Views on education

Social democrats argued that everyone should have an equal chance to succeed in the education system. But as middle class children tend to have higher educational attainment than working classm this suggests that schools don't provide equal opportunity for everyone. As one of the sociologists Halsey concluded after the research that ' relative success and failure in school is determined by the assets or burdens children bring with them, and schooling itself cannot compensate for society the school is a causally less powerful agent than home or community'.

When we talk about liberal education, it means the opposite of specialized education, when students take courses in a wide range of subjects including the major once.As one of the sociologists said liberal education helps find from mass democracy cultured human beings: "Liberal education is the necessary endeavor to found an aristocracy within democratic mass society. Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracy who have ears to hear, of human greatness."

New Right view based on a findings solutions of educational problem in the society such as state dependency. There is a need of comptetions between school and allowing schools and colleges self management. "Schools face outside pressures from two main sources: the education bureaucracy and the teacher unions..; the weaker these outside pressures, the more effective was school organisation ­ and consequently the greater was student achievement." (Chubb & Moe) 

Before 70s vocational training had been a responsibility of the employers. If they saw that thier employees are lack of skills they could organise different trainings. But in 70s government started to introduce training schemes for young people and this was called new vocationalism - direct involvement in youth training. New vocationalism establishes close link between education and economy. It gave the opportunity for those who want particular work take vocational qualifications and learn skills. First of all these schools are mostly were specialised and work-based. But them new qualifications allowed young people broader their minds and increase knowledge in different subjects such as art,design etc. Vocational qualifications are tend to be more popular among working class people as they often don't have financial support to continue their study so they start working from youth. But also new vocationalism was criticised for itd disadvantages such as making class inequalities in the education system, young workers already accept being exploitet and get low paid jobs.

Marxist - sociologist Phil Cohen (1984): "the real purpose of "New Vocationalism" is social control. To create good behaviour and discipline rather than training for work. Young people who refuse to take part are "punished" by having benefits withdrawn"

Notes on Sociology

So as i wrote already in one of my posts about differences in educational achievement, one of the possible reaons of it is deprivation. Deprivation is a loss, the disadvantage of losing something. There are two types of deprivation: material and cultural and both of them affect educational achievement of pupils. When the pupil is materially deprived this means that he has lack of money and material things that money could buy. High income in the family provides many opportunities for children to have a success in a learning proccesses, as they don't need to care about different problems such as where to find books or necessary equipment, what they will eat. While children in poverty usually have part-time jobs, they tend to leave schools in early ages, they are more stressfull and more likely to have different health problems. Cultural deprivation means an absense of the attitudes and skills that are needed for the educational success. Douglas and Sugarman supported this idea and argued that those who are culturally deprived also is likely to fail in educational process, as their life lacks the kind of stimulation for high attainment. Those at the bottom classes have lack of educational equipment and also their parents are more likely not to encourage their children to succed at school. Because of lack of motivation and different life problems, these pupils fail at school.
Deprivation is an example of how important family life in educational achievement.
Cultural capital, according to Bourdieu, can be seen from the dominant culture which is the culture of those in the highest levels of the class structure which is generally regarded as superior, since it can be converted into material rewards - high salaries, high qualifications, etc.
As educational system reproduces dominant culture, so it helps to reproduce the class system. So by creating educational failure or success, it legitimates position of those who are on the highest levels and those who are at the bottom.

Davis and Moore

Fuctionalism on Inequality:

1. Society is an organic system whose various components work together to contribute to the health of the system. Some of the positions within the system, though, are more important than others for the survival of the society.

2. For a society to remain healthy, the most functionally important positions must be filled by the most qualified people. However, the number of people with the talent and/or the training to fill these roles is limited.

3. Individuals must be induced to spend the time, effort, and financial resources that training requires.

4. Consequently, society allocates greater rewards to those positions that are more important and require scarce talents.

5. Inequality is an unconsciously established system through which societies fill the most crucial positions with the most skilled persons.

