Why are there inequalities among children?

Nowadays, more and more children are suffering from the inequalities. There's an increasing amount of children have been put in risks, both materially and emotionally.

Why do inequalities happen? As we know the society in no longer as peaceful as we thought, the most commonly form of family is Nuclear Family, which involving mother, father and their children. It seems that nuclear families are disappearing gradually, more children are living with lone-parent family, either living with mother or father. This really does an impact on those innocent children.

Poverty has a significant influence on the inequalities among children. Adults are likely to be at work for most of the time, in order to ensure their current living standard and family income. On the other hand, children wouldn't have enough child-care, therefore children's way of thinking could be isolated or there may be lack of dependency.

Abortion and its impact on families

It is a worldwide issue, abortion is getting in a wider range that nearly 46 million pregnancies are terminated every year; this can be seen as one-fifth of all pregnancies. According to a resource, it says there are some countries allow abortion and some of them are on a limited health ground of abortion.

Of the 133 countries in this study, 49 allow abortion on request or on broad social and health grounds. Only 13 of these nations are in developing regions and include Bangladesh, India, China, Tunisia, Turkey, South Africa, and Cuba. Another 40 countries—including six developed countries—permit abortion on limited health grounds. It is quite astonishing when we look at these figures and try to find out the reasons and the motivations of having abortions.

Abortion evolved from those unwanted pregnancy where women would usually take high risks, only to abandon their unborn babies. Whether it is legal or illegal, surely that now has becoming a prevalent trend from careless contraception. Laws are remained to be liberal where health problems should be a significant concern; there's nearly 70,000 women die each year and for sure, this is a quite serious number as there's one die in every 7 minutes.

Here's something that I think is quite important. Restrictive abortion policies mainly affect the poor who rely on the public sector for all their health needs; women who have the means can usually obtain abortions from the private sector. Women are likely to have the priority to obtain their needs from the private sector while the policies have been an influence on poor who can only get helps from the public sector.

How does abortion affect on families? In fact, abortion does not only impact on women but also the family itself. As we can imagine that abortion is a wound of marriage, it means the complicated situations between wife and husband, either conducted by disagreement or fear in misunderstanding. A child is also a human life where has the equal right as everyone else, it's a serious problem to solve and the decision-making is also a dilemma.

If we hypothesise a woman has been insisted to give an abortion by her husband, the possible reaction of this woman would likely to have different attitude towards her view of the family as time goes on. In the mean time, the woman has a child after the previous abortion, it seems to be a replacement of her grief from that unborn child; but actually things are not always this simple. It is interesting yet serious that why women would change their emotion towards this. It might be a feeling of segregated from the first child, feeling alienated and apathy towards the family.

Whether abortion is legal or not, the best solution should always stay on the principle of being more careful on contraception; even it has become inevitably unavoidable, women really need to consider more wisely about the consequences of abortion would brings along.

Oakley's rise of the housewife role

Ann Oakley conducted a research on the housewife role. She has interviewed women who are housewives from the 1970s about how is it like being a housewife.

They work 77 hours for average hours per week, also the interviewees commented on the aspects of their work that they like/dislike. Ann Oakley refers to the social isolation which housewives don't have a chance to interact apart from the children at home. And it's a repetitive nature of having the same housework take in turns. They also commented on the household techonology, how it liberates women from the housework.

However, Ann Oakley made an adjustment on some of the aspects from those housewives that don't really make things any different, and the housewife role is emphasising on women's role as a domestic labourer.

Elizabeth Bott's conjugal roles

Conjugal roles appear when husbands and wives get married and starting to have their own family and house; but this is just the simple way of saying. More in-depth, the conjugal role is a segregation between husbands and wives, results that came from the division of labour in a family. For example, the house keeping between family members, how should it be separated?

In Elizabeth Bott's classic study of Family and Social Network (1957), she gives a observation of one spouse devoted in the financial part of the family, and the other one who keeps those domestic part within the household, such as chores, for instance.

She has studied a more in-depth of 20 predominantly working-class London families. It shows the variable issues among spouses in sharing the same house, interests and outdoor/indoor activities, etc. This is due to the division of labout between husbands and wives. On the other hand, there are also families that shared the common interest and houseworks, which indicates not the whole amount of couples are in the sex role segregation.

Also joint conjugal means that women work on jobs and men are responsible for the domestic tasks.

Nature v.s. Nurture

What does the word 'nature' implied? Some people believe we were born in the way of how we live which means it's the genetic reason influenced us. However, nurture also take a part within this controversial argument, that people are actually affected by the surroundings and what they've learn/seen from others. There's no an absolute answer to this, it will keep staying at the same stage as people always have different point of view towards this.

