On the legacy of Elliot Liebow and Carol Stack: Context-driven fieldwork and the need for continuous ethnography Essay

Ethnographic Research Introduction Reading response            The study reveals that ethnographic research is used to study people’s culture in different geographical locations and or occupations. Most research are concerned with the studies of people in either schools or communities. Hence, it can be concluded that ethnographic research are the major approach to the study groups of people. The studies also revealed that ethnographic studies obtain data using two main research methodologies, which include observations and interviews. Some studies combine both interviews and observations as the tools of data collection for example Duener, (2007). Few studies rely on only one type of data collection tool where interviews dominate. However, the two data collection tools are inseparable in most studies.            Ethnographic research involves studying a group of people or their cultures that can be done in schools or other fields. For example, it can involve studying of the performance of students in school and how they interact during their studies or communities interactions (Valenzuela, 2005; Fine, Centrie, & Roberts, 2000).The study is one of the most preferred research approaches since it allows observe and record data in an interactive session with participants (Gilmore, & McDermott, 2006). As a result, the study generates detailed and accurate data about the study subjects. The research approach is simple and cheap and thus it is suitable to study wide variety of populations and geographical locations.            Ethnographic research involves interactions between participants and researchers. During these interactions, the researchers use various methodologies to obtain data from the participants. Observations and interviews forms the major methodologies used to carry ethnographic research. For example, Heath, (1983) Flowers, (2000) and Fine et al., (2000) uses interviews to obtain information from the study populations. Interviews help the researcher to obtain data from the participant through question and answer session. Duneier, (2007) used observations to obtain data about how kinsmen are brought up during their childhood. According to the observations, the study revealed that family members and not their mothers kept at least one-third of the target subjects, kinsmen. Reflection            The data collected from ethnographic studies may give descriptions of how people lived in the past or in day-to-day life and how explains their behavioural interactions. Hence, it makes it easier to study people in the different communities and their behaviour. The results obtained from these studies gives insight or deeper understanding of the people of a given community. For example, ethnographic study carried out by Duneier, (2007) gave insight on how families and parents relates with their kinsmen. This helps to give broader understanding how the society brings up their relatives. In addition, the data obtained from ethnographic studies can be used to give insights on various social processes in a given field. For example, a number of studies involved data collection from schools and helped the research to understand how various performances are related to other factors that children interacts with for example repeating of classes.            In addition, the ethnographic studies help one to have a deeper understanding of the societies in terms of what they do, how they behave, and how they interact socially. Understanding of such issues is an important factor in developing an area of interest in any field of study. For example, since most ethnographic studies involve groups of people in either school and out of schools field, it would be appropriate adopt ethnographic studies in the field of education and study how children interacts and perform in school. In addition, the interactions between teachers and children may be studied to understand whether there is relationship with their performances. This is because, in a group of people, it would be easier to carry out observations when they are interacting together. Moreover, it would be appropriate to carry out interviews. Description of the final topic            The topic of the final paper will be how children’ behaviour impacts on their academic performance in local schools. The study will involve studying children’s behaviour at school and home and then relating it to the academic performances. Some studies argue that bad behaviour detracts children from academic activities and thus affecting their performances negatively. On the other hand, studies argue that children behaviour has no impact on their academic performance in schools. Hence, the study will try to establish whether there is a correlation of behaviour and academic performance.            The study will involve observations of children in school and homes and their behaviours recorded as good or bad. Some features such as how they interact with other children in schools and homes, obedience, and respect to adults and their teachers will be used as major observational characteristics. In addition, interviews will be conducted to both parents and teachers top evaluate the behaviour of their children. Academic performance will be retrieved from the schools’ achieve databases. This will then be related with the performance of the children and conclusion reached.            The study will help to prove the current contentious findings on the impacts of children’s behaviour on the academic performance. The information obtained from this study will help parents and teachers to understand whether children’s behaviour affects their performances in school. As a result, they will be able to make appropriate decisions and implement appropriate measures. Reference Duneier, M. (2007). On the legacy of Elliot Liebow and Carol Stack: Context-driven fieldwork and the need for continuous ethnography. Focus, 25(1), 33-38. Fine, M., Weis, L., Centrie, C., & Roberts, R. (2000). Educating beyond the borders of schooling. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 31(2), 131-151. Flowers, D. A. (2000). Codeswitching and Ebonics in Urban Adult Basic Education Classrooms. Education and Urban Society, 32(2), 221-36.Gilmore, P., & McDermott, R. (2006). † And This Is How You Shall Ask†: Linguistics, Anthropology, and Education in the Work of David Smith. Anthropology & education quarterly, 37(2), 199-211.Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life and work in communities and classrooms. cambridge university Press. Valenzuela, A. (2005). Subtractive schooling, caring relations, and social capital in the schooling of US-Mexican youth. Beyond silenced voices: Class, race, and gender in United States schools, 83-94. Source document

