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Introduction to Sociology/Aging

Introduction

Aging (often alternatively spelt as ageing) is both a biological and sociological process wherein human beings experience and accomplish stages of biological and social maturation. Aging may be seen as a relatively objective biological process whereby one becomes older and experiences varied biological developments. Aging may also be seen as a subjective series of social processes whereby people interpret, negotiate, and make sense of biological development in relation to existing conceptualizations of what it means to be a certain age.

Aging is Both Biological and Sociological
An example of the bio-social and objective/subjective nature of aging may be useful. Take, for example, a social being born into the United States in 1980. This person will likely experience a biological development characterized by the addition of years from birth and by biological understandings of the time (e.g., a being born in 1980 would have a life expectancy, medical and legal definition, and contextual series of economic, educational, and other possibilities based upon birth at this time). As such, our person born into the United States during the 1980’s can be expected to follow relatively stable patterns of biological development that will be interpreted in similar ways to others born at the same time.

However, this child born in the United States in 1980 will experience social development characterized by many factors. For instance, was this child raised in a family or an orphanage? What kind of education did this child receive, public or private? What types of educational funding and other educational opportunities did this child receive? Was this child born lower, middle, or upper class? Did this child begin full time work and adopt adult responsibilities as an adolescent, a young adult, an adult, or never? Given the many possible answers to these questions, this person can be expected to follow relatively varied patterns of social development that will be interpreted in different ways by others born at the same time. As a result, this child’s biological age (how far from birth one is) may or may not match this child’s subjective age (how old he/she feels and what responsibilities develop at what age). Additionally, this child may not align with societal age norms by not doing what society expects the child to do at certain ages.

Aging is a complex process of subjective biological and social realities intertwined with relatively objective biological and social standards that shift within and between historical and cultural periods.

Dividing the Lifespan
Human life is often divided into various age spans, like the following:
 * Infancy
 * Toddler
 * Childhood
 * Adolescence
 * Young adult
 * Prime adulthood
 * Middle age
 * Old age

These divisions are somewhat arbitrary, but generally capture periods of life that reflect a certain degree of similarity. In many countries, such as Sweden, adulthood legally begins at the age of eighteen. This is a major age milestone that is marked by significantly different attitudes toward the person who undergoes the transition.

Socially Constructed Interpretations of Aging
While aging, itself, is a bio-social process, the ways people and cultures interpret ages (e.g., "old," "young," "mid-life") and the ways these interpretations are distinguished by varied biological age markers vary dramatically. In Western societies, where youth is highly valued, people are considered "old" at much younger ages than in Eastern societies where age is often seen to beget wisdom. This emphasis on youth translates into considerable expenditures on makeup, cosmetics, and surgeries to hide signs of aging, particularly among women, but also among men. Ironically, among adolescents, just the opposite approach is taken, as adolescents often try to appear "older", though obviously not too much older.

The labels of "old" and "young" also vary by life expectancy. In societies where lifespans are relatively short (e.g., Chad) or in areas within a given society where violence or other means of "early" death are common, one could be considered "old" or "middle-aged" by her mid-twenties, whereas in countries and social settings with longer lifespans (e.g., Japan) and lower levels of "early" death, mid-twenties is still considered young-adulthood.

The activities that are expected of one at different ages is also socially constructed and relative to culture. For instance, retirement only became a "universal" American ideal in the post-World War I era, as the growth of Social Security and private pensions dramatically expanded the safety net available to aging workers who were leaving the labor market. Likewise, the idea of childhood being an age of innocence when children should be kept from adult worries and spend their time pursuing education and recreating is only widely held in highly developed countries and is a relatively recent invention, following the industrial revolution and the introduction of child-labor laws.

Differential Treatment by Age or Ageism
Ageism is prejudice on the grounds of age. While it can be targeted toward individuals of any age, two groups that are often targeted are the young and the elderly.

Treatment of the Young
While most people are aware of the mistreatment of the elderly (see below), few people seem to realize that young people are often subjected to discrimination because of their age. Discrimination against young people is primarily in the area of behavioral restrictions, often by parents, but also in public places like malls and stores. Some stores have gone so far as to limit the hours young people can be in their stores.

While the above are clear examples of discrimination, there are other restrictions placed on young people based on the assumption that they are unable to make decisions for themselves. Examples of such restrictions include:
 * inability to vote in elections
 * inability to legally imbibe alcohol or smoke cigarettes
 * inability to legally engage in sexual activity (this varies by region)
 * inability to hold public office
 * inability to determine whether or not one can marry
 * inability to determine whether or not one can get an abortion (varies by region)

All of the above restrictions hinge upon the idea that young people lack the maturity required to make such important decisions. While this is likely true for some young people, there are also some young people who are mature enough to make these decisions. The above restrictions are tied to specific ages for legal reasons, but such restrictions may not always be followed, vary substantially by region and culture, and may not always make sense. However, it is also the case that young people can lack the maturity to make important decisions. Legally, when young people make poor decisions, the defense of infancy is used to argue that such individuals are too immature to be held responsible for their decisions.

Another way in which the young are treated differently is in the marketing practices of corporations. Most children and teenagers have little money of their own, but of the money they have most of it is available for buying consumer goods (despite the existence of children that provide for themselves as early as age 10, most children experience a world where their parents or guardians cover their basic living needs). Children can also be heavily influential on how their guardians' (parental or otherwise) spend their discretionary income. Manufacturers of consumer goods and providers of services (e.g., Disney ) are aware of the buying power of young people and target them specifically. The elderly are also targeted as a consumer demographic, but the approaches are different.

Young people are also stereotyped as being both amusing, but at the same time potentially dangerous and disturbing. It is stereotypes like these that translate into the discrimination toward young people described above, and the concerted efforts of social institutions and groups to "tame," "train," or "civilize" youthful self-expression by enforcing existing social norms.

Treatment of the Elderly
While discrimination toward the young is primarily behavioral restrictions, discrimination toward the elderly ranges from behavioral restrictions to the realm of physical abuse. Elder abuse is a serious problem in the U.S. There are nearly 2 million cases of elder abuse and self-neglect in the U.S. every year. Abuse refers to psychological/emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, caregiver neglect or financial exploitation while self-neglect refers to behaviors that threaten the person's own health and safety.

Elderly individuals who are subjected to abuse have at least two times higher risk of premature death than do other seniors. And elders who suffer from self-neglect have an even higher risk (up to 5 times higher) of premature death than do elders who do not suffer from self-neglect. The higher risk of death associated with elder abuse effects both those who are physically and cognitively impaired and those who are more capable.

Additionally, the elderly are often stereotyped. One stereotype of the elderly is that they are inflexible in their attitudes and that they tend to only become more conservative with time. This is not the case - the elderly are quite adept at changing their views and often they become more tolerant as they age. Another stereotype of the elderly is that they are poorer drivers than younger people. This stereotype is also not backed by evidence, with some caveats. Up to about the age of 75, older drivers are actually safer than drivers of other ages. Beyond age 75 response times and visual acuity do begin to decline, leading to increases in accidents. Thus, many older drivers are actually much safer than the youngest drivers (under 18).

Age and Income
Prior to the introduction of Social Security in the U.S. and other programs for the needy, the elderly were the poorest age group in the U.S. Social Security (technically Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance or OASDI) is an income redistribution program that takes taxes from those working and distributes it to those who cannot work or who are elderly enough to be considered past the age at which they can retire. With the introduction of Social Security, the poverty rates of the elderly in the U.S. dropped dramatically, as illustrated in the figure below. Despite the success of the Social Security program in reducing poverty among the elderly, one unforeseen consequence has been the increasing poverty of people under 18. Conflict theory provides a clear theoretical argument to explain this: Since there are limited resources - in this case limited tax revenue - if those resources go to one group, they must necessarily come from another group. If the elderly see an increase in their total share of tax revenue, it is likely that some other age group will see a decrease in its total share of tax revenue. Individuals under 18 have seen some programs cut that would have otherwise helped maintain their lower levels of poverty. Poverty rates across all three age groups depicted in the figure above have declined from what they were prior to the introduction of tax redistribution policies like Social Security.

While generally considered a highly successful program at reducing poverty among the elderly, Social Security is currently experiencing problems. The chart below illustrates the problems with Social Security payments for retirees in the U.S. Currently, less money is received from Social Security taxes than is distributed to retirees. However, the Social Security Trust Fund, which is the money that was collected when there was a surplus in tax revenue, will make up the difference in payments for a while, until about 2038. At that point, the Social Security Trust Fund reserves will be exhausted and payments to beneficiaries will drop to about 77% of what they would normally receive.

Of additional concern is where the Trust Fund reserves were invested - in Federal bonds. While Federal bonds are backed by the U.S. Federal Government, it is the Federal Government that borrowed the money. The Federal Government of the United States actually owes itself the money - over $2 trillion. If the Federal Government is unable to or decides not to pay this money back, the reserves will run out sooner, reducing the payments to beneficiaries at an earlier date.

