In what ways can 'childhood' and 'youth' be understood as social Essay

In what ways can 'childhood' and 'youth' be understood as social constructions - Essay Example The objective of this essay is to identify the different ways childhood and youth is because of social construction. The essay will mainly use Kehily’s book understanding youths. Kehily is one of the most popular sociologists in the world today. She has researched on many issues relating to childhood, youths, gender and sexuality. In the book Understanding Youths, she has used history and sociocultural approaches to prove that childhood is a social construction. The use of history and sociocultural approaches is important in her book since in part one, she talks about perspective. She has used past researches by other sociologists in trying to show the changes that childhood has undergone based on the time period, culture and the economic activities during the time stated. She has used Aries findings that in the 15th century, children even at the age of 5 years were free to do anything that the adults were doing (Classen, 2005, p. 171). This changed in the 16th century, where children were for economic purposes since they could work to boost the family’s income. During the industrial revolution, childhood changed since the law against child labor was introduced thus children suffered from separation with their parents. In 1950, childhood took another twist and it was the beginning of children being very dependent on their parents (Veerman, 1992, p. 58). The second part of Kehily’s book is self-identity; she has based her argument on the historical findings that childhood is different due to the social status (Kehily, 2007, p. 19). She claims that in the West; whose occupants were wealthy spoilt their children, this is different with the Western region where childhood had no meaning since their parents were poor thus they had to work. The third part of the book covers the activities and that the youths engage in thus gaining experience. She states that

International area study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

International area study - Essay Example The significance of the slave trade made historians feel the need of coming up with literature on the practice. Numerous literature pieces have been written with different scopes on slave trade. For instance, some pieces are written by slaves, by the slave traders and by the slave masters. This particular paper will analyze two literature pieces: one by Mary Prince, a slave and the other by John Barbot who was a slave trader. Additionally, the paper will also analyze the significance of historians in distributing the moral responsibility of the slave trade. The narration by Mary Prince is done by a slave. The story is a narration of the slave’s life in the hands of her masters. Mary Prince was a slave to more than one master since her birth (230). She was born of a slave mother, what made her an automatic slave (Prince 230). At a young age, Mary Prince was not subjected to hard labor like the rest of the slaves. Her role as a child was to ensure that the duties given by her ma sters or her mother were done. As years progressed under her master, the duties given to her became more complex like taking care of the master’s children. However, in this particular narration, her first master had a polite wife who took care of her as her own. She developed a connection with her master considering her status at the farm as a slave. Indeed, this was a rare relationship (Prince 231). It is evident the master was a cruel man, and spent time away from home which gave her wife an opportunity to be nice to the slaves (Prince 282). As she grew older, she was sold to a neighboring farm which also had a polite master (Prince 282). She acted as a guardian to a master’s child after which they became close. Apart from these two farms, Mary Prince was exposed to cruelty in other farms as she was subjected to hard labor and mistreatment (Prince 289). It is at this juncture of the narration that the real perspective of the slave trade is displayed. At one point in the narration, Mary gives a description on an elderly slave who died after being thrown in a thorny bush by her master (Prince 289). She also narrates when she had to be tied with their hands and flogged till they shed flesh from their back (Prince 289). From this narration, the reader is able to get a glimpse of the slave trade on the view of a slave. Other written stories are based on scholarly literatures. The narration by Mary gives the real picture of the situation inside slave farms. Additionally, the fact that she was traded from homestead to homestead is a clear indication of how insignificant slaves were to their masters. The narration by Mary Prince also explains the tribulations of slaves in a detailed perspective in terms of raising families and slaves and losing children to their masters. The narration by Barbot is neither based on a slave nor a master. The story is a report of a slave trader. The account also focuses on the origin and destination of slaves from the Atl antic to Europe. Barbot starts the narration of his account by highlighting trading specification in the Atlantic (Barbot 181). Apart from precious stones, the author cited slaves as the most valuable commodity in the Atlantic trade (Barbot 181). Slave trade in the Atlantic was a chain or an organization by major European dynasties. The slaves mostly originated from West Africa (Barbot 180). Upon arrival, each trader would mark their slaves with a hot iron as a mark of ownership. Purchasers of slaves in the