Conflicts and disputes on commercial projects Essay

Conflicts and disputes on commercial projects - Essay Example The business deal is characterised by a choice to close the deal or walk away from it and on the other side a contractual agreement is entered into out of shear necessity. Contractual agreements have no option of walking away from hence senior managers should be aware of this fact before appending their signatures on the dotted lines. Even if a project and its distribution of work is better defined and the parties are better prepared and even if the contract is better drafted there still will be changes that give rise to disagreements between parties. In any commercial project, there will be unforeseeable changes that will require to be handled by the parties in a commercial manner. Hence there is need for an effective way of handling such disagreements for the project to be completed on time and with satisfactory results for the parties involved (Altfeld, 2010, p. 3-7). The presence of attitudes and aspects such as confrontation, problem solving, compromising, smoothing and withdraw al could all be applied by a strong facilitator to solve conflicts between team members. Leaders need to understand that most conflicts, in fact, contribute enormously to the experience and well performance of a team and for that reason must be regarded as constructive elements of multi-framework as long as the conflict is managed properly and channelled by a facilitator. Facilitation helps others to voice their views comfortably and avoid power and personality conflicts, (Spiess & Felding, 2008, p.407) According to Lowe and Leiringer, (2006, p.264) disputes and conflicts on projects or contracts are unpleasant and unavoidable at the same time as they divert valuable resources from the overall aim, which must be completion on time, on budget and to the quality specified to other unnecessary tasks such as dispute or conflict negotiations. In addition, they generally cost money and take time to solve, and they can destroy relationships which may have taken years to develop. Conflict i n part of western societies and idioms; to use the academic jargon, there is a western dialect argument idiom. Conflict can be said to be a part of dynamic capitalism and an integral part of commercialism conflict in the current commercial world. It can as well be seen as the functional and necessary part and its management is seen where the emphasis is on the axiom that it must be in the interest of all the parties to avoid disputes by managing conflict in such a way that disputes do not arise as this is sometimes described as dispute avoidance. The understanding of a dispute on the other hand it is important as it can be said to only develop when conflict is not or cannot be managed. A dispute can be described as the unnecessary or dysfunctional element that brings about a diversion of resources from the real goal in terms of settling unnecessary scores. During dispute resolution, there must be occasions where the parties have legitimate disputes and that the techniques of dispute resolution are employed to bring about the conclusion or resolution of the dispute. Commercial management needs to recognise both conflict management and dispute resolution and hence have a different approach in addressing each of them. There has been strong evidence for the ability of commercial banks to signal their strong conflicts through their organisational structure. Contrary to the impression in the congressional hearings, the potential for conflict of interest was not something that was discovered among commercial banks the day after the 1929 crash of the stock market. Some bankers were well aware of the problem even in the middle decade, before the market heated up. The farmers’