While the Social Security program in the U.S. is in trouble, the situation of Social Security is not as dire as is that of Medicare, which is a healthcare program for the elderly. The chart below replicates the chart above, but for Medicare. Medicare is worse off as tax income in 2014 was already insufficient to cover the expenses of the program and the Trust Fund reserves are already being tapped to offset the costs. The Trust Fund for Medicare will be exhausted by 2030, at which point the Federal Government will only be able to cover about 85% of the costs of medical treatments of senior citizens. That percentage will gradually decline to 75% by 2046 and remain roughly level from then on.

This is resulting from the lower ratio of employed workers to benefit recipients, a ratio that continues to decrease as the U.S. population grows more elderly (as shown in the figure below).

Age and Gender
While the elderly have seen substantial improvements in their economic situation in recent decades, those improvements have not equally affected men and women. Women, whether working or not, are more likely to fall below the federal poverty line than are men, as depicted in the figure below. The figure below illustrates that female led households with no spouse present are the most likely to fall below the federal poverty line in the US.

This is of special concern considering women live longer than men, as illustrated in the next figure.

Why women live longer than men is not perfectly understood. Several factors may contribute to this. For instance, men do engage in riskier behaviors than women, reducing their life expectancy. Men are also more "successful" when attempting suicide, which increases the rate of death among men of suicide. Another factor that may contribute to the greater life expectancy of women is the different types of jobs men and women tend to have during their lifetimes. Other biological factors likely play a role, including greater heart health among women, though how much they contribute to the greater longevity of women is not entirely clear. Finally, recent studies and meta analyses reveal that two primary elements in this relationship include men's occupational risk taking combined with women's greater willingness to seek healthcare. In fact, such analysis have noted that the age gap appears to be shrinking, and some suggest this is likely due to both more women entering traditionally male-dominated occupational fields, and more men becoming active in their approach to healthcare access. The combined effect of all these differences may or may not account for the longevity gap between men and women, but it is clear that women do live longer than men and that holds true around the world.

Age and Sexuality
Although a relatively new field of social science research, relationships between sexualities and aging are quite intriguing. Rather than a monolithic sexual career delimited between stages of aging, for example, researchers have revealed a wide variety of sexual practices, patterns, and cultural debates throughout the life course. These findings have complicated previous assumptions regarding aging and sexual activity. Researchers have demonstrated that people - as early as ages 3 and 4 - receive constant sexual messages throughout the life course and engage in meaningful cognitive activities attempting to explain, explore, and negotiate these messages in their daily lives. Similarly, researchers have shown that people - as late as ages 70 and 80 - often maintain and desire active sexual lives. Whereas contemporary cultural discourses often paint children and older people as asexual beings, empirical findings consistently demonstrate that such beliefs are false assumptions dependent on socio-cultural commentaries and specified within specific historical, cultural, and (especially) religious understandings of the world. Researchers (dating back to at least the 1940's) have consistently demonstrated that sexualities shift and change in varied and nuanced ways throughout the life course, and that people establish, maintain, and adapt sexual beliefs, identities, practices, and desires via ongoing biological and social experiences throughout their lives.

Building on the aforementioned observations, researchers have also noted tremendous variation between heterosexual and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and asexual (LGBTIQA) aging processes. Whereas most cultural assumptions and norms about aging are built upon socially constructed heterosexual ideals, research consistently shows that sexual and gender minority groups experience the life course in vastly different ways, which often include earlier social maturation (often due to early experiences with familial and social discrimination), later sexual experimentation and activity (often due to early experiences attempting to or being forced to change or hide non-heterosexual and non-cisgendered sexual desires), and greater commitment to sexual health, education, and safe-sex practices than their heterosexual counterparts (often due to the lack of education and information available to them in mainstream society as well as the lingering lessons and educational protocols that grew out of the AIDS crisis). Researchers have shown that biological and to a lesser extent self-perceived or social age often heavily influences the political stances, practices, and beliefs of sexual and gender minorities with older LGBTIQA people often mirroring "don't ask don't tell" approaches of the past, middle-aged LGBTIQA people often adopting a "politics of respectability" (e.g., seek to be as normal as possible through inclusion into marital, religious, and familial heterosexual institutions), and younger LGBTIQA people typically promoting more radical, queer, feminist, and social justice approaches to sexual politics (see also heteronormativity and LGBTQIA movement histories for further elaboration on the relationship between historical context and sexual politics and for a basic introduction to some sexual political history). Finally, recent research reveals similar influences upon sexual and gender politics among heterosexual respondents, but to date, little systematic research has explored this topic.

Age and Race
Aging does not result in similar outcomes for members of different races. There is evidence that black senior citizens are more likely to be abused - both physically and psychologically - and suffer greater financial exploitation than do white senior citizens. Recent demographic profiles suggest that social aging varies across racial groups, and demonstrates that minority elders (especially Hispanic and African American identified) typically enter later life with less education, fewer financial resources, and less access to health care than their white counterparts. Finally, researchers have noted that minority groups' greater likelihood of facing patterns of structural disadvantage throughout the life course, such as racial discrimination, poverty, and fewer social, political, and economic resources on average, create significant racial variations in the stages or age-related trajectories of racial minorities and majorities that may be observed at all points of the life span, and contribute to disparities in health, income, self-perceived age, mortality, and morbidity. Sociologists often explore the timing of varied life events within and between racial groups while exploring ways that age-related disparities influence the structural realities and bio-social outcomes of people located within different racial groups.

Aging in the US
The geography of age in the US is quite intriguing. The map below illustrates that the elderly are not equally distributed throughout the U.S.

There are concentrations of the elderly in the Midwest and in the South, particularly in Florida. While the high concentration of the elderly in Florida may not come as much of a surprise to most Americans who are aware of the high rate at which people who retire move to Florida, the high concentration of the elderly in the Midwest may be more surprising. This higher concentration is not because the elderly are moving to the Midwest but rather because the young are moving out of the Midwest as they search for jobs. Thus, the two regions with the highest concentrations of the elderly in the US have high concentrations of elderly people for very different reasons.

The city of Pittsburgh offers an intriguing case study of the effects of an aging population on a city. As of 2008 more people are dying in Pittsburgh than are being born. Add to this the fact that many young people are moving away from Pittsburgh to find jobs, and you have the perfect recipe for both population decline and an aging population. One result of this demographic shift is that there is a greater demand for health care provision. Health care has replaced steel as Pittsburgh's biggest industry. Another result of these trends is the decline in students attending Pittsburgh schools. In the 1980s there were nearly 70,000 students in the public school; by 2008 there were only about 30,000 and the number is declining by about 1,000 every year. In short, as populations in specific locations age, the entire social structure must change to accommodate the new demographic, which supports the notion of equilibrium in structural-functionalist theory.

Global Aging Trends
Globally, most countries are seeing the average life expectancy of their populations increase. This translates into a greater percentage of the world's population falling above the age of 65, as illustrated in the figure below. However, the rate at which the world's population is aging is not uniform across countries, and some countries have actually seen decreasing life expectancies, largely as a result of epidemics and pandemics, along with war and other turmoil The varied life expectancies and younger populations are illustrated in the map below, which depicts the percentage of each country's population that is over 65.

It is pretty clear from the map that more developed countries have much older populations and a greater percentage of their population is aged 65+. The least developed countries are also the youngest countries as life expectancies are substantially lower.

Aging and Health
While aging is often associated with declining health, current research suggests there are some things people can do to remain healthy longer into old age. For instance, maintaining a positive attitude has been shown to be correlated with better health among the elderly. Older individuals with more positive attitudes and emotions engage in less risky behavior and have lower levels of stress, both of which are correlated with better health.

Additional Reading

 * Live for ever This article in The Guardian discusses efforts by both scientists and wealthy individuals (who are providing the funding for those scientists) to extend the human lifespan.

Ueno, Koji. 2010. “Mental Health Differences Between Young Adults With and Without Same-Sex Contact: A Simultaneous Examination of Underlying Mechanisms.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 51(4):391-407.

Dillaway, Heather E. 2005. Menopause is the "good old": Women's thoughts about reproductive aging. Gender & Society 19(3): 398-417. Aronson, Pamela. 2008. The markers and meanings of growing up. Gender & Society 22(1):56-82. Rosenfeld, Dana. 2009. Heteronormativity and homonormativity as practical and moral resources: The case of lesbian and gay elders. Gender & Society 23(5): 617-638. Martin, Lauren Jade. 2010. Anticipating infertility: Egg freezing, genetic preservation, and risk. Gender & Society 24(4): 526-545.

Utrata, Jennifer. 2011. Youth privilege: Doing age and gender in Russia's single-mother families. Gender & Society 25(5): 616-641.