Intro to Visual Arts Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Intro to Visual Arts - Essay Example She is very appealing with her nipples erect and fixated on her chest due to her laying position. She covers her genital area with her left hand just by a glimpse of her fingers. On the right hand, she is holding a cluster of red flowers and one flower fallen on the bed cover. She lies sensually with her legs crossed. A dog is sleeping on the edge of the bed on the covers. At the end of the room are housemaids, one is kneeling down with head inside a suitcase and the other standing beside her. This painting falls in the category of fine arts. The painting has aesthetic qualities; conceptual qualities of viewing art object as being beautiful and having a good taste. Venus has qualities that are capturing and enlightening to the viewer to judge the painter of having a good taste. This quality differentiates it from popular arts. The Venus of Urbino painting portrays private and domestic function of a woman as a sexy goddess who is appealing to her husband. It also portrays the need of a woman to remain seductive and appealing to her husband. (Lazzari, Schlesier 22-25) It is for marital significance for the eyes of the husband only. The painting is intended for personal and private use of the owner. The line element portrayed on the crisis folding of the covers gives textural contrast of the cover. Line element reveals the well-defined body mass and volume of the woman. The floor patterns outline line element as a well coordinated and liberate space to show the harmonization of the room and social class taste of the residing people. Light element is used to demonstrate the illusion that the nude Venus is appearing to closer people than people behind (Lazzari, Schlesier 22-25). The dark wall behind her is able to bring contrast between the woman and the wall clearly to portray her body structure and formation without straining. It also brings emptiness on the dark background. On the window, light element is used to portray the

Energy Outlook Report Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Energy Outlook Report - Coursework Example The changes in the oil prices and the demand, supply and consumption levels in the market would highly affect the energy sector in Russia. The consumption of natural gas as major energy resource will be attaining momentum and the coming twenty years can be labelled as the era of gas as a main source of energy. The market position of Russia as a leading country in the global energy market may be affected by different changes which the country would try to balance through their strategies. Russia is likely to be affected by the changing situations in the market in the forecasted period. The exports of oil and gas from Russia are forecasted to be lower due to the decrease in the demand levels for these sources of energy across the world. The high costs and the existing system of taxation are likely to put a constraint on the energy resources of Russia as exported in the global energy market. Russia is a leading country with respect to world energy and is a significant player in the international market of energy and power. The energy market of Russia is a critical contributor to the world economy and also directly influences the stability of the economy of Russia. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of the development and future outlook for the energy sector of Russia with respect to the global energy market perspective is significant in understanding and planning the development of the economy. The analysis of the future of the energy sectors in Russia and the global market is done to evaluate and analyse the strategies of the country with respect to the development of the energy market and the economy of the country. The global energy landscape has been undergoing major transformations after the event of the economic crisis of 2008. The characteristics of the energy outlook has been demonstrating increasing volatility in the prices of the hydrocarbons, the changing demand and supply equations, increasing level of

Descriptive Statistics Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Descriptive Statistics - Coursework Example Another group of data was collected using nominal scale. This was data on the marital status of respondents. The researcher thought it prudent to collect data on the marital status of respondents because it is common knowledge that the marital status of a person may affect his or her learning in one way or the other. The reason why this is so, is that marriage changes the usual personal roles of a person in one way or the other (Fuchs et al, 1997). The data collected on the marital status of respondents was computed and have been displayed below. From the data presented above, it can be seen that majority of the respondents are not married. Their percentage is 58%, which is more than half of the total sample size. This was followed by 14% who were married and 5% who were widows. The least percentage was 2% representing those who are divorced. Using a likert scale, the researcher collected a nominal data (Danielle 2009; Cheng, 2009) on the impact of a 2-tier curriculum on student performance. Respondents were given closed ended alternatives to select their responses from. It would be noted that a close ended question gives respondents specific answers from which they have to make a choice (Choi et al, 2008). The choice of answers given to respondents were indicated as insignificant, slightly significant, significant and very significant. In order to be able to use the SPSS in finding the mean of the responses, the answers were scored as 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. The over all responses have been represented in the table below. Judging from the responses in the table and as computed with the SPSS, it can be said that there are many respondents who root for the use of 2-tier curriculum as an intervention for improving the academic performance of students. This is judged from the fact that the mean score as computed was more than the average score (Gardener, 2008). Choi, K., Hoff, C.,

