Category: Free Essays

Ageing is a biological process, which is universal phenomenon and inevitable for all. As Heidegger states, “We are born, we live, we die.” (Featherstone & Wernick, 1995: 1) Pilcher (1995) argues, ‘like class, ethnicity and gender, age is a social category through which people define and identify individuals and groups within society. Age is both an important part of how we see ourselves and how others see us.’ Age has various connotations, varying according to historical periods and culture. “Older adults [in industrialized countries] tend to be marginalized, institutionalized, and stripped of responsibility, power and, ultimately, their dignity. It wasn’t always thus. In most prehistoric and agrarian societies, older people were often held in high regard. They were the teachers.” (Nelson, 2005) Unfortunately in contemporary society, especially the Western world, ageing has become perceived as an illness. Biggs (1989) states that we are living in an ageist society where it is believed that a ‘predominant attitude towards older people is coloured by negative mixture of pity, fear, disgust, condescension and neglect.’ The elderly have become victims of their own survival. The number 65 has been regarded as the beginning of old age. Old age is referred to a time of life which is ‘bleak and hopeless’ (page 16) Many deny the notion of being ‘old’ in spite of this but a majority of the elderly are still affected by the very fact of being over 65. Society is also against people with mental illnesses. Just as the elderly are discriminated due to their, people with dementia are discriminated due to their illness. Dementia is said to be a second childhood, but it is not. It is said to rob the mind, but it does not. It is said to affect the elderly over 65, but it can affect a person from early as their forties. Ageism is part of the stigma that people with dementia suffer from.

Ageism is deeply embedded within our society, and is very widespread. It is difficult to tackle as it is an unconscious process and often unnoticed. In 1969 Butler coined the term ageism to describe the process of systematic stereotyping and discrimination against older people. Cuddy & Fiske (2002) argue that ageism is pervasive, affecting social interactions, housing, health care, employment, and social policy. Quadango (2008) refers to ageism as ‘the stereotyping of and discrimination against individuals or groups because of their age. It s a set of beliefs, attitudes, norms and values used to justify age based prejudice and discrimination.’ Kite and Johnson (1988) define ageism as ‘beliefs about elderly as unable to contribute to society, and hence as dispensable members of a community.’ These stereotypes arise from negative cultural attitudes. From these definitions, ageism can be defined to consist of three elements: prejudicial attitudes, discriminatory practices and institutional practices. Traxler (1980) outlines four factors which contribute to ageism. Firstly, there is a fear of death. Secondly, there is an emphasis on youth culture. Thirdly, there is an emphasis on productivity. Fourthly, the research carried out on ageing. These elements can be reflected when analysing dementia. Many fear the symptoms of dementia, as there has been an association that dementia is ‘as if your dead.’ However, the fear has been exaggerated as ‘dementia is not normal dying’ (Murphy, __ : 13) There is an assumption that people with dementia can’t participate in research or are unable to share their views and experiences. This becomes evident with the fact that dementia has been underfunded. Few resources have been allocated, as dementia in the elderly is not seen as a priority and they are not seen as worthy.

Clearly, ageism is part of the social system. Perceptions of aging are formed as early as childhood. We are surrounded with images of the elderly as a homogenous group that is dependent, lonely, frail and incompetent. These perceptions do not apply at a young age, and do not impact identity formation and therefore negative schema are more likely to be accepted without testing or questioning (Levy et al., 2002) Children hold their own expectations and perceptions about their aging process due to internalized ageing stereotypes. In a study, children were asked how they would feel about becoming an elderly person, of which 60% of these children gave responses rated as negative, including ‘‘I would feel awful” (Seedfeldt et al., 1977: 509). Another study found that among children aged four to seven, 66% mentioned that they prefer not to become an elderly person (Burke, 1981). It is evident that children hold discriminatory attitudes towards the elderly, but these attitudes are internalised through socialisation, of where socialisation institutions such as families, media, and education play an important role. Adults hold negative attitudes towards the elderly, which impact the elderly in a destructive way.

Palmore (1990) identified nine negative stereotypes associated with “the elderly.” These included illness, impotency, ugliness, mental decline, mental illness, uselessness, isolation, poverty and depression. One theory argues that perceptions and evaluations regarding ageing have been socially constructed. Social constructions reject ageing as natural and argue that individuals are moulded by socio-cultural factors. According to Berger and Luckman (2002), the social construction of reality relies upon a three-stage process. The first process is where people create culture. The second process involves these cultural creations becoming a reality, and is granted as natural and inevitable, where the third process involves reality being absorbed as valid by following generations.

All of these negative attitudes create a new set of exclusions for the elderly person. As a result, the elderly are treated differently as a person and are often treated as ‘the others’. They are viewed and associated with labels such as ill health, poverty, passive and dependent. Heise (1984:__) argues that one stereotype of the elderly is that of a ‘weak and frail elderly.’ Butler (1987) argues that due to ageism, the elderly are seen as senile, rigid in thought and manner, and old-fashioned in morality and skill. There is a notion that the elderly go into a second childhood. This notion removes their adult status, and their personhood, undermining their worth and value. The elderly are reduced by their physical attributes, where there is a failure to see beneath the surface. They are seen in a state of remediable decline. ‘Mask of ageing’ is a term of where the body betrays the person, as the body is unable to adequately signify the individual’s inner self, leaving a misrepresentation and imprisonment.

One area that comprises of age-discrimination is seen in the workplace. Some positive stereotypes are associated, including the elderly being more loyal, reliable, experienced and responsible. However, there are also negative stereotypes found within the workplace, including being less adaptive with new innovations and changes. These stereotypes are continually perpetuated despite the fact that there is evidence for a correlation regarding their absenteeism, productivity, or competence. Mandatory retirement may be the most pervasive form of age-discrimination.

Media can be seen to be the most pervasive for promoting ageism. It is clear to see how society values characteristics such as youth, autonomy and independence. Popular culture and the consumer culture such as magazines and politics consist of images of youth and beauty which encourage stereotypes of the elderly, of which these images are dominant. Furthermore, the elderly are significantly under-represented across all media. Levy (2002) found that older people with positive perceptions of aging lived seven and a half years longer than those exposed to negative images of aging. Levy acknowledged that media is not solely to blame for promoting ageism, but it is the most identifiable source.

Another area where ageism is pervasive is within the healthcare system, where they often receive inferior health care or are denied access. Within the healthcare system, the elderly are less likely to be referred for screening and treatment, likely to receive more medication prescriptions than younger people for equivalent symptoms, and misdiagnosed with symptoms accounting for ‘normal ageing.’Alliance for Aging Research (2003) concludes that the elderly are less likely than younger people to receive preventive care, less likely to be tested or screened for diseases and other health problems, often ignored from proven medical interventions which in turn leads to them being given inappropriate or incomplete treatment, and also consistently excluded from clinical trials, despite being the largest users of approved drugs. They conclude that ageism within the health-care system “hurts everyone, because it leads to premature loss of independence, increased mortality and disability, and depression in adults who might otherwise continue to lead productive, satisfying and healthier lives” (Alliance for Aging Research, 2003) “Our health care systems are unhealthy and unsustainable; we focus on the wrong conditions,” with dementia not being a focus. (Whitehouse, 2007: 63) Ageism within the health care system adds further impacts with those who have dementia. the report(irish study) indicates there is structural and organisational discrimination which highlighted a failure to prioritise dementia in terms of policy and resource allocation. As Neil Hunt, the chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society states, ‘There is no place for ageism in today’s NHS. One in three over 65 will die with dementia yet we know only a third of people will ever receive formal diagnosis. People deserve to be treated with respect and equality regardless of age – especially where assessment of symptoms and ongoing care are concerned.’ Not all people with dementia receive fair treatment. Dementia patients often need support of many kinds, frequently without knowing who to ask or what support to ask for. Despite this awareness, a majority of people’s needs are not met. Early symptoms are dismissed as ‘ageing,’ which delays diagnosis. It has also been found that health professionals lack the knowledge and training for dementia. Illife (1994) argues that GP’s attitudes tend to nihilistic and many believe that nothing can be done. He found that 60% of GPs lacked confidence in making a diagnosis of early dementia and many found it difficult to advise about support services or to coordinate such services. The Audit Commission (2000) found fewer than half of general practitioner’s said they had received sufficient training. It also found that less than two thirds felt they had ready access to specialist advice, of which it required on readily access upon diagnosis. There is further conclusive evidence that there is an under-diagnosis and inadequate management towards dementia. A recent survey found that nearly two-thirds of general practitioners did not give a memory test and around 40% did not offer a diagnosis when consulted by patients with memory problems. Out of a sample of approximately 700 GPs, 71% felt that they did not have adequate training in and more than half were dissatisfied with community services for dementia. Another study found that most GPs felt they had little to offer dementia patients, early referral was unhelpful, and that the problem was mainly a social problem. Although these studies lean towards the negative aspect of treatments towards those with dementia, the same study found that 52.3% of GPs felt that early diagnosis was beneficial and 54.4% felt diagnosis of early signs of dementia was important. Furthermore, the study is questionable as the data is based on questionnaires. (Renshaw, 2001: 37)

It is not only the elderly with dementia that are discriminated again. Ageism works both ways, affecting not only the elderly but also young people. Reverse ageism is where the young people are marginalised. There is little awareness or understanding of people who develop dementia at an early age, and this makes it difficult for younger people with dementia to access ample support. Many dementia care services have a minimum age requirement of 65, and therefore are not available to younger people. When services are available and accessible to younger users, they tend to be inappropriate to their needs. As a consequence, the younger people feel that they are made to ‘fit in’ to a service, rather than the service fitting their needs. Iliffe (2003) found that 60% of GPs lacked confidence in making a diagnosis of early dementia.

Ageism is a major issue that needs to be addressed in order to ensure the elderly are in receipt of fair treatment. Since the 1960s attempts have been made to eliminate age discriminations, with groups such as the Grey Panthers and Help the Aged. In 2006 a ban on discrimination within the workplace was introduced with the UK Age Discrimination Act. This law makes it unlawful for employers and other staff to discriminate against a person on the basis of his/her age. The Act adopts four definitions, including direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation. As for the health care system, recent allegations claim the NHS to be institutionally ageist, and in response The Equality Bill has been debated about and proposes to eliminate the discrimination rooted within staff and the funding surrounding their care. The Green Paper talks about elderly care and dementia care, arguing that the current system needs amending as there is not insufficient money to provide enough quality care and meet the needs. It acknowledges that an increase in funding is necessary, and to introduce a minimum care entitlement so that receives some Governmental support. An extract from the Green Paper states ‘’the Government’s vision is for a system that is fair, simple and affordable for everyone, underpinned by national rights and entitlements but personalised to individual needs. In the new National Care Service, everyone should be able to get really good care wherever they live and whatever they or their family need” Due to ageism, the elderly and in particular people with dementia are faced with barriers and inequalities within society, which has been acknowledged and attempts have been introduced to eliminate and reduce them.

On the one hand there are theories that there is a great lack of understanding about the realities of ageing, and on the other hand, there are theories that the fears of ageing are exaggerated. Ageism does exist, and there have been responses to eliminate these negative attitudes toward age. As mentioned, ageism exists within the health care system, and those who have been diagnosed with dementia not only suffer from the illness, but also suffer from ageism.

Murdock claimed that the family is so functional to society that it is unavoidable and universal thus appearing everywhere. He argued that every nuclear family has this four functions Sexual, reproductive, economic and education. All these four functions are essential according to Murdock without sexual and reproductive no member of society would be there, life would stop if there was no economic function that is provision of meals. Without education no socialisation thus no culture.Murdock’s view of the family is too positive to believe that nuclear family is harmonious institution .

Parsons (1955) studied the modern American family in the 50s. He argued that there are two basic and irreducible function of a family these are the primary socialisation of children which Parsons sees as a responsibility of a family to shape the child’s personality to suite to the needs of society. The second function is the stabilisation of adult personalities the family gives adults the emotional support necessary to cope with the stresses of everyday life. (Taylor and Richardson etl 2002). Parsons’s as with Murdock has been criticised of showing the picture of the family as attuned children and compassionate spouses caring for each other’s need.

There is a natural division of labour within the nuclear family roles being segregated positively, for example the instrumental male whose role is to provide for the family thus the bread winner and expressive female whose role is to provide warmth, love and care for children at home. Based on Biology woman is a child bearer therefore has to look after the child, this role maintains social stability. Family patterns have changed with time such as cohabitation, rise of reconstituted families and increase in single or lone parent radical psychiatric looks this as way to the increase of divorce for example changes in western family life the privatisation of the nuclear family thus no support when pressure hits leading to separation and divorce, to obtain divorce is easier due to changes in the law.

