,

87 percent of Afghan women are illiterate,

30 percent of girls have access to education in Afghanistan,

1 in every 3 Afghan women experience physical, psychological or sexual violence,

44 years is the average life expectancy rate for women in Afghanistan, and

70 to 80 percent of women face forced marriages in Afghanistan (The Plight of Afghan Woman)

Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, many people would agree that the political and cultural position of Afghan women have improved substantially. The recently adopted Afghan constitution states that “the citizens of Afghanistan – whether man or woman- has equal rights and duties before the law”. So far, women have been allowed to return back to work, the government no longer forces them to wear the all-covering burqa, and they even have been appointed to top positions in the government. Although many people believe that women have equal rights to men, but Afghan women, especially in the rural areas of Afghanistan are not equally treated and their rights are violated. Women are not allowed to get education, women are forced into early age marriage and they have no right to work equally with men and take part in social activities.

In many societies today, especially in Afghanistan, a woman is only valued and considered important if she performs the functions of a man, while displaying her feminine attractions to the public. If women get involved in politics, they would stop marrying, having children, and the human race would greatly be affected. Women are emotional creatures, and incapable of making a sound political decision. Afghan men, Typically among Pashtun families, parents believe that their daughters going to school is an immoral act, such as: being friend with the boys and then claiming to marry with the boy of their own choice. They have the ideas saying that their daughters may adopt non-cultural behaviors at school, such as: changes in their clothing, adapting modern clothing and ways of thinking, which are not accepted in Afghan culture. In most afghan families, relatives and friends advise each others for not letting their daughters attend school. A girl is considered as a financial burden on her parents; therefore, parents give their daughters to men who are in their father’s age to receive marriage cost and lessen their home expenses. In the most provinces of Afghanistan, girls are sold to men without knowing a girl’s consent, and then these girls are used as labors by her husband and in-laws’ family for carrying physical loads of the whole family.

First, its known that education, especially for girls is among basic requirements for an improved life standard in any society, however 85 percents of women and girls are illiterate in Afghanistan. The United States of America International Aid (USAID) allocated fund to address this challenge that constitute the lowest educational level in the country, and girls are facing many problems in this area. Women’s education is a foundation for building women’s human capital and a requirement for their meaningful participation, effective leadership, and enjoyment equal of rights. Although, the women’s right to education is legally protected by law, the Afghan women have been long deprived of their right to education and still the participation of girls and women in various levels and fields of education is limited and they face numerous constraints. Access to equal education opportunity still is a dream for many women. Despite of educational improvements in recent years, women still face a number of obstacles in their way to education such as early marriage; restricted movement; cultural barriers, security, transport constraints, shortage of qualified female teachers especially in rural areas, poor school infrastructure and facilities and the lower value attached to girls’ and women’s education. In Afghanistan, the number of girls going to school is less than half the number of school boys and even in some provinces, like Zabul, this percentage is 3%; though the numbers of male and female populations aging between 6-18 year old don’t have a considerable difference. Another problem in terms of education in Afghanistan is the number of female schools including elementary and high schools that has decreased considerably. In Kandahar, for example, there are 255 elementary schools, whilst 20 high schools exist in the city. In central region of the country there are 256 elementary schools and only 27 high schools, which show unwillingness of girls to study (Commission). Nearly 1000 girls’ schools have been destroyed. Girls and teachers have been killed in a return of the Taliban reign of terror. Only 18% of Afghan women have skilled medical personnel present when they give birth (Feminism, Women’s Rights Articles & Issues).

In Paktia province last year, a shura of elders decided that a 25-year-old man who sexually abused a 7-year-old relative girl should pay compensation to the child’s family. They also decreed the girl should marry her rapist when she’s older (The Star). Due to fear of Taliban or local warlords, girls cannot go outside their homes. If they go to schools, they are burnt, acid is thrown on their faces, or Taliban kill their family members. Almost in all provinces of Afghanistan girls are sexually abused and harassed. Girls are kidnapped on their way to school. They are kidnapped for different purposes by the Taliban or local warlords, to make money by selling them or to use for smuggling, or marry them by force.

Second, forced marriages constitute the other serious problems of women in Afghanistan which is exercised on different ways and forms as to payment of huge dowry, underage marriage, engaging in the very early days when a child is born. Widows are still considered as a heritage and are not allowed to marry other man willingly. Forced marriage is considered to be one of the main cases of women rights violation in all over the country. For instance, only in Helmand Province 144 cases of forced marriage is registered by the Commission so far this year, mostly exercised as badal (girls’ exchange in families for marriage) and huge payment of dowry. In many parts of Afghanistan, marriages have taken place with threats by the powerful people, gunmen or in repayment for depts. Another reason considerably increases the number of early age marriages is the poverty in Afghan families.

Third, in Islam, the value and importance of women in society and the true measure of their success as human beings, is measured with completely different criteria: their fear of Allah (SWT) and obedience to Him, and fulfillment of the duties he has assigned them, particularly that of bearing, nurturing and teaching children. Islam is a practical religion, and responds to human needs and life situations. Many women need, or wish, to work for various reasons. For example, they may possess a needed skill, such as a teacher or a doctor. While Islam does not prohibit women working outside the home, it specifies that the following restrictions be followed to safeguard the dignity and honor of women and the purity and stability of the Islamic society. Muslim women are not forbidden from going out in the community, working, or visiting relatives and female friends, if there is no objection from their guardian/husband and they are covered and behave and speak according to Islamic guidelines and, if necessary, escorted by their Mahram (male relative). However, a woman’s home should be the main base that she works from. Allah (SWT) instructed the wife’s of the Prophet (SAW): “O wives of the Prophet! You are not like any other women. If you keep your duty (to Allah), then be not soft in speech, lest he is whose heart is a disease (of hypocrisy or evil desire for adultery, etc.) should be moved with desire, but speak in an honorable manner. And stay in your houses, and do not display yourselves like that of the times of ignorance, and offer prayers perfectly (Iqamat-as-Salat), and give Zakat and obey Allah and His Messenger. Allah wishes only to remove Ar-Rijs (evil deeds and sins, etc.) from you, O members of the family [of the Prophet (SAW)], and to purify you with a thorough purification (Quran Al-Ahzab 33:32-33).”

Afghanistan’s social development can only be ensured through democracy and the reduction of poverty, the success of both being assured through full participation of women, especially in rural Afghanistan. Afghanistan has always had elite and middle-class women who asserted their rights and walked towards modernization. But a lot of most Afghan women in rural areas have been one of oppression through tribal customs and dictates. Women’s rights are human rights. They are not simply American, or western customs. They are universal values which we have a responsibility to promote throughout the world, and especially in a place like Afghanistan. It is not only the right thing to do; it is the smart thing to do.