Barrett, Anne E. 2003. “Socioeconomic Status and Age Identity: The Role of Dimensions of Health in the Subjective Construction of Age.” Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 58B: S101-S109.

Discussion Questions

 * What does it mean that aging is socially constructed?
 * How do you determine when someone is "old"?
 * If the elderly and the young are treated "differently," what does that mean about those who are middle-aged?
 * How are the elderly typically depicted in movies and on TV? Why?
 * How are children and youth typically depicted in movies and on TV? Why?

title: Introduction to Sociology/Aging


text:
Introduction to Sociology/Media

Mass media is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). It was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks and of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines. The mass-media audience has been viewed by some commentators as forming a mass society with special characteristics, notably atomization or lack of social connections, which render it especially susceptible to the influence of modern mass-media techniques such as advertising and propaganda. It is also gaining popularity in the blogosphere when referring to the mainstream media. The term mass media is mainly used by academics and media-professionals. When members of the general public refer to "the media" they are usually referring to the mass media, or to the news media, which is a section of the mass media.

History
During the 20th century, the advent of mass media was driven by technology that allowed the massive duplication of material at a low price. Physical duplication technologies such as printing, record pressing and film duplication allowed the duplication of books, newspapers and movies at low prices to huge audiences. Television and radio allowed the electronic duplication of content for the first time. Mass media had the economics of linear replication: a single work could make money proportional to the number of copies sold, and as volumes went up, unit costs went down, increasing profit margins further. Vast fortunes were to be made in mass media.

Corporate and mainstream outlets
Sometimes mass media (and the news media in particular) is referred to as "corporate media". Other references include the "mainstream media". Technically, "mainstream media" includes outlets that are in harmony with the prevailing direction of influence in the culture at large. In the United States, usage of these terms often depends on the connotations the speaker wants to invoke. The term "corporate media" is often used by leftist media critics to imply that the mainstream media is manipulated by large multinational corporations. This is countered by right-leaning authors with the term "MSM", the acronym implying that the majority of mass media sources is dominated by leftist powers which are furthering their own agenda.

Purposes

 * Advocacy, both for business and social concerns. This can include advertising, marketing, propaganda, public relations, and political communication.
 * Enrichment and education, such as literature.
 * Entertainment, traditionally through performances of acting, music, and sports, along with light reading; since the late 20th century also through video and computer games.
 * Journalism.
 * Public service announcements.

Forms
Electronic media and print media include:
 * Broadcasting, in the narrow sense, for radio and television.
 * Various types of discs or tape. In the 20th century, these were mainly used for music. Video and computer uses followed.
 * Film, most often used for entertainment, but also for documentary film|documentaries.
 * Internet, which has many uses and presents both opportunities and challenges. Blogs are unique to the Internet.
 * Publishing, in the narrow sense, meaning on paper, mainly via books, magazines, and newspapers.

Toward the end of the 20th century, the advent of the World Wide Web marked the first era in which any individual could have a means of exposure on a scale comparable to that of mass media. For the first time, anyone with a web site can address a global audience, although serving to high levels of web traffic is still relatively expensive. It is possible that the rise of peer-to-peer technologies may have begun the process of making the cost of bandwidth manageable. Although a vast amount of information, imagery, and commentary (i.e. "content") has been made available, it is often difficult to determine the authenticity and reliability of information contained in (in many cases, self-published) web pages. The invention of the Internet has also allowed breaking news stories to reach around the globe within minutes. This rapid growth of instantaneous, decentralized communication is often deemed likely to change mass media and its relationship to society.

"Cross-media" means the idea of distributing the same message through different media channels. A similar idea is expressed in the news industry as "convergence". Many authors understand cross-media publishing to be the ability to publish in both print and on the web without manual conversion effort. An increasing number of wireless devices with mutually incompatible data and screen formats make it even more difficult to achieve the objective “create

Contrast with non-mass media
Non-mass or "personal" media (point-to-point and person-to-person communication) include:
 * Speech
 * Gestures
 * Telephony
 * Postal mail
 * Some uses of the Internet
 * Some Interactive media

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Introduction to Sociology/Media


text:
Introduction to Sociology/Education

Education is a social science that encompasses teaching and learning specific skills. Practicing teachers in the field of education use a variety of methods and materials in their instruction to impart a curriculum. There has been a plethora of literature in the field of education that addresses these areas. Such literature addresses the facets of teaching practices to include instructional strategies, behavior management, environmental control, motivational strategies, and technological resources. However, the single most important factor in any teacher's effectiveness is the interaction style and personality of the teacher, for the quality of their relationships with the students provides the impetus for inspiration. The best teachers are able to translate good judgment, experience, and wisdom into the art of communication that students find compelling. It is their compassion for varied human qualities, passion, and the creativity of potential that assists teachers to invigorate students to higher expectations of themselves and society at large. The goal of education is the growth of students so that they become productive citizens of a dynamic, everchanging, society. Fundamentally, the imparting of culture from generation to generation (see socialisation)promotes a greater awareness and responsiveness through social maturity to the needs of an increasingly diversified society.

Overview
It is widely accepted that the process of education begins at birth and continues throughout life. Some believe that education begins even earlier than this, as evidenced by some parents' playing music or reading to the baby in the womb in the hope it will influence the child's development.

The word 'education' is often used to refer solely to formal education (see below). However, it covers a range of experiences, from formal learning to the building of understanding through day to day experiences. Ultimately, all that we experience serves as a form of education.

Individuals can receive informal education from a variety of sources. Family members and society have a strong influence on the informal education of the individual.

Origins of the Word "Education"
The word "education" is derived from the Latin educare meaning "leading out" or "leading forth". This reveals one of the theories behind the function of education - of developing innate abilities and expanding horizons.

Formal Education
Formal education occurs when society or a group or an individual sets up a curriculum to educate people, usually the young. Formal education can become systematic and thorough. Formal education systems can be used to promote ideals or values as well as knowledge and this can sometimes lead to abuse of the system.

Life-long or adult education has become widespread in many countries. However, 'education' is still seen by many as something aimed at children, and adult education is often branded as 'adult learning' or 'lifelong learning'.

Adult education takes on many forms from formal class-based learning to self-directed learning. Lending libraries provide inexpensive informal access to books and other self-instructional materials. Many adults have also taken advantage of the rise in computer ownership and internet access to further their informal education.

History of education
In 1994 Dieter Lenzen, president of the Freie Universität Berlin, said education began either millions of years ago or at the end of 1770. (The first chair of pedagogy was founded at the end of the 1770s at the University of Halle, Germany.) This quote by Lenzen includes the idea that education as a science cannot be separated from the educational traditions that existed before.

Education was the natural response of early civilizations to the struggle of surviving and thriving as a culture, requiring adults to train the young of their society in the knowledge and skills they would need to master and eventually pass on. The evolution of culture, and human beings as a species, has depended on this practice of transmitting knowledge. In pre-literate societies this was achieved orally, story-telling from one generation to the next. As oral language developed into written symbols and letters, the depth and breadth of knowledge that could be preserved and passed increased exponentially.

As cultures began to extend their knowledge beyond the basic skills of communicating, trading, gathering food, religious practices, etc., the beginnings of formal education, schooling, eventually followed. There is evidence that schooling in this sense was already in place in Egypt between 3000 and 500BC.

Basic education today is considered those skills that are necessary to function in society. Yet, a more critical view suggests that mass public education has been used by governments as a way to instill in the minds of youth nationalism and patriotism, as well as obedience to authority. Business corporations have also advocated public education as a way to teach children to be obedient to managers ("teachers"), to follow orders, complete assignments, show-up for class on time, and other conditions that mirror a work environment. In this radical critique of public education, schools are tools for coercing children to respect hierarchy and to fit them into the systems of the nation-state and capitalism.

In developing countries
In developing countries, the number and seriousness of the problems faced is naturally greater. People are sometimes unaware of the importance of education, and there is economic pressure from those parents who prioritize their children's making money in the short term over any long-term benefits of education. Recent studies on child labor and poverty have suggested, however, that when poor families reach a certain economic threshold where families are able to provide for their basic needs, parents return their children to school. This has been found to be true, once the threshold has been breached, even if the potential economic value of the children's work has increased since their return to school. Teachers are often paid less than other similar professions.

A lack of good universities, and a low acceptance rate for good universities is evident in countries with a relatively high population density. In some countries there are uniform, overstructured, inflexible centralized programs from a central agency that regulates all aspects of education.

 * Due to globalization, increased pressure on students in curricular activities
 * Removal of a certain percentage of students for improvisation of academics (usually practised in schools, after 10th grade)

India however is starting to develop technologies that will skip land based phone and internet lines. Instead, they have launched a special education satellite that can reach more of the country at a greatly reduced cost. There is also an initiative started by AMD and other corporations to develop the $100 dollar computer which should be ready by 2006. This computer will be sold in units of 1 million, and will be assembled in the country where the computer will be used. This appears to be a different computer to that developed by MIT, with the same price tag, believed to be powered by clockwork and a generator. This will enable poorer countries to give their children a digital education and to close the digital divide across the world.

