Managing and evaluating informal education Essay

Managing and evaluating informal education - Essay Example Organisational culture has no concrete definition; different researchers have defined in various forms so that ambiguity of the word is cleared to a certain extent. According to Denison (1990) and Celand (1994), cited by Nayak et al. (2011), organisational culture can be defined as â€Å"an environment of organisation which is made up of beliefs, practices, customs, knowledge and conventionalised behaviour of a specific social group†. In other words, several researchers have associated different terms with the word ‘culture’ such as shared meanings of symbols, rituals, beliefs, and myths that evolve with the passage of time and reduce variability in human nature and control while shaping employees’ behaviour within the organisation. Since people are valuable assets of organisations, they are the ones who run the business activities of organisations in the form of teams; culture helps in giving them a meaning, shared vision along with set of rules, principles and standards according to which they have to behave in the respective organisation. There are three levels in organisational culture as identified by Nayak et al. (2011) i.e. artefacts of culture that can be observed, followed by shared values and then common assumptions. When levels are considered as layers, then when the level is deeper, it becomes difficult to diagnose and analyze organisational culture by going at that level. Lund (2003) has stated that organisational culture in any type of organisation is defined by the shared beliefs, values, perceptions or customs that are held and followed by employees within that particular organisation or its unit. Since organisational culture is a reflection of behavioural norms, beliefs and values that are being used by organisation’s employees, they give meanings to the situations when they encounter it and these culture characteristics

Venezuela's economic environment Research Paper

Venezuela's economic environment - Research Paper Example This means that the country has a great share in the geopolitical structure of the world. Venezuela, at 2013, is the world’s 34th largest economy with a GDP of $ 407.4 billion (Central Intelligence Agency 1). It experienced a growth rate of 1.6 percent, which is attributed to a slow and unstable recovery from the 2008’s world recession. In 2012, it experienced a growth rate of 5.6 percent. Besides, it has Per Capita GDP of $ 13, 600. This is the world’s 99th largest PPP. Oil forms a major part of Venezuelan economy since it contributes 96 percent of its export earnings, 12 percent of its GDP, and 45 percent of its annual budget. Manufacturing forms a huge percent of Venezuelan’s economy as the country exports steel, cement, and aluminum. The industry sector contributes 35.5% of the country’s GDP. Agriculture forms a mere 3.7 percent of the economy suggesting that the sector is underdeveloped. Although it exports agricultural products such as fish, the country imports two-thirds of its food supplies. The services’ sector is occupi es the largest part of the GDP, 60.8 % thereby employing 70.9 percent of the Venezuelan population. In terms of economic freedom index, the country has a score of 36.3 thereby making it a repressed economy. This means that there is limited individual freedom and liberty as pertains to investment and economic prosperity. The government has a big stake in economic activities, which in turn limits innovation and individual economic prosperity. It is essential, however, to note that Hugo Chavez, the former president, nationalized the oil industry in order to prevent conflicts and eliminate corruption. Venezuela experiences significant economic problems that correspond with state control of economic activities. Venezuela has a corruption index of 20 and ranks 166th in the world. This also