Economic inflation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Economic inflation - Essay Example Inflation is the consistent and sustained general price increase of commodities over a period of time leading to fewer goods being purchased with every unit of the current currency. Inflation indicates a loss in the purchasing power based on each unit of money within an economy. This is measured through the consumer price index over specified duration of time (Hart, 2009). There are two major causes of inflation in any economy which are the demand-pull inflation and the cost-push inflation both of which will be discussed below in detail and their effects explained as well. Causes The demand-pull inflation occurs when the demand of the goods or services exceed the ability to produce them or exceed the supply. Suppliers start increasing the prices of the reduced goods and services when they start realizing its diminishing supply. If this continues, the central bank starts increasing the supply of money as a reaction to the aggregate demand. With the increase in money supply in circulat ion, businesses cannot increase the production and hence supply remains constant for a short while but this leads in the long run to an increase in equilibrium and prices rise resulting therefore to inflation (Tucker, 2012). According to the illustration, Demand moves from D0 to D1, the supply remains constant for a while but then the equilibrium shifts from A to B leading to price increase and hence inflation. Source: http://econrsrch/wklyltr/2000/el2000-21.html. The cost-push inflation is the other cause of inflation where there is an increase in cost of production which ultimately leads to an increase in the prices of raw materials and wages. This increased cost by the firms is passed on to consumers. The cost-push inflation is caused by a monopoly company, inflation in the wages, natural disasters, when the natural resources deplete, when the foreign exchange rates fall leading to a reduction in the imports or by the government when it increases its taxation (Tucker, 2012). All the above mentioned situations lead to a reduction in supplies. In the illustration, when the production cost increases caused by any of the above mentioned factors, the supply reduces from S0 to S1. The high demand and the reduced supply leads to a shift in the equilibrium and ultimately an increase in the price level from Z to Y causing inflation to take place. Source: http://econrsrch/wklyltr/2000/el2000-21.html. Effects There are positive and negative effects of inflation. The positive effects of inflation include the fact that with inflation, the central banks adjust the interest rates as a way to mitigate the economic recession. This then leads to a ripple effect as banks also adjust their interest rates causing more people to take up loans and mortgages in a bid to deal with the consistently increasing prices and diminished supply. The banks therefore benefit from all this even though mainly it is for a short while depending on how long the inflation last (if it lasts for lon g, the loose as people will be unable to repay the loans and mortgages). The other positive effect is that with the inflation looming, investment is directed to non-monetary projects which otherwise suffer when there is no inflation as people do not get time to invest their time and energy on them but with inflation they become able to (Dwivedi, 2010). The negative effects however surpass the positive ones. These negative effects range from loss of employment leading to massive unemployment as companies which cannot afford to pay wages dismisses their workforce leaving only a few who are overworked with no pay increase while others close their doors as they declare bankruptcy. There is also the fact that people start reducing their spending and usage rates as commodities become rare or the money to buy them dwindles causing a change in the number of meals per day, others go hungry and homeless as they fail to repay to mortgages or their other debts

POST WAR FILMS Wings of Desire etcc Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