Functionalist theory has been criticised to have concentrated on the family being positive and gives little attention to its weaknesses. However in feminism nuclear family is oppressive to women for example gender distinctions. Functionalists argue that the family is of equal profit to everyone, however Marxists argue that society developed by the need of the capitalist economy. It is the bourgeoisie who benefits not the whole society. Functionalists focus too much on the significance that the family has for society and disregard the sense family life has for individual.

Feminists see the family as patriarchal male dominating thus Men gain more in a family than women. Feminists shows how men dominate social relationships thus symmetrical conjugal roles is seen as an allegory. Feminist argues that Men oppress women through domestic violence ,the economic involvement to society made by women’s domestic labour within the family.

Liberal feminist Wollstonecraft (1792). Wanted equality for women in terms of rights, liberties and vote by the change of law and policy. Radical feminists like Millett (1970) argue that the organisation of society enables men to dominate women, they believed that gender distinctions are politically and socially constructed therefore wanted radical reforms and social change she came with the term “The personal is political”. Not just patriarchal men that benefit from family but all men.Sociolist feminist look at gender as the basis, sociolist Marxist combine gender with class they argue that there is a dual oppression for women they have to go to work as well work at home. Marxists feminist believe that the destruction of the capitalist society brings equality to everything. Lesbian feminist they believe society forces them to be in heterosexuality so that men can oppress them, they challenged heterosexuality as a means of male supremacy. Humanist feminist argues that society only allows men to self-develop not women and that society distorts women’s human potential.

Marxist feminist Bentson (1972) argues that family responsibilities make male workers less likely to withdraw from labour with wife and children to support. Ansley (1972) she sees the emotional support in family stabilises male workers thus make them less likely to take their frustration out of the system. Feeley (1972) She see the family as an dictatorial unit dominated by the husband and also the family values teaches obedience children learn to accept hierarchy and their position in it.Greer (2000) a radical feminist who believes that family life continues to disadvantage and oppress women. She points out Britain has very high divorce rate thus less stability in the families.

Marxist feminist like functionalist they tend to ignore the diversity of modern family life assuming everyone lives in heterosexual nuclear family.They paint a very negative picture of family life possibly exaggerated.Unlike functionalists who sees male and female roles being different but equal,Marxist feminists believe that men dominate family relationships.Feminist theory discards functionalist view that society as a whole is benefited by socialisation in the family but rather men benefits more.Women are portrayed as passive victims of exploitation,it does not take into account women who abuse men by fighting back. Functionalist believe that norms and values benefits society while for feminist they benefit men more for example obedience,women being obedient to men.

Marxists views of family sees socialisation process results in the transmission of a ruling class ideology, whereby individuals are deceived into accepting the capitalist system and the dominance of the capitalist class.Bourgoisie benefits by creating a labour force and proletariat continue to be exploited. Engel s 1972) argued that bourgeois nuclear family as an institution which oppressed women.They were seen mainly as the bearers of children,economically dependent to their husbands and remain faithful to them.According to Engelsthe family is designed to control women and protect property thus men needed to know their children in order to pass on their property.

Marxists say the family serves capitalism in four ways.The family acts as a safety valves for the stress and frustration of working class men,the family as a unit of consumption buys the goods and services provided by capitalism.Women domestic work is unpaid which benefits capitalism and lastly the family socialises children thereby reproducing both labour power and acceptance of capitalism false consciousness. Zaretsky (1976) analysed that the family is one place where male workers can feel they have power and control.This helps them accept their oppression in wider society,furthermore Zaretsky sees the family as a main prop to the capitalist economy.

Marxists view of divorce in families is seen by increased economic pressure from unemployment this may place added strain and also family members living longer could increase pressure on relationships.

Marxists decline the functionalist view that society based on value consensus and thus benefits all. Instead they see the welfare of powerful groups influencing the way society is controlled.Marxist view ignores family diversity it sees the nuclear family as being simply determined by the economy.This theory reproduces conflict between classes bourgeoisie and prolateriate while in fuctionalists family operates as united everything benefits society.Capitalist sytem is dominated both economically by rich at the expense of the poor but seen as a fair system by functionalists that works together in the interest of all members causing limited conflict in society.Anthropologists have suggested that the emergence of the nuclear family did not actually coincide with emergence of capitalism. Somerville (2000) argues that Zaretsky exaggerates the importance of the family as a protection from life in capitalist society.As with feminism functions of family benefits men in Marxist produces labour force.

In this essay various aspects of working in a group vs. working individually will be discussed. The idea here will be to study the pros and cons with relation to the particular individual and not to the group of which he is a part. First we will try to understand the dynamics of working in a group vis a vis individual, then understand the various issues involved in working as a part of the group. We would also see as to how those issues will be influencing the person, be it in the positive side or being a hindrance and also support the argument by stating prior personal experiences.

Introduction:-

Remember last time when you had to do a project, how did you go about doing it? You must have contemplated doing it by many ways. But some thing that comes to mind at the beginning is either individually or in a group. Every body by de facto knows what it is to be individual and perform a task individually, as he is the only person who is doing the task. But what is group and how it is formed and what are the dynamics involved in it is something we are about to discuss below.

So what is a group, it may be defined as a collection of several people who come together to do a particular task or goal. And the group dynamics refer to the characteristic of a group behavior and attitude. The basic concern of group dynamics is about the structure formation and functions of the group. In any organization groups are very common entity and hence their dynamics and deep understanding of the group is important in organisational behavior (Kirschner 2009). Group dynamics basically deals with why and how groups are formed and developed. In order to explain the same many theories have been proposed. One classic theory developed by George Homans (1961), states that all groups are basically functioning of their activities, interactions and sentiments. And all the group theories professes that when individual persons share common activities, they get interactions among them and will develop either positive or negative attitudes towards each other. The groups can also be of various types based on how and why they are formed, that is basically we may put them in two categories like Formal and Informal groups. Formal Groups are formed to achieve specific organizational requirements such as a command group, tasks group, or functional groups. Where as the informal groups are formed by association of members based on their own interest or social activities. More or less the informal groups are involuntary associations (Mullins 2002).

Coming to the main issue of whether or not working in the group is going to be beneficial or not to us will be depending largely on the group structure, which is nothing but the relationships among the members that help and hold the group together in achieving the assigned goals. The structure of the group can be defined in a many ways; common among them would be to take reference to their Size, Norms, Roles And Cohesiveness.

Group Size:-

A group can be of any size ranging from two persons to a collection of large people, however small groups of size 2 to 10 are considered more efficient in their job performance as it allows active and positive interactions between the groups and also has least chance of negative synergy. Usually large groups involve a lot of confusion and chaos leading to waste of time in deciding which process to be done and who should be doing it. The group size thus not only affects the group participation but also effects the satisfaction of the members.

Group Roles:-

In case of formal groups the roles and functions of the group members are all assigned as per pre-plan, in which each role will have specific duties and responsibilities to perform. Even though these are predetermined, some times new kind of roles also emerge in between and then it needs to be created and assigned to the already existing roles of the members. And these new roles often will be replacing the existing roles of the members who will be starting to be more assertive and start expressing themselves (Schwarzer 2007).

Group Norms:-

Mullins (2002) defined “A group norm is an assumption or expectation held by group members concerning what kind of behaviour is right or wrong, good or bad, allowed or not allowed, and appropriate or not appropriate”. They are the common behavioral patterns which are exhibited by all the members of the group. The basic reason behind the creation of these norms is to facilitate the group survival, and to make the group behavior more predictable and organized.

Group Cohesiveness:-

The Social interaction is a very common and natural human behaviour. The aspect of group cohesiveness reflects how badly the members of the group want to be together and the bond that exists among them. The amount of group cohesiveness is determined by a lot of factors. By normal conviction, the more difficult to be a group member, the more cohesive that group is considered to be. One more reason when a group tends to get more cohesive is when they are in tense competition from other groups or may be some external threat to their own survival. The basic thumb rule is the groups which are in small size and those which spend more time together tend to be more cohesive. The cohesiveness in work groups has many positives, like increases worker satisfaction, low turnover and absenteeism, thus leading to higher productivity (Argyle 1989). On the other hand high cohesiveness in groups at times may lead to detrimental effects also if the goals of the group are misalign with the organisational goals. Higher cohesiveness results in individual pressure on one another to abide to a common conclusion while making decisions, which will lead to a careless judgments and unrealistic appraisals of alternatives (Revenson 2005).

After having seen the dynamics of group, we will now understand the issues on which we are going to make a critical analysis of the pros and cons of group work. These issues are like Social support, group norms, peer pressure and conflicts.

Social Support:-

Social support is nothing but the physical and emotional comfort given and shown by our friends, family and colleagues. This basically is all about knowing that we are all a part of the larger community of people, who care and think for us and are concerned about our well being. And the critical part of this support is that unless the receiver of the support views it a support, the communicative experience or message extended to him would not be considered as support. The social support can be understood in a variety of ways like, assistance or exchanging resources.

Peer Pressure:-

By peer pressure it refers to the influence or pressure exerted by a peer group in encouraging an individual in changing ones attitudes, values or behavior so that he or she confirms to the group norms. The social groups influenced by the peers include formal groups like political party, trade union or informal groups like a social clique. However a person who is affected by the peer pressure may or may not wish to continue with the group. This would also help persons in finding out if they really belong to the group, which would lead to adverse affects of the group’s behavior (Steinberg 2007).

Conflict:-

A Conflict is a perceived difference of opinion or action of course on any issue. It is usually a dichotomy of actions for a goal to be achieved. It could be a simple intra personal conflict existing in a person or an interpersonal conflict that is appearing between two individuals or a group and an individual. It can also be between one group and another group (Brem 1995).

Basically there are three different types of conflicts existing, like go- go situation, where you want to do both the actions, where as you will have a chance to make only one selection. The other two types are go- no go type of conflicts and the third one being -no go- no go type, where you don’t want to take either of the decisions but still you want to make one choice. All conflicts in group are because of common resources which by their very nature are limited. By convention all conflicts are not counter productive. A conflict when used and controlled in the right way will be helping a great deal in increasing the productivity of the group. On the other hand, when not handled properly a conflict can have spiraling effect and can bring down an individual dignity and collapse the whole group (Managing Conflict within or between Groups, Australia).

Hawthorne Studies:-

The term was coined by Henry A. Landsberger (1955) while he was analyzing older experiments from 1924-1932 at the Hawthorne Works (A Western Electric factory outside Chicago). Hawthorne Works had commissioned a study to observe the efficiency of the workers under various stimuli both external and internal, which included physical working environment and also the group structures. Light was one such factor on which the effects were studied, to see if the workers would become more productive in higher or lower levels of light. The workers productivity has improved when changes were made and slumped when the study was concluded. It was observed that the gain in productivity is more due to the fact that they are being observed rather than the actual experiment itself. This Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity where in subjects improve an aspect of their behavior by being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they are being studied and part of social investigation, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.

Advantages And Disadvantages:-

Having studied the various theoretical aspects on which we are going to critically analyze the advantages and disadvantages, we will now enlist the various experiences both personal and compiled from others. Either the choices whether group or individual has its advantages and disadvantages. An introvert that I am, working alone sometimes is more beneficial to me than in a group.

It is admitted that, working in groups has many benefits. With our partners, the project can be finished quicker. For example, when I was studying in university my final project was on “Implementation of Stenography using BPCS”. We were a group of 4 individuals working on this project and we have assigned different tasks to each person of the group. This has made the division of work more efficient thus accomplishing the task was much easier and faster. This was a good way to improve our knowledge, presentation skills and learn from each other, since every one has a different skill set and ideas to implement. At the same time we had few challenges working as a team, such as one person had he own ideas and would not coincide/compromise with rest of the team and some of us had issue with the time being spent on the project and so on. But at the end of the day we kept our difference away and worked as a team to finish the project successfully.

On the other hand working individually also has some different kinds of advantages. The first major advantage that comes to mind is that we can work independent of any other person and don’t have to rely on others. While working alone, we have the freedom of using our own methods and work at our own pace and convenience. Working independently gives us the confidence to make our own decisions, based on our experience and expertise on our work. Moreover, we can manage our time and resources better when we work by ourselves. From my experiences of working individually and also in a group, working individual always gave me success and the ability and knowledge to learn new things. As I am an introverted person, I didn’t find much joy doing job in a group. However I felt that I was not having any new innovative or divergent ways of working, which other wise would have made me to do a better job by being a part of the group.

Let’s discuss how working in a group can enrich you individually as a person, while still being a part of the group. Just as said that many hands would make the job easier, we can achieve more as a collection of individuals rather than individually. There are numerous benefits of working as a part of a team, some of them can be stated as below

1. Creativity

Every body is born with a different skill sets, knowledge and personal attributes. When in a group different people with different ideas come together and more creative and innovative ideas are generated, which will help us in enriching our knowledge and may be use them for our future endeavors.

2. Satisfaction

As a team keeps on interacting more and more they tend to be more cohesive and enjoy the success of one another which leads to a greater satisfaction and team success.

