Category: Free Essays

Introduction:- The essay will focus on how culture, gender and religion limits human rights in Africa and how the three come into conflict which leads to discursively construct each other via cultural. It will also cover the potential and limitations of the women’s rights as human rights in which, attension will be paid to Islamic law-sharia and some of it cases in Nigeria. The essay will also relate international human rights documents like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, African Charter on human and people’s rights, protocol to the African Charter on Human and people’s Rights of women in Africa, and Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam(sharia law) and conclusion.

Legal Pluralism in Human Rights Law:

The plurality of norms and values that exist in different African cultues and societies is also reflected within the human rights system itself. The human rights system embodies both individual and communal rights. The tension relationship between the principle of a group’s right to self determination and cultural identity, asembodied in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and Article 16.1 of the Women’s convention, which puts an obligation on the states parties to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relationg to marriage and family relation. In the African context is whether the protection of group rights such as culture and religious identity of ethnic group, constitutes a justifiable reason for differential treatment of women and men in African. There has always been great arguement when interpreting the convention in relationa to African States parties, it should be born in mind that African and Western cultures apply different values and norm(Grannes 1994:28) This is because the implementation of Women’s convention has proved to be particularly problematic in the area of personal and family law, where it comes into conflict with religious and customary laws and practices.

Human Rights in African

Over decades now, Africa have been ranked by international Human Rights organizationas like Human Right Watch, Ammesty International and International Crimenial Court as a continent where human rights violations are at it apex especially islamic countries, the violation of women’s basic human rights are mostly done in the name of culture and religion. [1] After the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 in which pursuit of equal rights for women through international law has been fair from reach. The principle says that everyone is free and equal in diginity and eveveryone is entitled to rights “without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex…” was started in Articles 1 and 2 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights [2] , African Charter by the Organization of African Unity (now African Unity) in 1986, Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam by the Organization of the Islamic Conference in 1993. Anthropology as an academic discipline has embraced a predominantly ethical relativist stance toward the idea of human rights as a legitimate universal concern for all cultures. In the past years the rising prominence of women’s rights as human rights has challenged this point of view. Within the context of the global women’s human rights movement, feminist anthropologists are in the forefront of this challenge, striving to uphold anthropology’s important focus on cultural context, while at the same time paying deep concern for harmful pracetics against women, with female genital mutilation in African no exception, which may be argued to be morally objectionable outside of any given culture. “Human Rights” is a very difficult phrase to define. One’s idea of humanity varies in every culture especially in African societies; discrepancies are often found even within a singular culture.

Gender,Culture, Religion and social Causes a Barrie to Human Rights in Africa:

Violence continues to affect lives of millions of women in African in all socio- legal, economic and educational classes. This is cuting across cultural and religious barriers, which impeding women from taking full participation in societies. One of the greatest barriers to women’s economic advancement is violence they face on daily routine. Not only does such violence impede women’s ability to live full and productive lives, it also hampers their contributions to family, society and economic development. Violance aganist women is one of the most visible consequences of economic, social, political, legal and cultural inequalities that exist between men and women in Africa, as a result the continent is laging behind the rest of the world [3] . Given the subordinate status of women in Africa, women are most exposed to ill treatments, physiological abuse, and physical violence, such gender violence is considered normal and enjoys social sanction.

African continent is rich in cultural relativity(culture of discrimination) and norms, as a result it has showed a vital barrier to the implementation of the universal human rights act.

A universal agreement among certain human rights provisions is not likely to occur, specifically when dealing with islamic countries in African where transition to more equal rights is most problematic, where elements of Sharia law governing the behaviour of women remain active. In extreme examples in Northern Nigeria, these ancient laws still declaims that adultery is a crime when only carried out by women, and makes it impossible for a man to be convicted of rape. In certain circumstances, conforming to human rights would signify a fundamental change in societies that the elite is not willing to undertake, fearing a potential change in the balance of power while the cultural norms remains unchanged.

Violence against women in Africa comes in several forms discrimination, rape and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), which the World Health Orgnazation (WHO) defines as ‘comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons’.

The practice is mostly carried out by traditional circumcisers, who often play other central roles in communities, such as attending childbirths. Increasingly, however, FGM is being performed by health care providers and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children. The practice also violates a person’s rights to health, security and physical integrity, the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death.

Despirte global efforts by World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to combat the wild spred of FGM, it still remains donominant in Africa as a cultureal partices, which lives about 92 million girls age 10 years and above are estimated to have undergone FGM and three million girls are at risk annually [4] .

The reasons behind female genital mutilation in Africa include a mix of cultural, religious and social factors within families and communities.In most African countries where FGM is a social convention, the social pressure to conform to what others do and have been doing is a strong motivation to perpetuate the practice. Traditions in African believes that FGM is often considered a necessary part of raising up process for girl(s), and a way to prepare them for adulthood and marriage life, it often motivated by beliefs about what is considered proper sexual behaviour, linking procedures to premarital virginity and marital fidelity and is also associated with cultural ideals of femininity and modesty, which include the notion that girls are clean and beautiful after removal of body parts that are considered male or unclean. The Africa Traditional Reglions (ATRs) is the only religion that fully support to the practice, practitioners often believe the practice has religious support, other religious leaders take active positions with regard to FGM: some still promote it, some consider it unimportant to religion, and others are still kicking against the idea.

Potential and Limitations of Women’s Rights as Human Rights

Social and economic indicators for African countries consistently show that women bear the greatest brunt of hardship because of disciminatory lwas against them, efforts to modernise this discriminatory laws have been frustrated by deep-rooted cultural barriers that runs in opposite direction with developments . Women in Africa contribute in numerous ways to the national development of every country. They are responsible for nearly all household duties , starting from food productions and processing exercises. Often, women tend to be viewed not as individuals, but as part of the male-headed household with some unique needs of their own related to their preceived roles, if given the rigts they can be at the front line of major global issues.

Women organizations in Africa and around world such as Formum for African Women Educationalist (FAWE) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) have been actively involve in using different approaches in seeing the the rights of women as stated in various international human rights docuents be met,their efforts are far from reach in Africa.

Sharai Law:

The word sharia means “the path to a watering hole”. It denotes an Islamic way of life that is more than a system of criminal justice. Sharia is a religious code for living, in the same way that the Bible offers a moral system for Christians. It is adopted by most Muslims to a greater or lesser degree as a matter of personal conscience, but it can also be formally instituted as law by certain states and enforced by the courts. Many Islamic countries have adopted elements of sharia law, governing areas such as inheritance, banking and contract law.

Sharai Law in Nigeria -Case One:

Safiya Hussaini, age 35, was sentenced to death by stoning in October 2002 for allegedly having a child with a married neighbour. She had the child after her divorce, but maintained the father was her former husband and that they were married when the child was conceived. The court convicted her, but Hussaini won an appeal, this time alleging that she had sex out of wedlock before sharia law took effect.

Sharai Law in Nigeria – Case Two:

In 2001, a teenage single mother was given 100 lashes for adultery, even though she argued she was raped by three men. The court said Bariya Ibrahim Magazu could not prove that the men forced her to have sex. Sexual discrimenation is transparent in this case, The Sharai law failed to bring the three men to book for raping, insisted all the blame was put on the woman alone.

Sharai Law in Nigeria -Case Three: In 2002, Adama Unusua, who was 19 and pregnant, was recently sentenced to 100 lashes in public for having sex with her fiance. [5]

International Human Rights Documents and Sharia Law in Africa:

The African continent ratified international and regional human rights protection instruments, human rights violations such as discrimination against women persists widely both in law and practice.The international commettee remains particularly concerned by the currently violations of human rights in Africa especially the ones currently going on in North Africa andWest Africa(Ivory Coast). The persistence of discriminatory laws; lack of perfect harmonisation between statutory and customary laws and the application of Sharia laws constantly increase violence against women, including widowhood rites; and obstacles to access top employment opportunities leades tonor right in decision-making that even affects them.The Shariagoes in oppsite direction with all international and regional human rights documents, expect in the Cariro Declaration on Human Rights in Islam by the Organization of the Islam Conferencce in may 1993, which made provision in Article 2 [6]

Conclusion:

Increase in the violation of huma rights in Africa is at it apex point, both the international and regional commeteer need to pay much attension to this issues, especially the violation of fundamental rights which are clearly speelts in all human rights documents with execption to Articule 2(c) p 4 of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights.Women’s rights must be respected by eliminating all form of discrimination against them, so that they can see themselves as partners in development in African.

Culture is defined as, “a particular society at a particular time and place”. This definition describes that cultures in various locations and during different time periods are unique, and cannot be duplicated. In a multicultural nation, such as Canada, there are various cultures with different views, beliefs and opinions that have been brought by the new immigrants and shared within their ethnic communities, as well as their families. At times these cultures and views can clash, and result in one interpretation of what is believed to be right to override the other. This is when the relation of the concept of culture relating to crime can be made. At times what may seem to be viewed as normal or non deviant within one culture can be deemed illegal and unlawful by another culture. This however becomes a culture shock when people of various subcultures are forced to abide to the culture of the metro poles they live in. This concept of culture relating to multiculturalism can relate to culture of conflict theory, the subculture theory and the differential association theory. It is not only within ethnic groups that cultural conflicts exist, but also within subcultural groups that are within a larger context of society. The concept of culture invoking crimes is substantially based upon the fact that subcultures clash because their culture is under the interpretation that their values, beliefs and judgements are opposite to what they believed should be deemed criminal. The result of crime within various cultures, are caused by the differential values of various cultures, the lack of education and adaptation of Canadian culture in the multicultural metro poles, and the opportunities that exist in order to prevent crime.

Culture conflict theory states that “the root cause of criminality can be found in a clash of values between differently socialized groups over what is acceptable of proper behaviour”. For example, for some, protesting for one’s rights and freedoms by blocking a road is deemed illegal from the place of origin they immigrated from, therefore when viewing Canadian citizens continually protesting on the roads may cause them to believe that the individuals’ committing these acts are criminals. Canada being a multicultural nation, harbours many different cultures that may in fact not be used to the behaviour and cultural views of the greater Canadian society in which they belong in. This often is due to the conduct norm defined by Sellin as, “the shared expectation of a social group relative to conduct”. This expectation of what is considered to be normal and deviant are socially created by the broader society and forced upon individuals to follow. Canada for example has progressed greatly from a conservative society, to a very liberal and free democratic society. Many things have changed with regards to conventions and law in Canadian society; such changes aren’t so readily accepted by older generations or various cultures, nor are they easily adapted to. This results in crimes being committed by people that aren’t actually aware of committing an illegal action. This explains Sellin’s point that crime is nothing more than that an argument is that of what is deemed to be right or wrong. Selling also pointed out that there were two types of cultures in conflict, they were primary and secondary conflict which also led to the clash of cultures and the result of crime.

Primary conflict is described as that in which there is, “a fundamental clash of cultures that occurs”.An example that is very common in contemporary society is the idea of honour killings by parents. “Honour killings are committed usually to daughters by parents or older siblings because the behaviour of the child is believed to have brought shame to the family. On June 16th 2010, a father and son were sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty for the murder of Aqsa Parvez, a 16-year-old girl of Pakistani descent who wanted to wear western clothes and get a part-time job like her Canadian peers.” Although this example seems to be drastic, it is believed by the individuals that commit these crimes that this is completely normal behaviour that has been practiced in their native lands. This example shows that what may have been deemed illegal and murder by Canadian culture was not the case from where these two individuals came from. The individuals in this case were not aware that they had committed something wrong, because based on their culture it is their responsibility to uphold the family name and do whatever it takes to protect it. The question then remains if this should actually be considered a crime because the person who committed it came from a different culture which did not hold the same views. Or would it be the responsibility of each individual residing in Canada to adapt and learn the conduct norms and completely forget about their values and beliefs. In this primary example, it can be made clear that since Canada is home to many immigrants, a “crime” like this may occur again because of the lack of knowledge of what is considered to be right and wrong in a new culture. Although this act may be considered to be unexplainable to many parents as well as citizens it is clear that many citizens still carry on their culture of their homelands, crimes such as these are bound to continue to flourish in a multicultural society.

Secondary conflict is described by Sellin to be that of which when “smaller cultures within the primary cultures clash”. An example of secondary conflict is the smaller cultures of drug dealers, prostitutes and gamblers that are regarded as clashing with the middle class and upper class values of society. For example for the middle class, making a decent wage through legal means is a way of life and what is considered to be what is considered right, however for those individuals that participate in drug dealing and prostitution it is also seen as their way of life. Therefore when laws are created by the middle class and upper class citizens they are created in a way in which clashes with the way of life of the low class citizens who commit these crimes as a way of earning money and living. Therefore, this crime that is socially constructed by the higher class results in the only way of life the lower class citizens have being deemed as criminalized activity. These crimes rates continue to flourish because these individuals’ way of life has been criminalized by the upper class. Until a new form of opportunity is granted for these individuals they will continue to maintain their deviant ways of life. Thus, this secondary conflict will only disappear when the economically marginalized are able to adapt to the cultural norms of the middle and upper class.