POST WAR FILMS Wings of Desire etcc - Term Paper Example The movie fantasy genre is based on the build up the movie was awarded being that the characters are angels who are some of the major characters in the film. The romance genre in the movie has been brought forth by the relationship established from the angel characters in the movie. Through the comparison with other related movies, the cinematic techniques in the movie this paper will bring out the historical back ground of the movie and the aesthetic aspects that builds up from the character relations within the movie and the related movies. From the background of the prior films that have been done by Wim Wanders, a number of those have been awarded both the English and the German titles. These include such movie as the ‘Reverse angle’ and the ‘Room 666’. From such movies, Wim Wanders acquired the experience of using the German setting in his movies which he later came to transfer to the movie Wings of desire. In relation to the cinematography techniques t hat have been appealed in the movie, one can clearly relate the experience gained by Wim from the prior movies as the plat form and foundation of the experience. There are certain techniques that can be said to have been reveled in relation to the cinematography techniques. ... Another aspect that can be said to appeal to the nature of the movie is that the movie is a Franco-German movie. This is a special alliance that came in place after the Second World War, at this time, the enmity that existed between France and Germany ended. The movie basis The movie basically embodies a story between angel and mortals, the director then award the angels a characteristic that they are invisible. Ideally, the angels are comfort givers for the families in Berlin. The two angels in the movie are unseen to the humans who from their side are able to see. The angels listen to the thoughts of the people and then offer them comfort. From the movie plot there are settings which establish and breaks down the movie main plot and the sub plot. The main plot of the movie is centered on the relationship that is established from Daniel’s desire to be with the beautiful trapeze girl who he fall in love with deeply and starts allowing the considerations of turning to human so as to be with her. The romantic theme is established further in the relationship between Damiel and Marion. This is brought out by the fact that the two aspire to be with each other, the barrier between them that is the mortality of Marion and the immortality of Damiel is equally significant as it build up most parts of the movie plot. Damiel aspires to be mortal as he wishes and longs for the things that the mortals undertake in the likeness of the human sensory pleasures and the touch of a loved one. Marion on the other hand also wishes she was immortal which she clearly bring out in her Cinematography techniques One of the most significant techniques that are used in the movie is the use

HIP HOP Dance (Article Responses) Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

HIP HOP Dance ( Responses) - Article Example While the article is quite informative regarding the different related dance forms, it does not talk much about the characteristics of hip hop culture apart from dance moves. Hence the reading becomes little monotonous at times and the details and given one after another without much flow or transition of paragraphs maintained. The dance form helps in maintaining fitness can be regarded as an added advantage. It has been seen that many people prefer to learn and practice a dance form like this instead of hitting a gym. This helps in combining pleasure with effort and lead to the desirable outcome. One of the beneficial impacts observed in the article about this dance form is that it helped in minimisimg violence as people charge their energy into break dancing with each other instead of fighting. This is the psychological aspect explored by the author and gives us innovative insights. We come to learn the various forms of Hip Hop dance includes Harlem shake, Snap dance, Gangsta walki ng. Thus these arouse the readers’ interests in learning more about this dance form in practice. It would not be wrong to say that this art form has become a part of our culture. Thus we see that Hip Hop has got a worldwide appeal with more than million followers over the world. Reference Oak, M. (2013), History of Hip hop dance,retrieved on September 15, 2013 from: www.buzzle.com Pedagogy of Hip Hop dance Watching Hip hop dance in the classroom instead of continuous chain of boring lectures sounds fascinating indeed. Gone are the days of Gurukul system where the learners imbibe knowledge verbally from their guru. The author Seth E. Davis comes out with an innovatively fresh approach of conducting a literature class on the beats of hip hop music and dance. The article brings out a certain diversion from education to a dance form rendering a pedagogical significance through the medium of an art form. The arcticle observes that Hip hop dance form has helped in narrowing the gap between the learners and the instructors. The view of combining the techniques of the dance form into the curriculum is supported by various scholars.Use of Hip hop dialogue through rap, spoken words, dancing, turntablism and muralism are the ways of learning taken up by students, as pointed by the scholar Rodriguez. Hence it helps in spreading knowledge among the students in an interesting way. The author here neglects the relevance of the discipline factor in a student life. Though the article facilitates healthy development of teacher – pupil relationship which forms the core aim of education but it undermines the importance of teachers in the long run. Hip hop culture manifests students to think critically on a subject matter and develop their own understanding. Inspite of the fact that the art form marks a tool for social change, it cannot be overlooked that it hampers the overall atmosphere of the classroom. Reference Davis, S. (2007 ), Hip hop pedagogy, retrieved on S eptember 15, 2013 from: http://ccr.syr.edu/~sedavi07/hiphoppedagogy.html The Evolution of Hip Hop: Is it even Hip-Hop? Is the role of hip hop limited to uplift back culture? Have the basic features changed? Kool DJ Herc is regarded as the pioneer of the hip-hop culture. However, throughout the years the culture has gone through vast changes. In the article titled â€Å"The Evolution of Hip-hop; Is it even Hip-hop?† Dushawn Roberts opines that the exclusive American-African culture has been greatly influenced as well as