In Africa, NEPAD has launched an "e-school programme" to provide all 600,000 primary and high schools with computer equipment, learning materials and internet access within 10 years.

 * should cover education statistics around the world
 * also talk about economic development of countries and the connection to education
 * maybe highlight some countries

Technology and Education
Technology has become an increasingly influential factor in education. Computers and associated technology are being widely used in developed countries to both complement established education practices and develop new ways of learning such as online education (a type of distance education). While technology clearly offers powerful learning tools that can engage students, research has been mixed as to whether technology actually improves student learning.

The Functions of Education
The manifest function of education is the transmission of knowledge to students in order to help them contribute back to society, either as knowledge producers themselves (i.e., scientists) or in other ways, like in business or industry. However, education also has a latent function, and it is a function that is actually quite important when it comes to financial outcomes. One of the latent functions of a mass educational system is to foster social skills. And, it turns out, those social skills literally pay-off in the long run. Students who score high on measures of sociability earn more money and get more education than equally intellectually gifted students who don't score as high in social skills.
 * socialization
 * cultural innovation
 * social integration
 * knowledge transmission
 * child care for workers

Education and Social Interaction

 * self-fulfilling prophecies

Gender
A recent topic of policy debate in the U.S. is the concern that there is a "boy crisis," as boys are less likely to graduate from high school and go on to college than are girls. However, recent research by Judith Kleinfeld suggests that painting this as a "crisis" exclusive to boys may be a little misleading. Boys at the primary and secondary educational levels do have a number of problems: lower rates of literacy, lower grades, lower engagement in school, higher dropout rates, higher rates of placement in special education, higher rates of emotional disturbance, higher rates of learning disabilities, higher rates of suspension and expulsion from school, and lower rates of entrance into college. Outside of school, boys are also more likely to: commit suicide, exhibit conduct disorders, die young, and be arrested or sent to juvenile detention centers. Clearly, boys have a number of problems. However, girls have their own share of problems that are no less serious than those facing young men, just different: higher rates of depression, higher incidence of eating disorders, higher rates of suicide attempts, lower scores on math and science tests, and less likely to be the highest achievers. Kleinfeld does conclude that the issues facing boys are probably more serious (e.g., 25% of American male high school graduates cannot understand a newspaper article vs. 10% of females), but also reminds us that women are facing many serious issues as well.

In the U.S. in 1960, 65% of all Bachelors degrees went to men; in 1982 it reached parity between men and women. In 2004, women received 58% of Bachelor's degrees. The 1960s and 1970s were pivotal years in the reversal of educational disparity between men and women. According to recent research, the reversal in disparity of educational attainment between men and women is largely attributable to higher drop-out rates of men from 4-year colleges, particularly males whose fathers have just a high school education or are absent from the home. Additionally, women experience earlier academic success than men do (in junior high and high school); the study skills and commitment that contribute to that success carries over to college where they do better than men. Additional reasons why this reversal has taken place may include: a faster rise in the value of college for females than for males (resulting in women benefiting more from completing their education) and rising divorce rates, which force women to be more independent. The increasing completion rate of women may have substantial influences on society in general, as education and income are important factors when considering who one will marry.

Class and Income
One of the primary factors contributing to educational inequality and poverty in general in the US is the funding system for public education. In most areas of the US, public schools are funded primarily through local property taxes. As a result, schools in wealthier neighborhoods have substantially larger budgets, which translates into better facilities, better teachers, and better resources. When these monetary advantages are coupled with the advantage of having a safe, supportive, and intellectually enriching home environment that comes with wealth, it is not surprising that children who attend better funded public schools tend to be more successful than those who attend more poorly funded public schools. Additionally, within schools in the U.S., tracking is commonly employed (separating students into different classes based on their abilities and skills). Tracking increases disparity in educational attainment rather than reducing those disparities.

There is also evidence to suggest that the lifetime educational possibilities of most kids are set by the time they are six years old. This is due to the fact that several family background characteristics are very strong predictors of future educational attainment, including: parental support, parental expectations for schooling, household income, and parental educational attainment, with the last two being the most important factors. Also surprising in this study was the finding that the lifetime educational attainment predicted using background characteristics when individuals were in the first grade were just as good at predicting educational attainment as were similar variables when individuals were in high school, and on some measures better. In real terms, this translates into children living in poorer neighborhoods receiving less education than children who live in middle-class or upper-class neighborhoods. What's more, the lifetime educational attainment seems to be set by the time children are starting school, not when they are finishing it.

Educational deficits resulting from inequality also affect future life trajectories. Colleges tend to draw students from a relatively advantaged background because of their high costs and stiff academic requirements for enrollment. What's more, because colleges want to maintain their rankings in various college ranking systems (e.g., U.S. News & World Report), colleges favor students with higher standardized test scores and aggressively recruit them using "merit" scholarships. In 2000, affluent students, students who could otherwise afford to pay for college, received "merit" scholarships worth 82% of the need-based aid received by students with the lowest family incomes. In other words, affluent students who could pay for college often do not have to because the advantages they received attending better elementary, middle, and high schools translated into higher standardized test scores, which are attractive to universities when it comes to recruiting. As a result, there is less funding available for students who actually need it. This ends up reinforcing the existing status hierarchy by keeping the affluent wealthy and the poor unable to attend college.

Some of those under-privileged youth choose another path as a result. Despite being both volunteer and high risk, the military remains attractive to a certain segment of the U.S. population, primarily young people from less advantaged families and neighborhoods. Such individuals view the military as more promising than entry-level jobs in the workforce without a college diploma. Cognitively, young people from disadvantaged homes are about average, but are socioeconomically disadvantaged, which is one of the primary reasons they turn to the military rather than college to pursue financial success, with some success.

Health and Longevity
As noted in the chapter on demography, education is a strong and significant predictor of greater life expectancy. The more years of education a person has, the greater their likelihood of engaging in healthy behaviors (and, inversely, the lower their likelihood of engaging in unhealthy behaviors, like smoking).

Charter Schools
Charter schools are publicly funded elementary or secondary schools in the United States that have been freed from some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter. Their founders are often teachers, parents, or activists who feel restricted by traditional public schools. State-run charter schools (schools not affiliated with local school districts) are often established by non-profit groups, universities, and some government entities.

The basic concept of charter schools is that they exercise increased autonomy in return for greater accountability. They are accountable for both academic results and fiscal practices to several groups, including the sponsor that grants them, the parents who choose them, and the public that funds them. Charter schools can theoretically be closed for failing to meet the terms set forth in their charter, but in practice, this can be difficult, divisive and controversial. One example was the 2003 revocation of the charter for a school called Urban Pioneer in the San Francisco Unified School District, which first came under scrutiny when two students died on a school wilderness outing. An auditor's report found that the school was in financial disarray and posted the lowest test scores of any school in the district except those serving entirely non-English-speakers. It was also accused of academic fraud, graduating students with far fewer than the required credits.

Opponents of charter schools argue that charter schools probably cannot fix any broader problems with the U.S. educational system. If they do anything, they probably encourage segregation while drawing money out of the public school system. Additionally, recent data indicates that children in charter schools are not doing any better on standardized achievement tests. At best, they are doing as well as children in public schools, but when charter schools are not associated with a public school district, children in the schools score significantly less well than their public school counterparts. Charter schools appear not to be the solution to the lackluster educational system of the U.S.

High School Completion
An issue often obfuscated by confusing statistics, high school completion rates in the U.S. are often lower than reported. High school completion rates are calculated at the state level and aggregated at the federal level. The percentage of students who graduate from high school often reported by the federal government in the U.S. is around 85%, but a more accurate percentage is about 71%. Seventy-one percent is a sobering statistic when you think about its implications - slightly less than 3 out of 4 students who start high school in the U.S. finish; 1/4 of young people in America today are moving into adulthood without a high school diploma. The lack of a high school diploma contributes to lower wages and increased rates of poverty, as well as poorer general understandings of society, health, and science. Additionally, the U.S. used to lead the world in sending high school graduates on to higher education, but in 2008 it was 5th and 16th out of 27 industrialized countries in the proportion of students who start college and complete it. We also have a disproportionate share of low-performing students; almost 1/3 of students in U.S. secondary schools don't have the minimum education to contribute to a globalized, high-tech economy.