Subcultures are defined as a collection of values and preferences that is communicated to sub cultural participants through a process of socialization. Therefore, this statement is reiterating that it is through interacting with a subculture that one learns how he or she is to act and what he or she is to believe in. This interconnects with subculture theory which is, “a sociological perspective that emphasizes the contribution made by various socialized cultural groups to the phenomenon of crime” For example, street gangs continually function in a sub cultural level where they have their own set of values, beliefs and roles that may not necessarily adapt to the Canadian laws of society, however due to socializations that have made them a member of the group they do not see themselves committing crimes. For example, there are violent subcultures that Ferracuti and Wolfgang describe as individuals learning from being constantly exposed to violent practices as a means of problem solving. This is done by these individuals because violence is seen as a better precaution than other forms of adaptation. Therefore when charging a gang member for brutally attacking another gang member, one has to realize that within the subcultures of these individuals and their gangs what they are doing is only what they have learned to do in response to what has been taught to them. Therefore the question then comes into question of whether the subcultures of these gangs are the reasons why the crime rate is considered so high, and if so what can be done to change the mentalities of these subcultures to adapt to a more acceptable approach.

Many of these subcultures committing crime has been a direct result of the differential opportunity provided to each of these individuals. For example, there are two different opportunity for those individuals that fall into the lower class for a pathway to success, one is measured through legitimate means and the other illegitimate means. Examples of legitimate means are obtaining a job and making an honest living, while illegitimate means are selling drugs, prostituting etc. The reason why most lower class individuals chose illegitimate means over legitimate opportunity is because these measures are readily available. These jobs and opportunities that the lower class have to do in order to survive are always disapproved by society, which results in these individuals committing crimes. These so called delinquents are defined as individuals’ whose behaviours violate basic norms of society and those whose crimes once known by the police get them involved in the criminal justice system. It is described that deviance is just as much an adjustment to conform as is deviance to conform to expectations. What this statement means is that each of these individuals are trying their best to adapt to a society in which everything they do is being considered a crime, therefore at the most they are trying to adapt as much as they can to the expectations and norms of the middle class which do not include the lower class.

There are three delinquent subcultures that are pointed out which are criminal subcultures, conflict subcultures and retreatist subcultures. Criminal subcultures are ones in which criminal role models are available for imitation by those just entering the subculture. For example, gang leaders that own a gun and have been inside jail are mentoring these new recruit into their subculture and teaching them all that they may know. Conflict subcultures are when participants try to seek status through violence. This could be a scenario where a gang member is trying to earn the trust of his elder gang member, therefore he commits a few crimes to prove that he is worthy of their trust, somewhat like an initiation process. Another subculture is the retreatist subculture where drug use and withdrawal from society dominate. This for example is one of those high drug trafficking cases where the individual is always under the influence of an illegal substance, and prefers to not be in the public eye so he or she will not get caught. Through these various subcultures, one can see that these are still common in our contemporary society, and are continuing to add crime to our statistics.

Conflict culture, subcultures and differential association theory all underlie the reasons why there is a constant issue with crime in the multicultural metro poles. Individuals are unable to break free of their own cultural barriers, and adapt to Canadian cultural barriers that are frankly different and built upon social norms. What one would consider normal in his birthplace may be deemed a crime in Canadian society which is why the cultural conflicts continue to create more crime within Canada. It is not only the cultural conflict, but the processes and structure of subcultures that also deviate in exceptional amounts of crime being committed that is not deemed by the wrong doers to be criminal. One can uncover the fact that aside from the cultural conflicts, these individuals are put in this pathway because only illegitimate means of survival are provided toward for them. This society is built upon socialization of upper class views, morals and beliefs which results in the middle class and lower class being swept under a rug and continuously charged with crimes that they may consider a way of living. The only way in which we are to break free of this cultural crime being committed is by educating the general public about the importance of adaptation of Canadian laws, creating programs for those individuals in dangerous subcultures and allowing all classes to create the conduct of the norms.

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The headline read, “One out of 12 in America Held to be Illegitimate; Issuance of ‘Partial’ Birth Certificates Proposed to Avoid Embarrassments” (Staff, 1944, p. 4). The assertion conjures a mental image of hundreds of decadent, low socioeconomic status, immoral women and her filius nullius (Latin term meaning, “son of nobody”). Parents of the single, gravid woman were shamed, mortified or disgusted by the sexual promiscuity of their daughter; how they could face their friends after learning of the daughter’s transgression? Is this the first era of social stigma related to a child borne by an unmarried woman? The samplings of historical data below indicate no.

The Bible speaks often to a debauched woman and her bastard offspring. For example, Galatians 5:19-21 (English Standard Version):

19 Now, the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,

20 Idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,

21 Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Figure Lillian Gish (1926)In 1850, Nathanial Hawthorne wrote the “Scarlet Letter.” Set in a Puritan colony, his central character Hester Prynne, gave birth to an illegitimate daughter because of an adulterous affair. Hester was publicly shamed and forced to wear a red letter “A” on her chest, identifying her as an adulterer. She experienced cruelty, humiliation, and ostracism from the people of the community. She eventually realized the fortitude of her spirit. The novel is 160 years old, yet the moral dilemmas of personal responsibility, and consuming emotions of guilt, anger, loyalty and revenge are enduring.

“Unfair treatment and the stigma really permeate all aspects of society. It’s still expected that people will marry and that there’s something weird about you if you don’t.” Thomas Coleman

In the year 1944, when the above article appeared in The Pittsburgh Press, the institution of marriage before parenthood was the virtuous and accepted way of life. Women were expected to “love and obey” their husbands.

bas·tard (basaˆ?tE™rd) noun

a person born of parents not married to each other; illegitimate child

anything spurious, inferior, or varying from standard

Slang a person regarded with contempt, hatred, pity, resentment, etc. or, sometimes, with playful affection: a vulgar usage

Etymology: ME < OFr < bast- (also in fils de bast) (< ? Goth bansts, barn) + -ard, -ard: hence, one conceived in a barn (Webster's, 2010).

Vocabulary to describe the child borne of an unmarried woman varies throughout literature. Bastard is the most prolific term used in the earliest writings. A bastard is a person born out of wedlock whose father is not listed on the birth certificate and legal status is illegitimacy. Bastards had no right to inherit property from his or her parents except through a will. In the mid-20th century, discrimination against children born out of wedlock became subject to constitutional limitation under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment (Columbia, 2009, p. 1).

Illegitimate, love child, whoreson, spurious; terminology referring to the child borne of an unmarried mother may be perceived as vilifying the child. The mother, who’s referenced by the terms unwed, unmarried, or single, was a pariah. Often, the pregnant single woman was scuttled off to a residential home for unwed mothers.

The occurrence of out-of-wedlock births has been rising over the past 70 years. In the 1940s, fewer than five percent of the total births were out of wedlock (Ventura, 2009). In the 1940s and 1950s, unwed mothers were strongly encouraged to give their children up for adoption. Commonly, an illegitimate child raised by grandparents or married relatives believed the unwed mother was his sister or he was her nephew.

Between 1940 and 1960, the escalation of out-of-wedlock births was subtle. Since the 1970s, increases in the number, rate, and ratio of out-of-wedlock births have been dramatic. In addition, the size of the unmarried population has increased as a result of the high birth rates during late 1940s through the early 1960s, along with the unprecedented deferment of marriage by the baby-boomers (U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [DHHS], 1995, p. 4).

Little in the literature discusses the biosocial and psychosocial influences upon the child or the mother. However, researchers have gathered a multitude of statistics demonstrating the delayed cognitive development of the child of a single parent. Unwed teenage mothers and their children are more likely living in lower socioeconomic conditions. The mothers face multiple risks of dropping out of school and becoming part of the economic underclass (Drummond & Hansford, 1992, p. 529). The unwed mothers were perceived by society as “deadbeats ripping off the American taxpayer.” Additionally, the societal concern of Americans over teenage mothers was that “babies are having babies”; that 16 year old girls were too young and unprepared for the responsibilities of single parenthood (Whitehead, 2007, p. 6).

The negativity surrounding unmarried mothers and their children was rampant during the years prior to 1970. That is not to say the mind-set completely disappeared at the stroke of midnight on December 31, 1969.

The public opinion of unmarried mothers remains. How that opinion is manifested has undergone changes. The transformation of the single-parent family from uncommonness to an established family style was one of the most dramatic social changes of the 20th century. Only 1 in 10 children lived in a single-parent family prior to 1960. More than 1in 4 did so by the century’s end. Although the consequences of single parent family formation have received abundant scrutiny, less is known about the evolution of attitudes toward these families (Usdansky, 2009, p. 209).

Is the increase of non-martial births due to eroding morals? Or, is there more ambivalence and apathy towards the single parent lifestyle? The cognitive development of morals and culture in emerging adult (ages 18-25) continues through middle age (Berger, 2008, p. 483). During this phase of human development, the emerging adult thinking is more practical, more flexible, and more dialectical (Berger, 2008, p. 472). The cultural background likely affects the cognitive process (Berger, 2008, p. 481).

Cultural influences have an effect on religious belief development. The religious and spiritual growth of a genome progresses with stages of human development. Take the quotation below, for example.

“‘Marriage exerts less influence over how adults organize their lives and how children are born and raised than at any time in the nation’s history,’ the survey says. Between 1960 and 2005, the rate of unwed childbearing increased sevenfold, from 5.3 percent of all births to 36.8 percent. The survey finds that the average unwed mother ‘is more likely to be white than black, and more likely to be an adult than a teenager. aˆ¦’ The survey attributes this ‘sharp increase in non-marital births’ to ‘an ever greater percentage of women in the 20s, 30s, and older aˆ¦ delaying or forgoing marriage but having children.’ But more Americans than ever naively think they alone can make single-parenting work.”

“Day-to-day realities slowly undermine this optimism. Single parents who have been at it awhile know better than anyone how less than ideal their situation is. That’s one reason we can expect to see more and more single parents looking for outside support. Single mothers aˆ¦often long for a strong, caring male to enter their children’s lives. So it nearly goes without saying: The church has a unique opportunity at this cultural moment.”

“For years, we have been preaching the supremacy of the two-parent family, offering classes and seminars for young couples and familiesaˆ¦”

“A dramatic example, but boys without father figures and girls without mother figures have a strike against them. The latest national study shows that more children than ever are entering the world with such strikes. It’s an unprecedented cultural moment for Christians, to see if we can act less like individual consumers of spirituality and more like the family of God” (“The fatherless child”, 2007, p. 5).

On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, Public Law 104-193, better known as the Welfare Reform Bill. This law changes how governmental financial assistance is administered.

On September 15, 2000, the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala awarded five states $100 million ($20 million each) in for reducing the number of out-of-wedlock births. “Among the priorities of the 1996 welfare reform law were promoting parental responsibility and encouraging two-parent families,” said Secretary Shalala. “I’m very pleased to award these bonuses as an incentive to advance these important family goals” (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2000).

Is the child borne of an unwed mother destined to poverty, illiteracy, and a life of crime? Is the single mother doomed to never-ending disgrace and the topic for scandalous gossip? In the next chapter, evidence throughout the years reveals the picture is not all black.

“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.” Rajneesh

The year 1992 marked a pioneering event on network television. The highly-rated CBS show “Murphy Brown” started the new season with Murphy Brown, a divorced news anchorwoman, become pregnant and choosing to have the baby and raise it alone. America’s pro-lifers jeered, while the pro-choices cheered. Even the presidential candidates had something to say. Vice President Dan Quayle declared that the Los Angeles riots were caused in part by a “poverty of values.” He went on to denounce the acceptance of unwed motherhood. “It doesn’t help matters,” Quayle complained, when Murphy Brown, “a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid professional woman” is portrayed as “mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another ‘life-style choice’ ” (“Murphy Brown”, 1992).

In 2006, Rosanna Hertz published her non-fiction book, Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice. She noted the Single By Choice (SBC) woman belongs to a distinct subgroup of single parents, who, out of a strong desire for a child, have made the active choice to go it alone. Moreover, she asserts the SBC route to parenthood does not necessarily seem to have an adverse effect on mothers’ parenting ability or the psychological adjustment of the child (Murray & Golombok, 2005, p. 1655).

From the early 1960s to the late 1980s, the percentage of women having a non-marital child increased by 50% among whites and by 24% among blacks (Currie, 2009, p. 37).