Biography of Peter Paul Rubens Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Biography of Peter Paul Rubens - Essay Example His parents Jan Rubens and Maria Pypelinckx left Antwerp because it was largely Spanish and dominated by the Catholic Church; they were Calvinists. Rubens’ father was nearly killed because of an affair with the princess of Orange, but Maria was able to have her husband released with the acceptance that the family would be exiled to Siegen, Westphalia. It was in Siegen that their last child would be born, who was Peter Paul (Rubens par. 3). Rubens’ education came from the humanists and he was also an art collector in his own right. He was a diplomat as well and was knighted by two kings: Philip IV, the king of Spain and King Charles I, who was at that time the king of England (Rubens par. 2). Rubens studied Latin and classical literature. At the age of 14, Rubens studied art as an apprentice under Tobias Verhaeght and under two artists that lived in the city, Adam van Noort and Otto van Veen (â€Å"Biography† par. 4). One of the ways that Rubens began his art was to copy the art of other artists. He was very interested in woodcuts by â€Å"Hans Holbein the Younger and Marcantonio Raimondis engravings† (Rubens â€Å"Biography† par. 4). Between 1600 and 1608, Rubens traveled to Italy and he studied the paintings of Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto who would influence his later paintings. He eventually went to Mantua and became part of the court of duke Vincenzo I of Gonzaga. With the duke financing him, he was able to go to Rome and Florence. He studied Greek and Roman Art and began to copy the work of Italian master artists. Eventually Rubens would have several experiences in Italy that would impact his work and he basically fell in love with the language and the people of this area (Rubens â€Å"Biography†). Rubens died May 30, 1640 of gout and left eight children and a wife behind. He was buried in Saint Jacobs church in Antwerp (Rubens â€Å"Biography† par. 20). The â€Å"Wolf and Fox Hunt† was one of a series

Sandra Kendricks, Kickin It Apparel Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Sandra Kendricks, Kickin It Apparel - Coursework Example Assume that she decides to pay herself a 15 percent commission instead of the monthly salary of $3,000. Recalculate her projected monthly income statement based on this scenario. 3. Sandra suspects that she might be underestimating the amount of time needed to manufacture a dress. Sandra estimates that, on average, each dress will require three hours of direct labor at a cost of $1 O/hour. Assume that in reality it takes five hours to manufacture a single dress. Recalculate the economics of one unit and projected monthly income statement based on this scenario. A way for Sandra to increase her profits is by increasing the sales price of her merchandise. Two additional ways to increase profits is by lowering the cost of materials and direct labor costs per unit. Sandra could pay the minimum salary of $7.25 an hour instead of $10.00 an hour for direct labor. Sandra and Kickin’ It are not the same entity. The company could make money, but this does not mean that Sandra is better off running the company than working elsewhere. If the sum of Sandra’s salary and the net profit of the business are less than what Sandra was making working full time Sandra is not better off as a manager of the business. Sandra could go back to work full-time and hire a manager that makes $1,500 a month instead of the $3,000 a month she allocated for her salary. This way Sandra would have a full time salary and the business would generated under the original scenario $4,320. The pricing strategy the Kickin’ It Apparel is using is a penetration strategy. The company just got its first order and the pricing strategy used was to set the sales price low in order to gain market share. The firm seeks to satisfy its first customer in order to gain penetration into the fashion industry. Once the first deal goes through the company expects to gain recurrent business from that strategy. Upon further researching the fashion industry my assessment is that the