The New Jim Crow Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The New Jim Crow - Essay Example Any statement that doesn’t concide with what it implies is hypocrisy even if it is in the form of a law. A law not implemented sincerely and judiciously is self negating. Spare the rod and spoil the child is not valid today as the contrary is more likely to spoil the child. This is in fact what is happening in our society today. Our laws target to prevent the crime and through a vicious circle of incarceration end up in promoting it simply because of the real focus being upon segregation of those whom we don’t want to be in the mainsream of our society. How incarceration can be counter effective and promote discrimination is the point to ponder upon. This was the point that flashed across the mind of Michelle Alexander, an associate professor at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, while he happened to quickly glance at a roadside bill reading, "The Drug War is the New Jim Crow." His reaction to this poster, in his own words was, "Yeah, the criminal-justi ce system is racist in many ways, but making such an absurd comparison doesn't help. People will just think you're crazy." (Alexander) Right as he was, this thought required thorough probe and research to establish what he thought was a fact. He did so and after a lapse of good enough time delivered an illuminating speech at Constitution Day, during an event hosted by the Constitution Project and the Georgetown Center on National Security. He stated conclusively, â€Å"the system of mass incarceration is now immunized from judicial scrutiny for racial bias, much as slavery and Jim Crow laws were once protected from constitutional challenge.† Jim Crow is iconic for laws pertaining to discrimination. In the early days of our history such laws were proclaimed openly like Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. It was a pro-slavery clause in the U. S. Constitution and provided that, â€Å"persons held in service of labour in one state, escaping into another ... shall be delivered up on clai m of the party to whom such service of labor may be due."  (Ronald and Davis) Further to it â€Å"Those who refused could be fined and jailed. Slave catchers were paid a bounty for each slave captured.† (Ronald and Davis). We do not have such harsh laws today because now we are better equipped with the use of legal terms to express our illicit thoughts. Discrimination of colour and creed, not pronounced though, is embedded in the subconscious of our society and those at the helms of legal affairs do not spare any opportunity to imprison and reimprison the ‘defaulters of color or creed’on one or the other pretext. Crux of the thinking is that we want to keep some of the society, away from society on pretence of some legal ground, mostly prompted by political motives. Living in a truly free society, the black and white feel attracted towards one another like the opposite poles well known for their intrinsic affinity, when however constrained to live together they act like similar poles and tend to repel one another. Imprisonment has been a favourite mode of punishment in the history of law. The stated objectives of imprisonment are to punish the criminals followed by their training and education to reintroduce them in the society as useful and respectable citizens. Facts that come in light through research do not approve the realization of these objectives, for example statistics show that most of the persons once charged and imprisoned are charged and

Managing and evaluating informal education Essay

Managing and evaluating informal education - Essay Example Organisational culture has no concrete definition; different researchers have defined in various forms so that ambiguity of the word is cleared to a certain extent. According to Denison (1990) and Celand (1994), cited by Nayak et al. (2011), organisational culture can be defined as â€Å"an environment of organisation which is made up of beliefs, practices, customs, knowledge and conventionalised behaviour of a specific social group†. In other words, several researchers have associated different terms with the word ‘culture’ such as shared meanings of symbols, rituals, beliefs, and myths that evolve with the passage of time and reduce variability in human nature and control while shaping employees’ behaviour within the organisation. Since people are valuable assets of organisations, they are the ones who run the business activities of organisations in the form of teams; culture helps in giving them a meaning, shared vision along with set of rules, principles and standards according to which they have to behave in the respective organisation. There are three levels in organisational culture as identified by Nayak et al. (2011) i.e. artefacts of culture that can be observed, followed by shared values and then common assumptions. When levels are considered as layers, then when the level is deeper, it becomes difficult to diagnose and analyze organisational culture by going at that level. Lund (2003) has stated that organisational culture in any type of organisation is defined by the shared beliefs, values, perceptions or customs that are held and followed by employees within that particular organisation or its unit. Since organisational culture is a reflection of behavioural norms, beliefs and values that are being used by organisation’s employees, they give meanings to the situations when they encounter it and these culture characteristics