One research study hypothesized a preventive group intervention with SBC mothers can identify potential psychological risk factors and help mothers with sensitive aspects of parenting (Ben-Daniel, Rokach, Filtzer, & Feldman, 2007, p. 249). There is research indicating that women in the typical age group of SBC mothers (35 to 44) tend to experience more stress than younger mothers. Their lifestyle is well established; pregnancy and parenting are perceived by some as interfering with their chosen way of life, especially in her career. SBC women are often the oldest daughter in their family (Ben-Daniel et al., 2007, p. 263).

In the few studies that exist on children of single mothers, no significant difference has been found in the child’s emotional and social development. Likewise, the development of gender identity of children of single mothers, as compared with children raised in heterosexual families, was unaffected.

The results of the study revealed therapeutic gain: Reduction of stress, tension and guilt; helped mothers prepared for parenting by encouraging a positive self-image and perceptions of the child. Improving the SBC mother’s acceptance of her chosen family model therefore promoted her willingness to tell children their birth story (Ben-Daniel et al., 2007, p. 264).

The child must be aware that it is okay to come from a family background different from a friend’s or neighbors. Some children live with two parents, others with only their mother or a father. Recently, grandparents have become the newest faction of caregivers for their grandchildren. Other relatives, step-parents, friends, or guardians are examples for the child to ponder. As one SBC mother revealed to her son, Walt Disney’s famous mother and son elephant family never made reference to a father; and the mother and son seemed perfectly content.

“The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.” Pablo Casals

The non-marital child and his mother faced prejudice, humiliation, taunts and sneers over the centuries. The hurtful monikers of bastard or illegitimate child are slowly giving way to kinder terms. The prevalence of single by choice, mother by choice women is increasing at the end of the first decade in the 21st century. The commonality of alternative family models and the quiet acceptance of them allay the self-consciousness of the mother and child. No longer does the solo parent with her child have to endure the social stigma of a virtual scarlet letter. When two are a family, the biosocial, cognitive and psychosocial development of the non-marital child is determined by nature and nurture, the environment of unconditional love and acceptance by his society, and the eternal affection of his mother.

The issue of economic growth has for several decades been at the fore-front of every country’s policy agenda and has been the most talked about phenomena spanning from the industrial revolution era up to date. With most of the world economies recovering from the shock and memories of the 2008 global economic downturn, the world still remains ascetically divided between affluent and underprivileged, democratic and authoritarian, just and unjust, orderly and chaotic. These differences are so conspicuously clear to even the casual spectator that we live in highly disjunctive times. This has generated a lot of explanations pinpointing to the underlying causal factors. Geography, climate, previous historic situations such as colonization among others have been propounded in support of this huge economic divergence.

However, cultural traits and its influence on economic growth seem to have been given less attention. The reason for this gap is easily traceable. Anything invoking cultural attributes, values and predisposition according to [1] Patterson (2006) has been pushed and sidelined within the field of social sciences and policy circles. One would therefore be wondering why such a marginalization? The obvious answer to this is simply due to the fact that culture is difficult to address on several levels. What is perceived as culture in one locality or region might not be applicable to another. This makes culture definitionally problematic. Its relativity and ambiguity affected by contextual factors is actually difficult to objectify and assess.

The focus of this thesis however, is to do an empirical study on this subject matter especially considering the fact that most research works such as Jiang Shixue (1998) and others have resorted to theoretical means of finding explanatory factors to buttress culture and its relationship to economic development. To make this paper distinctive enough, we employ a multidisciplinary approach in which a wide array of data set from 948 countries would be considered for sampling from the world value survey database from 1981 to 2009. Our tasked would be to sample out 30 countries across the six continents with their distinctive cultural values. These cultural values sampled from the selected 29 countries would be regrouped into four main indices- instrumental rationality, affectual rationality, value rationality and traditional rationality. The detail of these headings would be covered in subsequent sections. Corresponding economic variables such as real GDP per capita, human capital captured as in gross school enrollment at different levels and physical capital ( employment levels) measured by the value of gross fixed capital formation would as well be collected to match the sampled countries.

1.1.2 Motivation

Recent causal factors on economic growth have been expounded from different angles and theories. These divergent views have established a somewhat two strands or schools of thought. The first and widely known group is the neoclassical group based on Solow’s growth model which emphasizes the importance of investment. The second and most recent group- known as the theory of endogenous growth propounded by Romer and Lucas has also shed more light on the essence of human capital and innovation capacity (technology).

Besides these two economic think tanks, there have also been other contributions from Myrdal’s cumulative causation theory and another from the New Economic Geography School (NEG). Others such as Jiang Shixue (1998), Granato, Inglehart and Leblang (GIL; 1996), Papamarcos, Watson, Fukuyama (1995; 1996), Weber (1958), Jonathan (2009), Jackman and Miller (1996a), McClelland et al (1953; 1961), Landes (1998) have all highlighted on the significant role of non- economic factors play on economic growth. The emergence of this area has given rise to yet another distinction between what Petrakos et al (2007) termed as ‘proximate’ and ‘fundamental or ultimate’ sources of growth.

However, with the exception of few of these works, most publications on economic development have centered on the ‘proximate’ sources of growth. The proximate group advocate on issues such as accumulation of capital, labor and technology. On the ‘ultimate’ group, most research works (see Weber, Jiang Shixue) have been done theoretical without empirical backing. It is only in most recent times that others such as Granato et al (1996) and Jonathan Hanson (2009) correlated cultural factors to economic growth with data collected from the world values survey database. For instance, in the work of GIL (1996), that was developed based on the shortcomings of McClelland et al (1953; 1961), collected data from 25 countries from the world value survey database. They systematically tried to test the robustness of “achievement motivation” index on economic growth. As part of their findings, they concluded that there exist significant relationship between achievement motivation index and economic development. However, their work received a lot of critiques from James Miller, Jackman and most recently by Jonathan Hanson (2009). These criticisms span from the sample size to the inability of their model to predict the future except the past. Jonathan Hanson (2009) in an attempt to address and assert on GIL’s findings, has also tested the validly of earlier results and has concluded that there is no such relationship between achievement motivation and growth. He did this by increasing the sample size from 25 to 42 countries and also extended the years from 17 years to 27 years period.

From the above developments, it is evident that the ‘ultimate or fundamental’ source of growth has had limited attention and that findings on the relationship between cultural factors and economic development has not been straightforward. We are therefore left to wonder if there exist any sort of relationship between cultural factors and economic development. If yes, can it be measured and its effects compared with traditional economic factors such as savings and investment? These questions and others would constitute the basis of my research objectives. My desire to do this research work is therefore informed by the questions raised above and the huge vacuum in research publications in this area. Also, considering the fact that all the research works on this area seems to follow similar pattern, that is, they all employ the same index (achievement motivation) in their test. This paper would somehow differ by employing a different approach that would seek to go beyond this by aggregating cultural traits into four indices.

1.1.3 Aims and Objectives

The objective of this research is to answer the question posed in our motivation by identifying and investigating if there are any relationship between cultural traits and economic growth. To achieve this, our aim would be to try to assign quantities and measure these cultural traits empirically. Specifically, the research would focus on data sets from across the six continents, advanced, emerging and LDCs. We would build cultural traits indices on the basis of rationality as defined by Max Weber.

1.1.4 Hypothesis of the Study

The following null and alternative hypotheses have therefore been set and the research would seek to prove the validity of each hypothesis formulated:

H0: Culture is positively associated with economic growth with high level of IR/ VR and low levels of TNR/ANR

H1: Culture is negatively associated with economic growth with low level of IR/ VR and high levels of TNR/ANR

1.1.5 Significance of the Study

Just as we highlighted in our rationale as to the vacuum in research as far as this area is concern, it is our expectation that this work would fill the gap in research publications. Our findings as to whether cultural values have strong correlation with growth or not would also go a long way to give an empirical meaning to the numerous theoretical publications on this subject matter. Given our distinct approach coupled with the large sample size of 52 countries across the six continents and the depth in data set spanning from 1981-2009, we believe our result would hold more credibility. Our result would lay to rest the discrepancies in findings by Granato et al (1996) and Jonathan (2009) by affirming either of their results. The policy recommendations that would be outlined based on our result findings would be very useful to policy makers and the world of academia.

Limitation

We encountered a lot of shortcomings in undertaking this research work. To begin with, our chosen topic in itself poses a lot of problem as it is not straightforward to deal with. Its subjectivess was a cause to worry to us. The immaterial nature of culture traits quantitatively was also another bottleneck to us. There are no quantitative data representing cultural traits. We had to rely on world value survey and European value survey responds to represent culture traits in quantities. This approach is tedious and time consuming. Last but the least, the time allotted for students to write their thesis is not enough. We were given approximately three months to come out with this thesis report. Originally, our aim was to go beyond the sample sizes of the different literatures we have reviewed, but time did not permit us to do so. We had to settle on 30 countries.

Outline

This thesis report is divided into eight main parts. Section one gives a general overview of the intended work encompassing background, research motivation, limitations and research outline. Section two devotes attention on the various literatures in lieu to this research. Section three looks into how culture has been perceived and defined from different perspectives and dimensions. Our aim in doing this is to identify the various traits as in culture. Section four deals with the methodology and specification of the model employed. We move on to describe our data set, sources and the countries involved in section five. We move on to Section six which is the empirical aspect in which our economic and cultural variables are co-tested and interpreted. Sections seven and eight attempts summarizing the result findings and its implication and further conclude with recommendations in a respective manner.

CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE

2. INTRODUCTION

This part of the paper takes a critical look at some of the works already been done as far as our subject matter is concern. To do this, our quest would be to review relevant literatures and approach employed by other writers. Our target would be to consider all explanatory factors that shares relevance with economic growth as proposed.

2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW

There is more than enough literature on sources of economic growth but amongst these sources, little seems to have been done on culture, as a factor that could induce development. The reason for this negligence is easily traceable, perhaps due to the complications and ambiguities attached to this subject matter. Culture is dynamic and harbors a lot of relativities hence making it quite difficult in ascribing a definite definition.

For instance, theories such as the one developed by Solow (1956), and publications by Romer (1986), Lucas (1988), Aghion and Howith (1992), Barro (1990), Grossman and Helpman (1991) acknowledges and therefore highlighted three sources of growth: new knowledge, innovation and public infrastructure. Another batch of literature, that is not widely known in academic circles is the growth theory of cumulative causation developed by Mydal (1957) and Kaldor (1970) that argues growth emerges from centrifugal effects ( positive spillovers) that’s spreading growth from more to less advance economies. This theory implicitly shares a lot of commonalities with endogenous growth. In another view, Krugman, 1991; Fujita et al, 1999 tried using the New Economic Geography (NEG) theory to explain the possible sources of growth. They assert that economic growth tends to be an unbalance process favoring the initially advantaged economies. This theory focus on location of economic activity, agglomeration and specialization rather than growth, but indirectly, growth outcomes can be sourced from this model.

When observed in a more macro point of view, other theoretical approached have emphasized the significant role non-economic factors play on economic performance. In other words, institutional economics have embraced the emerging roles of institutions [2] , economic sociology stressed out the importance of socio-cultural factors [3] , political science placed its clarification on this emerging subject on political determinants [4] and others have shed light on the role played by geography [5] and demography (Brander and Dowrick, 1994; Kalemli-Ozcan, 2002).

Granato et al (1996), Huntington (1996); Temple and Johnson (1998); Landes (2000); Inglehart and Baker (2000); Zak and Knack (2001); Barro and McCleary (2003); in recent years have done some research on how socio-cultural factors may affect growth. Most of them used different approaches and data sources to buttress their points. As part of some of their findings, it was concluded that there is a significant relationship between cultural factors and growth. However, Authors like Granato, Inglehart and Leblang (GIL 1996) have come under serious criticism. For instance Jackman and Miller claim that it is impossible to measure the stability of democracy as purported to have been measured in GIL’s work. Jackman and Miller cited the reason that levels of democracy have changed greatly over the last two centuries.

Jiang Shixue (1998) carried out a theoretical study on cultural factors and its role in changing the economic positions of most East Asia and Latin American economies. His aim was to compare how economic growths in these two regions have been shaped by cultural factors or values. In his findings, he was of the view that Confucianism as a cultural value has contributed immensely to East Asian Development as compared to its Ibero-Catholic or Hispanic counterpart in Latin America. He argued that Confucianism encourages thrift, savings (which is core to investment) and education. We are made to understand that, in the mid 1960s, the savings rate in most East Asian countries was 35 percent. However, this was not the case for most Latin America economies that were by then struggling to overcome high inflation rate, which kept interest rate negative. Their saving rate was therefore 16 percent, one half of their Asian counterparts.