Comments on ...

1. About the family

According to the resource, we can see that pets are part of the family as well as the children does. What I think is that pets can always be part of the family but in fact, they can never replaced the children because pets arent human being. Although there's a saying that the studies of kinship brings out pets as a substitute of children and providing emtional satisfaction; but what about communication? Does pets and the elder family members communicate in the same way? There was quite an astonishment as I read through it.

2. Goth. Identity, Style and Subculture

Right... Goth? Ive read through the extract but didnt understand well, but basically Ive been thinking that it's about identity, style and subculture, which indicates another important role that could be dedicated outside of a society, perhaps? Ok, I looked at the introduction of that book and it says"From dress and musical tastes to social habits and the use of the internet, Hodkinson details the inner workings of this intriguing group" The author, Paul Hodkinson has made some theory in order to cover all of those he wrote about culture.

3. To but or Not to buy

In nowadays, children has always got the unbelievable power that gradually to tell their parents what they wanted to buy and they must have it, the pester power as we called. Parents might feel quite an absurd that why and how their children arent the same as they were. The qualitative study conducted out a research of children living in families that have a proportional influence building up a dynamic in their contemporary consumer culture. Anyhow I think parents need to be able to keep learning in order to deal with their children.

Pen wallets/pencil cases made of leather or fabrics

Use leather or fabrics to make pen wallets and pencil cases. Sell the wallets and cases empty. Or buy pens and pencils at trade prices and add them to the wallets and cases respectively to make the finished products.

If a business produce a product that contains such material, I think the cost is likely to be higher, therefore their pricing strategy might go with skimming pricing in order to obtain people's trusts on their quality; also its demand would conditionally become inelastic.

Firstly, lets say they sell the wallets and cases empty; customers might think of buying more pens or pencils in order to fill in their new wallet/case, though they might not to. In this case, the business may consider of loss leader pricing instead of skimming.

On the other hand, if they choose to buy pens and pencils at trade prices and add them to the wallets and cases respectively to make the finished products, customers might think the service is even more sufficient than they expected thus would be willing to pay more so the business would gain.

Sociology experiment

This Sociology experiment is conducted by students of The George Washington University in the US. Basically it's about how people react when a stranger walks right next to them.

Imagine walking on the street all by yourself and suddenly a stranger starts to walk right beside you and wouldnt leave; what would you react? According to this experiment, most people has the similar reaction; at first, they didnt notice there's someone near them but when they gradually find out, some of them confront the guy, some just stared at him, some are angry and some are scared. Although different people have different reaction towards the weird action from a stranger, but their reaction in common is they wouldnt just ignore the stranger.

Something must be done

The question is - what?

From my point of view, I think it's true that there's something must be done to bridge the imbalance condition in learning progresses. The simplest way of dividing it into 2 groups, one who has the enthusiasm and keen to work hard and the other one who has the thought of being relaxed and preferred the slower pace of learning.

According to the resource, it mentioned the team-building work which there are 7 activities in order to improve all sorts of skills how to work as a team, such as cooperation, negotiation, communication, problem-solving, division of labour, leadership, etc. What always comes into play is that the most important thing which stands out for the whole team, people ought to know the significance of working together and in a way to encourage each other.

Take blogging as an example, people who write daily blogs could be an encouragement towards others; also communication and negotiation, for me, I think is quite important as the peer influence may be powerful. Furthermore, after communication, we should think back of what we've been told or discussing about, and as well as in a quiet space with only yourself; the purpose is to refresh your mind and get back to the team, it could help with finding out what you think now isn't what you thought anymore, perhaps.

One thing that I think to achieve the top is what you have tried your best, not meaning that you thought you have Tried but Actually done something where you can checked back by any evidence. If everybody has tried their best within a team, although in some occasion the team doesn't succeed, for instance; but the progress they've made/experienced can make the most out of the whole thing.

The Halo-effect

Get to know about the Halo-effect.

The Halo-effect, basically is about what you think about one thing that you could also judge as it's similar with one another.

When reading through those Sociology topics that we are going to be tested on, I found this word in topic 4 which it talks about "Differential achievement" that in terms of social class, why middle-class children do better at school; the Halo-effect is one of those factors.

If applying the Halo-effect on this question, despite all the material things the children could get, how they appeared in front of everyone, even teachers, the possibility of getting better impression would results; meanwhile, the Halo-effect from teachers might cause distort among students where the middle-class children could be easily praised but not the others.

The phrase is also now well-known and being used in the Business world which can be applied on the similar condition.

What is Sociology?