6. Some degree of inequality is inevitable because it contributes positively to the functioning of societies."

Ivan Illich

Ivan illich wrote a number of books which  described essential changes in major institutions of the industrial world. One of the books, 'Deschooling society' was devoted as it is shown in its name to deschool society. Schools confuse students and make them feel obedient and undercontrolled. "Many students, especially those who are poor, intuitively know what the schools do for them. They school them to confuse process and substance. Once these become blurred, a new logic is assumed: the more treatment there is, the better are the results; or, escalation leads to success. The pupil is thereby "schooled" to confuse teaching with learning, grade advancement with education, a diploma with competence, and fluency with the ability to say something new. His imagination is "schooled" to accept service in place of value."

While all pupils are different and should develop their creativity and abilities on subjects they know and can do well.

In Deschooling Society Ivan Illich argued that a good education system should have three purposes: to provide everyone who want to study with all the resources at any time; make it possible for all who want to share knowledge find their own 'pupils'; and to create opportunities for those who want to present an issue to the public to make their arguments known.To have such an educational system it is necessary according to Illich to have four convival webs, which are different educational apprtoaches which give student an opportunity to have a success: 

"1. Reference services to educational objects - which facilitate access to things or processes used for formal learning. Some of these things can be reserved for this purpose, stored in libraries, rental agencies, laboratories and showrooms like museums and theatres; others can be in daily use in factories, airports or on farms, but made available to students as apprentices or on off-hours.

2. Skill exchanges - which permit persons to list their skills, the conditions under which they are willing to serve as models for others who want to learn these skills, and the addresses at which they can be reached.

3. Peer-matching - a communications network which permits persons to describe the learning activity in which they wish to engage, in the hope of finding a partner for the inquiry.

4. Reference services to educators-at-large - who can be listed in a directory giving the addresses and self-descriptions of professionals, paraprofessionals and freelances, along with conditions of access to their services. Such educators... could be chosen by polling or consulting their former clients. (Illich 1973a: 81)"

Generally, we can say that Illich suggested new way of education which is non-formal however it was criticised it had a lot of important points which used next generations.

education

Paul Willis also argued about the correspondence between school and work but this was not produced by school, pupils – lads, themselves produced this correspondence by rejection of the school. They rejected the school and created their own counter school culture. This rejection prepared them for the low-skilled and low-paid obedient job. 

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis said that there is a close correspondence between school and work. This correspondence is necessary for social reproduction – reproduction of new generation of workers who will obey and accept their roles in the society. As many workers work in a job they don’t like, they are motivated only with external benefit – salaries. The same is with young pupils. They don’t get satisfaction with their studies and they are also motivated only with external reward such as educational qualifications and grades. Schools help to spread inequality into the society by broadcasting that schools give everybody an equal chance. And those students who work hard will get the highest job because they do their best and do what they have been told. So they become well behaved obedient subject class. 

Glenn Rikowcki argued that Marxists view now is still relevant: "Marxists as it illustrates and illuminates the ways in which employers view, assess and differentiate between potential labour powers. Labour power only becomes an actuality when exercised and materialised within the labour process. In recruitment, employers are forced into considering (to varying degrees and using more or less sophisticated recruitment methods) the extent to which individual labour power as presented in and through the person will attain concrete form through actual labour, both in a quantitative and qualitative sense.”

Education now is increasingly privatized as more and more aspects of educational system is now not free and controlled by privatized industry. He said that in future education will be primarily for the benefit of shareholders and its main function will be to produce profit.