3. Skills

No individual is born with all the skills required for doing every thing. So when we are in a team we can make use of the pool of skills from the group for implementing the job more easily.

4. Speed

When there is a need to do a big job, it would take a lot of time in finishing it, if everything has to be done by ourselves. However when the same job is performed by a team, there is an advantage of job sharing, and the same job can be assigned to members of the team, where in the job is completed at a much faster pace. For example, if we look at my final year project I mentioned earlier and if I had to do everything myself it would have taken long time, but since we separated the task and worked as a team we could finish it quickly with a great success.

Working in a team also has few disadvantages, which are usually hard to see them in our everyday work. When working in a team there will not be any individual losers or winners and no one can be blamed or no one can feel good of having achieved some thing like success. When we have situations where the group consists of only leaders then their team might just not work at all. The worst thing is that the people who are not of a leader type they may be pushed aside by the other members of the team. Leaders would be concentrating on achieving the goal and won’t care about helping other team members and socializing with them and won’t become a good team. And on top of all these groups would have the conflicts, peer pressure and unnecessary waste of time.

Conclusion:-

The question of which one has more advantages is only of academic interest as ultimately, the result depends on what is best suited of the type and nature of the job and the individual personality and level of skill required along with all other constraints like time, money and resources available at your hand. Given that you have all the knowledge of above things, we would be able to make a decision which one works better for based on the situation. Though I prefer to work independently, if my job or situation needs me to be part of a group, I am always up for it and willing to be a great team player to contribute to the team success.

Q. Discuss the advantages, strengths, disadvantages and weaknesses of a positivist approach to the social sciences.

The profusion of use and multifariousness of meaning of the word positivism results in a need for any essay on the subject to first give its own precise definition for its use of the term, distinguishing its particular context from its use in other contexts. The term positivism, first coined by the philosopher Auguste Comte in the nineteenth-century, was first originally confined to the boundaries of philosophy and natural science; by the present, the term has spread its meaning to cover fields as diverse as law, political theory, the social sciences, philosophy and even literature. In all of these fields the dictionary definition of positivism as ‘. . . a system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or logically proved, and therefore rejecting metaphysics and theism’ (Oxford, 1989: pp. 385-386) remains broadly true of most of its uses, though it does little to reveal the subtle distinctions of use of the word positivism in each of these disciplines. For instance, legal positivism is ‘. . . a view which, in contrast to the natural law view, claims that a legal system can be defined independently of evaluative terms or propositions is the view that in law’ (Hugh-Jones, S. & Laidlaw, J, 2000: p88); in literature positivism refers to a specific period of Polish literature where writers were inspired by the nascent achievements of science and technology; and in philosophy the term logical positivism meant the scientific investigation of the philosophy of language — as in writers such as Wittgenstein. All in all then, the term positivism has an umbrella use designated by the dictionary definition, but then has several further and more individualistic uses depending upon the context in which it appears.

‘Positivism is the view that serious scientific inquiry should not search

for ultimate causes deriving from some outside source but must confine

itself to the study of relations existing between facts which are directly

accessible to observation’

(Hugh-Jones, S. & Laidlaw, J: 2000: p.3)

The definition of positivism chosen for use in this essay, its particular domain being the social sciences, is that stated above by Hugh-Jones and Laidlaw. According to this version of positivism, data gathered from sense perceptions is the only possible data that may be used as a foundation for knowledge and thought. Hence, all data and phenomena taken from beyond sense perceptions or the properties of observable things is banished — thuds a priori metaphysics and theology dismissed in toto. Science alone sets the perimeters for human knowledge, and, accordingly, positivism maintains the expectation that science will ultimately attain to solve all human problems. As such, a social scientific definition of positivism regards the research of social scientists as identical in importance to that of natural scientists; that is, social scientists, like natural scientists, employ theories and explanations for phenomena, inferred from sense data for the purpose of social benefit. With respect to political science as a social science Popper thus says ‘We get the particular definition of one of the social sciences — political science — which tries to separate the subject from the values we apply to it, and argues that it is possible to develop value-free knowledge’ (Popper, 1983: p. 75). This quotation shows the extent to which one particular social science’s use of the term positivism has mutated from its general umbrella use.

For the purposes of this essay, positivism will be regarded as having four essential characteristics (King, 1994: p. 204). (1) It is concrned with the search for the unification of scientific method, that is, with the notion that logic and inquiry are universal principles extending across all scientific domains. (2) That the ultimate end of scientific inquiry is to gives explanations of social phenomenon and to make predictions about their behaviour as according to discernable laws of society. Thus positivism in the social sciences seeks also to develop a ‘general law of social understanding’, by discovering necessary and sufficient conditions for any phenomenon. (3) Positivism maintains that social scientific knowledge must always be subject to proof through empirical experimentation. All subjects of reaseach and investigation in the social sciences should be based upon observations derived from sense-perceptions. (4) Social sciences must seek to free themselves of value-judgements as far as possible, and of moral, political, and religion ideas that might contaminate their research. Thus, in short: social sciences must seek to dicover universal conditions behind social phenomena;all social scientific empirical statements must be asolute truthes which are true at all times and true in all places; finally, research can proved only by empirical experimentation.

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In There Is More Than One Way To Do Political Science Marsh & Smith (2001), while debating whether the social sciences might legitimately have both a positivist and realist approach to science, argue that one of the principal strengths of positivism is that it is ‘foundationalist’: that is ‘. . . in ontological terms it argues that there is a ‘‘real world’’ out there, that it is independent of an agent’s knowledge of it’ and that ‘. . . it is possible, using the proper ‘‘research methods’’ for an observer to discover these real relationships between social phenomenon’ (Marsh & Smith, 2001: p. 529). Thus the great strength and advantage of a positivist approach to the social sciences is that it grounds anthropology, sociology, political science and so on upon a hard and definite ‘foundation’ of empirically testable data, and makes theories out of this data from which absolute laws of social behaviour may be attained. A second distinct advantage then of positivism is that it permits an analysis of the causal relationships between phenomena. Positivism thus allows the social sciences to make certain predictions about the phenomenal world. Thus Dowding states ‘. . . all good political scientists produce models with definite predictions . . . which they can then test one way or another against data gathered from the actual world’ (Dowding, 2001: p. 92). A chief strength then of a positivistic approach, is that it brings to the social sciences the desire to emulate the excellence of the natural sciences in respect of their rigorous experimentation, precisely stated hypotheses, definite laws, and thus prediction of behaviour. By approaching its investigations thus, social scientists attain a high level of accuracy in their results and in their predictions, and thus come closer to a total description of the behaviour of social phenomenon. By approaching the social sciences from a positivist position, social scientists are able to cut away from existing ‘knowledge’ many prejudices, suppositions, superstitions and other non-scientific opinions that have gathered about these social phenomena (Marsh & Smith, 2001). In other words, positivism, by declaring valid only those things which conform to its vigorous standards of investigation, strips social phenomenon of their perceived nature and reveals them as they really are.

A second key advantage of taking a positivist approach to the social sciences is that such a move solidly roots the social sciences in the accomplishments of the natural sciences over the past four hundred years. Early positivists like Comte, Spencer and Saint-Simon understood their theory and work as something growing directly out of the experimental and theoretical achievements of the great natural scientists like Newton, Spinoza, Darwin and others. Comte knew that the natural sciences and natural scientists, were essentially positivist: that is, they appealed to the perception and measurement of objective sense-data from which to make experiments, analyze results and make theory, predictions and laws. Comte and the other early positivists thus understood their work as an act of ‘making explicit’ the theory which natural scientists had adhered to for centuries. When, in the twentieth-century, social positivists like Ernst Laas, Friedrich Jodl and Eugen Duhring began to establish the theoretical and experimental parameters of the social sciences, they also understood their work as a branch of the natural sciences and as a continuation of its discoveries. Anthropologists, sociologists, social scientists of the early twentieth-century faced a choice: they could orientate their subjects within the sphere of natural science and its immense harvest of the past two decades, or they could orientate it in the sphere of theology and the liberal arts which had dominated all human history before the advent of natural science. Laas, Jodl, Duhring and later Marsh, Smith and others have all agreed that the social sciences must be built upon the platform established by the natural sciences. These sciences have been the predominant intellectual authority for Western Europe for nearly four hundred years, and social scientists think that the positivist approach to the natural sciences offers greater objectivity, certainty of prediction, and deeper insight into their subjects than could achieved by any other method of inquiry.

Further, the allegiance of the social sciences to the natural sciences, through a shared conviction in the positivist philosophy, means that the social sciences can constantly draw upon the fund of new empirical material daily unearthed by these natural sciences. In other words: if the social sciences have an exchange of knowledge between themselves and the natural sciences, then every refinement of experimental method, theory, or analysis achieved by the natural sciences may be immediately seized upon and utilized by the social sciences also. And, vice-versa, this interchange allows the social sciences to more freely disseminate their discoveries within the world of the natural sciences. Moreover, by sharing a positivist philosophy with the natural sciences, the social sciences may draw from its authority in the presentation of their results to the wider scientific and academic community. That is, the employment of positivism by the social sciences, dispels and neutralizes the accusations from some quarters of the scientific and outside world, for instance those of Karl Popper, that such sciences are ‘pseudo-sciences’. This claim can hold no weight if it is seen that the natural and social sciences share alike the same methodology and principles of operation. Nonetheless, it should be made clear that whilst the social sciences derive authority and knowledge from the natural sciences, that they do not depend upon it exclusively for authority. Indeed, the social sciences have made their own refinements to positivism, and thus their methods of experimentation and analysis, quite independently of those achieved in the natural sciences. The social sciences have adapted the positivism they received from the social sciences to conform to their own empirical material and the idiosyncratic and diverse domains encountered in societies and the human world. In short, the social sciences have moulded positivism to the world of empirical human affairs, thus entering a territory that the natural sciences had previously not trodden.

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Historically, perhaps the greatest weakness and hence disadvantage of positivism generally, and with respect to the social sciences in particular, has been its insistence upon methodological absoluteness. Since the time of positivism’s foundation in the philosophy of Auguste Comte, positivists have persistently sought to use its scientific methods to explain every conceivable aspect of social phenomenon; that is, they have wanted to observe an object in its totality, tracing its entire phenomenological casuistry, its material composition, and thus produce a absolute theory of knowledge about that phenomenon. According to this scientific philosophy positivism must produce absolute laws to describe the behaviour and nature of phenomenal objects. The naivety of this search for the perfection of methodology and absoluteness of social scientific laws was exposed in the second half of the twentieth century, firstly by the advent of post-modernism (Popper, 1989: p.109-128), which showed the epistemological difficulties — impossibilities? — of extending science to such extreme levels; secondly, positivism’s applicability in all instances was increasingly undermined by the new theories of social scientists themselves. The various discoveries of anthropology, sociology, political science and other social sciences led researchers to an ever clearer conclusion: the phenomena of social science are far too sophisticated and involve the intimate interaction of too many separate objects, people and processes to be scientifically observed in their totality.

Sociologists for instance, in their investigations into the mechanisms of the smallest of social units, the family, soon realized that no absolute and all-encompassing laws could be applied to the behaviour of these units (Gerrad, 1969: pp. 201-212); the great complexity coming from the need for the axioms and paradigms which are true of one family unit must, according to pure positivism, be shown to be true of all family units in all places and at all times. Pure positivism states that the laws of social science are of the same type and significance as the laws of physics, biology and chemistry; but for these laws to attain this equality, the laws of social science must be easily expressible and as rigorously testable as those of the natural sciences. The difficulty of attaining such equality is easily demonstrated by Gerrard’s (Gerrard, 1969) experiments, where he discusses the complexity of social issues involved in a four member family unit in America, and then postulates the near impossibility of scientifically demonstrating that family units in Northern France, in Thailand, in Hawaii and in all other places can be shown to obey the same exact rules as those affecting the family in America. Thus social scientists from the 1950’s onwards, confronted with the sheer vastness of ethnic, racial and community diversity, began to question the possibility of producing social laws that would be universally and ubiquitously binding. And in 2006 when even natural scientists have no certainties even about the exact behaviour and nature of a single atom; how can social scientists hope to prove laws for something as complex as a city?

Another weakness of extreme positivism has been its inability to accurately prove its hypotheses through empirical experiments (Popper, 1983: p. 12 & also: Dowding, 1995: p. 138). Whereas experimentation in the natural sciences usually involves the investigation of inanimate or relatively simple objects such as metals, stars, chemicals and so, these having the same properties constantly, in contrast, social phenomenon — people, communities, organizations etc., — are animate and are compositions of vast complexly intertwining feelings, emotions, thoughts, volitions, passions, motives, associations and so on. Thus, to undertake a social experiment, a social scientist has to be sure that he can separate the single mental or behavioural element, say ‘a criminal tendency’ that he wants to investigate, and then to exclude or control the influence of the other mental and social factors that will otherwise affect the accuracy of the experiment. In many instances such exclusion is nearly impossible to the degree of purity demanded by extreme positivists; a human being cannot be put in a test-tube or a vacuum and so shielded from external influences in the way that magnesium or atoms can. Thus social scientists have become ever more conscious that a major limitation of the positivist approach in respect to their discipline is its insistence upon perfect conditions for experimentation and for the accuracy of hypotheses and predictions (Dowding, 1995).

