Friday, January 31, 2020

Gender and subject choice Essay Example for Free

Gender and subject choice Essay To carry out these interviews, I would take a sample of 20 sixth-formers, preferably within my own sixth-form to allow easier, speedier access and consisting equally of both males and females. In order to do this I would use quota sampling, this is a way in which variables can be controlled and the participants with similar characteristics are chosen, hence the overall sample can reflect the characteristics of the population as a whole. These samples would also preferably include students that had chosen to study any of the sciences, however particularly focusing on Biology. This sample would also take into account ethnic and class differences in order to allow me to differentiate between males and females according to different variables, providing sufficient extra data to measure gender against class roles and the intersections. Whilst this will provide qualitative clues as to subject choices by gender it will be limited in illustrating the impact of the learning environment and gender roles, as this would demand more qualitative analysis such as that of Anne Colleys. However, I would expect the results to be generalisable to a wider population. I will anchor these questions in previous research such as that of Anne Colley. Within the interviews, I am going to focus on Biology in particular when asking about the science/favourite subjects, etc. My reasons for doing this arise from the evidence that Science at GCSE level is more popular with males whereas at A-level it is more commonly chosen by females. I would begin the interviews with a number of open-ended questions, so as to give the participant a chance to provide me with worthy feedback, eg. Why did you choose Biology? , and What did you think of it ?(in comparison to GCSE level), etc. I would record the answers to these open questions as it would be time-consuming to write down many long answers, etc. This would enable me to extract a varied viewpoint on many different students perspectives of subject choice and preference. Then I would ask a series of closed-ended questions which will generally be more appropriate to achieve a table of results for clear comparisons to be made. These closed-ended questions would include similar questions to: Do you think Biology is a girls subject? and Do you think Physics is a boys subject? , etc. Questions would be piloted on a small group of males and females to ensure its adequacy. This is in fact a small-scale preliminary study which will allow me to check that things will run smoothly during the interviews and also allow improvements to be made to the design of the research, should there be any faults. (471 words) Potential Problems As this is a such a small piece of research, it would a problem to generalise from it, especially to schools and pupils different from the sample, eg.ethnic minorities, private education, etc. It would give an idea of the reasons in which a particular small group of students chose their A level subjects and their own individual reasons for doing so. However it could give a fair impression of reasons for subject choice in other cases, eg. similar circumstances to other pupils studying the same subjects etc. The usage of quota sampling does have both theoretical and practical drawbacks in some circumstances. It isnt truly random as each person within the population doesnt have an equal chance of being chosen. The lack of this genuine randomness may have a significant effect on the results. For example, the quota sample within my study would be only those illustrated on the biology class register, however the results may have more of an impact if a quota sample had been taken from all those who achieved a high grade at GCSE biology and were in fact considering going on to study it at a higher level, etc. There is of course, with my research an interviewer bias. As my opinions on the topic are set by doing the research, participants may be influenced by my asking of the questions and will therefore respond by giving a respectable answer as they may find the real truth embarrassing, eg. I fancied a lad who was taking the course. However I am similar in status to my chosen sample group, therefore they may wish to impress or please me by giving me answers that they think I want to hear. Another problem may be the reliability of the interviewees memory, they arent currently making their choice and might not remember their thoughts on it at the time. Also during interviews, a crucial factor as a way of achieving a reliable outcome of the research is to not put ideas into the students head before having asked open-ended questions. For example, closed-ended questions especially may put forward ideas that werent there before and therefore mislead me about their thoughts on the matter, etc.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

The Discovery of Paralititan Stomeri - A Giant Sauropod Essay -- Anthr

The Discovery of Paralititan Stomeri - A Giant Sauropod In the scientific article â€Å"A giant sauropod dinosaur from an upper Cretaceous mangrove deposit in Egypt,† by Joshua Smith, Matthew Lamanna, Kenneth Lacovara, and Peter Dodson it is indicated that a giant sauropod named Paralititan Stomeri was discovered in a desert area in western Egypt in 2001. The skeleton was dated back to ninety to one hundred million years ago, which is the late Cretaceous period. Paralititan is a sauropod, which is thought to be the second largest that has ever lived. A partial skeleton of this enormous sauropod was found. What was found is seen when the authors write, â€Å"The specimen consists largely of vertebrae, pectoral girdle, and forelimb elements† (Dodson, Lacovara, Lamanna, and Smith). The largest bone found was a 1.69 meter long humerus, which is an upper arm bone. This was the first find in the area since 1935. The area where the bones were found is called Egypt’s Bahariya Oasis. The last time this site was explored was when a German, named Ernst Stromer, found four smaller dinosaur species. Stromer believed that the fossils he found came from a period in the Upper Cretaceous around ninety three to ninety nine million years ago. Included in stromer’s findings were fish, turtles, plesiosaurs, squamates, crocodyliforms, and four dinosaurs: the theropods Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and Bahariasaurus, and the sauropod Aegyptosaurus (Dodson, Lacovara, Lamanna, and Smith). Unfortunately most of these fossils were destroyed in 1944 when the Allied forces bombed Munich during World War II. The period around ninety to one hundred million years ago is characterized by a very small variation in temperature between the north and south ... ... in that area. The discovery of the Paralititan supports the theory that the two continents were attached through the late Cretaceous, because it is closely related to the Argentinosaurus. This discovery is exciting because it is another very large sauropod and, because it helps support the theory that Africa and South America were still connected through the late Cretaceous period. Bibliography Dodson, Peter, Kenneth Lacovara, Matthew Lamanna, and Joshua Smith. â€Å"A giant sauropod dinosaur from an Upper Creataceous mangrove deposit in Egypt†. Science. Washington: June1, 2001. Vo. 292, Iss. 5522. Roach, John. â€Å"’Tidal Giant’ Roamed Coastal Swamps of Ancient Africa†. National Geographic News. 2001. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/05/0 531-tidaldinosaur.html