The New Jim Crow Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The New Jim Crow - Essay Example Any statement that doesn’t concide with what it implies is hypocrisy even if it is in the form of a law. A law not implemented sincerely and judiciously is self negating. Spare the rod and spoil the child is not valid today as the contrary is more likely to spoil the child. This is in fact what is happening in our society today. Our laws target to prevent the crime and through a vicious circle of incarceration end up in promoting it simply because of the real focus being upon segregation of those whom we don’t want to be in the mainsream of our society. How incarceration can be counter effective and promote discrimination is the point to ponder upon. This was the point that flashed across the mind of Michelle Alexander, an associate professor at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, while he happened to quickly glance at a roadside bill reading, "The Drug War is the New Jim Crow." His reaction to this poster, in his own words was, "Yeah, the criminal-justi ce system is racist in many ways, but making such an absurd comparison doesn't help. People will just think you're crazy." (Alexander) Right as he was, this thought required thorough probe and research to establish what he thought was a fact. He did so and after a lapse of good enough time delivered an illuminating speech at Constitution Day, during an event hosted by the Constitution Project and the Georgetown Center on National Security. He stated conclusively, â€Å"the system of mass incarceration is now immunized from judicial scrutiny for racial bias, much as slavery and Jim Crow laws were once protected from constitutional challenge.† Jim Crow is iconic for laws pertaining to discrimination. In the early days of our history such laws were proclaimed openly like Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. It was a pro-slavery clause in the U. S. Constitution and provided that, â€Å"persons held in service of labour in one state, escaping into another ... shall be delivered up on clai m of the party to whom such service of labor may be due."  (Ronald and Davis) Further to it â€Å"Those who refused could be fined and jailed. Slave catchers were paid a bounty for each slave captured.† (Ronald and Davis). We do not have such harsh laws today because now we are better equipped with the use of legal terms to express our illicit thoughts. Discrimination of colour and creed, not pronounced though, is embedded in the subconscious of our society and those at the helms of legal affairs do not spare any opportunity to imprison and reimprison the ‘defaulters of color or creed’on one or the other pretext. Crux of the thinking is that we want to keep some of the society, away from society on pretence of some legal ground, mostly prompted by political motives. Living in a truly free society, the black and white feel attracted towards one another like the opposite poles well known for their intrinsic affinity, when however constrained to live together they act like similar poles and tend to repel one another. Imprisonment has been a favourite mode of punishment in the history of law. The stated objectives of imprisonment are to punish the criminals followed by their training and education to reintroduce them in the society as useful and respectable citizens. Facts that come in light through research do not approve the realization of these objectives, for example statistics show that most of the persons once charged and imprisoned are charged and

American Literature Essay Example for Free

American Literature Essay On learning that his gay lover â€Å"Prior Walter† was infected with AIDS, Louis Ironson being unable to cope quits the relationship. Joe is offered a good promotion by fellow homosexual and lawyer â€Å"Roy Cohn†, unknowing to Joe, Roy has AIDS, which he contacted from Prior. Angels and ghosts visited Prior and told him he was a prophet, Joe struggles to reconcile his religion with his sexuality; Louis blames himself for leaving Prior and begins a relationship with Joe. Harper who was mentally derailed due to her addiction to taking pills regularly and had her problems worsened as she realizes that her husband ‘Joe’ is gay. She is very sensitive and weak, but loves her husband and wants to keep her home. Joe’s mother, Hannah moves to New York to attempt to take care of Harper and meets Prior. Harper separates from Joe and Roy is hospitalized. Tony Kushner shows some heavy Biblical references and references to American society, as well as some fantastical scenes including voyages to Antarctica and Heaven, as well as key events happening in San Francisco and at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. I think Kushner wants to show how unhappy people could be and have lots of secret and can’t trust themselves in the modern life.