Further, other discoveries in the social sciences have begun to place an ever greater emphasis upon the life of the individual and upon subjective experiences as vital factors in the constituency of societies (Marsh & Furlong, 2002). The hermeneutic or ‘interpretive’ approach has come to assume ever greater importance within the social sciences, setting up for itself an area of investigation of phenomenon quite different from positivism, and therefore undermining the legitimacy of positivism’s claims to describe the totality of social phenomenon. Positivism is, according to this view, the outcome of a particular culture and particular history (Western European); what legitimacy then does it have to proclaim its results as of universal validity, as it must, to meet its own standards of scientific investigation? Moreover, social scientists themselves bring to their experiments their own subjective experiences, their own thoughts, volitions, prejudices etc., and these all affect experimentation and thus the security of results — just as surely do these things in the subjects of analysis. Thus David Marsh and Martin Smith have stated, in their powerful metaphor derived from Marsh’s earlier article, that ‘In the social sciences . . . subjective ontological and epistemological positions should not be treated like a pullover that can be ‘‘put on’’ when we are addressing such philosophical issues and ‘‘taken off’’ when we are doing research’ (Marsh & Smith, 2005: p.531). That is, they should not be treated as a ‘pullover’, as temporary measure, as they have been by positivists to date.

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In the final analysis, it seems clear that neither the extreme positivism once advocated in the wake of Auguste Comte’s first philosophical writings, nor extreme anti-positivism nor anti-foundationalist positions as have recently been taken by some hermeneutists and realists, can lead to significant future progress in the social sciences. The chief strength and advantage of a positivist approach is the vigorous process of setting hypotheses, of empirical experimentation to test these hypotheses, of deep analysis to measure the results, and then the ability to codify the results in a set of laws and predictions. Claiming for themselves, in this sense, a parallel certainty of laws and predictions as and laws demanded by the natural sciences, positivism reveals to the social sciences phenomenal objects as they really are — as they are when stripped of superstitions, fallacious theories, prejudice and so on. Positivism demands a definite residue of facts and ‘truths’ that are universally applicable to social groups and communities irregardless of time, place or environment. In striving so vigorously for such ideals, positivism gives the social sciences a high degree of authority and respectability within the wider scientific and academic community as a whole. Further, a positivist approach in the social sciences affords a ready means of comparison and exchange of knowledge between other disciplines such law, philosophy, literature and so that employ positivism also. Indeed, in seminal respects, such is the importance of positivism for the social sciences that it is difficult to see how they could justify being ‘sciences’ without it.

The two principal disadvantages of a positivist application to the social sciences are these: firstly, that its search for ideal and perfect standards of scientific methodology and analysis are too unrealistic when set beside the extreme complexity of social phenomenon; the second weakness, is positivism’s lack of empathy and consideration of the subjective, individual and hermeneutic aspects of social phenomenon. Dealing with the first objection, critics of positivism argue that it cannot — working as it does in the outside world, in cities and in companies, in villages and mass organizations — attain the same standards of empirical excellence, either in experimentation or in verification of results, as can natural scientists working in the controlled conditions of a laboratory and deriving principles mostly from inanimate matter of slighter sophistication than human beings. Moreover, social scientists have a nearly insuperable difficulty in codifying laws of social phenomena with the precision that physics or chemistry allow for material phenomena. Thus positivism in the social sciences attains a lower level of prediction and accuracy with respect to the phenomenon it observes, than do the natural sciences. The second major weakness of a positivist application is its failure to take sufficient account of the subjectivity of individual life and to interpret the meaning of that phenomenon for the subject and the community of the subject. On these matters positivism has nearly nothing to say, and thus it is barred from a whole hemisphere of human social experience.

As the first sentence of this conclusion suggested: neither an extreme positivist not an extreme subjective or hermeneutic attitude can dominate the future of the social sciences. Rather, social scientists must learn to join positivism with subjectivism, thus fusing the two halves of social phenomenal experience. If positivism can be brought into union with the subjective in the social sciences, and if positivists can learn to tolerate something less than perfection in their methodological approach, then positivism must still be said to have a large contribution to make to the future of social science. In might be said then, in our final words, that positivism is simultaneously an advantage and disadvantage for the social sciences; whether one or other of these qualities is dominant remains to be seen.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

— Dowding, K. (2001). ‘There Must Be An End To Confusion: Policy Networks,

Intellectual Fatigue, and the Need for Political Science Methods Courses in British

Universities, in Political Studies, Vol 1., pp. 89-105.

— Dowding, K. (1995). Model or Metaphor? A Critical Review of the Policy of

Network Approach. Political Studies, Vol. 45, Issue. 1, pp. 136-158.

— Green, D. P. & Shapiro, I. (1994). Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory : A

Critique of Applications in Political Science, pp. 89-95. New Haven, London.

— Gerrard, James. (1969). The Sociology of the Family, pp. 303-316. Ford Press,

Pittsburgh.

— King, G. (et al.). (1994). Designing Social Enquiry: Scientific Inference in

Qualitative Research, pp 201-208. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

­— Hugh-Jones, Steven & Laidlaw, James. (2000). The Essential Edmund Leach,

p163. New Haven, London.

— Marsh, David & Smith, Martin. (2001). ‘There Is More Than One Way To Do

Social Science: On Different Ways To Study Political Networks’ in Volume 49,

Number 3, pp. 528-541.

— Marsh, David & Furlong, Paul. (2002). ‘A Skin Not a Sweater: Ontology and

Epistemology in Political Science’ in Marsh, David and Stoker, Jerry (Eds.).

Epistemology in Political Science, pp. 17-41. Palgrave, Basingstoke.

— Popper, Karl R. (1983). Realism and the Aim of Science, pp 1-13. Routledge,

London.

— Popper, Karl R. (1989). Conjectures and Refutations: the Growth of Scientific

Knowledge, 69-76. Routledge, London.

— Quirk, Randolph (et al.) (Eds.). (1989). The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford

University Press, Oxford.

Individual Family culture VS Traditional Family Culture.
Advantages Of The Nuclear Family

While discussing about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear family, the first and foremost point pops up in the mind of a person is privacy of life.

Privacy: The couple can get their privacy in their own house in nuclear families whereas you cannot get your privacy in a joint family. People can live their own way and can do whatever they want to. There are no such boundaries set by the elders to follow.

Financial stability: When we talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the nuclear family, then financial stability is one of the strongest points in the nuclear family. One can be financially strong because of limited expenses. There is less number of people in the nuclear family and hence less expenses. You cannot have a strong financial stability if you are the only person who is earning in a joint family.

Freedom: The elders restricts youngsters not to do certain tasks because they think this is not good for them. But today’s generation is very smart. They know what is good and bad for them and have enough analytical power so they don’t like to restrict themselves. Instead, they want their freedom so that they can do and achieve whatever they want in their life.

Ease in moving: When you have a nuclear family, you face fewer problems while shifting from a house. You can manage your things according to you without disturbing the lives of other people. This is one of the major advantages of the nuclear family.

Avoidance of stress and discomfort: Some people are emotional. They can’t tolerate any kind of fun that is on them and in the joint family, one need to have much high patience. But, nuclear families has the advantage that if you live in the company of those with whom you are very comfortable then there is no need to take any stress and your discomfort also get vanished in a moment.

Disadvantages Of The Nuclear Family

While thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of the nuclear family, a person should also think that it is not always good to live in a nuclear family. At certain points, you realize the value of joint family. Here are those points which will teach you the importance of joint family and disadvantages of nuclear families.

No care: If the parents are working and children suffered from any small or big disease, then one needs to deal with it alone as they don’t have elders and other family members to take care of. This is the major disadvantage of the nuclear family. One is alone and feels even sicker when he sees no one around.

Problems to children: If your child is small and needs special care, then at that point, you will definitely find the nuclear family not good enough. You will always think that if you were in a joint family then this condition would never arise as you have other family members who can take care of the child and in the mean time, you can do your work.

Security and safety: Security is one another disadvantage in the nuclear family. People feel insecure in the nuclear family. There are so many cases of robbery and murders and many of them are from nuclear family itself, as it is easier to grab someone who lives alone in a house or with less number of people.

No support: When we talk about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear family, support is the thing one will always miss. If there is an argument between the couple then there is no one to support any one of them. They have to deal with their problem alone without any support. Sometimes due to open nature and ego, the fight results in divorce or separation because there was no one to make them understand the basics of a relationship.

Extra Expenses: When you live in a community or in a joint family, then you have the liability to keep other happy and familiar to you. In order to do this, you need to do some extra expenses. Suppose, you bring some gift for your child then it is also important to bring some gift for other children in the family.

TRADITION FAMILY CULTURE:- In an extended family, parents and their children’s families may often live under a single roof. This type of joint family often includes multiple generations in the family. From culture to culture, the variance of the term may have different meanings.

Advantages of Joint Families

Cradle of social virtues: Joint family is like a nursery to teach social virtues. It helps to develop social virtues like co-operation, sympathy, sacrifice, affection, spirit of selfless service, obedience and broadminded.

Insurance against olds: Joint Family Acts as insurance for the members of the family at the time of crisis. It provides social security to its members especially to the old, the infirm, the unemployed persons, the orphans, the widowed daughters and sisters as well as the physical and mentally handicapped among them. For all such persons the joint family acts as an insurance company.

Division of labour: In a joint family each member is given work according to his or her capacity. The men, women and children all have to work. For example, in a peasant joint family all the members work actively according to their ability. The old persons and children of the family watch the crops in the field. During the harvest season, the women in some families help in harvesting. This there is no need of procuring labour from outside the family.

Socialism in Wealth: According to Sir Henry Maine joint family is like a co-operative society with the father as the trustee. Every member in the joint family works conforming to the well established socialist formula; each works according to his or her ability and gets according to his or her needs.

Avoids fragmentation of land: Joint family avoids the evils or fragmentation of land by holding the property in common. Joint family is almost like a joint-stock company.

An agency of social control: Another advantage of joint family is that it acts as an agency of social control. In joint family there is a close supervision over the anti-social and unsocial activities of the young member.

Opportunity for leisure: Joint family affords ample leisure to its members. Both the male and female members divide the household works and finish it in a short time spending the rest of the day in leisure. They never feel over burdened.

Money saving device: Joint family is advantageous from the economic viewpoint. This system helps in securing economy in expenditure. Since things are consumed in a large quantity they can be obtained at cheap rate. A large family can be maintained within a small means if it lives jointly.

Disadvantages of Joint Family

Home for Idler: Joint family rests on collective responsibility. This sometimes accounts for laziness among some members. No doubt the active members do hard work. But when they get equal share in the food cooked at the common hearth, some members may become lazy and may not feel the necessity of doing any productive work. They spend their time in eating, sleeping and begetting children.

Hindrance in the development of personality: Joint family hinders the development of personality. Under the joint family system the head of the family or Karta is all in all. He is the sole authority to take any decision in family affairs. Other members, especially the juniors do not get a chance to think independently to take any independent decision. Thus development of personality is arrested.

Favours uncontrolled reproduction: Joint family is said to be associated with higher birth rate. Member does not feel the need of birth control because the children rest on the family as a whole.

Hot bed of quarrel: Joint family is the hotbed of quarrels and bickering. Quarrels are common among the female members of the family. Quarrels between the wives of brother, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is very common.

Source of litigation: Sometimes joint-family system encourages, litigation. At the time of the partition of movable or immovable property in the family dispute assumes serious proportion and most of the time these are not settled without the interference of the court of law.

Loss of privacy: Over crowdedness in joint family kills one’s privacy. The newly married man and his wife hardly get the time to meet and talk rarely in joint family.

Low position of women: Under the joint family system the woman is relegated to low status. Her condition in the family is worse. Particularly the condition of a daughter-in-law is very miserable. She is often ill-treated by her mother-in-law. Her life is no way better than that of a slave. In many cases, the ill treatment by the elderly women becomes so unbearable that they seek a permanent relief in committing suicide.

