Pay Equity In Labor Force Movement Essay Example for Free

Pay Equity In Labor Force Movement Essay Debates about women’s rights at work and the gendered dimensions of employment inequality were notable and contested features of Canadian political discourse throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Concern about these issues took root during the 1940s, when women experienced dramatic shifts in their employment opportunities as a result of being drawn into and later jettisoned from the reserve army of wartime labor. Pressure to improve women’s employment conditions, particularly in the burgeoning public sector, recurred in the mid-1950s. However, it was in the 1960s, once the second wave of feminism took root in Canada, that women began to develop a sustained critique of the employment inequalities they experienced and pressure their governments to address the problem through policy innovation and change. (Westhues, 45-58) From the outset of second-wave feminism, women advanced analyses of employment inequality that took account of their labor in both the public and domestic spheres. As Brockman noted, activists â€Å"drew attention, as had never been done before, to the fundamental incompatibility between reproductive labor and child care, on the one hand, and paid work on the other, as well as to the profound consequences of this incompatibility. † (Brockman, 78-93) While liberal, radical, and socialist feminists approached this issue from different ideological vantage points, they shared a common belief that the causes of gender inequality in employment were not rooted solely in the workplace. Only, they claimed, if questions about women’s employment in the public sphere were addressed in tandem with questions about their labor in the domestic sphere would the gendered dimensions of employment inequality be fully understood. In particular, feminists thought that women’s maternal work had to be recognized in discussions about promoting gender equality in the workplace. As Westhues, a well-known socialist feminist, once argued, â€Å"As long as women have the primary responsibility for maintenance of the home and for child care, we will be less than able to pursue job opportunities and our domestic commitments will be used to justify discriminatory employment practices. † (Westhues, 45-58) Growing awareness of the need to link questions about production and reproduction in analyses of women’s economic position was by no means unique to Canadian feminism. It was, for example, well established in the early writing of second-wave feminists in Britain and the United States. What did, however, distinguish Canadian feminists from their counterparts in these other liberal democracies was an ability to work together, despite ideological differences, in order to advance this double-edged critique of gender inequality in employment. Right from the start of the contemporary women’s movement, Canadian feminists engaged with the state, demanding policies that recognized the link between women’s employment opportunities and the provision of child care. Canadian feminists lobbied both federal and provincial governments about the need to improve women’s employment opportunities and expand the provision of child care. It was in the federal arena, however, that women (outside Quebec) focused their demands for the development of policies that acknowledged the link between these two issues. In some respects, this federal focus was surprising. After all, only one-tenth of the Canadian labor force is regulated by the federal government, and even at the start of second-wave feminism both federal and provincial governments had been involved in employment opportunity and child care initiatives. Moreover, even though the federal government has the constitutional capacity to use its spending power to underwrite the provision of state-subsidized child care, it is the provinces that retain constitutional control over the delivery of this service. The federal focus of women’s campaigns was encouraged by the fact that the renaissance of Canadian feminism occurred within the context of a broader social project to achieve universal welfare guarantees, assured by the Canadian state. It was reinforced by the government of Canada’s decision to establish the 1967 Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW) to inquire how best the federal government could ensure that women enjoyed â€Å"equal opportunities with men in all aspects of Canadian society. † It has since been sustained by the work of activists in national organizations, in particular the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), founded in 1972, and the Canadian Day Care Advocacy Association (CDCAA), established in 1982 and renamed the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada (CCAAC) in 1992. However, despite a long history of feminist engagement with the federal state, women’s repeated campaigns for the development of policies to address the double-edged nature of gender inequality in employment, and the clear recognition of these demands in reports of royal commissions and task forces, the federal policy response has been uneven. Policies to eradicate sex discrimination at work and promote women’s employment opportunities have been developed and implemented in the federal policy sphere. By contrast, the federal government has not developed policies to promote a publicly funded system of child care in order to enhance women’s employment opportunities, save as emergency measures during the Second World War or as an element of broader initiatives to get â€Å"welfare mothers† out to work. Instead it has treated child care as a fiscal issue for which parents can receive subsidies through federal taxation. This paper examines why a double-edged interpretation of women’s employment inequality, which recognizes the public and domestic dimensions of women’s