Public vs. Private Schools
While it has long been held that private schools provide better education than public schools, current research suggests that is not the case. Public school students test higher, on average, in math than do private school students when social and economic backgrounds are controlled. Longitudinal data illustrates that, while students beginning in public and Catholic schools test at about the same level in math, by the fifth grade the public school students make significantly greater gains, equivalent to almost an extra half year of schooling. While the limited number of private schools makes it difficult to compare a wide variety of religiously affiliated schools with public schools, conservative Protestant private schools show the worst math performance of all types of schools. Math is particularly telling in this regard as it is the subject least influenced by home environment and most greatly influenced by the effectiveness of the schooling environment. However, it should be noted that school type only explains about 5% of the variation in math scores; the bulk of the difference is explained by demographic characteristics. The implication of this research is that, while private schools may provide a specific type of schooling (i.e., one that includes religious instruction), there is little evidence that private schools in general provide better instruction or improve educational outcomes.

Other Issues

 * standardized testing
 * home schooling
 * tracking
 * people with disabilities
 * adult education
 * teacher shortages and teacher quality

Some of these issues, as well as others, are discussed in a Wikibook called Contemporary Educational Psychology.

The Role of Students
Education is not solely about the provision of information to students. Students also play a role in the education process. One of the ways they do so is in employing effective study techniques. Unfortunately, there are a number of myths about effective studying techniques for students. For instance, many educators encourage elaborate study techniques, like concept-mapping, claiming that they improve the encoding of information into memory. Recent research suggests it is more beneficial for recall to practice retrieving information than using elaborate encoding techniques. Students' time is better spent practicing free recall of information studied than employing complex study techniques.

Challenges in education
The goal of education is the transference of ideas and skills from one person to another, or from one person to a group. Current education issues include which teaching method(s) are most effective, how to determine what knowledge should be taught, which knowledge is most relevant, and how well the pupil will retain incoming knowledge. Educators such as George Counts and Paulo Freire identified education as an inherently political process with inherently political outcomes. The challenge of identifying whose ideas are transferred and what goals they serve has always stood in the face of formal and informal education.

In addition to the "Three R's", reading, writing, and arithmetic, Western primary and secondary schools attempt to teach the basic knowledge of history, geography, mathematics (usually including calculus and algebra), physics, chemistry and sometimes politics, in the hope that students will retain and use this knowledge as they age or that the skills acquired will be transferrable. The current education system measures competency with tests and assignments and then assigns each student a corresponding grade. The grades usually come in the form of either a letter grade or a percentage, which are intended to represent the amount of all material presented in class that the student understood.

Educational progressives or advocates of unschooling often believe that grades do not necessarily reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a student, and that there is an unfortunate lack of youth voice in the educative process. Some feel the current grading system risks lowering students' self-confidence, as students may receive poor marks due to factors outside their control. Such factors include poverty, child abuse, and prejudiced or incompetent teachers.

By contrast, many advocates of a more traditional or "back to basics" approach believe that the direction of reform needs to be quite the opposite. Students are not sufficiently inspired or challenged to achieve success because of the dumbing down of the curriculum and the replacement of the "canon" with inferior material. Their view of self-confidence is that it arises not from removing hurdles such as grading, but by making them fair and encouraging students to gain pride from knowing they can jump over these hurdles.

On the one hand, Albert Einstein, one of the most famous physicists of our time, credited with helping us understand the universe better, was not a model school student. He was uninterested in what was being taught, and he did not attend classes all the time. However, his gifts eventually shone through and added to the sum of human knowledge. On the other hand, for millennia those who have been challenged and well-educated in traditional schools have risen to great success and to a lifelong love of learning because their minds were made better and more powerful, as well as because of their mastery of a wide range of skills.

There are a number of highly controversial issues in education. Should some knowledge be forgotten? What should be taught, are we better off knowing how to build nuclear bombs, or is it best to let such knowledge be forgotten?

Parental involvement
Parental involvement is an essential aspect of a child's educational development. Early and consistent parental involvement in the child's life is critical such as reading to children at an early age, teaching patterns, interpersonal communication skills, exposing them to diverse cultures and the community around them, educating them on a healthy lifestyle, etc. The socialization and academic education of a child are aided by the involvement of the student, parent(s), teachers, and others in the community and extended family.

Additional Reading
A 2015 investigation by the Tampa Bay Times illustrates the consequences of school re-segregation in Pinellas County, Florida.

title: Introduction to Sociology/Education


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User talk:Mysha

AROS User Docs
Sorry if you found my suggestions offensive in any way.

It's true that currently there's no consensus about naming policy. However, most contributors agree that we should not name pages like "XXX YYY", it's better to name in one of two ways: "XXX:YYY" or "XXX/YYY". Disagreements are connected with prefering one of these two conventions over another and some rather irrelevant issues (whether allow title shortcuts or not).

Using one of this two conventions, it's easier to determine to which book a chapter belongs, you also have some automatic actions easier to perform. --Derbeth talk 14:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Mysha


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Talk:Systematic Phonics

If phonics were a quaint, fanciful and eccentric theory advanced in internet chatrooms by people who palpably lacked a knowledge of English phonology, it might be harmless. The trouble is that it is used to teach real children in real schools who must, therefore, learn literacy despite it.

A child who is told by a perhaps otherwise trustworthy adult that "a" has a long sound (as in "make") and a short one (as in "cat") will be unable to read "father" correctly till he has learned to ignore those rules. A child who is told that "e" can only represent the vowels in "beat" and "bet" will be unable to read the words "English" and "enable" properly until he learns to ignore that rule. A child who is told that the two vowel-letters in "beat" are a diphthong is being downright misled.

Phonics has the appearance of a scheme devised by people who don't know phonetics trying to find patterns in a chaotic system, and often getting it wrong. Fundamental mistakes include a failure to distinguish vowel-length and diphthongs, as well as a belief that spoken language renders the orthography rather than the other way around.

My hunch is that people learn to read and write in a similar way to the way in which they learn to speak. This would make sense, since it is all about language. —the preceding unsigned comment is by 80.189.226.94 (talk • contribs)

Sorry, I've got to disagree with your semi-rant. No system of education can provide a learner with the tools to be immediately capable of performing every task within a field of study.

You might want to check out some of the work cognitive scientists (e.g. Pinker) have done regarding language acquisition vs reading skills. Reading appears to be learned through very different paths from speaking and listening skills.

In the US, there were many arguments made in the 60s that said essentially what you have said. As a consequence, quite a few school districts dropped phonics from their curricula, saving a few dollars. In its place was a different approach to teaching reading, the "look and say" method, which is the alternative you seem to be advocating. The results were disastrous for students. Pure memorization of spelling, pronunciation, and meaning for each newly acquired word is absurd.

For the last 15 years, phonics has been either reintroduced into the classroom or has been the primary effective method of choice for tutoring those non-disabled students who have struggled to gain reading skills. Parents have turned to phonics as a means to assist their children outside of the classroom. I have never known a child whose reading skills were not improved by the study of phonics.

Phonics is a necessary class for most, if not all, children. It has never been promoted as the sole method of teaching reading (as far as I can recall) but has a long history as an essential adjunct in the acquisition of literacy.

You specifically pointed to perceived inadequacies regarding the pronunciation "rules" for certain vowels. This poses a minor problem at most. If you keep in mind that English is a consonant intensive language, you will note that there are only a few consonants with unpredictable pronunciations.

I suppose that none of this matters much, seeing that, at least in the US, school districts are under funded, under staffed, and over politicized. Hmm. I guess that was rather POV of me! Ande 09:00, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Systematic Phonics


text: User talk:203.122.42.28

title: User talk:203.122.42.28


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Talk:Systematic Phonics/Blend

This seems an un-necessary concept to bother to teach. Inasfar as most speech consists of more than one sound, one could say that all speech is a blend. To suggest that "br" is a single sound is to ignore the way in which it is composed of two sounds, the way that "r" isn't. If there are to be blends, why do they not include clusters of vowels and consonants, such as "bri" in "bring". If "bri" is a cluster or a blend, then so is "bring" which is, of course, also a word. Although phonics focuses on this distracting concept of clusters/blends, it seems oblivious to the fact that some vowels which are written with one letter are actually diphthongs and therefore consist of a glide between two vowel-positions.

I can't see what possible good there is in telling a child that, if you put p and l together you get (wait for it) pl. Pl isn't a sound in its own right, but just two sounds attached. The inventors of phonics may have got confused by combinations such as th and sh. Maybe they think that one produces the th and sh sounds by somehow combining a t or an s with an h. That is untrue.

Phonics, I'm afraid, has all the marks of having been created by people who don't know English phonology.

title: Talk:Systematic Phonics/Blend


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Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Lavender Brown

Overview
Lavender Brown is a Gryffindor girl in Harry's year. She is a very good friend of Parvati Patil, and favours Professor Trelawney's Divination lessons above all others.

Philosopher's Stone
Lavender Brown is first mentioned as the first student of the year to be Sorted into Gryffindor.