taxation in the UK

There are three main types of government spending. Government purchases of goods and services for current use are classed as government consumption. This includes spending on areas such as education, defense, health service. Another type is government purchases of goods and services in order to get future benefits which is called government investement. This area includes building a new factory, or buying new equipment or cost of putting child to school. And the third type of government spending is transfer payments. This covers spending that is not a purchase; for example, Jobseekers Allowance payments or the State Pension.
There are number of ways which cover government spending and one of the most important is taxation. There are many different types of taxes in the UK. And they were established many times ago and it will be not an easy task to change taxes because government can not know the way individual and firms respond to a change in taxation.  
There are different taxes which are charged from the UK citizens. One of the most spread is income tax as everyone who employed pay this tax. Income tax is progressive which means that individuals who are earning larger sums of money will pay more tax until they reach the upper band, at which point the percentage of their income remain the same. Progressive tax is considered to be the fairest as it gives possibilities for poor have bigger proportion of their income to spend on their necessities, while rich will have to give larger proportions and this might reduce differences between classes according to their income.
Also there is an excise tax which is an indirect tax imposed on a specific goods such as tobacco, alcohol which considered to be demerit goods as there are many negative externalities arise from them. Indirect taxes are mostly regressive because if government would not count approximate sum of money which will be needed to internalize the external effect arising from consuming these types of goods it will have to spend much more in taking measures with consequences. Corporation Tax means that organisations assume certain related responsibilities.
Now a big proportion of taxes is spent on project to counter the contraction of the economy. According to the statistics now a current budget deficit of £5.9 billion;

net borrowing of £8.1 billion in the UK, which means that government spending is much bigger than taxation revenue. Some could argue that there is a need of fundamental change in taxation and create new types of taxes, others say that there is a need of simplifying taxation system. "A radical simplification of the tax system, together with measures to remove many of the lower-paid from direct tax altogether, would benefit almost everyone." - Mark Wilson

But anyway both these reforms will affect different social classes and if common UK citizens would be happy in reductions of UK’s taxes, it will be only its their first view, because borrowing will increase and unemployment would rise and more time will be needed to maintain economic stability. 

Phillips curve

Alban Phillips new Zealand born economist in 1958 suggested a relationship between unemployment rate and inflation rate.
 He said that there a historical inverse relation between unemployment and inflation. Whenever unemployment is low, inflation tends to be high. Whenever unemployment is high, inflation tends to be low. However the fact showed that there were no steady relations between them though generally he was right. There long run and short run Phillips curve exist. Long run correlation curve is shown as a vertical line and if unemployment at this rate inflation is considered to be stable. Short run curve can move inwards or outwards according to different policies such as monetary which may influence short run curve by decreasing rate of unemployment and increasing inflation. However there is no perfect market in an economy that’s why Phillips curve can not be suitable for every situation.

Brief notes on sociology

The French sociologist PierreBourdieu developed the concept of cultural capital..
He starts from the ides that there is a dominant culture in the society which is the culture of those in the higher levels of the class structure which is generally regarded as a superior.He said that those people who dominates in a have its own culture and this culture will be the most important for other classes. According to Bourdieu, the dominant culture can be seen as a cultural capital since it can be converted into material rewards – high status job, high salaries, etc. Cultural capital exists in three distinct forms: in its embodied form, when it means a skill which can not be separated from its ‘bearer’. Also Bourdieu said that some objects may function as a form of cultural capital since their use ‘presupposes a certain amount of embodied capital’. And finally, cultural capital exists in its institutionalized form when it become a real objective value.

Social control is a mechanisms that regulate social behavior. Social control can be in two types: informal and formal. Informal social control means social values and norms in the society which are not written but everyone should follow them. Informal socials control has the main power in traditional and religious societies but anyway in every society there are different norms which individuals will follow in order not to be excluded from the society and be like others. While Formal social control means different restrictions and rules which are regulated in every modern society against deviant behavior. But as all the rules are being broken there are different laws which make people follow these rules and obey them

The hidden curriculum consists of a knowledge and skills which pupils are expected to acquire and norms and values which they should follow. The hidden curriculum isn’t written, it is a messages that teachers transmit to pupils about norms, values, beliefs and hidden curriculum is considered to be an important part of socialization. There are different ways of transmitting the hidden curriculum: through behavior of teachers, headmasters; their reaction on different pupils actions and etc. 
There are two main views on hidden curriculum: 
o Functionalists: “the hidden curriculum helps to integrate future citizens into society’s by ‘teaching’ and reinforcing them with society’s norms and values in order to establish the value consensus”
o Marxists: “the hidden curriculum is a tool or instrument of the ruling class. Bowles and Ginitis argue it teaches the children to accept their position in society. And to accept the society is unequal and exploitative”


Meritocracy refers to a system where rewards those who showed more talent and abilities rather than wealth, family connections, class privilege, etc. Meritocracy appears among pupils as they all try to compete between each other through different types of competitions and actions.