Jonathan (2009) used similar approach by Granato et al (1996) to test how correlated achievement index is to economic growth. As opposed to the findings of GIL, Jonathan extended the data sample years from 1991-2008. An empirical test was thus carried out with the same data from world value survey. Jonathan concluded that there is no such relationship between achievement motivation index and growth as may have been reported by GIL.

Muhammed et al (2010) have recently done an empirical research on cultural values and economic growth in Asia. They used the traditional growth model as built by Solow and Lucas to test cultural values collected from world value survey database (1995-2007). Presence in their model was factors such as investment in human capital and per capita income since it is an established fact these factors have had positive correlation with economic growth. They augmented these economic variables with cultural variables such as trust, respect, self-determination and obedience. Their findings were quite similar to Granato et al (1996). They saw that obedience as a cultural value bears a negative correlation to economic growth. However, the other two traits indicated a positive correlation to economic growth. They summed these up to conclude that there is a strong and robustly positive impact of cultural traits on growth.

In addition, the effect of economic growth are thought to be related to the elements of culture that affect production and investment decisions, efficient allocation of resources, technological innovation and openness to trade. Altman (2001) models the impact of culture on economic growth by arguing that work effort is maximized when the cultural environment stimulates cooperative work, which is positively correlated to labor productivity. In the same direction, Faria and Leon-Ledesma (2004) also argue that cultural values that emphasis hard work affects labor supply. In their views, work is like a habit forming. They indicated that in the case of habit forming, the labor supply is higher than neoclassical case and can further lead to higher level of consumption, capital stock and output.

Cozzi (1998) also asserts that culture affects technological innovations. He however points out that culture in itself bears no utility and that its survival is linked to its positive effects on productivity. Cozzi generated technological innovations as an externality in his model by the aggregate investment in bubble culture. In a similar study, Johnson and Lenartowicz (1998) investigated the relationship between cultural factors and economic growth. They concentrated on values like uncertainty avoidance, conservatism and hierarchy (economic freedom and economic growth). They found a strong and robust relationship between economic freedom and economic growth and weak uncertainty avoidance and high level of individual autonomy.

Yuriy and Roland (2010) in their preliminary research publication investigated the relationship between cultural variables and growth by constructing an endogenous growth model. They used individualism-collectivism as the main cultural traits and sought to predict how this trait has a bearing on growth. Their work was an improvement of Hofsede (2001) who used surveys among IBM workers in 30 countries. Yuriy and Roland expanded this number to 80 countries. Their results were quite similar to Hofsede’s work. They found a strong and robust relationship of culture traits on long-run economic growth. They conclude that individualism should lead more to innovation due to the social rewards and that this cultural effect may offset negatives of bad institutions on growth.

From the vast array of literatures, it is quite evident that our approach is different from the others. Our decision to aggregate the various cultural traits on the basis of reason affirms this notion. Our collection of more traits to form distinctive indices transcends what others have done.

CHAPTER THREE
DEFINITION AND AGREGATION OF CULTURAL TRAITS

3.0 INTRODUCTION

In this section, we seek to give a general picture as in the definition of culture as understood by several authors. We would move a step further by proposing and outlining our working definition by our own understanding of what culture is. On the basis of our definition, we then group the various cultural traits under the various level of rationality as mentioned in our introductory part.

3.1 DEFINITION OF CULTURE

To understand how culture can affect economic growth, we would attempt to define it in several ways in order to capture some of the traits as used. However, [6] culture just as we pointed out in our introduction is difficult to define. Its subjectiveness makes it a bit difficult to objectify. Nevertheless, in the light of these difficulties, certain writers have been able to define it to suit their various works or purposes. [7] This has brought some sort of enmity between historical economists and these scholars (culture writers) who are fans of culture.

These subjectiveness in culture definition prompted people like A.L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluchohn to list about 160 definitions in their work between 1871- 1951. Ian Jamieson surveyed 160 definitions of culture that were in use by anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists and others.

Earlier usage of the word “culture” has always been designated the cultivation or tending of something like “agri-culture”. It was during and after the 16th century that there were some modifications. There has since been an extension to include the cultivation of prestigious human qualities like mind, manners, spirit, sensibility and taste. The 18th century elite Europeans used the term culture to distinguish between the highly refined civil cultivation achieved by privileged western Europeans and what was generally perceived as the relatively primitive development of such human qualities both in non-Europeans and the poor. The term however received its first usage to signify a noun when it was used by a German Historian Herder implying that all peoples “had” a culture.

The term has since then seen changes from time to time. For instance, Tylor defined culture in the classical book primitive culture (1871) as ” that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”. Others such as [8] A.L Kroeber (1948) have described culture as consisting speech, knowledge, beliefs, customs, art and technologies, ideals and rules; what is learned from other man, from elders and what is added to it. In 1952, Kroeber and Clyde Kluchohn added new dimension to the notion of culture. They stated that culture consists of patterns both explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups including their embodiment in artifacts. They argued that the essence of culture lies in tradition- historically derived and selected, ideas and their attached values; a cultural system may on the other hand be considered as a product of action and on the other hand as a conditioning element of further action. Succinctly, culture is the total social heritage acquired by man as a member of the society. This definition argues that culture is shared and has distinctive forms or patterns that it shapes human behavior and its essence is the values embodied in the beliefs of the people.

Lawrence Harrison (1997) also tried to define culture in a simple manner. He stated that culture is a set of values and attitudes that guide the actions of individuals and the interaction of people within society. He defines ‘values’ as ideals or norms of behavior to which a society attaches importance, and “attitude” as ways in which people learn to respond to facts, circumstances and issues.

Others like Nobel laureate and economic historian Douglass North views and defines culture in the realm of institutions and institutional change. He views culture as “the transmission from one generation to the next, via teaching and imitation, knowledge, values and other factors that influence behavior”. Douglas continues to say that culture provides a language-based conceptual framework for encoding and interpreting the information that the senses are presenting to the brain.

Fukuyama (1995) defines culture as “inherited ethical habit”. He was of the opinion that this definition which draws on both culture and social structure comes closer to understanding the word. Huntington (1993) also defined culture on the basis of civilization. He argues that civilization is a cultural entity. Civilization according to him is the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species. He identifies language, history, religion, customs, institutions and the subjective self-identification of people as the major elements of culture.

We can infer from the above definitions and descriptions that culture as a subject matter is not that straightforward to tackle. However, it is also evident that there are a lot of commonalities in the definitions and opinions as shared by some of these writers. The sort of core elements some of them mentioned was quite similar and kept appearing in each other’s work. In this research work, we define culture simply as the implicit force that prompt individuals to behave in a certain rational manner (action). These implicit forces are the set of values imbued in the individual by learning. Defined this way, we can appreciate that culture does not only affect social norm but also economic activities like the propensity to consume and save, fertility choices, investment in education among other economic variables. These implicit force(s) are open to changes from time to time. We view this definition to be synonymous to the ones given by Max Weber, A.L Kroeber and Clyde Kluchohn and Lawrence Harrison.

Invariably, the complex and vast nature of culture as a concept involves a lot of elements which makes it too general to be captured by a single traits, idea or object. Thus when one intends to examine the role of culture on economic growth, one has to look for a proxy for culture. Previous studies to infer economic growth from culture have relied on [9] historical evidence without any quantitative backing. The end results of these studies have been criticized on the basis of its subjectiveness. We seek to use a cultural proxy that can be tested and validated to give a particular outcome.

3.2 AGGREGATION OF CULTURAL TRAITS

In aggregating the various cultural traits to form an index as described and defined by the various writers above, we sought to rely on the definition by [10] Max Weber (1978). Weber defined culture on the basis of rationality or action. Weber defines “action” as behavior invested with an individual’s subjective meaning and culture is “a segment on which human beings confer meaning and significance”-we can conclude that culture, in its very nature, is reflected in people’s action. All individual action may be oriented in four ways: instrumentally rational, value-rational, affective (especially emotional) and traditional rationality. [11] Our task hereafter is to identify the various traits as it’s related to the level of action or rationality mentioned.

3.2.1 Traditional Rationality

Traditional rationality or behavior is determined by long standing habits. They are actions which are carried out due to tradition, because they are always carried out in such a situation. An example would be putting on clothes or relaxing on Sundays. Some traditional actions can become cultural artifacts. It is expressed in terms of social rules, with violations interpretable as cheating – as defections from cooperative norms. If you want me to accept a belief from you, you are obligated to provide me with a certain amount of evidence. Traditional Rationality is phrased similarly to the customs that govern human societies, which makes it easy to pass on by word of mouth. Humans detect social cheating with much greater reliability than isomorphic violations of abstract logical rules. But viewing rationality as a social obligation gives rise to some strange ideas.

Here, we try to identify in our responses traits that fall under [12] TR. Possibly, as inferred from its definition above, our focus would be on democracy, belief, religion, obedience, respect, trust, faithfulness, thrift, hard work and leisure. Collecting a set of these traits would help us to come out with TR index.

3.2.2 Affective Rationality

Affective Rationality is strongly associated with strong feelings (emotional) for something. Emotions are an integral part of being human; we all express them and they shape the character and contents of our lived experiences. Emotion is functionally integrated alongside cognition in how we reason. Specific traits that relates to [13] AR include care, tactfulness, love, patriotism, religion, peace, revenge, loyalty, and confidence. Those actions are taken due to one’s emotions, to express personal feelings. For example, cheering after a victory, crying at a funeral would be emotional actions.

3.2.3 Value-Rationality

Value rationality is determined by a conscious belief in the intrinsic value of acting in a certain way. Value-rational action, wert rational is a social action which is taken because it leads to a valued goal, but with no thought of its consequences and often without consideration of the appropriateness of the means chosen to achieve it (‘the end sanctifies the means’). Specific traits that relates to [14] VR include hard work, confidence, frugality, generosity, grandeur and determination.

3.2.4 Instrumental Rationality

Instrumental rationality is determined by a consciously calculating attempt to achieve desired ends with appropriate means. This is direct opposite to VR. It is pursued after evaluating its consequences and consideration of the various means to achieve it. They are usually planned and taken after considering costs and consequences. Specific traits that fall under [15] IR are hard work, tactfulness, confidence, speech, thrift, discipline, commitment, worldly achievement.

CHAPTER FOUR
METHODOLOGY, MODEL SPECIFICATION AND DATA DESCRIPTION

4. INTRODUCTION

Chapter four introduces us to the methodology and model we employed. This section also exposes us to the fundament Cobb Douglas function and the extension of this function by Mankiw, Romer and Weil. The 29 countries involved in the research work are also introduced in this chapter. We also explain how we derived our cultural traits from the data collected. The build-up of all this brings us to our own model, the Solow augmented exogenous growth model.

4.1 METHODOLOGY AND MODEL SPECIFICATION

To account for the contribution of factor accumulation and measure the impact of the different factors in the economic growth, this paper employs the input-output data model. Capital from other forms of physical capital and human capital inputs and some cultural traits that produce output in the form of real GDP.

For this purpose, the model taken is the original Robert Solow (1956) model of exogenous growth with technological progress. The centerpiece of the standard neoclassical growth model developed by Solow is an aggregate production function of the form:

Yt = KI± t (At Lt) 1-I± 0Where Y is output, K is capital, L is labor and A an index of technology o

This research paper provides insights into the Political Organization, Gender Relations, and Beliefs and Values of the agrarian state and cultural practices of the Nayar people of southwestern India. By understanding the Nayar culture, people may better understand and appreciate cultural differences between the Nayar culture and that of their own.

In the essay, “Some Aspects of Nayar Life” Panikkar (1918) states, “The Nayars are at present an essentially agricultural population. The vast majority of them are peasant proprietors owning small farms. Rice and coco-nuts are the chief things cultivated, though in North Malabar pepper and card oman have also their share” (p.285).

It should also be noted that “states are much more complex and stratified than chiefdoms, so it is not feasible to rely solely on kinship as a recruitment method. In state systems, land ownership and occupation are at least as important as kinship as a system of organization; the state itself becomes a key institution of organization.” (Nowak, et al., 2010, ch.7.8, n. p.).

Of particular interest is the fact that the Nayar as with other caste societies, marry within their own caste. While this similarity with other endogamous societies helps to preserve the class of people, the Nayar marriage practices vary considerably from other agrarian states and caste for which I explain later.

Political Organization

The political system among the Nayar people has as with most cultures that have been the target of colonialism and capitalism, seen considerable change over last several hundred years. Much of the former kinship, matrilineal and political structures and systems of the Nayar culture have all but vanished. Kathleen Gough (1952), stated that “Later in the nineteenth century, more deep-rooted economic changes took place, and these have increased in momentum until all the traditional groupings of caste, village and lineage are dis-integrating” (p. 79).