work, has not been fully absorbed into federal policies to promote gender equality in the sphere of employment. The analysis follows the development of debates about women’s rights at work from the period of reconstruction after the Second World War, when questions about eradicating employment discrimination against worker-citizens first emerged in Canadian political debate, through to the close of the twentieth century. It examines federal policy developments under Liberal and Conservative governments, showing that even though the reports of federal royal commissions and task forces encoded feminist demands for a double-edged attack on employment inequality, questions about promoting women’s employment equality and child care were continually driven apart in the federal policy process. Women’s Paid and Caring Work  While this is by no means the first time that scholars have considered the relationship between Canadian women’s work inside and outside the home, it is noticeable how the link between these two aspects of women’s labor was explored by historians and sociologists before being addressed by analysts of public policy. In the late 1970s, members of the Women’s History Collective at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the Clio Collective in Montreal pioneered research in Canada on how women’s labor had shifted from the unpaid domestic sphere into the world of paid employment. In the process, they unearthed textual and oral histories that demonstrated how, despite this transition, women still faced the double bind of a double-day in which they went out to work for pay and home to work for love. Their findings were reinforced in late 1970s and 1980s by sociological analyses of women’s work arguing that because women so often entered employment while maintaining primary responsibility for the care of their children, they frequently found themselves concentrated in low-paid, low-status employment. Despite the fact that historians, sociologists, and feminist activists drew attention to the â€Å"double ghetto† of women’s working lives, discussions about policies to promote women’s employment opportunities and improve the provision of child care evolved as distinct scholarly debates. The literature on policies to promote Canadian women’s employment opportunities emerged within the context of broader discussions and debates about the development of policies to root out discrimination in the workplace. By contrast, the literature on Canadian child care policy evolved around questions about the development, cost, and politics of implementing public policies to promote the welfare, education, care, and development of young children. In recent years, however, policy analysts have paid much greater attention to the link between women’s paid and caring work. Jacobs, 120-128) Nonetheless, no one has yet considered why Canadian government policies to promote women’s employment opportunities and improve the provision of child care have been developed at such different rates and, despite repeated calls to the contrary, not linked in the design of public policies to promote gender equality in federally regulated employment. This pattern of inquiry is understandable, given the discrete historical development of policies concerned with child care and those concerned with women’s employment. However, it unduly limits our understanding of the gendered dimensions of employment inequality in Canada and fails to capture the empirical reality of many women’s working lives. Double-Edged Nature of Women’s Employment Inequality Why did women’s double-edged demand for equal employment opportunities and child care emerge in Canada in the 1960s and 1970s? After all, from the mid-1950s Canada experienced one of the fastest rates of labor force feminization in the Western industrialized world. The decline of manufacturing industries and the concomitant growth of the tertiary sector in the 1950s and 1960s meant that while industries that had traditionally attracted men closed down, those demanding support skills that had long characterized women’s traditional domestic roles expanded. Moreover, in countries like Canada, where welfare states were being established, the growth in women’s employment intensified most quickly. The much trumpeted rise in female labor force participation rates did not, however, mean that women engaged in paid employment on the same terms as men. The occupational segregation of Canadian men and women persisted in both horizontal and vertical forms. In fact, this process intensified with the increased participation of women in the paid labor force. As a result, the vast majority of women found themselves working in poorly paid occupations, situated in the lower echelons of private companies and public sector organizations. Moreover, as Jacobs have noted, although the creation of welfare states meant that â€Å"women as a group had more employment opportunities open up for them than men† in the mid-twentieth century, the growth in women’s employment was in the part-time sector of the labor force, which was increasingly dominated by women in all OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. Jacobs, 120-128) This simply intensified the inequalities of employment opportunity that women experienced because part-time work is concentrated in the least-skilled, lowest-paid, and most poorly organized sections of the labor force, where benefits are usually more limited than in the full-time sector. The rapid growth in women’s participation in part-time rather than fulltime employment reflects two other factors about the feminization of the Canadian labor force. On the one hand, it relates to the type of work that the service sector has generated and to the increasing flexibility demanded of its employees. On the other hand, it reflects the fact that the greatest increase in female labor force participation rates since