The Rise of Mass Communications HW Research Paper

The Rise of Mass Communications HW - Research Paper Example With the technology that we have at our disposal now, one would expect that the start of the 20th century would have been technologically quite prosperous. But as far as mass communication media are concerned, the only mass communication medium available was newspapers (Unknown, 2000-2010). The telegram and telephone were also present at that time, which were very powerful supplements to newspapers by providing ways to send information across huge distances, instantly (Bellis, 2011). Still, newspapers were the only source of mass communication. So, the 20th century has seen the advent of many technological advances, and with them, there have been numerous revolutions in the ways through which businesses, governments and public figures have employed, and at times exploited, mass media for their agendas. Radio was the first of the communication media inventions in the 20th century, invented by Guglielmo Marconi in 1901. Radio, combined with telegraphy, was one of the most excessively u sed tools (Unknown, 2000-2010), specially at the time of war. It was extensively used as a tool of propaganda during WWI and WWII. Also, political leaders fighting for freedom from colonial rule used this as a tool of spreading their word and getting people united under the same banner, such as in the subcontinent. Radio has also been used extensively for advertisement and information broadcasting since the advent of Amplitude Modulation Radio and Frequency Modulation Radio. Television was the next major invention in the field of communication, and its global outreach opened up new paradigms of media usage. It has proven to be the push required to spread businesses across continents by providing them the platform to advertise to global markets and extend their reach e.g. global brands, like McDonalds (McDonald’s, 2010; Stanley, 2010), have relied heavily on television for going global. With reach comes the power to influence further, and that made television a more powerful p ropaganda tool. The notion of sitting in a person’s home, in front of them, and talking to them with words and actions, has been exploited time and again by public figures and political leaders to lure public into believing what they want them to believe. The false propaganda going on against Islam in recent times, showing it as a cruel and inhumane religion, has been at the heart of building animosity between people and gaining support for oppressive attacks against Muslims (Bleher, 2000). The 20th century has had many technological marvels, but nothing has been as miraculous as computer and internet. This finally provides a medium for not only transmitting your message like the television or newspapers, but also getting feedback on it instantly through dialogues, understanding different cultures and building as well as professing views. Free information access through internet means that companies strive and pay more and more to fill the computer screens of potential custom ers. But, the most powerful use of internet is e-business, which needs virtually no investment, and thus no chance of a monetary loss. Companies like Amazon and others have become global internet brands and almost every company pitches its products to millions of customers, everyday through websites (Newell and Budge, 2011). The bigger they are, the bigger they are; internet has been the source of most conspiracies and