Functionalism, Emile Durkheim 1858-1917

Functionalism, Emile Durkheim 1858-1917 Emile Durkheim is a founding father of Structural-Consensus Theory known as Functionalism. This theory looks as society as a whole, known in sociology as a Macro theory due to not looking at individuals or individual problems but at society as a group or sub cultures. Durkheim would argue that society was characterised by an existence of order, control and constraint of individuals,à ¯Ã†â€™Ã… ¸need to reference with the individual being viewed as less important than the entire group as a whole. It is a Logical and Systematic analysis: It treats us all as being the same and offers no explanation for differences. It explains how society has maintained its existence over time and it tries to influence the children of tomorrow by forcing past beliefs and decisions on them. Durkheim believes socialisation is important to keep society functioning well and that we should pass our rules, norms and values through generations and change nothing to maintain social stability. Durkheim theorises that we all depend on each other and our institutions need each other in order to survive, this is known as Interdependence. Durkheim explains this by his Organic Analogy, for example like the human body if the heart stops working it has a knock on effect onto the lungs, brain and the rest of the organs. This theory can be observed within the recent happenings of the global financial crisis which caused the threat and total collapse of the worlds largest financial institutions; so when the major banks actually did collapse it had a negative effect on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and damaged employment, education, housing, borrowing and private business around the world. Functionalist theory has weaknesses as it assumes everyone has the same choices and decisions to make in life when in actual fact rich people have more options than poor people: if we consider different nations we observe that poor people in Africa can only afford to eat one bowl of porridge a day whereas rich people in America can eat five times a day whatever they want, also some countries only offer boys education when in other countries education is compulsory for both males and females. It states that we have no free will and that our paths in life are set out for us by our genealogy, meaning the traits and genetics we inherit from our ancestors. Another negative of this theory is it does not explain conflict in our society and does not accept that we are all different and states when people disagree with the consensus they are classed as being dysfunctional, this is unfair to those people as they could form a sub group within our society yet are unable to have a voice or share their opinion for example a functionalist would argue that Gay relationships dont fit in with the nuclear family ideal as a functionalist society these people and their beliefs are excluded and their differences ignored. Marxism Karl Marx (1818-1883) Marxism theory is known in sociology as a Structural Conflict theory like the functionalist theory it looks at society as a whole and the structure of society such as the institutions that keep society stable. However the Marxist theory focuses on the different conflicts that happen within society mainly between the classes. As Marx explains, the predominant class conflict within society occurs between the proletariat (lower class) and the bourgeoisies (upper class). Marx argues that this is due to the bourgeoisie being the owners of production; they therefore own the means to create work by owning the tools, material, trade and stability for their workers. This creates requirement of the bourgeoisie for the proletariat as they require the trade, work and wages in order to feed their families. However the tension is created due to the proletariat being low paid with usually bad standards of work environment and long hours of work. The workers were made to work hard and meet targets every day in order to turn a profit for the owners of production knowing that if their work wasnt up to scratch or they disobeyed the rules they could lose their jobs, the bourgeoisie knew they could replace a worker quiet easily so had the power to make these decisions without thought for the workers. This relationship as Marx describes is reliant on each other and is apparent within all aspects of the economy even today in our present society. Due to such high unempl oyment and an economy in recession, wages and salaries have been frozen for a few years now and not rising with inflation causing more tension between the lower class and upper classes of society and government. Marx explains that this relationship was/is oppressive to the working class individuals due to the low wages, the working classes are restricted in their social mobility as well as their ability to move up through the academic or employment ladder. This is almost certainly relevant in todays society for example mortgages are only available to a small margin of those able to pay large deposits to secure loans and in England educational attainment comes at a high price. Marxist sociologists believe that the education system has been designed and constructed as a training ground for the children of the proletariat. It is dominated by the ruling class to socialize them to accept that individual competition and inevitable inequality is the only system that works. For Marxists this is a powerful form of social control that will legitimise the capitalists economic forms of production and the legitimate political leadership of a capitalist ruling class (hegemony) with this Marxists do not be lieve that the education system provides equal opportunities for the children, even though it comes across as fair and equal, children are often split into groups based on merit and ability. Marxist sociologists would refer to the learning of rules, norms, routines and regulations as the hidden curriculum, Marxists see this as a way of reinforcing the class system to ensure, that pupils learn the skills more suited to their class background. Marx fully believed that in order for this relationship to change that the masses had to come together to overthrow the bourgeoisie from power and take control to make it a fairer society (socialism). Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim Within sociology, Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim have played very influential parts when it comes to looking at society and its structure. They both adopted a structural position from which they saw society as a system made up of similar parts and they believe that culture is as crucial to identity as socialisation. Both believed the social structure controlled the individual through socialisation of values, Durkheim thought positive of this situation, whereas Marx felt this was negative. Karl Marx believed that religious values and beliefs are the basis for the values and beliefs within society. Marx believed that order was achieved through unequal power relations between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in which the bourgeoisie control the environment and the conditions (economic determinism) that the proletariat are consigned to earn in order to live. This is referring to a capitalist society, where the working class individuals work to a set of rules and guidelines in return for a wage, however turning a higher profit for the owner than what they earn. Marx argues that these roles between the classes are oppressive, exploited, alienated and constrained by the ruling class and believes that revolutionary change would only be possible and take place when the working classes are fully aware of these conditions in which they live, he also believes that the bourgeoisie are the controllers of culture since the economic forces determine everything else and use the sup er structure of society for their own purpose including religion, education and rules. Marx refers to this as a movement from a class in itself to a class for its self, however, before the working class can become a class for itself they need the development of a class identity, the realities and the problems of society are largely hidden from them this Marx states is an illusionary world in which they live and is referred to as a state of false class consciousness in society. This is the aim of Marxist sociology; to exploit and show society for what it really is, by doing so would be to create true class consciousness. For Emile Durkheim, who believed that individual identity was a problem or an issue for society as a whole and if restricted, harmony and social order could continue.