For our curiosity, we've been always thinking about what does the word Sociology mean? Sociology is the study of how society is organized and how we experience life. But is it just that simple? In fact, Sociology is involved in one of several Social sciences, which Social sciences study humans and the social worlds they create; therefore in another words, Sociology is the science of human behaviour as it's coming from a group of people's way of living.

Sociology is define as how we function in everyday life in order to build societies and form different cultures and also it's about the interaction among people who belongs to similar and different part of social structure.

Social structures are made up of arrangements between people within a society. These arrangements include patterns of behaviours that are characteristic of the people involved. As we know people's characteristics and behaviours play an important role of forming social structure, thus it includes people from different societies evolve into different social structure that can be varied in a larger society. For example, the relationship between students and teachers result in individuals' behaviours make up social structures.

Societies are groups of people who share a common culture, also refer to intricately structured arrangements of relationships among people. In nowadays, different societies are formed by many groups of people where they interact with each other throughout
working,learning,social settings,workplace,universities and even fighting; nevertheless, not everyone in a particular society shares the same culture, people participate in cultures different from the larger culture of that society.

When talking about Sociology, we have to get a sociological perspective which is a way of seeing the world. It helps us to understand the social reality in a way of knowing how it get to forms the field of Sociology. People gives out their observation from everyday life.

Also, by talking about societies, it mentioned the word culture, what is culture? Culture is a collection of shared beliefs, behaviours and products of a group of people. We are all having different culture and therefore it build up many cultural events that might specified a particular area; such as Chinese new year, Moon festival, etc.

In order to grasp the complexities of Social Science, we need to think like a sociologist and to be aware of daily circumstances around the society.

How is Sociology Research Conducted?

Source.

A Sociological research is based on 2 principles, Conceptual and Empirical, which is logically accpeted. People usually explain things based on a concept so that others can gradually understand what they are talking about; so does in Sociology, there are several type of norms such as Folkways, Mores, Laws and Values. These norms are trying to explain how things can be allocate to a particular part of concepts where people can clarify them more easily, for instance.

Reasearch based on empirical seems to be necessary as people has the previous knowledge for doing the particular thing; even through active investigation, how people can be affected by media programme and the way of how to interact, etc. It forms a conneciton between itself and and several concepts therefore enabling people to check on the research progress for its logicality.*

*"These twin aspects, the conceptual and the empirical, and the fact that they must be constantly related, make sociology not only a respected academic discipline but also a valuable contribution to other human activities."

Sociology Forums

There are 6 Sociology forums in Chris's blog that I've looked at.

1.The Student Education Forum

This forum is basically more of a asking-and-answering(based on giving opinions) space where people's questions can be solved by others. It's generally talking about Education, such as democratic school, pupil sub cultures, gender gap(i.e. girls versus boys), etc.However there's a topic that attrat me is "What best explain working class underachievement". The top voted reason is 'Material deprivation', which means parents couldnt afford material things like books, computers, etc. for their children; therefore the result of the discussion gives an interesting conclusion, which I think it's quite good for everyone sharing their ideas and thoughts here.

2.The Forum Site

This one is very similar to the first one, but it's talking more about Sociological essay writing or life history, etc. Although it basically talks about everything within the subject Sociology.

3.ScienceCentral.com

It comes up with the title of The Society for Applied Sociology. I've clicked on the Details button and looked through the 4 topics that are shown in another web page, it talks about applied Sociology. This is more likely to be a site for people who wished to know what's in applied Sociology and what is it about, etc.

4.INTJ Forum

This forum, for me, is more formal somehow, although it works based on the same funtion just like the first and second one does.

5. Explore ideas

Does it worth exploring? I dont quite like the layout of the site and maybe it could be clearer with its articles. In fact, I dont really know how to browse the site...

6.The Student Room

This is a suitable forum for students who are studying Sociology. As we can see there are topics like needing help for Sociology essay, different exam board's topic contents, etc; I think it is worth to explore and would get what we wanted to know/learn.

Mnemonics

DVDS for sources of finance.

Debentures
Venture capital
Debt factoring
Share capital

:)

Is Internet Explorer a monopoly?

There are various of enterprises that has developed different version of browsers to which letting people to use it as a more convenience resource to search for what they wished to know. The browser ecosystem has already including a few firms such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Sleipnir, Safari, etc; whereas Internet Explorer is seemingly dominates the current browser market with the figure of 80%.

However, Google has recently comes up with an innovation called Chrome, which might be another invention that has the potential of being a dominant browser in the browser market; in addition that Google Chrome can become a strong competitor towards the IE. Throughout a list of their own benefits and drawbacks, e.g. IE is slow, cumbersome, shaky, poor at following standards and perceived by many to be a security vulnerability, therefore how users think about it can be the next essential step to help through with their work in the market.