Hierarchy means that one group of people being placed higher or lower on different types of measuring scale than another group. If we talk about hierarchy we mean social inequality because placing different groups of people higher or lower than another stratifies society. Hierarchy in education means ranking pupils according to their scores and educational achievements. Also hierarchy in educational system means stratification between pupils, teachers, staff and so on. Hierarchy creates norms and values and subordination between groups.

As we know capitalism means ‘a system of production in which the economic institutions are privately owned”. As they are privately owned thereby there will not be equality in the society, because not everyone will have an ability to owe something and as he would have more power set rules to others. Thereby in capitalist society there are two social groups are dominated: rulling class and subject class that is all the workers. School socialize children into becoming obedient workers and follow all the norms and values created by ruling class in order to stabilize and develop capitalist society.

Government policies

1) Fiscal policy – the taxation and spending decisions of a government
• Reflationary of policy: measures designed to increase AD
• Deflationary of policy: measures designed to reduce AD
To influence AD government may use:
Disccretionary fiscal policy – deliberate changes in government spending and taxation designed to influence AD
Automatic stabilizers – forms of government spending and taxation that change automatically to offset limitations in economic activity
Types of taxes:
1)progressive tax – that takes a higher percentage of the income of the rich ( income tax)
2) Regressive tax – that takes a greater percentage from the income of the poor ( VAT, excise duty, corporation)

Government spending:
• Capital expenditure (hospitals, schools)
• Current spending (public services)
• Transfer payments (benefits to unemployed, pensioners)
• Debt interest payments ( payment to government debt holders)
2) Monetary policy – central bank/ government decisions on the rate of interest, money supply and exchange rate
3) Supply – side policies – policies designed to increase AS by improving the efficiency of labour and product markets ( E.g. reduction in direct taxes, national minimum wage, reduction in unemployment benefits, privatization, deregulation)
Policies to control Inflation:
- Cost – Push inflation  restrict wage rates, reduce taxes
- Demand-Pull Inflation  deflationary fiscal, monetary
Policies to improve Balance of Payments:
 Exchange rate adjustment
 Deflationary demand management
 Import restrictions
Protectionism: 
o Tariffs
o Quotas
o Voluntary Export Restraint – the limit on imports arises from a voluntary agreement between the exporting and importing country
Foreign Exchange Restrictions:
o Embargoes: ban on X or M
o Red Tape

Indicators of economic perfomance and government objectives. Summary

Indicators of economic performance:
• Low unemployment
• Inflation
• Balance of payments
• Distribution of income
Objectives of government economic policy:
1) Sustainable economic growth, that is economic growth which can continue over time
2) Full employment 
3) Low and stable inflation