the 1960s has been among women with young children. In the early 1960s, most female employees in Canada would leave the workforce when their first child was born and return only when their youngest child had entered school. By the mid-1980s most women with young children went out to work. Indeed, as Pendakur have noted, â€Å"By 1991 all traces of the reproduction function had disappeared with female labor force participation rates peaking in the major family-rearing age categories†. The double burden that women experience from juggling their employment while continuing to care for their children has been reinforced by the limited provision of subsidized child care spaces in Canada. In the late 1960s, when women began to pressure the federal government to address the minimal provision of child care for working women, federal subsidies for child care were limited to support for welfare mothers under the 1966 Canada Assistance Plan. This pattern changed very little in the course of the twentieth century, although federal subsidies to support child care for low-income families became increasingly tied to efforts to get mothers receiving welfare out to work. Although recent federal publications on the status of day care in Canada boast â€Å"a twenty-five-fold increase† in child care spaces since the government first gathered these data in 1971, in fact the proportion of children of working mothers who have access to regulated child care remains very low. As a result, most working parents remain highly dependent on informal, unregulated child care. Indeed, as Brockman noted, in the mid-1990s â€Å"children in informal child care arrangements accounted for eighty per cent of all child care used by parents in Canada. † (Brockman, 78-93) The federal state in Canada has addressed questions about promoting equal employment opportunities for men and women in the public sphere with relative ease but has failed to recognize that this project cannot be achieved without addressing the questions of child care that affect so many women’s working lives. While the reasons for this are complex, some insights from feminist theory may help us to begin this exploration. In recent years, a number of feminist theorists have discussed how the concept of worker-citizenship that took root as welfare states were developed in countries such as Canada did not take account of the different contexts in which women and men often assumed employment. (Pendakur, 111-120) As a result, when questions about promoting equal employment opportunities for men and women began to emerge in the 1950s and ’60s, they were framed in terms of women achieving the same opportunities as men. Indeed, Canadian have tried to develop a more nuanced concept of worker citizenship that not only respects the objective of equality of opportunity but also takes workers’ particular circumstances into account and, in the case of women, enables them to integrate their paid and caring work better. In the process, women have argued that a state that upholds the principle of gender equality must develop policies that take account of the interconnectedness of the public and domestic spheres and recognize the different contexts in which men and women often assume employment. Conclusion Nonetheless, although Canadian feminists have a long history of active engagement with the state, developed through a â€Å"visible and articulate women’s movement† that has successfully placed issues on the political agenda, the result, more often than not, has been that their demands have been contained within a limited set of reforms. As a result, those aspects of gender discrimination in the workplace that concern practices within the public sphere have been acknowledged through the introduction of anti-discrimination and employment equity policies. By contrast, women have had more difficulty getting their proposals for policies that transcend the public/ private divide, by linking questions of equal employment opportunity with those of child care, acknowledged in the federal policy arena. Despite their efforts to forge these links through two major royal commissions and other government inquiries, problems of gender inequality in employment are still primarily defined as issues located within the public sphere of employment. Without doubt, over the past thirty years there have been clear improvements in the position of women in the federally regulated section of the Canadian labor force. Nonetheless, women continue to cluster in the lower echelons of companies and organizations and remain under-represented in more senior positions. While this persistent pattern of inequality has many causes, paper shows how it reflects a federal policy process that concentrates on ensuring the comparable treatment of male and female employees once they have entered the labor market, yet, for complex reasons, repeatedly stalls on developing a more expansive approach to child care. As a result, federal policies to promote gender equality in the sphere of employment neglect the inequalities of access and participation that many women experience as they continue or resume employment once they have dependent children.

Delivering Banking Facilities for the Disabled