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

A Family Centered Preschool Essay

Several people may ask the question, â€Å"What makes the difference in a family centered preschool? † This paper will help outline the importance of a family centered program versus a preschool that focuses only on the child. The learning of the children in family centered preschools are enhanced due to the focus points not only being on the child, but the family too. Educators can best help children achieve effectively by meeting the nine essential elements(Morrison, 2009). One of those nine elements is to develop a partnership with parents, families, and friends of each child. The focus of this paper is Abraham Maslow’s whole child concept(Maslow, 1954) and helping families resolve issues. This program style helps each child to learn and develop in a more consistent environment and maintaining the goals each family has expressed for their child. Family Centered Preschool As children prepare to enter preschool there are several areas required for educators to effectively address for the child and family to feel comfortable in this new type of environment. A family centered preschool’s goal is to focus on child and family not just the child. The first step in this process is to focus on any attachment issues. Attachment is normal for each child to go through. What makes attachment something important for educators to focus on? Well, it is a lasting emotional relationship that is part of child development and it begins in infancy. This process will continue throughout the child’s lifespan. It is important for early childhood educators and families to work together to recognize and agree on proper goals for the child so that each child attains proper development in this area. When preschool educators focus on providing healthy attachment development this will help each child transition more easily into school. One main goal of educators at this point is not to look down on the families of these children because this will hinder the ability to effectively support the adults in the child’s life. An educator must remain free of judgements and enter each relationship with an opened mind. The educators acts as an extended part of the child’s family remembering that it is not a competition game for the child’s affection. When attachment issues are recognized, very important to sit down with the family and correctly identify issues together. The next step would be to use problem solving techniques to resolve these issues. This could mean a few easy steps such as letting the child watching the parent leave when dropping the child off for preschool or providing the family with community resources such as classes educating the family on appropriately dealing with attachment issues. Setting the family up with an attachment expert would only need to be done if some of these things do not work. For example: a family has adopted the child and the child is not connecting with them. An educator could suggest some of the following: holding the baby more often, holding the bottle verses letting the child hold the bottle if still in bottle feeding stages, bathing with the baby (the skin to skin contact generates closeness), playing face to face games with baby (eye contact is important), and cuddling with the child. These are just a few suggestions that could be provided. Keeping staff well educated in this area and having a readily usable list of outside resources will help ensure the appropriate development of the children in the preschool. Once the attachment issues are resolved the child can move into the next stage of readiness for school which is self-help skills. Self-help skills become an important part of a child’s readiness for school. Educators of kindergarten expect each child to have already developed the skills to accomplish small tasks on their own. The job of the educators of a preschool is to help the child do things for themselves. Knowing how to appropriately teach the skills is very important. How adults respond to this is and to the exploring behavior will determine to some extent the child’s adult behavior(Gonzalez-Mena, 2009). Feeding themselves is one of the beginning lessons of preschool educators. Some families, based on culture, may find this a difficult task. Helping the family to recognize this is an important part of child development and working through the issues together will help to attain the goal of self feeding. Once the baby becomes mobile even bigger issues can arise. The main goal of this stage is to help the families set up a safe place for baby to explore in, after all this is what this stage of development is all about. When children are restricted to extremes, they loose their curiosity, their willingness to take risks, and their drive to be independent of others and do things for themselves(Gonzales-Mena, 2009). Toilet training falls within this category as well. Remembering to honor the values of each family will help to have a more successful result of developing self-help skills. After effectively working through self-help skill development, the next category will be to work on empowerment. Empowerment has a lot to do with issues of power and control. Educators can do a lot to facilitate empowerment and the controls that need to go with it to keep all children safe and secure. The immediate reaction of most adults in power struggle situations is to give lessons on sharing. This is not the appropriate approach. The educator must acknowledge and reflect feelings of both parties rather than to discuss sharing and fairness. To discuss sharing and fairness is null because these lessons have not yet been learned. The situation needs to become the learning guide for all children involved. Rather than create anger and grudges by removing something from one child and giving to the other, feelings on both parties should be acknowledged and then talked through. Explaining what took place and an appropriate reaction to correct the issue provides the child with options to do the right thing verses forcing the child to do the right thing. Other effective tools in dealing with empowerment are giving choices, setting limits, providing the ability for the child to play, and encourage self-help skills. Helping families to understand this simple guide will help alleviate issues at preschool. Families also need to understand providing a safe environment for children to explore in helps counter react power struggles. Allowing children to play outside of preschool with other children will help them achieve good healthy play habits for preschool. This may be the only interaction with other children that a single-child family has to mingle with other children. A suggestion to these families might be to create play groups. The educator could provide the families with tools in creating a schedule for play groups and meeting places. If they are not interested in using families of the preschool provide them with community play groups. Child avenue (http://www. childavenue. com/pages/playgroups_pages/playgroups_national. html) provides such resources to families and it is a nationwide data based tool. After leveling out empowerment issues, prosocial skills are next in line. Prosocial skills involve the skills for each child to learn what is important in life, right from wrong, and anything involving morals or values. This is a very controversial issue within any school whether it is preschool or high school. The best way to promote prosocial skill development is to do the following: model them yourself, explain why you are setting limits, encourage cooperation by finding ways to get children to work and play together, take a problem solving approach when dealing with conflicts, rather than a power stance, avoid punishment as a way of disciplining, do not be overpowering remember to empower instead, avoid using competition to motivate, help children to appreciate the world and people they share it with, give choices, teach children to solve conflicts without violence, and teach children to be peace makers (Gonzalez-Mena, 2009). If families also model these ways to promote prosocial skills the developmental process will be more beneficial. This may involve working closely with families to help them identify strengths and weakness to work on. Providing them with goals and guideline checklist as well as modeling the behaviors when working with the families. This can be a lengthy drawn out process but the results will be worth it all. While working on a successful completion of developing good prosocial skills, it may be necessary to work on self-esteem. Self-esteem is very important to the success of every aspect of life. If an individual perceives themselves in a negative way their accomplishments tend to be very limited. The ability to open the doors of the future depends on the appropriate development of a positive self-esteem. This does not mean an individual has to like everything about themselves, but rather accept themselves the way they are and make changes to the things they do not like. The serenity prayer is one passage that comes to mind when talking about self-esteem.