Suburbanisation: is it a dream or is it a nightmare? There are many varying opinions and attitudes in relation to this subject matter of suburbanisation across the globe today and this consequently causes difficulty in answering the above question. It is essential however to evaluate and have an understanding of this concept of suburbanisation prior to answering the proposed question. Thus what is suburbanisation? From my research and studies in this subject area of geography I can indeed identify that suburbanisation is fundamentally the term used to describe the physical growth of the city at the urban-rural fringe, or quite simply the outskirts of the city. This indeed represents a very dramatic change in population tendencies with populations moving from the older urban cores to areas outside the core. It is undeniably a global phenomenon and has occurred in the majority of the world’s cities. These areas are primarily residential and are referred to as ‘suburbs’. In essence they represent areas of a lower population density that are situated close to and yet are functionally tied to the urban core. They can also be defined as the distinction between the city and the surrounding built-up areas, within the municipal area (McCafferty 2011). This American led process of creating residential housing at the edge of the city initiated in the nineteenth century and expanded rapidly after World War 2. What were the factors that initiated this process of suburbanisation and caused much of the world’s population to reside on the outskirts of the city? As cited by Latham et al, the extraordinary expansion of suburbia following World War Two in America was fuelled predominantly by racist concerns about inner-city crime and disorder (Latham et al 2009, p.139). The racial minority or the ‘black’ population of this time had no access to employment opportunities or jobs and consequently crime rates were quite high, enticing the ‘white’ community to move to the suburbs or what was more commonly referred to as the ‘White Flight’. In addition, in the United States there was segregated schooling up until 1954. However when legislation against segregated schooling was brought in, it led to prejudiced families who wanted their children educated in all ‘white’ schools moving to the suburbs or once again a ‘White Flight’. According to Latham et al, this process of suburbanisation was structured in all sorts of ways to exclude unwanted minorities (Latham et al 2009, p. 139) and one such example of how this was done was setting a minimum plot size in which the poorer population would be unable to afford and therefore eliminating them from the suburbs. There are also a number of other factors that have contributed to this global phenomenon and that has led to this movement of the urban population outward including:

Demand for low density living with more green space that is located away from the work place.

Transportation services: improvements in bus and rail services and indeed the increase in private car ownership facilitated suburbanisation and the movement outward as people became capable of commuting to near-by towns and cities for work.

Income tax: allowances promoting this idea of suburbanisation and home ownership were given via subsidies. Subsides were given on mortgage interest and mortgage payments were offset against income tax.

Differences in local tax rates of the city and the suburban areas: tax rates in city centres were higher due to the demand for public services and thus acted as a ‘push’ factor encouraging people to move to the suburbs.

The ‘American Dream’: the suburbs were seen as the ideal lifestyle that represented wealth and prosperity. Owning a home in a clean environment, away from the congestion of the city, yet that was close to the functions of the urban core.

Over time as suburbs prosper, attracting retail services and industry, they may become self-sufficient and what is known as an ‘edge city’ begins to emerge, and it particularly did so in the 1990’s. The term ‘edge city’ was identified by J. Garreau in 1991 and is essentially an American term used to describe a concentration of businesses, retail and entertainment facilities outside the initial urban area, typically a suburban neighbourhood, for example Tyson’s Corner in Virginia or perhaps Dooradoyle in Limerick city. Throughout the years the popularity of suburbs has been growing at an increasing rate with a large percentage of the urban population choosing to reside in the suburban neighbourhoods. This large concentration of population within a residential area undoubtedly causes problems, problems which lead me to believe that suburbanisation is indeed a nightmare. In order to portray the adverse impacts of suburbanisation I will be discussing issues such as segregation, social exclusion, polarisation and also delinquent behaviour, whilst making direct references to the suburban neighbourhoods of Moyross and Southill in Limerick city and the suburban neighbourhood of Ballymun in Dublin city.

Cities are extremely complex areas, defined by their heterogeneity and diversity as they possess a large population of various nationalities and ethnicities. As a result they are frequently seen as ‘networks of segregation and exclusion’ (Latham et al 2009, p.132). Segregation refers to a divide or complete separation of socialite groups and cities may be segregated by means of social aspects such as class, ethnicity and race. Cities comprise of a number of suburban neighbourhoods and residential areas which portray differing levels of residential segregation, dividing the wealthy from the poor and the ‘blacks’ from the ‘whites’ for example. Segregation is not just a residency issue however, but can also hinder the interaction of these socialite groups. This is known as social segregation and may influence what parks and pubs they visit. Suburban neighbourhoods can therefore be viewed as and indeed are viewed as the ‘. . . antithesis of community’ (Knox 1987, p.71) as they tend to be homogenous, both in social and demographic terms (Knox 1987, p.72). Suburban residents may represent a selected group having the same preferences for social activities. We can see evidence of segregation in almost every city worldwide with the poor concentrated in certain areas within the city, for example we see the emergence of ‘ghettos’, ‘dump estates’ and ‘unemployment blackspots’. Polarisation is associated with segregation within society that results in a sharp difference in social classes, or ‘polar’ opposites in fact, that can be present in cities today for example high-income earners and low-income earners. Social exclusion is another downside to the process of suburbanisation and the formation of ‘suburbia’ that occurs when certain social individuals, households or groups within society, including the poor, are excluded from full participation and enjoyment of modern society. This can be caused by not only social aspects but also political and economic aspects. According to Knox, geographers have been long interested in the relationships between the urban environment and certain aspects of people’s behaviour (Knox 1987, p.79) and this is indeed an issue that is prevailing within certain suburbs of cities. He argued that personality and urban settings influences individual group behaviour and in particular the way in which we see that anti-social behaviour is linked to urban settings (ibid). High levels of crime, drug use and other forms of delinquent behaviour can be seen in many suburbs throughout the world today.

Limerick city is indeed an exceptional example of a city that portrays suburbanisation as a nightmare. Supporting a suburban population of 50,000 (Fitzgerald 2007, p.4), Limerick is home to a number of suburban neighbourhoods that are illustrative of polarisation, social exclusion and segregation as well as deviant behaviour. Limerick City is marked by a stark degree of polarisation, in that it portrays areas that are significantly wealthy and areas that are significantly disadvantaged. This polarisation has a strong geographical expression which is defined by a ‘corridor of disadvantage’, extending from Moyross, through King’s Island, to Garryowen and finally Southill (McCafferty 2007, p.7). With particular reference to the social housing suburban estates of Moyross, which is located on the north side of the city and Southill, which is located on the south side, I will discuss how suburbanisation has proven to be a nightmare. Owner occupation became more widely feasible in the 1970’s and 1980’s and as the level of demand for social housing declined amongst middle and upper class families, social landlords were forced to move down market in search of clienteles (Fahey 1999, p.22) and thus these areas are commonly seen and referred to as the ‘. . . housing of the poor’ (Fahey 1999, p.33). Both estates provide evidence of this, with the poorer or the more disadvantaged concentrated there. One of the most damaging features of social housing as seen in Moyross and Southill, is its association with anti-social or delinquent behaviour including such activities as joy-riding, drug use and dealing, stealing and intimidation of neighbours. In addition these areas have high levels of unemployment and according to McCafferty much of the concern of social exclusion is concerned with this unemployment level (McCafferty 2007, p.73). He argued that areas with high levels of unemployment are usually characterised by low levels of educational attainment, high proportions of unskilled and semi skilled social classes and are usually of local authority housing (ibid). Education within these estates is not regarded as important and therefore a high level of truancy can be noted (Fitzgerald 2007, p.6). It is quite common for young children to be seen in these areas during school hours and according to Fitzgerald in 2007, due to a large number of kids being sent to school outside of these areas, the numbers in the primary schools in O’Malley Park and Moyross are approximately 25% of the levels of 10 years ago (p.6).

Moyross is a local authority housing estate situated on the north side of the city. Built in the 1970’s, the estate is home to over 1000 houses and 12 parks. Although the standard of the housing is good, the overall condition of the estate is quite poor, with illegal dumping, burnt-out houses due to criminal activity and furthermore, boarded up housing abundant within the estate (Fig 1). From the 1980’s Moyross experienced extreme levels of poverty and disadvantage and held an unemployment figure of 84% at this time (Community Development Network Moyross, 2009). The community has had a very high dependency on social welfare and according to the 2006 census lone parents made up 63.9% of households in the estate (ibid). In addition to this, in the same year, it was recorded that 29% of the population in Moyross had left school at or before the age of 15 (ibid). Due to the low level of education attainment, the high level of unemployment and dependency on the social welfare, poverty is a serious issue and consequently provides the basis for social problems. Burglaries, intimidation and other forms of delinquent behaviour are abundant within Moyross. One such example that highlighted Moyross as a nightmare suburban area was the incident of 2006, when there was a violent arson attack on a young brother and sister. Gavin and Millie Murray were severely burnt when a petrol bomb was thrown at the car in which they were occupying. This highlights and indeed accentuates the degree of anti-social behaviour that can be linked to suburban neighbourhoods and this undeniably reveals suburbanisation as a nightmare.

Fig 1. Picture illustrating the dilapidated housing present in Moyross that shows evidence of abandonment and neglect.

Source: Independent.ie, 2008.

Southill is located on the south side of the city and in order to illustrate suburbanisation as a nightmare I will discuss the estate of O’Malley Park in particular. O’Malley Park is one of four estates that make up the suburban neighbourhood of Southill. Built in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s at a time when there was a housing crisis, it is based on the Radburn layout where the ‘. . relationship between houses and access roads is limited’ (McCafferty 1999, p.215). Houses are facing an open green area and vehicle access is via ‘cul-de-sacs’ at the rear side of the houses (McCafferty 2011, ‘Limerick Fieldtrip’). The estate predominantly consists of a younger population and more specifically lone parent households. The process of maturation which you would expect to see is virtually absent due to the high levels of teen pregnancy and consequently the provision of housing for them here. In the 1970’s and 1980’s problems began with unemployment and given the low level of educational attainment it is hardly surprising that this leads to social problems. As we have seen in Moyross, anti-social or deviant behaviour is a common outcome. The

estate is occupied with a high number of burnt-out houses and dilapidated buildings (Fig 2), which makes housing in the area difficult to re-let. The anti-social behaviour has resulted in a large number of people leaving the estate, some forced to do so, and these are replaced by people even more desperate for housing. One Limerick Leader reader recalled her experience of living in O’ Malley Park:

“I am old now, old beyond my years. Exposure to violence, beatings, abandonment and abuse has scrawled lines on my heart and face that will never be removed. I am facing the end of my life with the most terrible memories suffered in the city during our “Tiger” years.” (Anonymous)

(Southill Children’s Fund, 2009)

Fig 2. Burnt out housing in O’Malley Park, Southill, which is indicative of the social problems that are present in the suburb.

Source: Southill Children’s Fund, 2009.

The scale of the criminal, social, and economic problems in these suburban areas and their vicinity, is not only a catastrophe for the communities that have to live there but could pose a real threat to commercial and social life in Limerick city as a whole (Fitzgerald 2007, p. 7).

Limerick is not the only city that highlights the problems of suburbanisation however. Dublin too is another example of a city which reveals suburbanisation as a nightmare, with particular reference to the suburban region of Ballymun. Ballymun is a public housing or local authority housing suburb located on the north side of Dublin city. Originally comprising of approximately 4,800 dwellings, it was made up of four, eight and fifteen storey blocks. In the 1980’s the Ballymun towers (Fig 3) experienced a drop in resident numbers and as flats became vacant it was the most deprived people of the inner city that were housed there, including lone parent families and welfare dependant people. With very little amenities within the suburb, the area began to submerge into social exclusion and indeed surfaced as a ‘ghetto’ or ‘blackspot’ with the population here experiencing a feeling of alienation and neglect. Due to the high dependency on social welfare in the Ballymun Flats, and the high unemployment rates in which it experienced, the suburb was poverty stricken and in the 1980’s and 1990’s Ballymun hit a downward spiral with major social problems continuously coming to the fore. This is still the case today and according to interviewees on Primetime, those that are still living in the remaining block, the vacant apartments are ‘homes to gangs’ (Primetime 2011) and are common places for youths to abuse illegal substances and engage in deviant activities including ‘. . .smashing windows . . .breaking lights . . .and starting fires’ (ibid). According to one interviewee the vacant flats are even used as ‘lavatories’ (ibid).

Fig 3. A picture showing the tower blocks in Ballymun which became a national symbol of poverty and drugs.

Source: DublinObserver.com, 2009.

The process of creating residential areas on the out-skirts of the city can indeed represent a nightmare. Social problems deriving from high levels of unemployment and welfare dependency are abundant within the estates I have discussed. Crime within these suburbs is a vicious circle and can indeed be seen as hereditary with generations of the same family often engaging in such criminal activity. Major action has been taken in order to combat this. There are plans for the regeneration of Moyross and O’Malley Park, with complete demolition and provision of facilities in mind, in order to combat and address this issue of social exclusion. Ballymun’s regeneration has already begun with the majority of the tower blocks already demolished. The regeneration programmes are indicative of the cost of the negative impacts suburbanisation can have and highlights this process as a nightmare.