Delivering Banking Facilities for the Disabled Healthy Banking:  The way towards increased financial inclusion Contents Abstract Introduction Recommendations A. Sight Impaired B. Hearing loss C. Physical disabilities Conclusion References Abstract The Bank of Mauritius’ initiative ‘Banking Your Future’ to promote a fair and inclusive banking sector has been launched in June 2014 to investigate the 100 possible ways in which the banking sector could be improved. Based on the above project, this report aims at analyzing the nature, dynamics and degree of financial exclusion of people bearing a disability and examines the significance of access to banking facilities within this group of people that is more often than not marginalized. Thus, this study further explores Pillars 1, 5 and 6 of the eight pillars set out in the Task force produced by the Bank of Mauritius in June 2014. These include, accessibility of banking to all, fair treatment of customers and customer protection respectively. In simpler terms, this report explores how the delivery and operation of banking facilities could be developed and/or improved to attend to the constant needs of people with a physical or learning disability with the view to promote their financial inclusion in the banking sector. Introduction Banking is a fundamental part of the fabric of routine life for most people, nevertheless certain people in Mauritius are deprived the access to a bank account and to fair banking services due to the difference they present. Indeed, 4.8%[1] of the Mauritian population has been recorded as having a disability in 2011. With an ageing population, the statistics look set to grow further. This group of people therefore embodies a substantial segment of any bank’s consumer base and it is in the interest of these institutions to satisfy the needs of their clients. People with a disability require access to banks and their services in order to become autonomous by managing their finances as well as to keep track of their regular benefit remittances. For many of them, finance issues are a substantial source of worry and stress at the time when they should be concentrating on their health rather than their financial stability. Sadly though, some providers are not very effective when dealing with people having health difficulties. To this issue, this research aims at promoting the financial inclusion of the disabled population by identifying how banking institutions could improve their services to alleviate the problems faced by this minority population that is too often left behind. Supporting disabled people is not just about doing the right thing for consumers facing hardships but can be beneficial for banking businesses as well. Not only will such an initiative reduce debt, improve staff contentment and breed customer loyalty but will also guarantee regulatory compliance. It is to be highlighted that banks are in a good posture to help make a change since they have the tools to provide support to these people. Therefore, throughout this report some measures that could be implemented by banks to help and support disabled people pertaining to their personal finances will be discussed with a view to stimulate accessibility of banking to all, fair treatment of customers and customer protection. Recommendations The recommendations throughout this report will be subdivided into distinct sections relating to a specific health impairment namely sight, hearing and physical limitations. A. Sight Impaired The Population Census conducted in 2011 showed that approximately 14000 people had a sight problem even when wearing glasses. This situation undeniably has a severe impact on their everyday lives and with years going by like in the blink of an eye this number is certainly on the rise. Indeed banks are not oblivious to such an issue for they have invested in talking ATMs, whereby what appears on the screen is read aloud by the machine to facilitate the daily transactions of people suffering from sight impairment. However, not all banks in Mauritius have taken such an initiative thereby penalizing their clients. Thus, these speech enabled ATMs ought to become more pervasive throughout the island while providers not extending such a service to their clients need to consider this enhancement that could make easier the lives of people having sight problems. JAWS[2] and earphones could be introduced in Mauritius so that blind and low-vision users can conduct ATM transactions in such a way that they have a feeling of privacy and security during the process. It is to be noted that navigating around an ATM pad is facilitated by the fact that the number 5 has an elevated dot so that the central number on the number pad can be located by touching it. This is the case with most if not all ATMs found in Mauritius. Moreover, some ATMs also have other tactile support for instance an elevated circle that indicates ‘OK’ thereby confirming the transaction while an elevated cross denotes abortion of the transaction. However, certain ATMs lack these latter facilities as the ‘OK’ and ‘Cancel’ buttons both have a slit rectangle on the pad making the difference between both imperceptible. Moreover, it should be highlighted that people having sight problems, especially those affected with blindness, may not even be able to get to a branch on their own. To such an issue, banks could send booklets, bank statements and pamphlets, whenever these are required by the client, in larger text prints for those whose eyesight is damaged, Braille for those who can read Braille as it should be noted that not everyone can read Braille, particularly if sight problems have developed in a late stage of life- , or simply as an audio CD so that those concerned do not have to provide additional effort on their own. Visually disabled users also encounter barriers such as access to internet banking transactions. It will certainly sound pretentious and expensive to include to these recommendations facilities like computer voice recognition softwares to facilitate the use of online banking services by people having sight impairment. Such an initiative may lead to a tradeoff between easing the use of online banking and the bank’s security system. However, what is more accessible to banks is changing the formatting of their websites by altering the display in such a way that the websites are more easily read. This could be in the form of text size where propositions at the top of the page could include normal, large and extra-large which could spearhead into a change in the text size