GDP
Real GDP which is GDP after adjusted for Inflation equals: Nominal GDP x base year price index / current year price index 
Difficulties in interpreting changes in Real GDP:
• Distribution of income
• Purchasing Power Parity
• Home production
• Existence of informal economy
Measuring unemployment
The unemployed x 100% / labour force
Two measures in the UK:
Labour Force Survey – a measure of unemployment based on a survey
Claimant Count- a measure of unemployment that includes those receiving unemployment – related benefits.
Measuring inflation
Consumer Price Index - a measure of changes in the price of a representative basket of consumer goods and services.
How to calculate:
1. Choose a base date
2. Collect price data for that date
3. Calculate the average
4. Express the average for the base date as a number of 100
5. Compare other dates to the base date to make a price index and compare price changes
Difficulties: 
- Content of the basket of goods
- Weightening
Retail Price Index – measure of inflation that is used for adjusting pensions and other benefits to take account of changes in inflation and frequently used in wage negotiations
Differences:
- CPI includes housing costs ( mortgage, interests, council tax), foreign students’ fees, stockbrokers charges
- CPI excludes road fund license and TV license
- In CPI weights based on spending by all private households, foreign visitors, while RPI weights based on expenditure by private households only, excluding highest income households, pensioners
Structure of current account of the balance of payments 
Trade in goods = visible balance – records earnings from exports, expenditure on imprts
Trade in services = invisible balance – includes all the services
Income - investment income
Transfers – transfer of money made and received by the government and individuals
Causes of unemployment
Cyclical unemployment – arising from a lack of AD
Structural unemployment – caused by the decline of certain industries and occupations due to changes in demand and supply
Frictional unemployment – short term unemployment occurring when workers are in between jobs
Causes of inflation
Demand pull – caused by increase in AD
Cost push – caused by increase in the cost of production
Causes of current account deficit
- Country’s residents spend more on goods and services from abroad than overseas residents spent on the country’s products
- A net outflow of investment
How to reduce deficit:
- Use import controls : tariffs, quotas, administration restrictions
- Devalue currency
- Deflation -> decrease demand for Imports
Consequences of unemployment:
- Lost output
- Lost tax revenue
- Government spending on unemployment benefits
- Pressure on other forms of government spending
- Hysteresis – unemployment causing unemployment
Consequences of inflation:
- Menu costs – costs of changing priced due to inflation
- Shoeleather costs – costs in terms of the extra time and effort involved in reducing money holdings
- Inflationary noise – the distortion of price signals caused by inflation
- Random redistribution of income
- Fiscal drag -> higher taxes
- Administrative costs
- Uncertainty
- Inflation causing inflation

AD and AS and their interaction. Summary

Aggregate demand – total demand for a country’s goods and services at a given price level and in a given time period
AD = C + I + G + X – M
Components of AD:
CONSUMER EXPENDITURE. Influences of consumer expenditure:
• Real disposable income
• Wealth
• Consumer confidence and expectations
• The rate of interest
• The age structure of population
• Distribution of income
• Inflation
SAVING. Influences:
• Real disposable income
• The rate of interest
• Confidence and expectations
• Saving schemes
• Range of financial institutions
• Government policies
• The age structure of population
INVESTMENT. Influences:
• Changes if real disposable income
• Expectations
• Capacity utilization
• Current Profit levels
• Corporation tax
• The rate of interest
• Advances in technology
• Price of capital equipment
GOVERNMENT SPENDING. Influences:
• Extent of market failure an ability to correct it
• The level of economic activity
• A desire to please the electorate
• Rising crime
NET EXPORTS (exports – Imports) Influences:
• Real disposable income abroad
• Real disposable income at home
• The domestic price level
• The exchange rate
• Government restrictions on free trade
Aggregate Supply – the total amount that producers in an economy are willing and able to supply at a given price level in a given time period.
 Causes of change in AS:
-In short run: change in the cost of production
-In long run: change in the quality and quantity of resources
The circular flow of income
The movement of spending and income throughout the economy.
Additional forms of spending:
1)Leakages ( Taxes, Saving, Imports ) which reduce AD
2) Injections ( Investment, Government Spending, Exports) aimed to increase AD
Multiplier Effect
When people spend money, this expenditure becomes the income for others. Others will also spend some of their income. So there is a knock – on effect with AD rising by more than the initial amount

The most common mistakes that teachers make.

Attempting to control a class

Sometimes teachers while explaining new topic or example notice that pupils start loosing their attention and focus on something else rather than listening to the teacher. Some teachers get very nervous and attempt to control the class by shouting or doing something else. They don't understand that even if they l try to do their best if pupils don't find your explanation interesting they wouldn't listen to the teacher. To solve this problem and attract pupils teacher should change the way of speaking and by giving different examples, changing his voice make pupils be interested in the subject

Taking poor behavior personally

As it is known most pupils can’t behave properly and always try to joke with teachers and interrupt them while they think that pupils don’t respect them and don’t appreciate their work. This may lead to a conflict between pupils and teachers. In this situation teacher has to take easily all the jokes and actions of pupils and remember always that pupil is only a child.