Before I conclude this essay, it is essential to note that not all suburban areas represent a nightmare and suburbanisation in fact, can also be a dream. There are many estates throughout the world that are representative of a suburban community. Dooradoyle, a suburban neighbourhood in Limerick City, is an excellent example. It is predominantly an owner occupied suburb and in contrast to the case studies I have already mentioned, unemployment is not as serious an issue. As the community became more involved we see lower levels of crime and deviant behaviour, better availability of goods and services and in addition the presence of better educational facilities. Dooradoyle has expanded significantly in recent years and is home to such facilities as a cinema, one of Munster’s largest shopping centres, four primary schools, a secondary school and two rugby clubs. From my own knowledge and experience there is no clear signs of segregation with various social and ethnic groups living and socialising within the suburban area. In relation to this suburb I must disagree with Knox and state that suburbia in Dooradoyle is not the ‘. . . antithesis of community’ (Knox 1987, p.71).

To conclude with, and to answer the proposed question, suburbanisation can indeed be viewed as a nightmare. The examples which I have discussed, O’ Malley Park in Southill, Moyross and Ballymun all indicate the negative impacts that this process can have, socially in terms of segregation, social exclusion and deviant behaviour yet environmentally and also economically. Each of the estates discussed within this essay illustrate, to some extent, the degree of exclusion and neglect in which they are experiencing and consequently these estates hold dilapidated or ‘run-down’ housing, which as mentioned earlier maybe as a result of anti-social behaviour. In addition to this, it is essential to note now that there are plans for these estates to undergo a regeneration programme, with Ballymun’s regeneration already in place. These regeneration programmes are undoubtedly a drive to reverse the negative impacts mentioned that are associated with suburbanisation but also highlight the cost this process can have. It is also important to note however that people are still choosing to live in suburban regions all over the world and I pose the question why? Not all suburban neighbourhoods are a nightmare and there are some suburban neighbourhoods that represent a dream. Dooradoyle, which I have discussed briefly within the essay, indeed represents what I can understand by the term ‘suburban dream’. It is therefore evident from the evidence illustrated within this essay, that suburbanisation can indeed be a nightmare yet can also represent a dream.

In this essay I explore advantages and disadvantages social capital, which relates to social networks, the people we trust and mutual exchange of favours, the main feature here being social networks as they can be valuable to both the individual and the community, allowing information to be shared as well as promoting individuals and communities to be more trusting and equal.

Social capital has been defined in different ways over the years; James Coleman developed the concept as:

“The types of relations that exist between individuals as located within both families and communities, and that are said to exert a strong influence on levels of educational achievement.” Scott, J. and G. Marshall, (2005:606).

This view linking relationships within families and communities as a determinant of individuals’ social capital, identifying certain achievements as strong if these relationships are strong too:

“Deficiencies in social capital – such as would follow from single-parenthood, decreased parental involvement with the child or with family activities, and low levels of interaction between adults and especially parents in local communities – were detrimental to development in adolescence.” Scott, J. and G. Marshall, (2005:606).

Other influences on social capital include the social structures and the environment, which surround individuals, as well as their culture, norms and sanctions. This demonstrated in the three different types of networks within social capital, which include bonding, bridging and linking.

‘Bonding’ can be described as the social support we may receive from the people we are close to as part of our backgrounds, it “Relates to common identity, for example ties among people who are similar to each otheraˆ¦within communities.” ‘I&DeA’, (21/10/08), which include family members, individuals sharing the same ethnic groups or clubs.

While ‘Bridging’ can be described as the social cohesion between individuals and groups, bringing people together who would not normally relate to each other, it “Relates to diversity, for example ties among people who are different from one an otheraˆ¦across communities.” ‘I&DeA’, (21/10/08), which includes the conversations of varied views and interests between associations.

Lastly, ‘Linking’, where the associations between those gaining independence and democratic lifestyles due to status are links with those in authority, it “Relates to power, for example ties with those in authority or between different social classes between communities and organisations and with structures outside communities.” ‘I&DeA’, (21/10/08), which includes powerful institutions and the decision-making process for example, local authorities.

It is important to suggest that for social capital to be strong, ‘Bridging’ is the most important concept as it allows for more information to be passed between individuals and greater confidence for individuals and groups to become more involved with each other creating associations to benefit both the individual and the community:

“The Community Development Foundation describes social capital as increasing the confidence and capacity of individuals and small groups to get involved in activities and build mutually supportive networks that hold communities together.” ‘I&DeA’, (21/10/08).

Also, Robert Putnam who agrees with the concept that “trust, norms and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions” Putnam, R. (1993:167) cited by Harris, J. (2002:2), widens the concept, emphasising the importance of people’s involvement within informal activities and voluntarily participating or being part of voluntary associations, this also showing the importance of ‘Bridging’ capital.

However, as important social capital is claimed to be, Putnam has claimed a decrease in public participation in these informal activities and voluntary associations in particular societies therefore having a negative impact on social cohesion:

“Over the past thirty years we have become ever more alienated from one another and from our social and political institutions, and that this disengagement poses a critical threat to our personal health, local communities and national well-being.” This taken from ‘The Saguaro Seminar’, ‘Bowling Alone’, (2007).

Ii is important to evaluate some of the positive and negative affects of social capital, and here it is clear that some of the positive affects could include impact on individuals’ happiness as they form relationships and associations to benefit income as well as on personal health, while on the community, a positive impact could be shown on crime rates and educational attainment and more effective government, however, as Putnam claims above that there is a decline in social capital and therefore this having a negative influence to individuals and communities, (for example, increasing crime rates, decreasing educational achievement, teenage pregnancy, child suicide, etc).

The negative affects of social capital could include social exclusion as “many groups achieve internal cohesion at the expense of outsiders, who can be treated with suspicion, hostility or outright hatred” Walker, A. (2004).

Also, social capital can be used for ‘bad’ purposes, perhaps for profit rather than support of individuals and communities as they network.

The idea that there are less people participating in voting and showing political interest than those who take part in volunteering organisations perhaps shows one of the ways in which the voluntary and community sector are increasingly becoming an important feature within societies.

It is first important to understand the meaning of volunteer and community and then how they are important as a whole, a third sector.

‘Volunteering’ is “any activity which involves spending time, unpaid, doing something which aims to benefit someone (individuals or groups) other than or in addition to, close relatives, or to benefit the environment” ‘National Survey of Volunteering, (1997).

Voluntary associations have been defined as:

“Any public, formally constituted, and non commercial organisation of which membership is optional, within a particular society.” Scott, J. and G. Marshall, (2005:691).

This could include churches, political parties, pressure groups, leisure activity groups as well as professional associations, to encourage public participation to maintain social order.

The key features of voluntary organisations includes that they are independent and self-governing, driven by values and are to support others not to profit themselves, while a ‘Community’ is “a group of people living together in one place” who share either a common religion, race or other characteristic or interest that allows the group to be considered collectively.

Communitarianism emphasises the importance of responsibility and finding solutions to social problems within the community. Mark Granovetter (1973) developed a ‘weak ties’ theory that suggests individuals have strong ties, such as close friends and family, similarly to bonding, shows the support between individuals, while weak ties are those individuals have with acquaintances which can help to develop socio-economic status similarly to bridging in social capital. This concept demonstrates one of the ways in which social capital and the community are interconnected.

Together, the two above notions of volunteering and the community have much contribution toward improving individuals and groups lives.

The Voluntary and Community Sector, (VCS), has been outlined by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), as comprising the following characteristics:

· “Self-governing organisations, some registered charities, some incorporate non-profit organisations and some outside both classifications.

· Great range of size and structure of organisations.

· Work delivered for the public benefit, beyond the membership of individual VCO’s.

· Independence of both formal structures of government and the profit sector.

· Important reliance on volunteers to carry out its work.” ‘I&DeA’ (18/09/08).

This showing the importance that social capital and the government has on the VCS as networks and policy, and are needed to allow for the sector to grow and benefit the community, allowing for social cohesion and a growth of public participation, this avoiding the affects of what Putnam describes as ‘Bowling Alone’.

The way in which the VCS can be interconnected to social capital and government policy is shown by the cross-cutting review as the VCS’s are for “building social capitalaˆ¦contributing expertise and experience to policy formulation.” ‘I&DeA’ (18/09/08).

There are many advantages of the Voluntary and Community Sector, some of these include that there is variation in scope and it is very diverse, allowing any members of the public to participate in benefiting the community as well as themselves.

Also, the NCVO outlines that the VCS builds social capital, which helps to “bind society together”. ‘I&DeA’, (18/09/08). In addition the needs of others are met through “expertise and experience” ‘I&DeA’ (18/09/08), this allowing participants such as volunteers to gain training and skills to benefit themselves and the community. Flexibility is also an advantage, which allows for changing needs to be accounted for.

However, a disadvantage could still include the issue of social exclusion as a particular group may become less involved within the community as others form associations.

It is important to consider the way in which government policy is connected to social capital and to the voluntary and community sector, to help analyse the extent to which they are interconnected.

“In recent years Government interest in, and support for the Third sector organisations has been unprecedented. This can be seen for example in proposals for:

· Modernising the legal and regulatory framework for ‘charities’ and the wider ‘not-for-profit’ sector

· Facilitating third sector involvement in public service delivery, and

· Local regeneration and civil renewal schemes” NCVO, (2005-2007)

This shows how the government have helped to support the third sector by allowing implementing policies, which allow the sector to benefit.

More recently, the sectors have become ever more associated with each other as they begin to work together due to the government being less able to deal with certain social problems alone:

“There is now greater understanding that effective policy responses to many social problems such as inequality, unemployment and social exclusion require a cross-sectoral approach, with the government working with the third sector and the community.” Walker, A. (2004).

This ‘cross-sectoral’ approach takes into account that partnerships are the key to adjust areas of concern within society, allowing expertise and more funding toward services for greater gain and stronger social capital:

“There are now an increasing number of departmental strategy documents making reference to the advantages of addressing issues of social capital in policy as a means of improving social outcomes and promoting community cohesiveness and development.” Walker, A. (2004).

The implications partnerships will have includes that the community will benefit as more people will want to participate in the structures, as more plans are made. This also having a positive affect on community safety; such as ‘neighbourhood watch’ schemes, involving local people in criminal justice.

Overall, analysing the way in which social capital works as well as the development of the voluntary and community sector over recent years and the changing strategies of working together with other sectors such as the government, in order to maintain social order and benefit communities as a whole, it is evident that the three sectors are interconnected on many levels, whether it is to build bridges and create networks to benefit the community or to provide some sort of service to help in providing benefits as a whole.

Reference

Walker, A. (2004), Understanding Social Capital within Community/Government Policy Networks’

Scott, J. and G. Marshall, (2005), ‘Oxford Dictionary of Sociology’, Oxford University Press Inc, New York

NCVO, (2005-2007), http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/policy/index.asp?&id=2761 page updated (2007)

The Saguaro Seminar-Civic Engagement in America, (2007), ‘Bowling Alone’ http://www.bowlingalone.com/media.htm

Voluntary and Community Sector, (2008), http://www.idea.gov.uk

Putnam, R. D. (1993) ‘The prosperous community: social capital and public life’

‘Social Capital and Innovation’ Policy Klaus Nielsen (research paper, 2003).

www.lgib.gov.uk (2006) Social Inclusion.

The dramatic increase in average life expectancy during the twentieth century ranks as one of societys greatest achievements. While most babies born in 1900 did not live past age 50, life expectancy at birth now exceeds eighty-three years in Japan and is at least eighty-one years in several other countries (United Nations, 2011). Life expectancy is increasing so fast that half the babies born in 2007 will live to be at least 103, while half the Japanese babies born in the same year will reach the age of 107 (Boseley, 2009). It is certain that people are glad to live a longer life since longevity is the pursuit of most humans. However, longevity has also caused a lot of problems to society, such as financial burden, lack of resources and so on. This essay is to discuss both the advantages and disadvantages of the fact that people are living a longer life so that a clear picture of the situation is shown.

The advantages of longevity can be seen from both individuals and the society.

As for individuals, longevity has always been considered as a kind of treasure and fortune. And wisdom is usually linked with the elder. Death has always been regarded as something frightening and most people want to live a long life. Living longer means one can stay with his or her family longer and enjoy a happy later life. People spend most of their life working and taking care of their family. So it is simple common sense that people deserve a healthy and peaceful old age after the amount of paid work. Some people die without enjoying a pleasant twilight years, which is a great pity. On the other hand, that people live longer provides an opportunity for their children to return the care they have received from parents. As a saying goes, the tree may crave calm, but the wind will not drop and the off springs want to support but for the non-existent families. It is a pain and lifelong regret for many people. With parents living longer, children can have more time to stay with and show filial respect to them. So longevity helps to promote the harmonious relationship among family members.