throughout the website. Visually impaired people require patient human contact and continuous customer care. Implementing the above recommendations will not only promote the financial inclusion of people suffering from sight impairment but will also provide a competitive edge to the banks providing such facilities. B. Hearing loss According to the population census of 2011, there are more than 4000Mauritians with some form of hearing problem. Banks are considered as service providers, according to The Equal Opportunities Act 2008, and are consequently required to take actions to make sure that their services are as accessible and fair as possible to customers suffering from hearing loss so that the latters are not given a less favourable treatment as compared to non-disabled customers. Deaf customers report that banks tend to discriminate them against other customers, consequently making them feel aggrieved and embarrassed by banks’ indifference to their hearing limitations. The plight of deaf bank customers include banks’ over-reliance on telephone use for security issues, unfair treatment, the absence of hearing aid systems and poorly trained, dismissive and discourteous staff. Also, deaf customers protest that their communications frequently go unanswered and that they are requested to call in to discuss their issues. Recommending a relative or friend to address the bank on their behalf is not always the best solution due to confidentiality matters and this will not promote the financial inclusion of deaf customers but will make them over-dependent on third parties. It is to be highlighted that measures taken by banks in Mauritius to satisfy the needs of people with hearing loss are apparently inexistent. To this issue, in order to increase the financial inclusion and promote the fair treatment and welfare of people with hearing loss, the following measures could be considered with the hope that these recommendations do not fall on deaf ears. The text relay service can be a crucial aid for people with hearing problems. It is a service whereby the customer can call any of the bank agents’ numbers using text relay and when the call is answered, an operator will join in and communicate the request of the customer- received in written-form to the bank in oral form. As wisely said by Israelmore Ayivor (Shaping the dream), â€Å"Don’t despise little things that contain tiny miracles. Enjoy little actions!† Similarly banks need not take noticeable actions to help their customers suffering from hear loss. Indeed, an efficient Note Writer at the counter could facilitate the communication with an individual that cannot communicate orally. This particular teller could jot down the transaction’s purpose, fees and issues on paper so that the customer understands what the transaction consists of and what is required from him. Similarly, when dealing with people having hearing impairments simple actions that may seem futile could facilitate the transaction between both parties. Indeed, the bank staff should make sure they are in a well-lighted zone where the deaf customer can see their faces during communication. Looking directly and speaking directly to the disable person instead of his interpreter will make him feel valued during the transaction. Staff at the counter ought also to avoid putting their hands or any document in front of their face or mouth when speaking. Moreover, counter staffs could be initiated to sign language. If at least two counter staff trained for sign language are present at counters, this will undoubtedly be an advantage for the client but this will also be a serious competitive gain to the bank itself. However, notice often need to be given if the service is needed. In the same optic, since disabled people prefer transacting from home, an online service could be implemented whereby with a computer and a webcam, the disabled customer is able to speak to a bank staff that is trained for sign language and can thereby communicate a request or make a bank transaction. Pertaining to advertising campaigns made by banks, visual advertisements ought to be subtitled so that deaf people don’t feel excluded and can thus understand the advertisement with the same ease a non-disabled customer does. Hearing loss is an emergent problem so it is vital that banks take actions to ensure people having hearing disabilities can access their services without hindrance for if only a few thousand of the population suffering from hear loss took legal action against the pitiable treatment they receive, these financial institutions could end up paying substantial compensation to customers with hearing impairments. C. Physical disabilities There exist several types and degrees of physical disabilities. It is widely thought that people with physical disabilities require a wheelchair. However, this is not always the case since people suffering from arthritis, heart or lung conditions and those having undergone amputations also have difficulty with moving, sitting or standing. Indeed according to the population census conducted in 2011, a rough 42% of the disabled population are physically impaired and require assistance in their routine life. Banks in Mauritius do cater for the needs of people with such difficulties. For instance, the large Mauritian banks design their branches in such a way that their services are more accessible to their customers having physical disabilities. Indeed, ramps have been included in their architectures to facilitate access to wheelchairs and some banks make it a must to provide level access to their clients while meeting spaces are large enough to accommodate wheelchairs. Sadly though this architecture is not found in smaller banks. Therefore, ramps should be available on bank premises where steps are the only means of access. However, there are still gaps that ought to be filled in order to promote the financial