Criticizing the person rather than behavior

Teacher’s aim is to teach pupils and socialize them. Teachers usually when trying to bring up the pupil and make him behave properly forget to control their speech and say very personal things about the pupil. They can do that but be very careful and if for example the pupil doesn’t know hot to solve any task or answer the question, teacher mustn’t insult the pupil but just point out on his mistake

Not giving children a second chance

Teachers have to remember that every person makes mistakes and if the pupil made something wrong or wrote any test or exam very bad, the teacher should be understandable and kind and give the pupil the second chance to correct himself and get better results

Making threats

There are some teachers who threaten to their students in order to make them be quieter or get better results in exams. This is a mistake of teachers because by threatening teacher will not make the student listen to him and work harder but it might make student feel unconfident and start not liking classes with that teacher and thereby the subject. 
 

It is well known that some people achieve more from education and do better at schools than others. So how can we explain these differences?
If we look at the statistics of the performance in the exams, We can notice that in every ethnicity there is a girls’ domination in achieving better results. This statistics gives a clear example of gender inequality in school achievement. But why girls do better than boys? Even if their levels of attainment are improving, they raising more slowly than girls’. And this doesn’t mean that girls are cleverer than boys, the reason in their Character traits. Girls are tending to be more ambitious and confident. Also nowadays more and more girls are interested in making career and being financially independent, that’s why educational achievements for them is a key point in finding a good job. While boys have more opportunities to find a job in future because still employers in many kinds of work prefer men and here appears obvious gender discrimination. 

Another important reason is social status. Pupils from middle and upper class families gain better results than children from working class families. This occurs because of material and cultural deprivation. Material deprivation means that children from working class that they had a lack of money and the things that money could buy, they even sometimes don’t have enough food, that’s why educational process becomes for them not so important. Also these children are cultural deprived which occurs when children because of lack of upbringing and attention from parents don’t have enough skills and attitudes that are needed for educational success. But of course we don’t talk about all the children from working class but in general these problems appear. Also another important problem which affects differences in achievement at school is that working class families are tend to think about future in ‘short run’ that is they think about their present rather than making sacrifices for the future.
As we can see home and family play a very important role on an achievement of pupils. But even from middle and upper class families some children achieve less than working class and this is because of inadequate socialization as more and more parents think more about their career and forget about their children by thinking that giving them enough pocket money will solve all the problems with the child. Those pupils are tend to be more spoilt and think that they don’t need to have good results as their parents will always help them and find a good job without their educational achievements.

Role of education

“Education is the learning of knowledge, information and skills during the course of life.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education)
As it was said in the definition above Education is a process of learning, understanding and preparing for social life. But why do we need to be prepared, to learn something? If we look at the statistics, in many developed countries where literacy rate, which means “the number of literate adults expressed as a percentage of the total adult population aged 15 years and above”, we can see that a lot of students find school boring and not interesting place. And so they would rather do something else. But they are just too young to understand all the benefits which studying will give them and the society as a whole.
Every society has its own norms, values and every generation has to accept these rules in order to be a part of this society. And one of the most important functions of education, in my opinion, is preparing young people for adult life with all it’s restrictions and limitations. By studying children not only learn knowledge and basic skills to do something but also know the value consensus which is an agreement about the major values of the society. Education is a part of socialization of children.
 It is known that if the literacy rate is high, this country is less likely to have a war and conflicts among people, because they understand better than those who aren’t educated differences in views and accepts other points of view and behave in more solid way. 
Another role of the education is that schools, universities help young people understand what they would like to do in their future life and in which sphere their have more talents and abilities. As the majority of students after the school is going to work somewhere, education will direct them into the most appropriate job. It is very important to choose job which will be interesting for you, because this influences your productivity and ability to work. Someone who likes his job will be more productive and happier rather than those who don’t. And this is a benefit not only for youth but for the society as a whole, because with a greater productivity, country can increase it’s wealth and standard of living. But some children don’t study subject they want, and the reason is simply because some families can’t afford university. As in most countries high education isn’t free and it costs
Sometimes a lot it makes a big difficulties for some to continue their educational process.