As for society, longevity allows people to contribute more to the world with their talent and wisdom. So many prominent scientists and scholars and other elites died with regret that they could not accomplish their plan. For example, Zhu Shenghao, a talented Chinese translator of Shakespeare’s works, passed away at the age of 32 due to illness. If he could live longer, there might be more Chinese versions of Shakespeare and more people could appreciate the Chinese translation art. Another illustration is the early death of English poets such as Byron who died at 36, Shelley at 29 and Keats at 25. All of them are supremely gifted and great treasure to the academia but die so young. When their poems are read by people nowadays in modern time, their rich talent can still raise great admiration. What a pity it is for the world to witness the loss of so many extraordinary talents. Since people are enjoying a longer life now, scientists can discover and invent more, scholars can write more and artists can compose more. Therefore, people living longer can make more contributions to the world.

Moreover, business markets can also benefit from the reality that people live longer. Traditionally, it is believed that a person has three major periods of life: childhood, adulthood and old age. However, old age is now evolving into two segments, a third age (young old) and a fourth age (oldest old). Recognition of the older population as a major market for business is beginning, as evidenced by an increasing number of articles about the “silver market.” Because a great deal of wealth is held by the older population and the number of elders is increasing relative to other age groups, it makes sense for business to design products appealing to the older market, and to direct advertising to them. Consumption by the older population can stimulate the economy. The economic power of older adults also can act as a force to change the ageist stereotypes often perpetuated by advertising (Uhlenberg, 2013). In addition, since old people need to be taken care of, more nursing homes need to be built. This offers more jobs so that the unemployment can be reduced and social stability can be maintained.

Thus, it is beneficial to both individuals and the society with people living longer from the perspective presented above.

The Disadvantages of Longevity

The most obvious disadvantage of longevity people are facing now is the aging problem. The U.N. Population Division projects that people older than age 60 will increase from just less than 800 million in 2011 (11 percent of world population) to more than 2 billion in 2050 (22 percent). That is to say, by 2050, almost a quarter of the world population will be the aged. When walking in the street, one old person out of four will be seen. In a world with low fertility, low mortality, and restricted immigration, countries must deal with the reality of having 20 percent or 30 percent of their populations older than age 65 (Uhlenberg, 2013). The aging population causes a series of problems to the society.

First of all, old people have to be taken care of, which leave great burden to their family as well as the society. According to an article published in the journal Corporate Adviser, MGM Advantage calculates the current level of annual household expenditure where the main occupant is aged 75 and over at more than ?6,000. So if someone lived until they were 100, between their 75th and 100th birthday not including inflation, they would need to find around ?400,000 to live. This, combined with falling annuity rates, will lead to more pensioners falling below the poverty line. (Corporate Adviser 2011) Though that people live longer is good news, the fact that should not be neglected is that this has a huge financial burden on people. The great pressure to support old parents may lead to the cracks of relationship between children and parents. There are reports about old people who cannot afford to live in nursing homes and have no child to rely on. So it is the responsibility of the government to help the old. In developed countries, where acute care and institutional long-term-care services are widely available, the use of medical care services by adults rises with age, and per capita expenditures on healthcare are relatively high among older age groups. Accordingly, the rising proportion of older people places upward pressure on overall healthcare spending in the developed world (Kinsella, Beard and Suzman, 2013).

Secondly, longevity does not necessary mean health. The rate of getting illness increases with the growth of old age. In spite of the advances in medical technology, there are still many diseases that cannot be treated efficiently. For example, the prevalence of dementia increases dramatically with age, and the projected costs of caring for the growing numbers of people with dementia are daunting. The World Alzheimer Report 2012 (Alzheimer’s Disease International, 2012) estimates that the total worldwide cost of dementia exceeded US$600 billion in 2010, including informal care provided by family and others, social care provided by community care professionals, and direct costs of medical care. An Australian study has estimated that around 10 percent of the expected increase in healthcare costs anticipated over the next twenty years will be due to this condition alone (Vos, et al., 2007).

In addition, longer life expectancy and lower fertility rate may lead to lack of young working forces. The world with less young people will become less vigorous. And the increasing population is challenging the tolerance of the planet people are living on for most of the resources people are consuming are non-renewable. So it is urgent for human beings to do the best to protect the environment and save energy. Otherwise, longevity will become meaningless if one cannot live with contentment

Therefore, longer life expectancy of human beings creates burden to society and environment. However, the problems can be dealt with if people around the world work together.

Conclusion

Both the advantages and disadvantages of longevity have been discussed in detail above in this essay. Overall, the advantages of longer life span outweigh its disadvantages. It is obvious that though longer life expectancy puts burden on the society and environment, the problems caused can be tackled with the joint efforts made by people and it is urgent for human beings to do the best to save the environment and find out solution to the difficulties caused by the larger and larger population on the planet. On the other hand, the benefits both people and the world can get from the phenomenon of people living longer are irreplaceable and undeniable. It is the truth that longevity is a symbol of civilization and better life.

Children are often cherished in the United States. Parents all over the country eagerly wait for the day when they know what gender their child is, and what color to paint the baby’s room. Organizations provide social services to ensure a safe upbringing of American children. Each child is seen as a gift to families across this nation, so much that families commonly adopt children. Unfortunately our western societal views are not shared by other countries such as China; where thousands of girls are aborted, hidden, or abandoned. Although the United States allows the adoption of Chinese girls, the media rarely reports on Confucianism and lack of humanity resulting in the disregard of these children.

China has more than four thousand years of history and culture; a culture that typically favors boys rather than girls. Chinese culture emphasizes having a large family, but because of the rapid population growth, resulting in a ten year famine, restrictions of one child per family were implemented in 1979. Leaving an astounding number of disregarded girls. Due to this one-child policy, China has accepted international adoptions. According to the Washington Journal of Modern China, more than 63,000 Chinese orphans now have a permanent residence in the United States, but one lingering question remains ( qtd. in Gann 79). How can an entire country disregard a gender?

China’s culture has always maintained a Confucian structure of society. Confucianism can be defined as a preference for male authority, but also an emphasis on producing a large family. When implementing this ideology into a society, women should always hold a role less than that of a man. As a result, the pressure on women to produce a male heir in their families is emphasized in China. If no male heir is produced it is seen as a betrayal to the ancestors. According to Greenhalgh and Li and their (1995) findings in the villages of Shaanxi Province, more girls than boys are being given up for adoptions when the one-child policy was put into effect. These numbers are continuing to grow as well (qtd. in Jihong, Larsen, and Wyshak 23). This discrimination is a result of China being an agricultural society. Rural families often own farms that require hard labor in order to be successful. Because men are viewed as stronger workers when compared to women, a male child is typically preferred. Also the difference in wages between males and females in China are growing, with women normally making little over fifty percent of that of a male’s income (Gann 73).

In 1949 the Chinese government tried to promote the new social place of women; unfortunately this effort conflicts with a tradition lasting over twenty-two centuries. Discrimination of women are still prevalent, and even more so in rural areas. In 135 BC Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty implemented the Confucianism as an orthodox state ideology in China. It is probably safe to say that Confucianism is not leaving China for centuries to come (Gann 80).

It should be noted that China has a unique way of dealing with social security. Typically the female children marry and leave the household, whereas male children stay to take care of the parents in elderly years. For thousands of years the Chinese culture has practiced this tradition. Therefore, the parents are ensuring their wellbeing by having a son instead of a daughter. It is a driving motivation normally not discussed in the media (Gann 79).

Currently the population in China has reached an astounding 1.32 billion. In the 1970’s China provided a solution for population control, known as the one-child policy. This policy is enforced on the dominant Han ethnicity to have only one child. The rules on other populations in China vary depending on minority and the region. According to this policy, if the first child is a boy, then the family can have no more children. In some rural areas families are permitted to have two children. If the first child is a girl, then they can have a second child. This policy implies that boys are preferred, more so than girls. The parents must pay thousands of dollars in order to keep a second child that is a girl. If these families have another child that is a boy, the girl, which has been in the family for quite some time, is usually put up for adoption. Orphaned boys are handled a little differently. Although Confucianism teaches about the importance of maintaining a bloodline, boys are more likely to be adopted and raised in secret as an offspring (Gann 73-79).

The one-child policy has had one major back-lash. Today the population has 13 million more males than females. In the schools the girls are completely outnumbered by the boys. The ratios of gender in births are increasingly uneven; so much that there are currently 40 million girls that are “missing” from the overall population, either due to abortion, female infanticide, or unreported births. Therefore, it is predicted that in the next decade 40 million men are expected to not have a woman to marry. This issue is prevalent today in China, where cases of women being abducted and sold as wives, forced marriages are common, and prostitution is growing. In rural areas female infanticide is common. The numbers of these cases are expected to increase in future years (Weiguo 66).

The one-child policy has its pros and cons. In China it is praised for solving an economic crisis, because the population was exceeding and the country could not support so many children. The opposing argument is that it is supporting female infanticide. Also, the orphanages are overwhelmed with babies with no home. The Chinese welfare system does not have enough money to maintain these orphanages. For example, ‘the Wuhan Orphanage in southern China that noticed a great increase in the number of female orphans’ (qtd. in Gann 77).

It is prevalent that there is a great shift in humanity between the United States and China; humanity meaning the human species, human nature, and the importance of the experience of life. Today in American culture we are conflicted about abortion, where in China children can be born and discarded without a second thought. Although illegal, some Chinese soon-to-be parents will get an ultrasound to determine the gender of the child, and then abort it if it is a girl.

Perhaps it is a result of these issues that China opened its doors to international adoptions in 1992. Since then thousands of Chinese children, mostly girls, were taken in by American families. Where in one country these girls are viewed as useless and burdens, in another they are loved and accepted as family. In the United States these young girls can grow up getting an education, choosing a career path, choosing their own spouse, and finding an appreciative role in our society. If adopted into the United States, these children can thrive in a healthy environment (Jihong, Larsen, and Wyshak 21).

37.3 percent of parents seeking to adopt from China are childless. Whereas it is more common in the United States to wait a few years after marriage to conceive a child, in China societal pressures to have children begin at the beginning of marriage. Within a year if a child is not produced then couples often seek medical opinions about reproducing. If medical advice does not lead to conception, these Chinese couples will typically adopt a daughter, because waiting for a son to adopt could take years. Chinese couples that do adopt a son pay a higher price for a boy than that of a girl. In most cases these families adopt a daughter in hopes of producing a son in later years, because they could be fined for having two sons (Weiguo 69).

According to the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA), there are restrictions and a procedure to follow when adopting from China (qtd. in Gann 79). The parents must be 30 years old or older in order to adopt. An application must be sent to an American adoption agency. It then takes 14 to 15 months for the parents to get a medical record, picture, and the name of the child. After another two months the agency will gather a group together to travel to China for two weeks. There they finally meet their children and finish up the process. The whole procedure takes about two years (Gann 80).

In the past decade more restrictions were implemented for adoptive parents. There are now restrictions on the applicant’s weight, no one considered obese can adopt, and also on unmarried applicants. As homosexual marriages are banned in the majority of the United States, the new restrictions are preventing homosexuals from adopting. People with mental disorders, including depression and anxiety, cannot adopt from China. Also, the adopting family must have a net worth of $80,000. Informal adoptions are more common. In rural areas in China the adoption process is typically informal; which accounts for eighty percent of overall adoptions in China (Gann 79).

As a result of China being the number one place to adopt from, a globalization has occurred between the United States and China. There is now an apparent closer link between these different countries possibly due to the international adoptions. These adopted children are learning Chinese as a second language, cooking Chinese food, and some families are even celebrating Chinese festivals in order to keep their children’s culture alive. One can only hope that this is a two-way street, meaning that China can in turn accept some of the western ideologies about humanity; although unlikely, due to China’s resistance to western influence and their beliefs to keep their tradition and heritage alive (Dowling and Brown 352).

There are also cultural conflicts with international adoption. Chinese people find it hard to understand why American families adopt children and raise them as their own offspring. In some Chinese cultures stepchildren are seen as burdens on families. There is such a great emphasis on Confucianism and the family blood line that the Chinese rarely adopt. The American reasons for adoption are mainly based on religious and humanitarian reasons, which make it even more difficult for the Chinese to understand.

Because of the expenses involved with Chinese adoption, Americans are beginning to reflect something once seen as a good deed, as negative, by generalizing the Chinese adoption as exporting babies to make a profit. The average cost to adopt from China is about $20,000 dollars (Weiguo 70). It is argued that the money is not to make a profit, but instead help the welfare system in China. Nevertheless, conflicts are emerging between the United States and China about exporting goods, and now babies.

Perhaps these cultural conflicts could be resolved if the American and Chinese media would take more interest in reporting on these children. By broadcasting this growing issue across the United States, it is possible that more families would open their hearts and homes to these innocent children who are currently being raised in an orphanage due to blatant discrimination. With the increasing issue of prostitution, female infanticide, forced marriages, and abduction in China, American adoptions are certainly a better option for these young girls. As Americans adopt Chinese children, in turn the Chinese could adopt our views on humanity. With the growing popularity of In Vitro in the United States, fewer couples will adopt, leaving many children in China in orphanages. With more media coverage, the ignorance on this topic could be resolved and more families could take interest in adopting from China. And as we take home a piece of their culture, we could leave China a piece of ours; that every human life is valuable.