inclusion of having physical problems. In a first instance, queuing aisles should be designed wide enough for wheelchairs for some of the aisles present in our banks are rather narrow. Moreover, banks should consider investing in providing comfort to people in physical discomfort. Wheelchair lifts could be installed where client service is not done on the ground floor while specific washrooms should be accessible to the public for some people may be physically unwell when attending a bank branch. It should be noted that certain people do not suffer from apparent physical disabilities but are naturally short in height without mentioning those born with dwarfism. For them and for the disabled population using wheelchairs, banks should consider low level teller counters in their branches as well as at least a low-level ATM machine that could be easily accessed by such people with measures that assure privacy and security during the transaction process. Given that all these recommendations are taken into consideration in a near future, people with physical difficulties will certainly feel more included financially and will find banking services more accessible and fairer bearing in mind that customer protection ought to be one of the prime objectives of a bank. Conclusion Barriers are hindrances that prevent people with disabilities from doing many of the routine activities, like daily banking transactions, that most of us tend to take for granted. A disability can occur to anyone at any time. In fact, as the Mauritian population greys, many of us could eventually face some kind of physical or mental limitation. This foresight report therefore, looks out to banking in the future years and defines the revolution that could ultimately lead to healthier banking practices. To this issue banks are called to recognise the needs of disabled clients and use judicious endeavours to improve their access to banking services. This report thus sets out potential actions that banks could and should explore and adopt for a brighter future. These changes will certainly present increased facilities for the disable population while presenting opportunities for the Mauritian banks to develop competitive assets, but they will also present considerable challenges to these institutions. It will be essential for the Mauritian banks to make a collective step to forge new policy frameworks and develop actions so that people having some kind of disability can feel financially autonomous thereby rebalancing fairness among clients in banking activities. Not only will such measures promote Pillars 1, 5 and 6 of the eight pillars set out in the Task force including, accessibility of banking to all, fair treatment of customers and customer protection respectively but these will fundamentally help meeting essential human needs. As from tomorrow and ever after, open your eyes to the world surrounding you, hear the cry of those who need you and walk together towards something new, something true: Healthier Banking- the way towards increased financial inclusion. References Global Rainbow Foundation. (2011) Handbook of Rights for Person with Disability in Mauritius Government of Mauritius. (2008) National Policy Paper Action Plan on Disability: â€Å"Valuing People with Disabilities† Jones. P., A., (2009) Still banking on a fresh start Livingstone. J. (2007) Banking matters to me: The experiences of people with a learning disability seeking to use banking products and services. Friends Provident Foundation. ISBN 978-1-906249-01-4 Livingstone. J., Dean. L. (2008) Banking on good decisions: How can the Mental Capacity Act help you with your bank, building society or post office account? Mental Health Foundation. ISBN 978-1-906162-17-7 MINISTRY OF FINANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (2012) Statistics Mauritius: 2011 Housing and Population Census. Volume IV: Disability REPUBLIC OF MAURITIUS (2011) Population Census: Main Results RNIB. (2012) Safe Statistics and key messages about sight loss Samuel. C., (2009–2010) Making Bank Notes Accessible for Canadians Living with Blindness or Low Vision. THE BANK OF MAURITIUS (2014) Banking Your Future: Towards a fair inclusive banking sector THE CO-OPERATIVE BANK (2013) Talking ATMs for the blind and partially sighted: Because banking with us should be as easy as possible for all Westpac Banking Corporation. (2008) Day-to-Day Bank Accounts: Easy banking for customers with disability. WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION. (2014) Country Cooperation Strategy at a glance: Mauritius. [1] Republic of Mauritius 2011 Population Census whereby 3.6% are aged between 15-59 years and 17.5% forms part of an elder population [2] Job Access With Speech (JAWS) screen reader

Horace Miner’s Body Ritual Among the Nacirema Essay -- Horace Miner Bo

Horace Miner’s Body Ritual Among the Nacirema In Horace Miner’s article, â€Å"Body Ritual Among the Nacirema†, he talks about a tribe and describes their odd behavior. He tells about how the tribe performs these strange daily rituals and how their peculiarity is extreme, but in fact he is actually speaking of Americans as a whole (Miner). Miner uses this style of writing to more effectively prove his point: that Americans are ethnocentric. Miner does an exceptional job in disguising the Nacirema as Americans. Some of the things he disguises are the bathroom, which he says is a cleansing shrine. He disguises the medicine chest as the main device in the shrine, a bundle of hog hairs on a stick as a toothbrush, and magical potions as medicine (Miner). In this article, Miner gives a few hints that the Nairema are indeed Americans. The fact that Nacirema spelled backwards is American is a huge hint by itself. Another clue is the â€Å"holy-mouth-men.† If you sit down and think about it for a second it is obvious to realize that they are indeed dentists. Also the me...