Monday, January 6, 2020

Youth Gangs In Canada - 886 Words

Youth gangs in Canada is becoming more and more of issue. Adolescents across Canada resort to joining youth gangs for many different reasons. A youth gang is a group of young adolescents who use intimidation and violence to gain prestige among other gangs and control certain areas of unlawful activities. For all the reasons an adolescent would join a youth gang, police and the Government have come up with programs to prevent youth from joining and to get them to leave the gangs. With programs involving prevention, intervention, and suppression, the Canadian Government is adequately addressing youth gangs within Canada. Teenagers and young adults join youth gangs for many reasons. Reasons a teenager would join a gang include family†¦show more content†¦The Canadian government also uses Intervention programs. This programs purpose is to help street gang members, especially youth leave gangs as well as prevent young people who are on the border of joining street gangs join them. Along with prevention techniques, intervention program must be individualized to meet the adolescents needs to get them out of their current gang. Multisystemic Therapy which was designed specifically for chronic juvenile offenders which can be also connected to youth gangs, is a home based program where all areas of the adolescents life that influences them are involved including home, school, peer group and neighbourhood. With therapists available twenty-four hours a day, this program can be successful. The purpose of Multisystemic Therapy is to â€Å"empower the family to take responsibility for making and mai ntaining gains.... parents are encouraged to develop the requisite skills to solve their own problems rather than rely on professionals† (Leschied Cunningham 9). Another intervention strategy based out of Regina, is called RAGS which stands for Regina Anti-Gang Services specifically targets gang involved Aboriginal youth from the ages of thirteen to thirty. The goal is to reduce the amount of youth gang crimes by providing services that can end in adolescents leaving the gangs. The program offers intensive counselling, teachingShow MoreRelatedCanadian Gangs Essay1330 Words   |  6 PagesStatistics Canada has done research on identifying the facts that are contributed to the definition of a youth gang member. Partnered with the Montreal Police Service, Statistics Canada was able to generate the definition of a gang member: An organized group of adolescents and/or young adults who rely on group intimidation and violence, and commit criminal acts in order to gain power and rec ognition and/or control certain areas of unlawful activity [2] (Statistics Canada, 2008). Gangs have beenRead MoreA Formal Description For A Youth Gang1503 Words   |  7 Pagesinto groups that society often refers to as gangs. 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