Conditioning and Learning Essay Example for Free

Conditioning and Learning Essay Learning, acquiring knowledge or developing the ability to perform new behaviors. It is common to think of learning as something that takes place in school, but much of human learning occurs outside the classroom, and people continue to learn throughout their lives. (Gregory, 1961) Conditioning is the term used to designate the types of human behavioral learning. Since the 1920s, conditioning has been the primary focus of behavior research in humans as well as animals. There are four main types of conditioning: ? Classical Conditioning ?Operant Conditioning ?Multiple-Response Learning ?Insight Learning. Conditioning and Learning 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Classical Conditioning Classical conditioning, also called associative learning, is based on stimulus-response relationships. A stimulus is an object or situation that elicits a response by one of our sense organs, like how a bright light makes us blink. Associative learning allows us to associate two or more stimuli and change our response to one or more of them as a result of simultaneous experience. (Moore, 2002) According to classical conditioning, learning occurs when a new stimulus begins to elicit behavior similar to the behavior produced by an old stimulus. Studies into classical condition began in the early 1900s by the Russian physiologist Ivan P. Pavlov. (Klein, 1998) Pavlov trained dogs to salivate in response to two stimuli: noise or light, and food or a sour solution. The dogs salivation is automatically elicited by the food and sour solution, so these were called the unconditional stimulus. However, when the noise or light (conditional stimulus) was repeatedly paired with the food or sour solution over an extended period of time, the dogs would eventually salivate at the noise or light alone. This is a prime example of a conditioned response. Unconditional stimuli, such as the food and sour solution, allow the learning to occur, while also serving to reinforce the learning. Without an unconditional stimulus in his experiment, Pavlov could not have taught the dogs to salivate at the presence of the noise or light. Conditioning and Learning 3 Classical conditioning is particularly important in understanding how people learn emotional behavior. For example, when we develop a new fear, we have learned to fear a particular stimulus, which has been combined with another frightening stimulus. Operant Conditioning. Operant conditioning is goal-directed behavior. We learn to perform a particular response as a result of what we know will happen after we respond. (Blackman, 1975) For example, a child may learn to beg for sweets if the begging is usually successful. There is no single stimulus that elicits the begging behavior, but instead it occurs because the child knows that this action may result in receiving treats. Every time the child receives sweets after begging, the behavior is reinforced and the tendency of the child to beg will increase. During the 1930s, American psychologist and behaviorist Burrhus F.Skinner performed several important experiments into operant conditioning. Using what is now termed a Skinner Box, he trained rats to press levers to receive food. A hungry rat would be placed in a box containing a special lever attached to concealed food. At first the hungry rat would wander around the box, investigating its surroundings. Eventually it would accidentally press the lever thereby releasing a food pellet into the box. At first the rat would not show any signs of associating the two events, but over time its exploring behavior becomes less random as it begins to press the lever more Conditioning and Learning 4Â  often. The food pellet reinforced the rats response of pressing the lever, so eventually the rat would spend most of its time just sitting and pressing the lever. This type of learning is based on the idea that if a behavior is rewarded, the behavior will occur more frequently. There are four main types of operant learning: Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Punishment and Omission Training. Observational Learning When we learn skills, we must first learn a sequence of simple movement-patterns. We combine these movement-patterns to form new, more complicated behavioral patterns with stimuli guiding the process. (Domjan, 1995) For example, efficient typing requires us to put together many finger movements, which are guided by the letters or words that we want to type. We must first learn to type each letter, and then learn to put the movements together to type words and then phrases. To investigate this type of learning, psychologists have observed animals learning to run through mazes. An animal first wanders aimlessly through the maze, periodically coming to a choice-point, where it must turn either left or right. Only one choice is correct, but the correct direction cannot be determined until the animal has reached the end of the maze. By running through the maze numerous times, the animal can learn the correct sequence of turns to reach the end. It has been found that the sequences of turns near the Conditioning and Learning 5 Two ends of the maze are learned more easily than the parts near the middle. Similarly, when we try to learn a list of items, we usually find the beginning and the end easier than the middle. Insight Learning Insight refers to learning to solve a problem by understanding the relationships of various parts of the problem. Often insight occurs suddenly, such as when a person struggles with a problem for a period of time and then suddenly understands its solution. Therefore insight learning is solving problems without experience. Instead of learning by trial-and-error, insight learning involves trials occurring mentally. In the early 1900s, Wolfgang Kohler performed insight experiments on chimpanzees. Kohler showed that the chimpanzees sometimes used insight instead of trial-and-error responses to solve problems. When a banana was placed high out of reach, the animals discovered that they could stack boxes on top of each other to reach it. (Schwartz, 1983) They also realized that they could use sticks to knock the banana down. In another experiment, a chimp balanced a stick on end under a bunch of bananas suspended from the ceiling, then quickly climbed the stick to obtain the entire bunch intact and unbruised (a better technique than the researchers themselves had in mind). Kohlers experiments showed that primates can both see and use the relationships involved to reach their goals. Conditioning and Learning 6 CONCLUSION There are many differences and similarities between each of these learning processes. For example, classical conditioning involves only involuntary or reflex responses where as operant conditioning involves both involuntary and voluntary reflexes. These diverse learning processes can be used independently in many different situations. Where classical conditioning may be extremely effective in one situation it might be ineffective in another. For this reason each of these learning processes, classical and operant conditioning and observational and insight learning are each as important and effective as the other. Conditioning and Learning 7 References. Kimble, Gregory: (1961) Conditioning and Learning, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. John W Moore: (2002) A Neuroscientists Guide to Classical Conditioning. Stephen B. Klein: (1998) Contemporary Learning Theories: Pavlovian Conditioning and the Status of Traditional Learning Theory, Chap. 5 (Perceptual and Associative Learning). Derek E. Blackman: (1975) Operant Conditioning: Experimental Analysis of Behaviour (Manual of Modern Psychology). Michael Domjan: (1995) The Essentials of Conditioning and Learning. Tighe, Schwartz: (1983) Modern Learning Theory, Psychology of Learning and Behavior 2nd edition.