The political and economic influence during the later part of 19th century by the British probably had the most notable impact on the Nayar people. European military forces and government structures as well as the introduction of machines played a significant role in the changing political and economic structures and systems as well as building of permanent roads and railroads.

The introduction of new trading opportunities, realignment of jobs, tighter controls to ensure peace, increased use of monetary currency, and broader reaching governmental jurisdiction across caste and villages played a vital role in redesigning the Nayar culture and politics as well.

Evidence of this breaking down of prior systems has been described as “The expansion of trade, the introduction of new technological devices, and the opening up of new occupations, produce new economic classes between which there is mobility, and which to some extent cut across the affiliations and ranking of caste. ” (Gough, 1952, p. 81). Through the elimination of caste ranking, socioeconomic and sociopolitical class rankings no longer limit Nayar people from changing class levels and limits have become more aligned with performance and education.

With the introduction of formal government, monetary systems, increased import and export as well as technological advances, the former Nayar methods of controlling the distribution of wealth, food and other trade labor as well as class distinctions have resulted in a more capitalistic society. Along with these changes, the Nayar people are increasingly integrating practices common in more advanced capitalistic and socialistic society forms of government, business, and family relationships.

Gender Relations

Anthropologists studying the Nayar society of southwestern India continue to struggle with defining certain aspects of gender relations in a western context. One such area of significant interest and difficulty is in contrasting Nayar marriage with marriage in western society and terms. While marriage may be seen by many as a cultural universal even in consideration of variations such as polygamy, the Nayar marriage purpose and experience is quite different from marriages in most other societies. Perhaps, such significant differences would be more understandable if a different term other than marriage was used to represent Nayar marriage.

One example of the differences in Nayar marriages as stated by Miriam Koktvedgaard (2008) was that “The Nayar of India practiced a form of non-fraternal polyandry in which several men were simultaneously the ‘husbands’ of one wife. Usually only the first husband underwent a ritual marriage with the woman before she entered puberty” (p.11). This cultural practice appears to be an extraordinary characteristic of the Nayar unlike most other marriage constructs. Not so much perhaps as a woman having multiple simultaneous husbands although rare, but having ritual marriages with a woman that has not reached puberty.

In order to further elaborate on the marriage of girls that have not yet reach puberty, I should explain that “Before a girl reaches puberty, a Nayar girl is married to a man as a rite of passage. The man she marries has no rights to the girl, and she has no obligation to him. When she is older, the girl is allowed to enter into other marriages and have children with those husbands.” (Nowak, et al., 2010, ch 7.8, n.p.)

Anthropologist suspect that by maintain a loosely committed marriage relationship with both men and women being sexually active with other mates or spouses, it allows men to stay away for long periods of time with little affect on the family system.

Another characteristic of the Nayar gender relationship was with regard to the definition of the domestic unit or nuclear family in that “The central Nayar domestic unit consisted of a mother, her daughters and their children; husbands and wife did not set up house together” (Koktvedgaard, 2008, p. 11).

While for some it may be difficult to show proper respect for the differences in marriage practices and to fully comprehend how the standard definition of a domestic unit that does not include a husband or father could exist, these are important distinctions remain.

Interactions by an outsider with beliefs that differ from Nayar gender relations and beliefs could easily produce criticisms or a sense of condemnation which could quickly derail otherwise honest attempts at gaining progress or cooperation. It has been recognized however that the influence of British colonization and the exposing of criticisms and by force that the matrilineal change to patrilineal form of family organization has been made.

Beliefs and Values

Over thousands of years of considerable influence by mainstream religious faith denominations such as Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism, the Nayar have been substantially un-phased in adopting one of the recognized religions.

Evidence of the lack of adoption of a primary religion by the Nayar is stated as “Nothing shows so much the extreme persistence of primitive culture, even in the face of higher civilising agencies, than the wide and almost universal acceptance of spirit-worship, and the almost entire absence of religious life among the Nayars after at least twenty centuries of contact with Hinduism ” Panikkar, (1918), p.277.

While the Nayar do use Hindu temples for worship and ceremonies, the nature of these particular practices are not recognized under any Hindu creed or other religion for that matter. The Nayar belief in magic and spirit worship continues although they are recognized leaders in literature and music within their culture and subsequently would not be considered uncivilized.

Another characteristic of the Nayar people is where they fit within a caste society. “A caste is an endogamous social grouping into which a person is born and within which a person remains throughout his or her lifetime. It is an ascribed position.” (Nowak, et al., 2010, ch 7.8, n.p.). Within these groupings, marriages and other interactions which were tightly controlled even forbid physical touch across caste. With the capitalistic evolution and exposure to western culture, the adherence too many of the cross-caste practices continue to see change.

The impact on discussions or considerations concerning life, business or religion with Nayar people considering both the likely absence of common religious beliefs and belief in magic and spirit worship could be significant. Consider a Christian believer entering into discussion with a Nayar community by condemning Nayar core religious beliefs in hopes of collecting contributions for acquiring land for a new church. In this example, it is unlikely this approach would succeed given criticism of beliefs as a basis for support.

If religious beliefs vary as significantly as I have described, what is valued is also in conflict. These differences would then become obstacles in coming together towards common goals if not taken into consideration prior to presenting a position introducing mutually beneficial outcomes in which both parties increase items or results of value.

Conclusion

The Nayar depended largely on rice for food and to a lesser extent vegetables, fish, and poultry. The formation and growth of families was largely relative to the amount of land they owned and the class of house. The ownership or family structure that developed as a result was more of a community or corporate type of ownership model which was significantly linked to the women and her side of the family in years past.

The Nayar are heavily involved in politics and other forms of industrialized production observable by the number of local printing businesses while continuing their tradition of agriculture. In many ways, the Nayar people and culture has adopted many aspects of American and European culture.

By gaining a better understanding of the Nayar political organizations, gender relations, and beliefs and values, people from other cultures will better understand and appreciate the cultural differences. This enhanced awareness will be beneficial in helping to offer solutions to problems in government, business growth, housing, and as other forms of industry are introduced or sought out.

New ways of thinking can often illuminate new ideas that would not come to light using our conventional and most natural modes of reasoning. We can be stretched in dynamic ways by altering our methods or approaches to our thinking. Several methods of thinking include exploration of the unconscious, symbolic systems, radical Synthesis, hermeneutic analysis, among others. For me, the hermeneutic form of thinking has the most unsettling effect upon my mind. A hermeneutic approach has experience a revival in recent times in the wake of influential thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and others. These hold a significant place in the present intellectual climate in the Western world. For this essay, I decided to use a hermeneutic approach to analyze a particular cultural phenomenon. Cultural phenomena are of vital importance for study since they represent aspects of human nature (en masse) that are impossible to extrapolate independently. Not only are they interesting to study, but they maintain continual interest for elites and common people alike. It is not a stretch to state that these phenomena successfully capture the population’s imagination. In this particular essay, I will look at the cultural phenomena of the celebrity using hermeneutic analysis. The hermeneutical way of thinking, in this case, won’t apply to a given text but rather to the social phenomenon of “celebritydom”. By thinking about social phenomena in a hermeneutical way, one can look at a subject that rarely gets such scrutiny and hopefully begin to find understanding as to why our societies are so enthralled by the celebrity narrative. The development of a new form of “celebritydom” can be understood in a new way by understanding the context, audience, media sources, and other hermeneutical factors. First of all, we will begin to think about the context of celebrities in the past.

There has most obviously been a shift in Western Society in the development of the celebrity. It has not been an overnight shift by any means, but it has been significant. The most outstanding example of recent changes in the nature of celebrity is the professional celebrity—a celebrity with little reason to be revered or famous. The prime example would be the infamous Paris Hilton. Although a notable heiress to her parent’s fortune, she has become a celebrity in her own right through self-promotion. There are countless heirs to various fortunes that will never be known. This kind of character, however, is unprecedented, even in the 20^th century. Most celebrities came into being through some sort of accomplishment, i.e. film, music, politics, sports, etc. Or, they became celebrities by association, such as royalty. The amount of coverage allotted to celebrity-esque storylines has grown exponentially. Entire television channels are devoted to the ceaseless coverage of celebrity’s lives. A whole subclass of photography has developed in the “paparazzi,” known for being the epitome of the dog-eat-dog line of work. Not to mention the countless “tabloids” that line the newsstands. These are some of the basic contextual factors that surround the modern celebrity phenomenon.

Another factor for thinking about this social phenomenon is the audience. The audience for the development of new celebrities that must be analyzed if one is to use a hermeneutical strategy. The audience for much of celebrity press and concern has largely not changed in type, but likely has changes in how broad the appeal is. It would have been impossible to imagine that Clark Gable’s personal life would have been known or a concern for Middle East youth fifty years ago. Today, however, in all corners of the world they not only know the names of key celebrities but also their storylines of gossip. I remember being asked in a remote village in Albania about the future of “J-Lo” and Ben Affleck’s relationship if they got married. Obviously this change has a lot to do with the digital revolution—opening up a large part of the world to a previously unknown celebrity world. It also betrays the fact that the same phenomenon is at work in these non-Western countries as is here in the West.

Knowledge and a pursuit of information about Western celebrities could also reveal an admiration of the culture of celebrities by the non-West, but often times these elements remain even in countries predisposed to hate the west. Although many citizens of these said countries likely separate the politics and the culture of the West, a large majority still do not. There is an effect of “can’t help but look” type psychology in regards to coverage of celebrities. Just like in the West, many in these societies likely think the coverage is superfluous and or wrong. Although a judgment has been made concerning the validity and morality of celebrity coverage many remain to have a working knowledge of the ins and outs of Hollywood love life. These ‘stories’ seem to do something for us en masse.

Using further hermeneutical strategies, we will now turn to the sources for the coverage of celebrity gossip and the like. If one is to exit the supermarket on a given day he or she is given the opportunity to be swiftly educated in celebritydom. The print media is a key source of information on celebrities. This seems to be chiefly centered on magazines; the newspaper medium seems to inadequately address the goals of celebrity coverage. The magazine provides the opportunity for vivid pictures, small pithy commentary, and quick entertainment. It is glitzy, stylish, and most of all fast. Whereas one may need to have some backround in Middle Eastern politics in order to find parts of the newspaper engaging, the celebrity magazine can bring the glamour and scandal of the celebrity phenomenon with little or no education. The celebrity magazine is an odd mix of “posed” shots of red carpet entries into various galas, possibly a celebrity interview/photo shoot, and scandalizing pictures kindly provided by the paparazzi. This seems to be a winning combination of glamour, personal interest, and scandal.

The second main conduit for the celebrity phenomenon is the television medium. As mentioned before, “E!” is an entire channel devoted to the coverage of celebrity life. This is not to mention the countless celebrity news shows, and their subsequent spoofs. Celebrity news shows use a similar format compared to that of their magazine cousins. The show usually features some sort of personal interaction with a celebrity, praising the glamour or character of a particular celebrity, and (of course) the mandatory scandal. These shows have produced celebrities in their own right out of the mere reporting on celebrities. The prime example is Ryan Seacrest. Seacrest is the epitome of the ultimate host, having hosted the top twenty for years on a radio station in Los Angeles, been an E! “anchor,” and most famously the host of American Idol. Seacrest has become a celebrity by merely reporting on celebrities. Both media types—that of magazine and t.v.—have worked in conjunction. One reports on the other and vice versa. One makes the other.

Using a hermeneutical strategy to look at the social phenomenon of the celebrity has brought to light several profound new ideas for me. The first is what celebrity coverage does for us. I have come to the conclusion at various times that humans have at all times needed a common narrative in their social relationships. In days gone by, this narrative could be sustained by regional parochial concerns. A village would find a bond in the fact that their story was shared, they lived close to one another, married into each other’s families, etc. The gossip and glory of a small town would sustain its people. Yet, as society has diversified, fragmented, pluralized, etc. it has lost that local connection that is vital for human connection. At the most basic social level, we need something to talk about—a common ground. Human connection is essential for the flourishing of human life. Celebrity coverage, professional sports, and other modern social phenomena seek to fill that void. In a time when we increasingly find our human contact in less connected or natural ways, such coverage give us a cultural common ground. We can gripe about the fortunes of Liverpool or quip about the Beckham family to absolute strangers and they will likely be able to track with our line of thought. Celebrity narratives give us a common ground for humor, social reflection, and allusions. In order to have fulfilling communication we must have some sort of shared story, even if these stories are plastic in nature. Our society has inevitably become more diverse, global, and connected. This has inevitably lead to an erosion of parochial concerns, and pushed us to socially evolve in order to maintain human connection. We have found common social narrative in the celebrity. Their story has become a common story for us. Their divorces, their cheating, their success, their money, etc., have all become a commentary about our own lives. This line of thought leads me to an additional hermeneutic conclusion concerning celebrity coverage and its reflective nature.