As they go down to the Hallowe'en Feast, Harry and Ron overhear Parvati telling Lavender that Hermione was crying in the girls' toilet and wanted to be left alone. Ron, who had made harsh comments about her following Charms class, seems to feel a bit awkward about this revelation.

While we see Lavender in passing in some of Harry's classes, she does not play any particularly significant role in this book.

Chamber of Secrets
While we see Lavender in passing in some of Harry's classes, she does not play any particularly significant role in this book.

Prisoner of Azkaban
Lavender, along with Parvati Patil, is particularly intrigued by Divination class, and almost starts worshiping Professor Trelawney when she correctly predicts that Neville will break some of her teacups. At the first Divination class, Professor Trelawney tells Lavender, "That thing you are dreading? It will happen on October 16th." On October 16, Lavender receives word that her pet bunny had been killed, and we see that Lavender has reshaped the prediction retroactively in her own mind so that it refers to this event: while she admits that she had not been dreading Binky's death, and that it had not actually happened on the 16th, she still resents Hermione's questioning of whether the prediction that Trelawney had made had actually come to pass.

Another thing that Trelawney had predicted was that "near Easter time, one of our number will leave us forever." Immediately after Easter break, as they are starting crystal balls, Trelawney claims to see the Grim in Harry's crystal ball. This angers Hermione, and she and Trelawney exchange words, as a result of which Hermione drops Divination. Lavender and Parvati immediately accept this as fulfillment of Trelawney's earlier prediction.

It is mentioned that Lavender and Parvati seem to spend almost all of their free time up in Trelawney's tower after that.

While we see Lavender in passing in some of Harry's other classes, she still does not play any particularly significant role in this book.

Goblet of Fire
Lavender's role in this book is once again relatively minor.

When Hagrid, in Care of Magical Creatures class, starts teaching the class about Skrewts, it is Lavender who discovers that some of them have stingers.

In desperation, Harry asks Parvati if she will go to the Yule Ball with him, and she accepts. He asks Lavender if she would go with Ron, but she is already going with Seamus.

After Hagrid returns from his self-imposed suspension, he chooses to prove that he can teach Care of Magical Creatures at least as well as Professor Grubbly-Plank. He chooses to teach about Unicorns, and has captured a foal which he has secured under the eaves of the Forbidden Forest. Lavender and Parvati are absolutely entranced by it.

Order of the Phoenix
Lavender Brown is talking with Parvati Patil when Harry arrives in the Great Hall at the start of the school year. They greet Harry with a light, airy unconcern that tells Harry that they had been discussing him before he arrived. Hermione mentions the following morning that Lavender is skeptical of Harry's story that Lord Voldemort has returned. Apparently this is fairly common in the school, largely because the Daily Prophet has been systematically belittling Harry and Dumbledore over the summer.

On the second day of classes, when Professor Grubbly-Plank asks if anyone can identify the creatures she has in front of her, Hermione puts her hand up, and Draco imitates her. Pansy shrieks with laughter, then screams as the little bundles of twigs on the table jump up. Lavender and Parvati let out little sighs of amazement, which annoy Harry: it is not like Hagrid had not been showing them fantastic creatures all along.

As Harry enters the greenhouse for Herbology on the second day of classes, Luna Lovegood says that she believes Harry. Parvati and Lavender laugh at Luna and her earrings that appear to be orange radishes, but become much more sober when Ernie Macmillan loudly states that he believes Harry's report of the return of Voldemort.

Lavender is one of the students who attends the first meeting of what becomes Dumbledore's Army, in the Hog's Head.

When Hedwig appears outside the window of the History of Magic classroom, Lavender comments that she's "always loved that owl, she's so beautiful."

After receiving her evaluation from Umbridge, Professor Trelawney seems distraught. Parvati and Lavender ask her what is wrong, and catch a lot of the resulting diatribe against "the establishment".

Parvati and Lavender are noted as being two of the students who are somewhat dismayed to see that Hagrid is back, when he returns from the mission Dumbledore had assigned him.

Lavender and Parvati Patil are seen hugging each other and crying quietly as Professor Trelawney is sacked by a cheerfully sarcastic Umbridge.

The following day, Lavender and Parvati suggest that Hermione should now be sorry that she had given up Divination, as the new teacher is Firenze. Hermione says that she was not terribly fond of horses, and Lavender, indignant, says that he isn't a horse, he's a Centaur. Hermione dismisses this, saying he still has four legs. Lavender says also that she and Parvati had gone to see Professor Trelawney and had found that she was distraught, still, and was saying that she would prefer to leave the school.

Lavender tells Ron that Firenze will be teaching in Classroom Eleven, on the ground floor, as he cannot manage the ladders that lead up to the tower. Reaching the classroom, everyone is surprised to see that it has been turned into a replica of a clearing in the Forbidden Forest. Although Lavender is likely as upset by Firenze's abrupt dismissal of all Trelawney's teachings as Parvati, she says nothing.

In the final meeting of Dumbledore's Army in April, the class is working on Patronuses. Several people in the class are having trouble; Lavender and Neville, in particular, can only produce little bits of white vapour.

Half-Blood Prince
Lavender Brown becomes a more important character in this book, as she begins the year openly flirting with Ron Weasley. On his way to breakfast on his first day as a Prefect, Ron confiscates a Fanged Frisbee from a first-year student, then remarks that he'd always wanted one of them himself. Lavender, who is passing, laughs particularly loudly.

At breakfast, Professor McGonagall is handing out timetables. Lavender asks who is teaching Divination; told that Professor Trelawney is teaching the sixth-year students, Lavender and Parvati seem somewhat discouraged.

After a particularly terrible Quidditch match, Ron and his sister Ginny have a row after he and Harry accidentally walk in on her snogging Dean Thomas in a Hogwarts hallway. They have a screaming match in which Ginny accuses Ron of having absolutely no experience with girls. Since Ron is still smarting from watching Hermione being singled out by Viktor Krum in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and their ongoing pen-pal relationship, he starts responding to Lavender's advances. Their relationship is publicly and intensely physical – Harry at one point compares it to a vertical wrestling match, and at another point wonders which of several hands he can see belongs to whom. This causes a huge rift between Hermione and Ron that lasts several months during their 6th year.

Lavender Brown is something of a scatterbrain, however, and has absolutely no idea what Ron is thinking when they are apart. For example, at Christmas, Lavender sends Ron a gold necklace with letters spelling out "My Sweetheart"; Ron is repulsed by it. Ron eventually realizes that he needs more from a relationship than just snogging.

On his birthday, Ron eats some chocolate cauldrons which have been spiked with love potion by Romilda Vane, who intended them for Harry. While Harry is taking him to Professor Slughorn to get the potion effects reversed, they meet Lavender; Ron roughly pushes her aside, saying that Harry has promised to introduce him to Romilda. After receiving the antidote, Ron is nearly killed by some poison intended for another victim, possibly Dumbledore. Lavender does visit Ron in the hospital wing, but complains to Harry that he always seems to be sleeping when she visits. Harry asks Ron about this, and Ron admits that he is feigning sleep, because he doesn't want to deal with Lavender at the moment. Lavender is outraged when she discovers that Ron has been released from the hospital wing, but she has not been told; and further, that Hermione evidently knew before Lavender did.

Ron's relationship with Lavender seems to continue after his recovery, though it has suffered a major blow. At one point, when Hermione is correcting one of Ron's essays, in apparent gratitude he says "Thank you Hermione, I love you." Hermione replies that he shouldn't let Lavender hear that, and Ron says that maybe he should; he hasn't yet found any other way to break up with her.

Harry now determines that he must use Felix Felicis potion to get a memory from Professor Slughorn. Under the influence of this potion, he decides to don his Invisibility Cloak and go visit Hagrid. As he, Ron, and Hermione descend from the boy's dormitory, they run into Lavender; she of course can't see Harry, and starts berating Ron for being up in his dormitory "alone with her" (Hermione). This is basically the lever Ron needs to end his relationship with her. Ron almost immediately takes up with Hermione, and Lavender has very little further role except looking saddened by Ron and Hermione's closeness.

Deathly Hallows
In contrast to her relatively large supporting role in Half-Blood Prince, we see even less of her in this book than usual, as she returns to Hogwarts to finish her seventh year there. She is one of the members of Dumbledore's Army who are found to be living in the Room of Requirement when Harry gets back to Hogwarts.

As Harry, Ron, and Hermione escape the castle on their way to the Shrieking Shack, they see Lavender, who has just fallen from a balcony in the Entry Hall, attacked by a grey blur that Harry at first takes for an animal. Hermione jinxes the blur, which Harry now recognizes as Fenrir Greyback. Fenrir is then knocked unconscious by a flying crystal ball, sent his way by Sybill Trelawney.

Strengths
Lavender seems to be intensely committed to her relationships, and fiercely loyal to friends and, apparently, lovers.