Work Cited

Dowling, Monica, and Gill Brown. “Globalization And International Adoption From China.” Child & Family Social Work 14.3 (2009): 352-361. Consumer Health Complete – EBSCOhost. Web. 23 Nov. 2012.

Fang, Gann. “A Special US-China Relationship: American Adoptions Of Chinese Children.” Washington Journal Of Modern China 9.1 (2008): 73. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 23 Nov. 2012.

Liu, Jihong, Ulla Larsen, and Grace Wyshak. “Factors Affecting Adoption In China, 1950-87.” Population Studies 58.1 (2004): 21-36. Environment Complete. Web. 23 Nov. 2012.

Zhang, Weiguo. “Who Adopts Girls And Why? Domestic Adoption Of Female Children In Contemporary Rural China.” The China Journal 56 (2006): 63. JSTOR Arts & Sciences I. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.

Enzymes were discovered by a German chemist Eduard Buchner near the end of the 19th century. He had been trying to extract a fluid for medicinal use from yeast, however, the yeast extract kept going bad. He then decided to add sugar to the yeast, however, the yeast converted the sugar into alcohol, which is also known as fermentation. Buchner investigated into this and soon found out that living cells were not responsible for this fermentation and that it was caused by the fluid that was trying to be extracted from the yeast. The word enzyme was coined for the active ingredients in the juice that promoted fermentation. Although enzyme literally means “in yeast”, it is now however being used as the collective noun for several hundreds of compounds that have shown to have a catalytic action on specific chemical reactions.

Enzymes are biological or organic catalysts made up of protein. They catalyse (increase/decrease the rate of) chemical reactions without themselves being chemically changed at the end of the reaction. It can therefore be used repeatedly and so is effective in small amounts. They essentially work by lowering the activation energy of the reactions and hence allowing the reaction to place at a quicker rate. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules are the start of the process are called substrates, and the converted molecules, the products.

Properties of enzymes:

Enzymes have the following properties:

Enzymes alter the rate of chemical reactions without themselves being chemically changed at the end of the reaction.

Enzymes are very potent. Since enzymes are very specific, a small amount of an enzyme is capable of catalysing a huge chemical reaction.

Enzymes are affected by temperature. Enzymes are inactive at low temperatures. Increasing the temperature increases the activity of the enzymes. There is an optimum working temperature at which certain enzymes work best. This is normally between 37-42 degree centigrades. However, a high temperature, anything above 45 degree centigrades normally destroys the active sites of the enzymes and causes it to denature. This permanently damages the enzyme and they become functionless.

Enzymes are affected by pH. Certain enzymes work best in acidic conditions whereas certain enzymes function better in alkaline conditions. For example, pepsin works best in the stomach where the pH is below 7, however intestinal enzymes work better in coditions of pH of above 7.

Some enzymes may require a compound to be bound to them before they can catalyse chemical reactions. These compounds are called co-enzymes.

Enzymes can work in either directions. Metabolic reactions are reversible and the direction in which the reaction goes depends on the amounts of substrate and products present. The reaction will proceed from left to right until an equilibrium is reached between the substrates and products. Also, if there is a large amount of products, then the reverse reaction starts and hence causes the product to be split up until again equilibrium is established.

Lock and Key & Induced Fit Hypothesis:

Although enzymes have a large size, however, they only have a small region that is functional. This is known as the active site. Active sites can be described as depressions on the surface of the enzyme. Only a few of the amino acids of the enzyme molecule make up this active site; the remainder are used to maintain its overall three-dimensional shape. The active site is the site where the substrate binds onto the enzyme and only substrates with a particular molecular shape will have any chance to bind effectively with the particular enzyme. This is the reason why enzymes are specific in their actions as they can only bind to specific substrate molecules.

Another idea which arose from the lock and key hypothesis is the induced fit hypothesis that suggests that the enzyme alters its shape slightly to ensure that the enzyme molecules bind tightly with the substrate molecule. However, once the product or substrate leaves the active active site, the active sight realigns itself to its original form.

Now, having discussed enzymes generally, we shall move onto discussing the enzymes more specific to this experiment. The enzyme being used in this investigation is Neutrase. Neutrase is a bacterial protease which is produced from a bacterial strain called Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens. Protease is an enzyme which catayses the hydrolysis of proteins into polypeptides/amino acids. In humans, the digestion of protein chiefly starts in the stomach with Pepsin in the gastric juice where the proteins are converted into polypeptides. Protein digestion is represented in this experiment by the fact that when the proteins in the milk are digested, the solution turns from opaque cloudy white to a see-through solution.

In an enzyme controlled reaction such as that of protein digestion in milk, an increase in the concentration of enzyme will lead to an increased reaction rate. This is due to the fact that when there are more enzyme molecules present, there will be a greater chance of more of the enzyme molecules colliding with the substrate and hence increasing the frequency of the collisions. This increased frequency of collisions will help to form an enzyme-substrate complex more rapidly.

Aim:

The aim of this experiment is to see if there is a negative correlation between the enzyme concentration and the rate of digestion of the protein content in the milk. Increase in enzyme concentration leading to decrease in the rate of digestion of protein content.

Hypothesis:

H1 – There is a positive correlation between the enzyme concentration and the rate at which the protein content in the milk digests. (Increase in rate of reaction).

H0 – There is no correlation between the enzyme concentration and the rate at which the protein content in the milk digests. (No affect on rate of reaction).

Equipment:
Equipment
Justification For Use

Marvel Powdered Milk

The source of protein upon which the enzyme to work on.

Enzyme (Neutrase )

The enzyme which digests the protein content in the milk.

Sodium Phosphate Buffer (pH 6.4)

In order to ensure the pH of the solution remains constant for optimal working of the enzyme.

Test Tubes And Test Tube Rack

Test Tube: To hold the enzyme, buffer and milk powder solution.

Test Tube Rack: To hold the test tubes.

Measuring Cylinder

To measure out the volume of distilled water.

Measuring Scale

To measure out the mass of the milk powder.

Pipette And Pipette Filler

To measure out accurately the volume of the enzyme.

Beakers

To hold the water and the test tubes containing the enzyme, buffer and milk powder solution.

Stopclock

To time the duration it takes for the enzyme to completely digest the protein content in the milk.

Syringe

To add the solution of the enzyme, buffer and milk powder into the curvettes.

Colorimeter

To measure the light absorbancy values.

Preliminary Experiment:

A preliminary experiment was conducted initially in order to test whether the method intended for use was flawless or not. However, through the conduction of this experiment, a number of flaws were noticed and hence dealt with to produce a more flawless and sound experimental procedure.

In the preliminary experiment, it was decided that the temperature of the solution containing the enzyme would be kept constant by using a bunsen burner. However, fluctuation in temeperature were going to be evident and hence causing inaccuracies. Consequently, it was decided to use a thermostatically controlled water bath to keep the temperature constant.

Also, when using the colorimeter, I decided to place the solution inside the curvette and then place it onto the colorimeter and record the values over time until it reached 0. However, this would give inaccurate results based on the fact that when the solution was removed from the water bath and placed inside the curvette, the temperature would decrease over time and hence affect enzyme activity. As a result, it was decided that the solution be removed from the water bath and placed into the curvette at regular intervals. After every 20 seconds, a new curvette would be used with solution removed from the water bath and then placed onto the colorimeter to record the light absorbancy values.

Method:

Measure out 10.00 grams of milk powder using an electronic mass balance into a beaker. Then measure out 200 cm^3 of distilled water using a measuring cylinder. Add the water into the beaker containing the milk powder and use a spatula to stir the solution well.

Now, different concentrations of enzymes are to be prepared.

To make a 1% concentration solution of enzyme, add 1cm^3 of the Neutrase into a test tube using a pipette. Then add 99cm^3 of distilled water measured out using a measuring cylinder. Shake the test tube containing the solution (100cm^3) well.

To make a 2% concentration solution of enzyme, add 1cm^3 of the Neutrase into a test tube using a pipette. Then add 98cm^3 of distilled water measured out using a measuring cylinder. Shake the test tube containing the solution (100cm^3) well.

Use the same method as above to make 3%,4% and 5% solutions. Place each of the test tubes into the test tube rack.

Add Sodium Phosphate Buffer ( 6.4 pH ) to each test tube.

Place one of the test tubes containing the enzyme solution and any one of the milk solution test tubes into the water bath for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, immediately pour the enzyme solution into the test tube containing the milk solution.

Use a colorimiter to check the amount of light passing through the solution with time. Press ‘R’ to reset the colorimeter (use the red filter) as red light is transmitted the best and this will give accurate readings.

After every 10 seconds, place some solution from the test tube into the a curvette and the curvette onto the colorimeter and record the result.

Variables:

The sole independent variable in this experiment is the concentration of the Neutrase solution which ranges from (1-5)%.

Other variables which could affect the investigation have been tabulated as follows:

Variable

How may a change in this variable affect the data?

How will it be controlled?

Type of milk used.

Some milks will have more or less protein molecules present than others which alters the amount of substrate molecules being available to form enzyme-substrate complexes.

This will be controlled by ensuring that the same milk powder is used throughout the experiment.

pH of the solution.

Enzymes work better in solutions of different pH. The activity of the enzyme depends upon the pH of the solution; if optimal pH solution is used, the enzyme would work better than if non-optimum pH was used.

This will be controlled by ensuring that a pH buffer ( Sodium Phosphate – pH 6.4) is used. This will minimise any changes in the pH of the solution and ensure that the optimum pH is kept constant for efficient working of the enzyme.

Volume of Neutrase solution used.

A larger volume would of enzyme ( Neutrase ) soltuion would result in a greater amount of enzyme-substrate complexes and hence increasing the rate of the reaction.

Neutrase solution volume will be kept constant by precisely measuring the volume required using a pipette and pipette filler.

Temperature of the solution.

Temperature alters the rate of enzyme activity and a higher temperature would result in greater enzyme activity. However, anything normally above 45 degree centigrades would lead to denaturing of the enzyme.

Using a thermostatically controlled water bath will maintain a constant temperature. The temperature would be kept constant at the optimum working temperature for the enzyme.

Volume of milk used.

A larger volume of milk would result in a greater amount of enzyme-substrate complexes being formed as there is a greater number of protein present and thus increasing the rate of the reaction.

Milk volume will be kept constant by precisely measuring the volume required using a pipette and pipette filler.

Health & Safety Regulations:

Wearing a lab coat inside the laboratory.

Wearing safety goggles to protect the eyes from chemicals.

Wearing plastic gloves when handling the enzyme and milk solution and to prevent contamination.

Keeping the test tubes in a rack to prevent accidental breakage or spilling.

Bunsen burners will be ensured that they are kept on yellow flame when not in use.

Conclusion:

The results of the experiment prove that the H1 hypothesis is correct. There is a positive correlation between the enzyme (Neutrase) concentration and the rate at which the protein in the milk digests. In other words, increasing the concentration of the enzyme increases the rate of reaction.

The results show that an increase in the concentration of the enzyme leads to a descrease in the time taken for the solution to go clear. This is due to the fact that when the concentration of the enzyme is increased, there are more active-sites present on the enzymes onto which the substrate binds onto. This creates more and more enzyme-substrate complexes. The higher concentration of enzyme increases the kinetic energy of the molecules and increases the frequency of the collisions between the enzyme and substrate molecules. A lower concentration of enzymes means there would be fewer active sites and hence, a slower rate of reaction.

However, if we kept increasing the concentration of the enzyme, one would notice that the line would start to level off because all of the active sites on the enzymes would be occupied and hence, increasing the concentration would have no effect on the rate of the reaction.

Evaluation:

Observing the results, one can easily generate the conclusion that there is a positive correlation between the enzyme concentration and the digestion of the protein content. Even though, the set of results achieved are not fully accurate and hence, there are anomalies. However, improvements can be made to minimise inaccuracies and unreliability in the experiment.

One of the factors that could have affected the experiment could have been human reaction error in timing. Also, the starting of the stop-clock for each of the tubes could have been different and this could have resulted in unreliable results. To avoid this, however, an automatic stop-clock could be used.

Another factor that could have affected the experiment could have been the movement of the reacting mixture constant. The mixing between the substrate ( Protein in the milk ) and the Enzyme ( Neutrase ) could not have been same in each tube. This could have resulted in inaccuracies in the result as the molecules in the tubes with the better mixing would have greater kinetic energy and hence, the reaction rates would be quicker as more and more enzyme-substrates would be formed quicker. To avoid the extent of mixing in each tube from affecting the results, I will ensure that next time, there will be no stirring of the mixtures when solutions are added in any way so that this way, it will be constant ( no mixing ) for each tube.