We are not interested in celebrities just because they happen to be successful but because they are reflective. Celebrities embody our hopes and dreams, fears and pitfalls, and desire for detachedness. The populace not only celebrates celebrity success, but also celebrates celebrity failure. There is a lust for failure as much as there is for success in the interest in these lives. It is interesting to note that the most famous celebrities are those where there are equal portions success and failure. This is important. Without adjoining failure these celebrities fail to capture people’s imagination. Too much success and too much failure both trigger a lose of interest in the given celebrity. Celebrities find themselves in a proverbial catch-22, trying to allow promotion while not being raked through the coals. The most successful in this respect have allowed both. The reality about celebrity coverage is that we are not interested because these people are necessarily glamorous (there are a lot of unknown glamorous people to be found). We are interested because celebrities create for us a narrative for self reflection and self understanding.

Having used hermeneutical techniques such as analyzing the context, audience, media sources, etc., I have come to some interesting new ideas and understanding about a key phenomenon in our society—the celebrity. In previous times, I have been rather perplexed as to why we care so much about these lives. Yet after thinking about the topic using hermeneutical analysis, I have come to several profound reasons as to why this is so.

A cultural myth is a traditional story that has a meaning attached to it. These myths have an effect in they way people lead their lives and even how they interact with each other. It is notable that myths have a role to play be it personally, or to the wider society. In as much as one may believe or doubt such myths, they still continue to exist in different ways, and are shaping destinies of many. Myths can be full of truth or falsehood and depend on the interpretation a person may prefer. Many societies and races in the world have diverse myths which may encourage or discourage certain patterns of behavior. Rituals and customs are explained in myths and their merits or demerits laid down for everyone to discern.

The Greek mythology (Detienne, 18) is most notable especially in the way they exhort ancestors to be like gods. Myths came before science and this makes it impossible to discredit them. Long time ago, people depended on myths to explain the mysteries of creation and they accepted them with a lot of zeal. Many other questions were answered including the origin of man and his eventual destiny after death. Evil is also brought under the scrutiny of myths and they expound its cause and reason for its existence. The rise of modern civilization can too be traced in myths ranging from agriculture to industry to settled life in cities.

The modern world has continued to embrace myths in one way or another. Modern technology has given rise to much development in mass media which in turn has enabled many myths from different parts of the world to be collected together for study. Books have been printed and availed to anybody with interest to read and either agree or disagree with the subject. From an individual to a community, some cultural myths seem worthy in the sense that they encourage or uplift the spirit (Wessels, 92). Others may not necessarily be so and may seem unrealistic especially if they are prejudicial or implying immorality.

Happily Ever After; the American society as any other society has not been left behind in embracing myths. Many of them believe that happiness can be sought and achieved despite the hardship one may go through. Happiness is attributed to material possessions whereby those who do not have ample material wealth are considered unhappy. The ideology of possessions can be traced through ancient myths some of which are still followed today. Hard work is associated to prosperity and lack of it therefore leads to a lowly life.

Studies have shown that happiness is not related to material or money possessions (Veenhoven, 5). The old notion which led many people to acquire as much as they could has been proven false. Traditionalists believed that it is out of what you possess that gives you the feeling of happiness. People then would strive so much in order to have money so that they may live the rest of their lives happily. In did not matter the means or the extent to which this was sought as long as one could proudly claim he had money. Americans forgot that happiness is never permanent and mostly is derived from being comfortable with what one has, however little.

Obsession with possessions created greed in American people which can never be satisfied. Someone even came up with a term “National Happiness”, a system that oversaw people overlook other important issues in order to acquire happiness. Ironically, this myth has wrought greed, selfishness and immorality in the Americans (Alesina & Tella, 3).

The Nuclear Family has been a basis upon which nations are built. The nuclear family is composed of a father, mother and their children. This family set up has been criticized for a very long time due to its lack of universality, essence and modernity (Chester, 111). Industrialization brought out the need to move away to work places and obviously the nuclear family was affected. When the heads of the family began moving to far away places in search of job, there remained a question as to whether those left should still be considered as a nuclear family.

The myth that every nuclear family should cater for itself has contributed negatively in its essence. Most Americans may prefer to be in such families in contrast that whole societies need to live together and cater for each other. Another aspect which makes the nuclear family fail is failure of it being universal. Since other societies in the world have extended families, the notion in Americans mind that only the nuclear family is perfect could be wrong. This is another cultural myth that has pulled back the Americans in their pursuits and has isolated them.

The western culture took the nuclear family as a symbol and went ahead to portray it in art and media. But statistics show that there has been a decline in the number of nuclear families in the America over the past few years. Divorces and remarriages are common and therefore the true definition of a nuclear family has eroded. This goes on to show that the ideal nuclear family that was projected was just another cultural myth which has no place in modern society. It becomes a myth in the sense that sometimes ago; departure from this family set up was seen as immoral and unhealthy by many Americans (Uzoka, 34).

Most Americans have shunned the extended family setup which encouraged communal responsibility, and have upheld nuclear families which promote individualism. The extended family comprises of the nuclear family and the relatives. This type of family is mostly concerned with building relationships which in turn play a role in the wide community. It is only when people begin to care for each other, the immediate community benefits as well as the whole country. It is therefore important that the Americans embrace extended family and break from their cultural myth of nuclear families.

Racial Stereotyping

There have always been contentious issues in regard to racial conflict existing between the whites and the blacks in America. The problem can be traced in the colonial times whereby black slavery was a norm. Blacks then were considered superstitious and primitive. Such a myth has seen them being oppressed for so many years that even now there exists a small percentage of whites who regard them so. They have also been associated with every negative aspect in society from crime, violence and laziness.

An important fact to note is that, were it not for a tradition of viewing black negatively, they too are human and have all the abilities as white have. The cultural myths have engineered a trend that is difficult to deal with in modern society. Some instances where these myths have brought about are cases where people are discriminated according to their skin color. They are denied jobs and other government services just because of their skin color. A recent case during Hurricane Katrina where the government failed to act speedily is a case study for this. It attests to the fact that cultural myths still have a place in the modern society; albeit the American society ought to shun this evil (Palmer, 75).

Americans have stereotyped many other races. The, Americans have stereotyped many other races and the most affected are the African-Americans. African -American simplification of individuals’ behavior is the African-American Stereotyping. They came about into the American culture from the period of colonial settlement, specifically after the collapse of Slave Trade. The minstrel of the earlier blackface illustrates blacks as ignorant, superstitious as well as naA?ve in addition to been joyous which are the same characteristics which were associated with the slaves. Additionally the African-American have been stereotyped as a race which consists of people who are only good at sports. The act of stereotyping has got to its peak in the media through movies in addition to television. The media has contributed in passing negative information regarding the lifestyle of African-American to the young people. Certain shows aired on the T.V channels demonstrate the false personalities about the African Americans. To make the matters worse, there is a specific video game which has been developed whose main character is an African American who plays only the role of killing, robbing alongside having sexual relations with persons. This indicates an example through which the media has been involved in stereotyping. It is because of these cultural myths that have behaved in negative ways towards each other. They have refused to move away from such myths ignoring the fact that such cause hatred amongst each other.

Mark Twain analyses myths in a perfect way by showing in the characters the effect myths can have on people. The main themes of past, slavery, chivalry are expressed well in the book. Self-destruction and or preservation are another aspect that is brought about by the book.

Hank Morgan is a prisoner who has traveled back in time to the sixth century and is sentenced to death before Arthur’s court because of his strange dress and appearance. Before the execution is carried out, he is able to buy his freedom by convincing the Arthur that he is a magician. He relies on knowledge that a sun eclipse will take place before he is executed and he convinces the King that he is the cause of it. Hank is given the highest title in the land and he does not fail to ridicule the people who fear him.

Morgan sooner learns about superstitions embraced by the natives and he capitalizes on his superior knowledge to outdo them. Through the magician Merlin, Hank is later discovered as a fake and people start to spread rumor about him. Using his wit he is able to outsmart Merlin again by “calling fire from above”. Hank uses his influence to bring about industrialization to that country and also set up schools.

She becomes familiar with the territory he begins to understand the people and their way of life, which are still much in superstitions and myths, and even befriends a girl named Sandy. Hank outsmarts Merlin again in rebuilding a broken water fountain and thus retains power and respect. He convinces all present on his ability to summon the demons. Morgan has a way with the native’s lives and together with the king he continues the hold of power.

Sandy gives birth to a baby with Hank and upon the child’s illness he is lured to leave the country thus leaving a gap in the country’s leadership. The King and Lancelot fight over Guinevere infidelity. The church provokes a revolt over Hank the people start a war. The story ends with the present day where Hank is found dreaming about his lover, Sandy, almost a millennium later. It is argued by some people that the book is an attack on American’s values which include materialism and technology. American sentimentalism about the past is also criticized (Twain & Thompson).

In conclusion myths, however good they might be still remain myths. In the modern society, we should be keen to understand the truths about life and work together towards a common goal. The real goal in our cultural diversity should be to see everybody gets food, clothing and shelter and that they can fit in every situation.

Twain in his book looks in the effect myths have on our culture and day to day live. The mythic Arthur is associated with the past in contrast with Hank who symbolizes the present. The church is also brought into perspective and is seen as an evil and an enemy which conspires with political figures to oppress people. Slavery as another social menace should also be done away with. Slavery was embraced by many people in the past since they saw in it a way to get cheap labor and monetary gain. It becomes a cultural myth that Americans now should abolish.

Magic is contrasted with reality in form of industrialization. People in the past relied on magic to achieve their needs but the book shows that such a myth can be done away with through use of technology. Industrialization should be a factor in civilization rather the magic of yesteryears. Many more achievements can be found by training people since human nature allows it. Training determines the behavior of a society unlike when people rely on myths. They are then able to differentiate between what is right and wrong (Umland & Umland 25).

Besides stereotyping being hurtful, it is wrong as well. Even though the stereotype can be correct in some occasions; relentlessly putting an individual down on the basis of predetermined perceptions cannot assist in motivating one to succeed. Stereotyping only gears people to lead lifestyles of hatred and in some situations stereotypes victims live in fear.

It should be noted that all these myths have had a place in American society and some have tarnished its name. Americans should therefore move away from negative cultural myths, as discussed above, in order to continue as a nation. Above all, all other nations look towards America for guidance and support.

People from all parts of the world behave differently towards different situations and conditions. In today’s world of continuous internationalization and globalization, there is an increasing need for people to do business across cultures.

Many business experts and academicians have attempted to define frameworks within which individuals and organizations from different nationalities and backgrounds can do business without facing cultural challenges. One of the best known models for cross cultural comparative analysis in the business context is Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions (Gouveia & Ros, 2000)

This research paper focuses on how to recognize and analyse dilemmas resulting from different business cultures. It attempts to apply this to real-life management and business issues in the cultural setting of two countries: Italy and Australia.

Culture

Culture is “the complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (McCort & Malhotra, 1993).

Culture is seen as the body of information, character and traits that a person acquires as a member of a group. Although individuals are different in our perceptions and aspirations, there are some tendencies, inclinations and preference that individuals develop whilst they live amongst social groups. The sum total of these common traits that individuals share collectively in a group defines the culture of the group.

“Culture is a powerful factor in shaping how people think, communicate and behaveaˆ¦” (Salacuse, 1993, p. 199). Culture is a very strong and potent force that determines the lives of individuals who belong to a group.

Every human being has basic physiological needs – the needs to survive (Maslow, 1954). However, as the basic need to stay alive is attained, human beings desire to identify with a group or a society. This means that individuals would have to conform to certain values and norms that are shared by members of the group or society in question. These values form a framework for the formation of individual personalities in the group.

Hofstede (1997) argues that the values of a given culture affect the practices of the people in the culture. In other words, the norms and ethics of a group affect the way members behave. The main intervention points of the values of a given culture include rituals, heroes and symbols (Hofstede, 1997).

Values determine why a particular individual wants to follow a particular course of action over another. (Hofstede, 1997).

Shalom Schwartz identified ten value types that affect individuals (Schwartz, 1992). Schwartz conducted a survey of more than 60,000 people to ascertain the principles that direct their lives. He concluded by identifying these ten values that affects the lives of most people. These values define the core of the cultures of these people. They include:

Power: social status and prestige.

Achievement: Attaining goals and objectives.

Hedonism: Seeking pleasure ahead of all other things.

Stimulation: Seeking thrills and excitement

Self direction: Seeking independence and freedom from the control and manipulation of other people.

Universalism: Seeking social justice and progress for all people on earth.

Benevolence: Giving, the idea of seeking the general welfare of people.

Tradition: Honoring the customs of the society.