Weaknesses
Lavender talks a lot and doesn't usually let anyone else get their message across. Somewhat gullible, she seems completely taken in by Professor Trelawney.

Relationships with Other Characters
Throughout the series, Lavender is best friends with Parvati Patil.

Taken in by Professor Trelawney's "Divination," Lavender is seen to be almost hero-worshiping Trelawney starting from the first few Divination classes. She seems to transfer some of her affections to Firenze when he takes over teaching Divination.

In her relationship with Ron, she seems to be more attached to an image of him than to him; she has no idea what he would actually like for Christmas, for instance. This relationship, which is intensely physical, is also marked by jealousy on Lavender's part. It seems that she is in love with the idea of having a boyfriend who is a prefect, rather than with Ron himself.

Analysis
Lavender is very much a minor character, playing at best a supporting role in the story; it is to the author's credit that she is so well written as a character. There is little need, if any, in the story line, to have her express so much interest in Divination, or to so clearly have become best friends with Parvati Patil. In the overall scheme of things, the entire affair between Ron and Lavender is unnecessary to the main plot line of the story. The author, however, has chosen to write the story against a fully believable backdrop of what happens to teenagers as they mature, and of course the sort of romantic entanglements we see with Ron and Lavender are a large part of that maturation. The additional details allow the reader to mentally flesh out the character, so that while Lavender may be dismissed to some extent as minimally important to the story, the reader still cares about her as a person, and is concerned about her survival and possible injuries in the final battle.

Hermione comments at one point that Ron has "the emotional depth of a teaspoon." It is perhaps for this reason that Lavender is portrayed, at least in her relationship with Ron, to be almost equally shallow. Perhaps this is a necessary stage in Ron's maturation, as it causes him to recognize the value of Hermione's more mature outlook. It is possible that, just as the author felt there had to be a major event, such as a mountain troll, to knock Hermione out of her "grind" character in the first book, equally Lavender is the major relationship event that awakens some emotional awareness in Ron.

Questions

 * 1) Is Lavender Brown now a werewolf? It seemed that she was bitten by Fenrir Greyback near the end of book seven, and he may have been transformed into his werewolf form at the time.

Greater Picture
It is interesting that in a clever twist by the author, it is Hermione who saves Lavender from being mauled by Greyback, in spite of Lavender being in direct competition with Hermione for Ron's affections throughout the course of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

There is significant debate as to whether Greyback was in his Werewolf shape or not when Lavender was attacked; much of the debate appears on the talk page for that chapter. One major factor arguing against his being Transformed is the author's habit of never naming characters Harry has not been introduced to, and he has never seen Greyback transformed. He has seen Greyback in his human form, and had him named, in the previous book, so the immediate identification of Greyback would imply strongly that Greyback is in his human shape. Against this, there is the description of Greyback as a "grey blur", and the fact that little in the text rules out Fenrir (and Lupin) being transformed. While it is true that the given date for the battle of Hogwarts, May 2nd, 1998, according to the lunar calendar is not a full moon, we must discount this as evidence due to earlier lack of correlation between the Hogwarts lunar cycle and ours, as mentioned in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Finally, however, it is mentioned elsewhere that Lupin met his death while dueling with Dolohov, which would not be a description of what he was doing were he transformed. As we see in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, however, Lupin does not transform until the light of the full moon actually hits him; despite the moon being fully up, he does not transform in the Shrieking Shack, only when he emerges from the tunnel, so it is just possible that he has somehow managed to battle the Death Eaters without ever being exposed to moonlight.


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Talk:Systematic Phonics/Why use systematic phonics

As with other aspects of phonics, the idea of breaking words into syllables is a distraction from learning to read. We learn to read by associating written words with spoken ones. In some cases, the word gives us a clue to its pronunciation, because some letters represent few sounds or just one. An example is "k". If a word contains letters which represent many sounds (such as all vowel-letters and many consonants such as "c", "t" and "g"), one needs to learn what the letter is doing in that word. One of the things which a letter could be doing in a word is nothing: for example, the "b" in "numb" and the "e" in "syllable". In other cases, a letter could be being used with another letter to make a single sound, such as many instances of "th" (which can actually represent one of two sounds). Sadly, most words include letters which can make several sounds.


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Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter/Characters/Sir Cadogan

Overview
Sir Cadogan is one of the portraits at Hogwarts. He is in a habit of taunting people as they pass.

Prisoner of Azkaban
Perhaps because of his habit of challenging all who pass, Sir Cadogan's portrait is hung in one of the upper and more remote corridors of the castle. Harry, Ron, and Hermione request his assistance in finding the Divination classroom on their first day of classes; he provides it by moving from picture to picture in the correct direction.

When Sirius Black attempts to destroy the portrait of The Fat Lady, in retaliation for her not letting him into the Gryffindor Common Room, Sir Cadogan takes her place. He retains that position until he allows Sirius into the Gryffindor common room because he happened to have the password; he is then returned to the upper reaches of the castle.

Goblet of Fire
Sir Cadogan is mentioned briefly by Bill Weasley when he and Mrs. Weasley meet Harry before watching him as he competes in the Third Task. Bill asks Harry if the painting containing Sir Cadogan still remains in Hogwarts, later saying how he hasn't been to the school in five years, most likely since he graduated. This indicates that Sir Cadogan has been in the castle for at least five years, but probably more.

Deathly Hallows
Sir Cadogan is mentioned as one of the portraits who shout encouragement to the defenders of Hogwarts. As Harry is on his way to the Room of Requirement, where he now believes Rowena Ravenclaw's lost diadem is hidden, Sir Cadogan paces him for a while, shouting words of encouragement.

Strengths
He knows his way round Hogwarts well, and shows Harry where to go for his first lesson of Divination. He is also very brave, always willing to accept a Quest or a Challenge. It seems that he generally considers any request for assistance to be a Quest.

Weaknesses
Sir Cadogan isn't good at fighting at all. He is extremely clumsy, dropping his sword, or getting it stuck in the turf, and can never get onto his pony. Another weakness, of course, is that his horse is a pony, rather than a more typical charger. As mentioned in Strengths, above, he is very brave, but he actually seems brave to the point of foolhardiness; he will seemingly accept any challenge, even one that would result in the destruction of his painting.

Relationships with Other Characters
Sir Cadogan can be quite tiresome, with his repeated demands that people "Stand and fight, ye scurvy cur!" Particularly as, being part of a painting, you cannot actually reach him to fight him, and he cannot reach you either.

Additionally, due to his perpetual clumsiness, he is something of a figure of fun to the people who have to deal with him.

Analysis
Sir Cadogan is a useful object, because he can help Harry and his friends around the castle. He doesn't complicate much when action is needed, unlike many other artistic objects around the castles - the gargoyles being good examples.


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Talk:Systematic Phonics/Dividing syllables

Children can pronounce polysyllabic words long before they learn to read. Indeed, connected speech is itself polysyllabic. And do children really understand all this VCCV and jack-in-the-box stuff, even if it's true? Surely, if they're trying to read a word like "kit", they pronounce the three elements one by one and see if it makes sense. If the word is "kitbag" they do the same. It would be a waste of time and effort to split "kitbag" into syllables if one can decode the six elements sequentially and come up with a plausible word. Sure, it gets more difficult with words containing less predictable letters (such as "c" and "s") but then one is learning the letters' roles in context. At an impressionistic level, this distracting search for syllables might make a learner expect that "through" had more syllables than, say, "title".

BTW, in looking for syllables in "title", where is the second talking vowel? It's not the "e" which is silent. "Title" is actually di-syllabic because the "l" is syllabic. Are we really going to burden children with this concept, which even the inventors of phonics don't seem to have grasped?

 * The comments above may have some validity, but surely the purpose of this book is to tell people what Systematic Phonics is, whatever reservations some people may have about it. If the authors can reference sources which support their description of conventional practice then that is sufficient justification for the book. Recent Runes (talk) 00:39, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


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Aros

AROS is an recursive acronym for the AROS Research Operating System, an AmigaOS (TM) API compatible, with certain improvements, that is portable and freely available. It is developed as a collaborative project, with the source code being available under an open source license.

AROS is not tied to any company policy or computer hardware. No financial or legal circumstances will have any negative effect on the progress of AROS. It has a secure future. Moreover AROS effort helps the Amiga community in general. Projects such as AfA-OS which improves the Classic Amiga OS and the free kickstart which is useful in improving UAE emulator and others.

As more Amiga 68k hardware and accelerators become scarce and expensive some thought was made to preserve the Amiga spirit. One approach out of many is AROS which can run on 68k, PowerPC, Intel x86 and compatibles, a select ARM SOCs. Where anyone can use an alternative to most mainstream Operating Systems (OS), for nostalgic reasons, educationally as an alternative to Linux, to experience new ideas or just be different.