Should Chinas Human Rights Record Prevent Permanent Normal Trade Relations :: Human Rights Essays

Background Since the initial warming of U.S.-China relations in the early 1970s, policymakers have had difficulty balancing conflicting U.S. policy concerns in the Peoples' Republic of China. From Nixon to Clinton, presidents have had to reconcile security and human rights concerns with corporations' desires for expanded economic relations between the two countries. While the U.S. regularly objects to China's human rights violations, the Chinese government counters with complaints that the American concerns represent unwarranted American intrusion into its internal affairs. In 1989 the Tiananmen Square massacre drew public attention to the inconsistent character of U.S.-China policy. A wave of public indignation with China's repressive practices forced the Bush administration to adopt a sterner posture toward human rights violations and to impose sanctions, including restrictions on bilateral and multilateral aid. But these measures have not satisfied some critics of China's human rights practices, who contend that the U.S. should apply even more rigid trade restrictions against China. Specifically, some critics insist that the U.S. government not give China "permanent normal trade relations" status, which would free China's government from an annual review of its human rights record by Congress. Many critics say PNTR standing should be linked to improvements in China's human and labor rights practices - a policy that has been rejected by the Clinton administration. Rather than denying China normal trading status because of human rights violations, the Clinton administration has opted for a policy of "comprehensive engagement," which holds that long-term U.S. goals such as human rights improvement are more likely to be achieved through sustained contact and open trading than by further isolating China. Yet Chinese human rights practices, including respect for political and labor rights, continue to fall well below internationally accepted standards. In perhaps the stickiest issue, the White House warned last week that there was little chance of PNTR for China without legislation setting up a watchdog commission to monitor Beijing's human rights practices. China, however opposes any plans by the U.S. to monitor human rights as a condition to granting PNTR. On One Hand... American businesses should not be coddled at the expense of human rights. Despite expressions of concern for human rights conditions, the U.S. government has allowed narrow economic interests, particularly those of corporate investors, to guide its China policy. So far, the U.S. government has been unwilling to jeopardize U.S. economic relations by adopting stricter human rights conditions on aid and trade. China's trade status is currently reviewed annually by Congress.

Interrelation of Physical and Social Characteristics in Society :: Anthropology

Interrelation of Physical and Social Characteristics in Society Cultures on this planet are infinitely diverse and quite different from each other as well. Many of the customs and rituals that are practiced in the United States are diverse in nature as well, but are similar in more ways to each other than to cultures in other regions of the world. It seems that a great deal of a culture’s core stems from their surrounding environment, and the pressures that this puts on those trying to live there. A culture’s physical and social characteristics are interrelated, and play an important role in the development of a society and the personalities of the people. Marriage, jobs, and politics are all areas of a culture that are influenced by a person’s environment. In the U.S., monogamy is the â€Å"normal† structure of marriage, and is a logic choice considering the type of environment we live in. Independence training is emphasized to prepare people for obtaining the highest standard of living in the U.S. Being better than another is important in this society, and is stressed to most people from a very early age. Living away from one’s parents is not only expected but also often desired by both the child and the parents. Mobility is a huge factor in the work force, and the less one is â€Å"tied down† to, the easier it is to make the necessary transitions. In other societies, forms of marriage other than monogamy make more sense, and make life easier. For example, the !Kung San live together in small groups, in which everyone takes care of all the children, and much of life is not privately shielded from the group. Their openness and sharing of childcare and lifestyles is also portrayed in their food gathering activities. The villagers gather food and then distribute it to not only their own â€Å"nuclear† family, but to others as well. It would be too hard to survive on your own in this environment, so the group structure works well. Inheritance of lands and goods also plays an important role in the structuring of societies and families in other cultures outside of the U.S. Cultures such as the Inuit, Tibetans, and Marquesan Islanders of Polynesia, practice polyandry, the marriage of more than one man to a single woman. This is common for brothers who do not wish to divide up their father’s lands, so they will marry the same woman and both retain the entire estate.

Task Switching

Running Head: Time Cost, Task-Switching, Repeating Tasks Task Switching Cost’s Time Brooklyn College City University of New York Abstract A replication of Task Switching Monsell 2003 experiment was done, which predicts a time cost when switching tasks. 