Conformity: seeking obedience of the rules and regulations of the society.

Security: seeking continuous health and safety.

The culture of a given society will affect and be affected by these ten values as identified by Schwartz. The culture of a given nation will determine the definition of these ten values. The values that the people uphold will on a collective level, determine the culture of the people.

The culture and values of the broader society affects the way organizations do their things. The values of the broader society influence various components of organizations and determine the lifestyles and traits of individual members of organizations.

Therefore in the business context, when one understands the values, rituals, heroes and symbols of a given society, he can transact business with organizations and individuals in the society efficiently and effectively. On the other hand, if a person is ignorant of the values and culture of a given people, it is likely that he would attempt to do business with the people based on the cultural setting he might be familiar with. Such a business transactions are prone to conflict and are likely to be unsuccessful.

Hofstede’s Dimensions of Culture

Professor Geert Hofstede attempted to define a model for the analysis of the characteristics of a given culture (Soares et al, 2007). He measured the values of subjects in a given sample and made inferences on the cultural characteristics of the larger society based on the aggregation of the findings (Soares et al, 2007).

Hofstede defined five dimensions that determines the culture of a given group or society (Hofstede, 2001). These dimensions varied based on the uniqueness of a group of people or society. The elements of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions include:

Power Distance (PDI)

Individualism/Collectivism (IDV)

Masculinity/Femininity (MAS)

Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) &

Long-Term Orientation (LTO)

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions sets the framework for which communities can be assessed based on these five variables. In his assessments, he places groups on a scale of 0 to 120 based on these five variables, with zero being the lowest and 120 being the highest.

Power Distance Index (PDI)

Power distance (PDI) refers to “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.” (Hofstede, 1991 p. 28)

Nations with low PDI tend to expect subordinates and their superiors to be treated somewhat equally. However cultures with high PDIs have authoritarian systems where people in authority must be distinguished from their subordinates. In the business context, one can use this index to determine the organizational structure, distribution of power in the organization and remuneration of employees in a given cultural setting.

Individualism/Collectivism (IDV)

Individualism/Collectivism (IDV) attempts to define the extent to which individuals are connected to social groups in a given culture. Individualism ” pertains to societies in which ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family” (Hofstede, 1991, p 51).

Collectivism on the other hand “pertains to societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioned loyalty” (Hofstede 1991, p 51).

The Individualism/Collectivism scale, tells us how people derive their identity in a given setting. It tells us how bargaining strengths, power and authority are acquired. In nations with low IDV, people acquire their identity, power and authority based on the social network they belong to. However, in nations with high IDV, people acquire their identity as individuals. In a high IDV environment, people’s progress increases their individual self worth, however in lower IDV communities, progress means moving from one society to a higher society.

In the business context, this dimension can affect the strategic plans of businesses mainly through the marketing plan. The marketing strategy and sales plan of an entity can utilize the IDV index of a community it operates in. This is because the IDV status of a group determines many of their tastes, preferences and demand trends.

Masculinity/Femininity (MAS)

“aˆ¦ masculinity pertains to societies in which social gender roles are clearly distinct (ie men are supposed to be assertive, tough and focused on material success whereas women are supposed to be more modest, tender and concerned with quality of life): femininity pertains to societies in which social gender roles overlap (ie both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender and concerned with quality of life)” (Hofstede 1991 p. 82-83).

This variable of Hofstede’s cultural dimension examines the extent to which people in society are grouped based on their sex: the condition of being male or female mainly in relation to the quantity or quality of life. In groups with high MAS indices, people are seen primarily as being male or female. Males are defined by their role of being tough, focused and making enough money. Females in these societies are mainly tender, flexible and more concerned with the quality of life. These differences are distinct and spelt out in high MAS cultures.

However, in lower MAS cultures, males and females are considered to be equal. Each individual is expected to show a blend of masculine and feminine traits. Here, a person has inclinations towards caring for people and other social tendencies.

In business, the masculinity and femininity will affect the human resource strategy of firms. Also, it will affect the research and development department of businesses because there is the need to develop products and services that meet the masculine/feminine features of the society. The financial department of a business is influenced by the masculine index of the society. If a society is highly masculine and the people value money, the finance department must have strategies that would enable the business to expand by way of paying more to individuals by way of salaries and compensations. However, if the society is feminine, the finance department must have an outlook for payments that would ensure more quality for individuals like pecks and social responsibility.

Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI)

This relates to how much people are willing to go to attain their goals without facing unexpected challenges. “Extreme uncertainty creates intolerable anxiety. Every human society has developed ways to alleviate this anxiety. These ways belong to the domain of technology, law and religion” (Hofstede, 1997 p. 110).

This measure tries to identify the extent to which people rely on human institution and interventions to avoid or ameliorate uncertainty. In societies with low UAIs, uncertainties are considered a normal part of life. There are few laws which are mainly general and there is greater tolerance. In nations with high UAIs, uncertainty is considered as a threat, there are precise laws and people are more conservative with risks.

In business, this can create a context within which one can negotiate or deal with other parties and organizations in different cultural settings.

Long Term Orientation (LTO)

This dimension, was included in Hofstede’s dimensions after his studies of Buddhist cultures in 2001. LTO “stands for the fostering of virtues oriented towards future rewards, in particular perseverance and thrift” (Buddhist 2001, p. 351).

It measures how people in a society consider the long-term over short-term. It tries to define how much effort a group of people are likely to forgo in order to reap benefits in the future.

Comparison of Italy & Australia Using Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

Italy and Australia are two nations located on two different continents. Italy is a member of the European Union and it is predominantly Catholic. Australia is also a continent located in South of Asia. (Geert Hofstede.com)

The cultures of Italy and Australia can be compared using Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions. This can be used to assess to get an idea of how best the two nations can do business.

Based on the summary of Hofstede’s studies in the 2001 edition of his book, Culture’s Consequences, these are the rankings of Australia and Italy:

Variable

Australia

Italy

Power-Distance Index (PDI)

36

50

Individualism/Collectivism Index (IDV)

90

76

Masculinity/Feminism Index (MAS)

61

70

Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI)

51

75

Long-Term Orientation

31

N/A*

N/A* Hofstede’s study for LTO did not include Italy.

Power Distance Index

With Australia at 36 and Italy at 50, it suggests that Australia is a lower PDI country than Italy, which has a relatively higher PDI.

This suggests that the people of Australia are likely to see subordinates and superiors as more equal than Italy where people give credence to people in authority. In this case, it looks like in Australia, employees will expect participation in decision-making. Consumers would also expect to be given some preferences and greater care. In Italy, it can be inferred that the employees expect to be told what to do whilst their bosses expect complete obedience. Consumers would have lesser bargaining power and are more likely to accept what corporations sell to them.

These two countries can do business by varying the way they view superior-subordinate relationships. The Australians must accept the fact that Italians give more respect to people in authority and they believe that people in power have more control and thus ‘know better’. Any Australian business move in Italy should focus more in creating an authoritarian entity than an egalitarian one. On the other hand, any Italian business transaction in Australia must be more egalitarian; negotiated with some more concern for subordinates than it would normally be done in Italy.

Individualism/Collectivism (IDV)

At a scale of 90, Australia appears to be a very individualistic nation. People in Australia are encouraged to speak their minds. Independent media is the source of information to people and people are more interested in what they can do rather than who they are linked to. Italy has a relatively lower index of 76. This implies that in Italy, an individual is defined more by the social network he belongs to. Being a predominantly Catholic nation, people are expected to join the Catholic social system right at birth. Their achievement determines their social standing in the Catholic system. Australia, although a Christian nation, has links to Protestant movements and organizations (Geert-Hofstede.com) which promotes individualism.

For business to prevail in these two nations there is the need for each of the nations to understand the culture of the other nation. Australians must understand that in Italy, a person is defined by the social group he or she belongs to. Therefore, if they seek to establish businesses in Italy, they would have to draw a strategic plan that would recognize individuals as part of social groupings. This will enable them to build more successful marketing plans and research structures. Italian businesses also need to appreciate the fact that individuals are seen as independent entities in Australia. They should therefore draw strategies that would target individuals and not spend too many resources on reaching individuals through their social groupings.

Masculinity/Femininity (MAS)

Australia is seen as a marginally less masculine society than Italy. Both nations stand at 61 and 70 respectively on the MAS index. This suggests that the people of Australia expect people of both sexes to be equally concerned with quality of life and quantity of life. In other words, in Australia, people accept that men and women can play roles that are traditionally associated to the opposite sex. It is generally accepted for men to be concerned with the quality of their lives whilst women can easily become high wage earners.

In Italy, which is a more masculine culture, people are expected to stick to the roles generally played by their sexes. Men are expected to make money and stay tough whilst women concentrate on the quality of life and care for other people.

In business, the Australian who seeks to do business in Italy must organize things to be able to target one sex at a time. They should conceptualize and accept the fact that men are identified by masculine traits in Italy whilst women are identified by feminine traits. For Italians that seek to do business in Australia, they should position themselves to treat men and women equally. This kind of mindset will enable them to win the hearts and minds of consumers and other stakeholders in practice.

Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI)

Australia stands at 51 whilst Italy stands at 75. This means that Italy is a very high UAI culture. This implies that the people of Italy do not perceive uncertainty to be a part of their culture. They make every effort to eliminate uncertainty. If ambiguous situations crop up, the average Italian shows aggression and emotions. They do more to ensure that unfamiliar risks are eliminated. They fall on religion, technology and law to ensure that uncertainties and unfamiliar risks are prevented.

On the other hand, an index of 51 indicates that the Australian business culture is more tolerant of uncertainty. People are not prone to showing aggression and emotions in ambiguous situations as is the case with the Italians. The laws are less precise and there are fewer rules (religious or legal) to keep out uncertainties.

In doing business, an organization from any of these settings should be mindful of what they do in another nation. First of all, it appears that Australian Legal, Technological and Religious organizations can do well in Italy if they decide to open branches in the country. Secondly, if any business wants to move from Australia to Italy, it needs to understand the need to be highly precise and fulfill promises they make. This is because any failures and ambiguities are not likely to be taken lightly in Italy as it would in Australia. An Italian business seeking to do business in Australia must be prepared to tolerate a degree of uncertainty and ambiguity and it must get an understanding of the Australia setting before drawing up its strategic plans.

Long Term Orientation (LTO)

Australia scores a point of 31 on this scale. This should suggest to the average Italian going to do business in Australia that the long-term orientation is quite low, especially if it is compared to Japan which has a high ranking of 80. This indicates that the Australian business climate favors a high level of short-termism and there is relatively less concerns for the next generation. However, it must be noted that because Hofstede made no ratings for Italy on the LTO scale, it is possible that Australia is more of a longer-term looking culture than Italy.

Limitations

Hofstede’s research studied samples of given nations and communities. It therefore lacks the general ability to predict the lifestyle of the whole of Australia or Italy.

Conclusion

It is evident that Hofstede’s Cultural Dimension sets the stage for analysis of various cultures around the globe. It gives individuals and organizations an understanding of areas of social lives that can vary across nations namely Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity, Uncertainty Avoidance and Long Term Orientation. This set up can be used to predict and direct businesses in terms of formulating their strategies in foreign cultures. Since Hofstede’s model seeks to examine human behavior, it affects areas of businesses’ strategies like Management, Human Resource, Marketing, Finance, Operations and Research and Development. The model can be used to a high degree of certainty to assess the business cultures of two nations: Australia and Italy based on the indices they scored for the various variables in Hofstede’s studies. The limitation of the model is that it was carved based on surveys conducted on a small section of the nations around the globe. Thus generalizations might not be appropriate.

The Amish originated in Switzerland but is now culturally centered in the States and Canada. The Amish are called the Old Order Amish or Pennsylvania Dutch. The religion is strict in the teaching of separation from the world and a tightly knit community. The doctrine that the Amish follow teaches farming and simplicity. Because of this simplicity, the Amish are now allowed to have electricity, own cars, or go to war. What modern people see as necessities in today’s world, the Amish people live without in the Pennsylvania Dutch society.

The Amish originated in Switzerland around the time of 1525. In the 16th century, the act of baptizing an adult was considered a crime. The members were beaten and thrown into rivers and left to die painful deaths. The carnage in Europe led to the immigration of the Amish (Amish). A man named Jacob Ammann lead the Swiss Mennonites, now called the Amish, to the United States of America and Canada (Origins).

When the Amish settled in the United States the religion had its own ideas of how strict the religion should be. As groups of people began to split, different religious groups formed. The Old Order Amish are the strictest of the groups (Amish).

In the religion the services are done in the homes. These homes are designed to be able to have a large group of people in them. There are members of the religion that half a higher position than normal members. There is a deacon, a bishop, and two preachers. The church is held on Sundays and the members of the church take turns on who will host the next service (BBC).