But if in most developed countries parents understand benefits from the education, in some undeveloped countries people are unaware of importance of the education. As they have problems such as where to find food or needed things they are more interested in earning money in order to survive rather than in their educational status. Parents prefer their children making money in the short term over any long-term benefits of education. 

As we can see education is a process which is important not only for those who study but the whole society will have a lot of benefits from it.

Sunday,25 of January i wrote about primitive societies and their modern counterparts and differences in treating their children. this article was according to Ruth Benedict studies

Perception of Economics

In my opinion, Economics is one of the most essential subjects, and its understanding is very important in modern world. Now our life is full of changes and difficulties. And i don't talk only about moral but also problems with wealth. If we look at the current situation, the US in the recession and this affects world prices and if we don't understand economics our life would become more difficult. All these changes affect consumers’ demand in cases that some types of goods which are non-essential, like cars, expensive electronics and etc. may suffer from decrease in demand because of inflation. And perception of Economics would mean that consumers are updated with all the news and may have approximate forecast for the future and so plan their budget. Perception of Economics means for all of us preparing for our future economic situation and be aware of all the changes in economy. And not only consumers get benefits of understanding the economics but Government by introducing new policies don’t need to bother itself by explaining all the possible consequences of its actions and calming down the population, but also it could be possible for the government to manipulate with people’s actions. And as it was said in the article that we were given: “creating a perception of economic wellbeing can materially impact the economy in an indirect sense by influencing consumer and business willingness to spend, therefore potentially reducing the length or depth of a downturn.”

Facebook

I think all these different communication services are used by sociologists and psychologists in order to make some kind of research about young generation. There are a lot of problems among youth which are very difficult to understand and explain reasons of, for example, strange behavior or actions. While community sites such as Facebook gives an opportunity to examine young people and look after them. About 100 million people all over the world have their profiles in this site and every day more and more people register there and share their own information about themselves. So what does Facebook make so addictive and why so many people join there so often? In my opinion, this site helps you create your own world and make it smaller. Facebook make it possible to be updated about all the news which happened with your friends, it is a continue of our social interactions and another way of communicating. Also for many people Facebook is the way of making new friends and maintaining relations. 
But I think that we should be careful with these sites, because really we don’t know who else can use our information, because it might be another reason of running and creating such services, that’s why when sharing your private information don’t be very open minded and honest.

“For women to become equal they not only have to change the laws but also change attitudes and culture, because our culture is still incredibly patriarchal” (Judy Rebick)
And this is true. If we look at the history, patriarchal families started to be widespread since primary agricultural civilizations. In those extended families, which were as a unit of production and had only few functions, males dominated because their aim was one of the most important – to bring food into the family, while females had to do all other works such as feed her family, take care of a big number of children and look after the health of all members of the family. While civilizations were developing, and people created different views on the family, still patriarchal families dominated as women already considered this male domination as a common. And I agree with the remaining family as a patriarchal institution, because males in their nature are stronger and resilient, while women are fragile and tend to rely on a person who is stronger than her. And this structure of the family make feel woman to be responsible for the home comfort and childcare and man to assume the duty of protecting and providing with all the necessities his family. Children who grow in such structured families tend to have the same priorities in their future life and behave in the same way. 
Patriarchal structure of the family became a principle of the society and the source of social continuity. But still there were many views which say that female domination in the family might improve relationships and make couples be happier. One of that views was written in Elise Sutton’s book ‘Female Domination’: “Female Domination lifestyle can build a bond of intimacy, defuse arguments, relieve stress, transport sex to a higher level than just the physical, empower women in society, and inject excitement into the mundane tasks of life such as household chores.”