18 participants had to complete 100 randomized trials, switching between task-repeat and task-switching trials. Reaction Times (RT) were recorded and reflected by experimenters, to determine that there is a time cost involved when switching tasks as opposed to repeating the same task. Task-Switching Costs TimeMany people take pride in the fact that they can multitask. A study â€Å"Task Switching† conducted by Monsell concluded that multitasking, or switching between tasks actually costs us time. Our brain is complicated machinery, which requires a specific program for a specific task to be loaded in to our computer, the brain, to complete a task. Switching between tasks takes more time than repeating the same task. Monse ll demonstrated that when presented with one task, our brain responds faster in completing the task, rather than switching between tasks.In a task-switching experiment subjects are first pretrained on two or more simple tasks afforded by a set of stimuli. Each task requires attention to, and classification of, a different element or attribute of the stimulus or retrieval from memory or computation of a different property of the stimulus. (eg. , Monsell 2003) In the study the subjects were presented with a series of trials (eg. , Monsell 2003) and completed the task at hand on a random trial basis. The participants had to repeat the same task or switch between tasks to complete each trial.By conducting these trials the researchers tried to examine performance or brain activation on and following trials when the task changes for evidence of extra processing demands that are associated with the need to reconfigure task-set (eg. , Monsell 2003) The study concluded our brain requires a à ¢â‚¬Å"task-set reconfiguration† a sort of mental â€Å"gear changing† (eg. , Monsell 2003) In prospective this means that our brain loads a different program every time we need to complete a separate task.When switching between tasks our brain goes between two different programs one for example for counting and one for reading, therefore costing us time to switch between these two tasks. In this experiment we tried to replicate the Monsell 2003 Task Switching experiment. 18 Participants took a brief task-switching test via program Revolution Maker ©. Each trial was randomly assigned. The participants were presented with numbers one through nine and on each trial had to react to the number, to identify either its odd or even or if the magnitude was either less than 5 or more than 5.We hypothesis that when individuals are engaged in a cognitive task there is a time cost that occurs when asked to switch between tasks as opposed to repeating tasks. Methods Participants: 1 8 undergraduate students from Brooklyn College participated in this study. Materials: A task switching experiment designed on the computer program Revolution Maker © Procedure: Participants were led to an isolated lab room were they participated in a task-switching experiment. They were involved in 2 tasks a magnitude test and an odd even task.There was 100 randomly assigned trials 50% task-switch and 50% task-repeat that were completed by the participants. There were different type keys presented to the participants such as: z for an odd number, x for an even number, m for a number (>) than 5, and n for a number (

Question: How the concentration of acid (HCl) can be determined by titrating it using base (NaOH)? Essay

How the concentration of acid (HCl) can be determined by titrating it using base (NaOH)? Chemicals needed: 1- Phenolphthalein (color indicator). 2- Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) concentration of 0.5 molar. 3- Hydrochloric acid (HCl), with unknown concentration. Equipments needed: 1- Flask. 2- Pipette (uncertainty à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½0.05cm3). 3- Burette (uncertainty à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½0.05cm3). 4- PH meter. 5- Gloves, lab coat and plastic eye protection. Steps: 1- Add a known volume of HCl using pipette in the flask. 2- Add 2 drops of phenolphthalein in the flask using the pipette. 3- Shake the flask until the color changes to red. 4- Start to add NaOH on the HCl, drop by drop. 5- After each drop shake the flask to accomplish the mixing of the acid with the base. 6- Take readings of PH value using the PH meter, after each drop. 7- When HCl color turns to blue, immediately stop adding NaOH, this indicates the neutralization point. 8- To be sure that HCl is neutralized add few drops of NaOH on HCl. 9- Repeat the experiment to obtain more accurate data. Data collection and processing: The table below shows the values of PH recorded over the five trials and indicates the neutralization point at a specific volume of NaOH added: (1.0) table shows the data collected during the trials Below is the table produced after changing the volume of NaOH to the better measurable unit, also after adding the PH values for each volume added of NaOH then divide them by the number of trials to come out with the average PH value. (1.1) table showing the processed data Average PH value 0.0193 13.3 0.0194 13.4 0.0195 13.5 0.0196 13.5 0.0197 13.5 0.0198 13.5 0.0199 13.3 0.0200 07.3 0.0201 01.7 0.0202 01.5 0.0203 01.3 The graph below shows the graphical relationship between volume of NaOH added in dm^3 versus average PH value: As calculated at the neutralization point which is nearly equal to 7, the volume of NaOH added is approximately 0.0250 à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ (0.0000450) dm^3 To calculate the concentration of base, it is most desirable to use the equation below: Now substituting the concentration, also volume of the acid (HCl) and the volume added of the base (NaOH), then: 0.6 Molar Conclusion and evaluation:- Conclusion: – It is concluded that the concentration of HCl in the lab that all the trials occurred in is 0.6 Molar. – It is concluded that titration of acid using base must be repeated many times to accomplish more accurate results. Evaluation: – The usage of a digital PH meter may affect the accuracy of the data, as it produces systematic errors. – The volume of phenolphthalein may play a role on the volume of HCl in the flask. – Concentration of NaOH may not be exactly 0.5 molar as there might be impurities. – The PH value as shown from the data collected is changing at a high manner near to the neutralization point; therefore it is not easy to know the precise concentration of NaOH. – Calculating the PH value to indicate the rate of reaction, is not precise, because the PH has a logarithmic function not a linear function, then there will be a small change in the PH value while there will be big change of H+. Improvements: – Using a digital instrument to drop exactly 1.0 cm^3 in each drop. – Using a base with primary standard to titrate HCl may be more accurate to indicate the value of it is concentration. – Using a pipette with less uncertainty may help in improving the data collected. – Using a burette with less uncertainty can determine more accurate results.