The doctrine of the Amish teaches its members about farming and simplicity. The unwritten rules are called Ordnung. This unwritten set of rules is followed by everyone but if there is a question about them then the oldest members of the community will take up the position and make sure the rule is made clear. The religion teaches that individualism is not something important or to be proud of but that it’s better to be plain and simple. The Amish believe that God is happier when people take care of the world and remain pacifists. If anyone breaks these rules the person who is accused will be shunned until forgiveness has been offered (BBC).

The clothing of the women in the Amish society consists of long plain dresses and bonnets (Amish). The women can also wear long sleeves and a full skirt with plain shoes. The women do not wear make-up. The men’s clothing is of the same plainness as the women’s. The men wear dark colored pants or trousers, braces, and straight-cut coats. The men are often seen with a wide brimmed hat sometimes made of straw. The children wear closely to the same clothing that the adults wear with the exception that they often go barefoot (BBC).

The life of the Amish consists of no electrical uses in their homes. There are exceptions as dairy farmers have to comply to the religions. The electricity is only wired up to the barns and is not used but to continue as dairy farmers (BBC). Everything done by the Amish involved the help of the community as a whole. If a family needs a barn built the whole community comes together and helps build the barn and depending on the size, it can be put up in a few days or a few weeks (Origins).

As the Amish practice separation from the modern world, they practice different languages. At home the families use a German based language called Pennsylvania Dutch. At church the Amish use a high German dialect. When speaking to a person that isn’t Amish, or “English”, the use English (BBC).

As tourism of Amish communities grows, Amish people are starting businesses to help make money. It has been noted that Amish businesses do better than U.S. businesses. “Amish businessesaˆ¦ are growing, prospering, and thriving. The Amish have low business failure rate, 4 percent a decade compared to the 70 percent failure rate of new U.S. businesses within their first three years of operation.” This increase in business success rates could be the result of more tourism. “aˆ¦the Aurthur Vistor center recorded 29,114 visitsaˆ¦” (Turco). Many Amish people have shops that consist of wood shops, selling craft such as quilts, selling fruits and vegetables, bakeries, restaurants, gift shops, and an open farmer’s market (Mink). Most of the businesses have 10 or fewer employees who are Amish. In some business it is completely ran by family members (Tenner).

Most Amish families are farmers. They use horses, oxen, or mules to plow their fields. The machinery used cannot have rubber wheels but metal ones instead. Many of the Amish produce corn to feed the animals that they family will use for meat. Some of the meat may be sold at the markets and the hides of the animals are used to make leather goods. Some families may be smaller and that raise animals for their own consumption while other farms may be raising or growing the animals or crops to sell. The animals grown may be chickens, pork, beef, and lamb. Some major crops grown are corn and oats (BBC).

Some farmers use pesticides, herbicides, and may use seeds that have been altered genetically (Tenner).Other farmers rely on nature to benefit them in the way that nature does. Farmers that use more traditional ways rely on birds to take care of their insect problems. “the birds, you see, are our allies. Each year, the swallows kill thousands of insects over our fieldsaˆ¦” the Amish need the birds so they help them by building them nest and never tarring down the old nest. Some Amish believe by using horses rather than tractors, they are being closer to one with nature (Kline).

The families in the Amish communities usually have an average of seven to eight children. The families never divorce and only marry other Amish. The Amish do not marry a first cousin and would prefer not marrying the second cousin either (BBC). The husbands are usually the ones that are responsible for bringing in the most money. They are usually the farmers and do the harder labored work in the barns and in the fields. Some men many have a change of roles and may do more of the gardening and house roles that most women would do (Amish Studies).

The wives can be the bread winner in some cases because she may run a business. Most wives are stay at home moms that have the responsibilities of taking care of the children and doing task around the house. Most women do not have full time jobs because of their children. Women and men share the house hold decisions for the most part. The husband usually just makes religious decision and the wife is more active in nurturing the religion and making more household decisions (Amish Studies).

The wives aren’t always busy with house chores. The Amish sisters have gatherings that mix everyday chores up. The group of women may get together and make quilts or have fun while harvesting vegetables. In a time of an emergency the community will come together to help the families. The wives will care for the children and the men will focus on more labored work. The elderly also help the families. The grandmothers will help baby sit and the grandfathers will help the other men with outside chores (Amish Studies).

The children’s roles at home are chores around the farm such as feeding chickens and collecting the eggs and milking cows. The children go to school until 14 and 15 years old. A normal school has about 25 to 35 people in a one room schoolhouse. The material is taught in English and is usually taught by younger women (BBC).

In the Amish schools text books are used and the teacher has the same education as an eighth grader (Halvorsen). The teachers have been taught by older more experienced Amish teachers. “By the time an Amish girl is twelve years old she knows how to cook a meal for a whole crew of Amish workers, and a young man knows farm operations by the time he is a teenager.” The Amish limit the education because after school the children learn the vocational skills (BBC).

“After they leave school Amish boys learn work skills such as farming and carpentry on the job, while Amish girls concentrate on practical domestic matters” This remains true until the child turns 16 and goes through a period called Rumspringa. Rumspringa is when an Amish child is allowed to go out into the world to choose if he or she wants to go live there or wants to become a full Amish member. “90% decide to do so” (BBC).

The transportation of the Amish consists of simply horses and buggies. The Amish can take rides in someone else’s car. For long distances, this is a good way for getting around. The Amish can hire someone to drive them to places if need be (BBC). Most stores have made hitching post and accommodations for the Amish. “Amish friends, please clean up after your horse. A shovel and garbage can are provided” (Mink).

The life of the Amish is centered on their community, having strong family bonds, and living life with a simplicity that most modern people don’t have. The Amish remind people of how things used to be and because of this the tourism in the Amish communities are growing. This doesn’t change the roles of the people or their beliefs in their religion. The Amish live in peace and harmony with nature and themselves.

Riley 7

Defining health has always been relative; sometimes it is defined in terms of good health (feeling fit), bad health (free from pain and discomfort), and in terms of rang of task an individual is able to perform (functional). However, WHO (1948) “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. A resource for everyday life, not the objective of living. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities.” The medical dictionary define illness as “disease of body or mind; poor health; sickness.

Culture is the way of life of a group of people, society or community, it consist of beliefs, behavior, values, norms, customs, language, institutions etc common to the members of the group, society or community.

Culture can influence the definition of health and illness. Cultural approach explains that health differences can best be understood in terms of our way of life as society and as an individual and on the social class in which we find ourselves, the lower the social class the worse the health issues.

Cultural approach is of the opinion that poor health is due to our diet, habits & life style. In some non western culture, a big person is seen as healthy and the slim person is seen as ill, and is encouraged to eat more, where as in the western world, been fat is seen as a death warrant.

Some cultures do not believe in going to the doctors when they are ill, they rather use a local remedy. Cultural approach completely blame the individual for his /her health problems because they do not follow a healthy life style, the black report (1980) also accepted this explanation, but acknowledged the fact that even does that lead a healthy life, still suffer from same ill health as those that does the opposite e.g. non smokers at the risk of lung cancer. The report suggested that differences in social class factors only account for 25% of social class inequities in health and illness.

More so, the structural approach, accepts the behavioral explanation to health differences, but claims that the behavioral approach fail to look at the broader context of inequality. Thus, poor health is as a result of the working condition to which some people have no choice but to be subjected to given the present income distribution and access to opportunity.

In explaining the structural approach, the Marxist perspective of health and illness will be analyzed. The key assertion of Marxist is the relation of production (structure of the society) which brought about division of labor, which in turn reflect in the derivation of social classes. Marxist believes that health outcomes for any society are influenced by the economy system in two ways;

Level of production: industrial diseases and injuries, stress- related illness, environment pollution, processed food, chemical additives.

Income distribution: standard of living is measured by wealth and income-living condition, access to health care, diet, educational opportunities, and recreational opportunities.

The black report (1980) also agrees with this view, as finding continues to show that adverse social condition is significant to the social pattering of health and illness in the society.

Task 2
EVALUATION OF THE EVIDENCE OF REGIONAL VARIATIONS AND INEQUALITIES IN HEALTH AND ILLNESS

This essay will be outlining and evaluating the evidence of variation in health and illness. To evaluate these issues two material evidences from the Guardian News paper will be analysed. The first is LOCAL INEQUALITIES MARK MAP OF WELLBEING (24/09/2008) will be referred as APPENDIX A. This essay will also evaluate sociological explanations for health inequalities such as cultural, structural, functional perspectives. Reports produced by the government and independent research will be applied in evaluating these regional variations.

Appendix A covered the disparities in the health and behaviour of people in different parts of England. The findings made by the report regarding health disparities are:

Women in Blackpool are 8 times more likely to smokes during pregnancy than women from Richmond upon Thames.

Average 5year old in Blackburn suffers 7 times more tooth decay than 5year olds in Lichfield and Staffordshire.

Teenage pregnancy rate in Lambeth south London is more than 6 times that of Rutland.

Obesity rate among children starting school in Hackney, east London is 3 time the rate in Teedale.

The research was done using 30 key indicators, of which none was mentioned in the report. The report agreed that despite government effort to eradicate health inequalities, the gap in health between the social classes in society keep increasing. The report agrees with the structural perspective, which blames health inequalities on the economy system (capitalist state) of the society, as captured in paragraph 5 lines 4-6, addressing the issue of child poverty the tax system. This can be backed by the finding of the Black report (1980) which opined that health standard is directly linked to social class and social economics factors such as poor housing, education, income and environment.

The findings in Appendix A, was published and distributed to every local councils in the UK, so health worker in every region can devise solution to curbing their respective health issues.

Finding made by the report (APPENDIX A) regarding behaviour cannot be explained entirely by relative poverty. The findings on behaviour are:

Lambeth despite having the worst teenage pregnancy problem in England, it also has the best figure for breastfeeding. More than 90% of mothers’ breastfeed in Lambeth compared to 33% in Knowsley, Merseyside.

Malvern Hills, west Devon and south Shropshire, almost all children of school age engage with at least two hours of high quality PE /school sport a week compared to only 2/3 of children in Newcastle-under Lyme and Surrey Heath.

Kensington and Chelsea has the highest life expectancy, for both man and women compared to Manchester and Liverpool, they eat the highest proportion of fruit and vegetables and the lowest rate of premature death rate caused by cancer. But was in the bottom 10 in England for problems relating to substance abuse among people aged 15 to 64.

The above findings can be related to the cultural approach, which lay emphasis on the cultural choices of the individual / group such as; life style, diet, cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption. And partly in relation to the structural approach, for Lambeth, there was increase of awareness on the importance of breastfeeding, for Malvern Hills, there is also the increase of awareness of the importance of exercise as for Kensington and Chelsea abuse of substance might be due to life style and mostly because they are wealthy.

Task 3
MOST SIGNIFICANT FACTORS INFLUENCING THE HEALTH AND ILLNESS IN A COMMUNITY

Many factors influence health and general well being of a community. These range from individual factors, such as generic make up, age, gender and lifestyle, socio-economic, cultural and environment factors.

Despite the above factors, the once that are most significant influence on a community health and well being are referred to as “the wider determinant of health”. These are educational attainment, employment status, housing and the environment. Because these wider determinants interact with other factors it is difficult to evaluate the respective contribution of each determinant to eventual health outcomes.

Educational Attainment: From various perspective of sociology and the finding of the Black report (1980), it is evidence that educational attainment plays an important part in the overall well being of the society. According to the Black report (1980), while, the general health of the nation had improved, theses improvements have not been equal across all the various social classes. And the gap between the lower and higher social levels continue to widen. The report on Appendix A also highlighted this difference, when Knowsley borough found it difficult to educate mothers to on the importance of breastfeeding (paragraph 17). The situation in Knowsley can also be interpreted as a cultural trend within the women.

Employment Status: Cultural approach opined that those in social class four and five eat less nutritious diet than those in social class one and two, structural argues however, that, due to income inequality, those in lower classes cannot enjoy the lifestyle of the rich in society and suffer more illness as a result of their job. Appendix B indicates that unemployment brings about poverty and social exclusion. It also shows that Barnet borough unemployment rate increased from 68.7% in 2006 to 71.2% in 2007, but remained below England average.

Task 4

BALANCING HEALTH AND ILLNESS IN A COMMUNITY

Keeping the community well: Prevention they say is better than cure. Unhealthy habits are passed on from generation as indicated in Appendix A, paragraph 7, lines 4-5. Barnet council plans to support their community to live a healthy lifestyle, to stop them from getting avoidable

Health workers in the various county/ boroughs should work in preventing the particular health problems of their local population as indicated in Appendix A paragraph 3.

Government should embark, on health plans that are long term.