Influence of social laws and policies on families

There are number of ways by which government may influence families. And all of them are aimed to change current demographic situation in the country. If there is, for example, a decline in population, Government might introduce benefits for second child in the family and so encourage families to have children more than one. Also IVF programmes will make possible to have children for those families where male is not able to have them because of health problems, also there are laws in some countries which give an opportunity for homosexual partners to marry and have children. 
But not all countries are suffering from decline in population; some of them have to introduce policies aimed to decrease it such as in China or India. And in the former the law was introduced according to which families can have only one child and for more they have to pay taxes. This policy helped government stabilize population in the country. 
Also there are many other policies which influence structure of the family. For example, The Family Law Act, which was introduced in 1996 introduced a one year waiting period before a couple could divorce. The intention of this policy was to discourage divorces and give couples a time to save their marriage. Other policies such as helping households find job and get employed may improve current situation of unemployment and help lone parents be sure about their and children’s future.
If we look in general to all these policies, they are all aimed to save families and maintain better relationships because if there are more families rather than singles, it might help to stabilize the whole economic and politic situation in the country.

and about media

And i forgot to add in these article below that in my opinion another solution to the problem is to do something with media. Because most young generation now spend a lot of time playing computer games and watching TV. But what do they watch?Almost every film and cartoon include some violence and almost every game now is aimed to kill or rob people. All these have a big influence on children and make them more aggressive . So there is something should be done with violence in media by being more strictly with it or maybe increase censorship on it.

feral youth

Increasing number of crimes made by youth has become difficult and concerning problem in Britain. And what the reasons for it? One of the main are drugs, alcohol and tobacco. They cause psychological problems and make youngt people be more aggressive and very impulsive. According to the Statistics, 'In 2001, about three fifths of boys and girls aged 11 to 15 reported that they had ever drunk alcohol, with around a quarter of both having had a drink in the last week.

A survey of young people in England in 2001 reported that a fifth of 11 to 15 year olds had taken illegal drugs in the previous year. Cannabis was the most commonly used drug, taken by 13 per cent of those surveyed.'

So as we can see the most popular age of trying new things is between 11 and 15. And even if these children tried alcohol and drugs once and they didn't like it, it is not the fact that they will not try it again. Another reason of rising crime among youth is poor parental supervision and low income in the family. Children from poor family where there is no enough money and where parents don't pay attention to their children are more likely to have a criminal careers in the future. Also parental conflicts and divorces might affect children's psyche. They observed physical and moral abuse in their families and would think that this is normal life and violence is permitted and these will be their way of life in the future. As it was written in the article: 'If Dad did put in an appearance, it was probably a disruptive and violent one.Dad was not there to provide security, order and love as he socialised his son into manhood. Dad imparted one lesson. If you want something - money, a woman, wheels - take it. Such an upbringing is guaranteed to ensure that its victim is full of rage and hate. When he was little, other people hit him. As he grows bigger, he hits them.'

And there a lot of such stories in different families! So To prevent crime one should look deeper to the problems, look at the causes of crime instead of doing his best to prevent it. "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime''. So what can be done to stop feral youth? In my opinion one of the main causes of crime among youth is also poor attainment at school and influence of media. So to reduce crimes something should be done with schools such as social skills trainings and trainings among teacher, organizing school activites, which will help children to understand norms of behaviour and think about the consequences of their actions. Also it is necessary to encourage parents to spend more time with their children, to look after them more careful and kindly. There are many different programs which are aimed to do that and help government in solving this problem.One of them is for example 'Youth Crime Action Plan'. Some of it's actions are:

• We have improved victim and community
  involvement in the youth justice system.
  There has been pioneering use of
  restorative justice and reparation. During
  2006-7 17,728 victims participated in
  restorative processes and 97% of the
  participating victims reported satisfaction.

• We have worked with the third sector to
  increase their involvement in delivering
  effective programmes for young offenders
  and providing them with support during
  the sentencing process. For instance we
  have set up agreements with the Prince’s
  Trust for employment and training
  opportunities, with the YMCA for
  accommodation and with Clubs for Young
  People for activities.

There are some others plan which aimed to do work at schools ('Connexions')

And all these programs really help to solve the problem of feral youth. I think we should all be concerned with that problem and try to help young generation to solve their problems and cope with difficulties in their families.