Ways to program

 * Open - Aros target level with C, C++, Pascal, LUA and others. Goal of portable coding
 * Closed - CPU architecture means specific assembler mnemonics becomes machine code - closely coupled to hardware and not portable

Most old 68k applications and games work out of the box on Aros68k and related Amiga based m68k hardware, so it has a lot to do with the original "Amiga". It implements the same APIs, it has the same directories. You can code a program in M68K assembler which will actually run on BOTH AmigaOS 3.x and AROS for M68K. But it will run on AmigaOS 3.x and AROS M68K ONLY (this means: on classic Amiga models, clones and ports of ).

Obviously, if you wish your code to work on ANY OTHER platform, you have to either code the application in a compatible assembler for THAT platform or use a higher level language. The advantage of C and other interpreted or compiled high-level languages is that you can write your source code once, and then compile it for any target platform.

Being able to share the same source code and compile it on many platform targets is the aim of AROS.

User - The manual on using AROS

 * Introduction
 * Frequently Asked Questions
 * Sound and MIDI manual
 * Getting software - applications, games, ...
 * DOS manual
 * AmigaOS support / Amiga68k emulation
 * AROS USB support

Platforms - Platform specific parts both for user and developer

 * 68k support
 * 68k installing
 * x86 support
 * x86_64 support
 * x86 installing
 * Windows Mingw and MacOSX support
 * Linux and FreeBSD support
 * ARM Raspberry Pi support
 * ARM support
 * Android support
 * PPC support
 * PPC installing

Building AROS, and using its APIs

 * General overview and introduction
 * Kernel Basics
 * Porting software from other platforms
 * Memory Management
 * Nightly Config
 * Self-hosted Compile
 * LLVM
 * ABI v1
 * Build-System used to compile AROS
 * Games Programming Basics WIP

Zune (GUI toolkit)

 * Primer/Manual
 * Standard classes: built-in, or supplied with AROS
 * Custom classes: expanding Zune
 * Zune example code

AHI audio hardware independent API

 * AHI Manual

Libraries

 * CGFX
 * DOS
 * Exec
 * Expansion
 * Graphics
 * IFFParse
 * Icon
 * Intuition
 * Layers
 * RexxSysLib
 * Utility

 * AROS public license

title: Aros


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Talk:Systematic Phonics/Syllable types

Diphthong and vowel team

The definition of diphthong is unsatisfactory. In phonetics, a diphthong is a glide between two vowel-positions. In this article, it is characterised as being new. How is the student to ascertain the novelty of a sound? If the article means that the "ea" in "beat" is a diphthong, then students will be being taught an irregular meaning of diphthong. In phonetics, the "ea" in "beat" is a monophthong. One assumes that the author would say that the "i" in "like" was not a diphthong because it was represented by just one letter, yet, phonetically, it is a diphthong.

One wonders if a vowel team is a phonetic dipthong, as in "fear" where a vowel-glide is represented by two letters. What, I wonder, would phonics make of "bear" where the same two letters represent a phonetic monophthong. Is the "ea" in "bear" a vowel team or a diphthong? It has two elements but makes one sound. Is that sound new in terms of the definition of the product of a diphthong?

And what on earth would phonics' zany vowel team/diphthong theory make of the vowel-cluster in "create"? Phonetically it is, in IMHO, a dieresis comprising a monophthong (/i/) and a diphthong (/ei/); or maybe it's a triphthong. Yet (poor old phonics) it's the same two letters as in "fear" and "bear".

Schwa

Saying that this is pronounced like "uh" is just plain wrong. It's as wrong as saying it's like "ah".

Long and short vowels

This section implies that the five vowel-letters have just two sounds each. This does not account for the fact that "a" makes different sounds in make, cat, father and about. This model also implies that English has just 10 vowel-sounds (or 11 if you include schwa) when it actually has around twice that number.

Four of the five vowels which this section calls long are actually diphthongs, characterised, not by the time it takes to pronounce them, but by the fact that they are a glide between two vowel-positions.

I cannot think that there is any evidence that what the section calls short vowels are harder to pronounce than, for example, diphthongs.

 * Also, "oo" is never pronounced the same way as the short "o" of not. Myk 21:04, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

title: Talk:Systematic Phonics/Syllable types


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TI 83 Plus Assembly/Jumps

jp
In the previous program a label was written: text: is a label. Labels are never tabbed and always end with a colon. Labels are actually 16-bit numbers, pointing to the instruction directly following them. Thus labels are actually 16-bit immediate numbers and can be treated the same (the same loads apply to them). They mark a place in a program. You can jump to a label by using jp labelname: (B_CALL(_ClrLCDFull) clears the screen.) The program above clears the screen but never displays text. Why? Because jp clearscreen automatically jumps to the label clearscreen and contintues until the end of the program, skipping over all the text display code.

jp label is equal to this invalid-syntax code LD PC,label.

By the way, the stuff followed by the semicolon are comments: they are used to explain the code and are ignored by the compiler. (The compiler is the program which converts the code you write to code a machine can read.)

jr
jr is a jumping instruction similar to jp, but with a few important differences. It's one byte smaller (this may not seem like a lot, but it can add up); however, unlike jp (which can jump to any address), jr can only jump to a label that's up to 127 bytes forward or up to 128 bytes backward in your code. So, use jp if the label is far away but otherwise use jr. In fact, you may want to always use jr, because when you compile an error will be returned if the label is too distant. The compiler subtracts the address to which the label behind the jr is pointing to from the address of the label itself, if the result does not fit in a signed 8-bit number it will throw an error because it can not be compiled (address exceeds range). JR's are always slower than JP's, and you can not use all conditions with them. JR can use the conditions Z, NZ, C and NC, whereas JP, RET and CALL can use the conditions Z, NZ, C, NC, PO (parity odd), PE (parity even), P (positive)and M (negative).

The jump in the above program could be replaced with jr:

call
Imagine if you want to jump somewhere and then go back. CALL pushes its address +3 on the stack; RET pops the top of the stack in PC. This is the very same stack as the PUSH-POP stack, so be careful. Use call and ret to 'jump' somewhere and return:

As you can see, the first ret (right after the _ClrLCDFull) went back to after the call command. Then, the second ret ended the program. You can think of your program as one big call routine, with the ending ret going back to the main calculator. Warning: Calls interfere with stacks.

These jumps can be combined with code learned in later sections.

title: TI 83 Plus Assembly/Jumps


text:
User talk:Sbj219~enwikibooks

Copyright problem with Image:Yoga.jpg
--Derbeth talk 15:30, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Sbj219. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Sbj219~enwikibooks that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 05:28, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Sbj219~enwikibooks


text:
Sikhism

Sikhism is a religion from the Indian sub-continent. It originated in the Punjab region during the 15th century from a sectarian split within the Hindu tradition. Sikhs consider their faith to be a separate religion from Hinduism. Sikhs call their religion Gurmat, which is Punjabi for "way of the guru". The guru is a fundamental aspect of all Indian religions but in Sikhism has taken on an importance that forms the core of Sikh beliefs. The religion was founded in the 15th century by Guru Nanak (1469–1539). There followed in succession a further 10 gurus. Sikhs acknowledge the last physical human body guru to be Guru Gobind Singh (1666–1708). The Sikh's holy book is Guru Granth Sahib (The Granth as the Guru) and this is considered the summation of the ten gurus and their beliefs. The title reflects the Sikh belief that their holy book is now the sole "guru" for guidance and instruction.

Contents

 * /Introduction/
 * /Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji/
 * /Sri Guru Angad Dev Ji/
 * /Sri Guru Amar Das Ji/
 * /Sri Guru Ram Das Ji/
 * /Sri Guru Arjun Dev Ji/
 * /Sri Guru Hargobind Ji/
 * /Sri Guru Har Rai Ji/
 * /Sri Guru Harkrishan Ji/
 * /Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji/
 * /Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji/
 * /Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji/
 * /Dictionary/

title: Sikhism


text:
A-level Economics/AQA

This is a book about A-level economics, designed around the AQA syllabus. The aim is for it to serve as a useful revision aid and eventually alternative textbook for this course. As it stands at the moment it is far from completion and has only been edited by a limited number of authors, as such all information within should be taken with a pinch of salt.

As Units

 * Unit 1: /Markets and Market failure/ - 35% of total AS marks/ 17.5% of total A2 marks
 * Unit 2: /The National Economy/ - 35% of total AS marks/ 17.5% of total A2 marks
 * Unit 3: /Markets at Work/ - 30% of total AS marks/ 15% of total A2 marks

A2 Units
THIS HAS NOW CHANGED, Visit the AQA Website and Look on New Specifications
 * Unit 4: /Working as an Economist/ - 20% of total A2 marks
 * Unit 5: /Business Economics and the Distribution of Income/ - 15% of total A2 marks
 * Unit 6: /Government Policy, the National and International Economy/ - 15% of total A2 marks

title: A-level Economics/AQA