"Mozilla's Firefox is very well respected and yet it commands less than 20% of the browser market which just shows how hard it is to overtake an incumbent although Google does have almost unparallelled ability to promote it to almost the entire online audience" According to the BBC news of Google launches Internet browser, Nate Elliot stated the truth of how Firefox is powerless in the browser market. Also those who are competing with other established browser names should be aware of the survival within the market.

As Google has already accomplished the reputation of a well-known website for everyone to browse/search, most people which represents the average users, Google, to their extent, is the Internet; thus for Google to compete with Internet Explorer, it has better potential comparing to others. They've got the idea of how to satisfy users' need and knowing how to make things even better.

In order to sums the whole thing up, I think Internet Explorer is not essentially a monopoly, especially it now has its new competitor, Google Chrome. They could both be improved in some ways to keep their competitions going; also for what could have been an influence towards the users, it is the choice have been made and the motivation being connected through the browsers.

Motivation and Behaviour

"Most modern psychologists agree, however, that motivation stems from a mix of inborn characteristics and external learning."

As you think about it more carefully with this statement, it's very logical as we all (at least most of us) live it this way!

What you have seen/known from childhood and what you have learnt from school/other people, it's always an influence which constantly shaping your characteristics. In this case, what you think can be affected straight away from your own characteristics, which means think in a preconscious way, that how are you going to get works done, for instance.

Motivations are variable as how people think what they are and how they really motivate them.

How to keep generation Y motivated?

Before reading through the passage and listening to the podcast, I wasnt sure what generation X and Y stand for; but now I have a clearer image as to how they differ from each other and Im quite impressed with the differences in motivation that X and Y have.

The generation Y, also called the New Millennials, were born in the 1980s and early 1990s who have become established members of the workforce; on the other side, generation X, those who borned in the 1960s and 1970s that are the predessor of those generation Y.

Is there any correlation between these 2 different generations? Also, how are these different age groups get on with each other?

In the podcast, Tammy Erickson the author of 'Plugged In' talks about the generation Y and how they behave within the work place. What makes generation Y distinctive is a quite interesting key point; they usually have a very interesting teenage hood which can dominates/shaped their characteristics during that certain period of time; where people give their thoughts of how the world works, for instance.

There are other things that are very interesting about Gen Y. When Adam Jones asks Tammy about how Gen Y uses technology whereas an increasingly growing has been happening among them and how does it affect them; She called them as the 'first generation of unconsciously competent technology users' which referring to a pre-conscious memory that they have. I think this is a quite impressive way of interpreting it.

Another interesting thing is that how different between Gen X and Y, when they are doing actually the same thing but in a totally diverse way. Gen X must have a schedule to plan what they want to do in a few weeks time; unlike Gen Y, they dont.

Gen Y likes to be challenged by many different things in any area, even if they havent had the experience before. They like to figure things out by themselves, in addition to test their ability of how far they can get on. But in the meantime, Gen X often dont truly understand how these undermanned learners, if they're suitable for the work they've been give. That somehow developed a gap between the 2 generation and would be misunderstood.

To keep a company happy, the relationiship betweent the managers and the employees must be improved from their actual position where there's a gap of the present and the traditional; furthermore, Gen X may need to explore how to keep Gen Y motivated and the way they act motivated; one thing is very important as a key feature, they love to be challenged.

Something.

• Oxford University Dance Society

• Contemporary: Monday - Main Hall, Oxford & Cherwell Valley College, Oxpens Rd (6.00-8.00pm) OYDC Performance company for 15-25 yrs. Directors, Cecilia Macfarlane, Joelle Pappas & Claire Thompson. Contact Cecilia on 01865 515576

Something REALLY funny!!!!!!!!!!

You will actually laugh until you die...(Haha, well not really but it's incredible)

Okay, now go and have a try :D

3 days left

After the 2-hour Business revision, I went to the library for an another hour to revise.

During this weekend, Ill go through the Business websites that are in Chris's blog, also practise some past papers again to check the particular parts that I need to be aware.

:)

Exams are coming

Honestly, I dont know what's really happening in the past few days, but the overall problem is that my DEAR host family :) ! Anyway, we'll sort it out sometimes.

First of all, I'd like to say I've been trying quite hard these days, although I know I might not reach the top or the best, but I will keep it this way as hard as I can...

I went to the Business revision class today and have been discussing some past papers, well it's not that hard and it's true, the possible reason may be that Im still not working hard enough. But Im really trying and still am.

Ok, the next thing is Ill try to prove what I have done and post on the blog as often as I can...

I really will TRY to update as often as I can.