Evaluate the policies that could be used in the UK to meet inflation Essay

Evaluate the policies that could be used in the UK to meet inflation targets - Essay Example The UK, just like the US and Germany, has a growing workforce, and its wages has also been increasing. The Europe’s unemployment rate was 9.8Â  % in March this year while it was 10.4Â  % last year the same time. In Europe, the lowest unemployment rates in March 2015 were Germany (4.7Â  %) while the highest was Greece (25.7Â  %) (Trending Economics 2015). Demand side Inflation happens when there is a surplus of demand for goods and services over the supply; the supply remains constant. Demand pull inflation involves the rise of inflation as gross domestic product increases. At the same time, the unemployment levels will be expected to fall as witnessed in UK (Thirlwall & Barton 2014). The situation is contributed by the increase in the government expenditure and no change in the tax structure. The rise in income of households is a major contributor of demand for goods and services. The increase in the supply of the money in the country leaves more non-reusable income with the people causing the demand for products and services (Miles 2014). A loose monetary policy can cause the increase in money supply. In addition, inflows from other nations because of export will enhance the money supply. In UK, demand-pull inflation may be attributed to increasing disposable of the citizens. As the levels of income of people go up, the demand to buy things also go up (Willett & Laney 2014). When demand goes up, and supply remains stagnant, prices of goods will go up leading to demand pull inflation. The government must make every effort to ensure that there is a balance between demand and supply to eliminate any case of inflation. When there is a surplus in demand, there should be strategies to ensure that the demand is met expeditiously. Inflation is not good for any country hence the need to maintain it at a low level. Cost push inflation emanates from supply side; the rise in the cost of production and a constant demand causes

English as a national language of America Essay

English as a national language of America - Essay Example Noah Webster is regarded as the founding father of the American English who realized the need for standardization of the language and worth of linguistic identity (Language Translation Inc., 2006). According to surveys, English is considered as the official language in fifty-one countries and in twenty-seven states of America. Statistics show that it is the mother language of 82% of the population and almost 96% can actually speak it fluently, therefore we can conclude that English is in effect the national language of the American people. In spite of this, it is not recognized as the official language at the federal level and the states have adopted miscellaneous policies with some embracing English as the official language, others implementing no official language and still others mirroring the culture of bilingualism. Even 71% of the Hispanics voted in favor of English as the national language since this will escalate their chances of a achieving a first-class education, enhancing their earning capability, ensuing in better career prospects as well as empowerment. Although, there is plenty of desire and determination for migrants to learn English yet 5% of the population still fails to comprehend it so implementing it officially will give a boost to this particular segment of population. A report published in the Monthly Labor Review America affirms that migrants don’t learn English quickly when excessive linguistic welfare is made available to them. As a consequence, immigrants are demoted to lesser rewarding jobs and are hindered in achieving the American dream. United States is composed of people from diverse cultural backgrounds but the federal laws provide no right to non-native speaker to receive foreign-language services or information (King, 1997). Thereby, it can be deduced that knowing English is a prerequisite to become a citizen since it is the de facto national language that binds all American citizens into a nation. It is worth noting th at states which implemented English as the official language have not proscribed the use of a foreign language in case of any public interest issue, for instance: tourism, medical, public safety, imparting foreign languages and other genuine needs. The government can afford to provide such services in the face of a compelling public interest but not as right for every citizen. Presently, more than three hundred languages are spoken in America and non-native speakers constitute around 5% of the total population (Maschi, 2012). Consequently, a redundant stratum of bureaucracy and costs will be inevitable if the right to receive services in various foreign languages is granted. Ultimately this burden would have to be borne by taxpayers. Although, many perceive learning English as racism but the argument does not hold weight since discrimination is based upon inherent characteristics like religion, color, race which are unalterable. On the other hand, every individual has the choice of learning English to communicate and blend in the American culture. But, advocating that learning English is extremely difficult for a specific race is biased. An official language does not inhibit free speech but only serves as a pre-condition of intellectual capacity for civic involvement. Similarly, educational system would profit from statutory encouragement to promote competency in English and discouraging linguistic preferences which would enable the students to make a successful ingress into the social and political system (Pullum, 1987). None of the

University and Research Essay Example for Free

University and Research Essay Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Having spent 40 years in universities, I have had sufficient time to consider some of the idiosyncrasies, foibles and problems of these academic institutions. The purpose of this editorial is to discuss the current state of university research and explain why I find some aspects of the current situation disturbing. Changes that started during the second half of the 20th century and that have continued into the 21st threaten to bring about fundamental changes in the nature of universities. Some of the changes are commendable, for example, the large expansion in the proportion of the population attending universities, at least in the richer nations. Other trends are disturbing, especially the increasing tendency of governments and industry to view universities as engines for short-term economic gain. While universities certainly cannot ignore the context in which they function and the needs of society, responding purely to short-term economic considerations threatens to subvert the very nature of universities and some of the benefits they provide to society. So what exactly is a university and what is its purpose? I much prefer the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word â€Å"university† to some of the more utilitarian definitions in other dictionaries. The Oxford definition reads, in part, â€Å"whole body of teachers and scholars engaged in the higher branches of learning. † Thus, it is the community of faculty and students that is the essence of a university. The higher branches of learning in which teachers and scholars engage have 2 important products: the educated minds that are essential for the well-being of society, and new knowledge and ideas. Some of that new knowledge will enrich society by producing economic growth, directly or indirectly, but the benefits of new knowledge go far beyond economic gain. Universities have always been subjected to outside influences. The oldest European university, the University of Bologna, has existed at least since the 1080s. Some time before 1222, about 1000 students left Bologna and founded a new university in Padua because of â€Å"the grievous offence that was brought to bear on their academic liberties and the failure to acknowledge the privileges solemnly granted to teachers and students. †1 The outside interference came from the Roman Catholic Church, and, for several centuries, Padua was home to the only university in Europe where non-Catholics could get a university education. Both Bologna and Padua were student-controlled universities with students electing the professors and fixing their salaries. However, in spite of marked differences, there are similarities between what happened then and what is happening today, with important outside influences — then the dogma of religion, now the dogma of business — threatening to change the activities of the community of teachers and scholars. The seeds of what is happening now were sown in the years following World War II. Before the war the most important influence on a faculty member was probably the departmental chair, who in those days had power to influence in an important way what went on in the department. Nonetheless, a faculty member would have had access to departmental resources and would not necessarily have required outside research funding (although such funding was sometimes available from private foundations). The mechanism of funding research, and the amount of money available for research, changed greatly in the postwar years. In 1945, Vannevar Bushs landmark report to President Harry Truman, Science the Endless Frontier,2 had an important influence on university research. In this report, Bush stated, â€Å"The publicly and privately supported colleges, universities, and research institutes are the centers of basic research. They are the wellsprings of knowledge and understanding. As long as they are vigorous and healthy and their scientists are free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead, there will be a flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it to practical problems in Government, in industry, or elsewhere. † Bush supported the idea that the US government should provide strong financial support for university research, but also supported the idea that the individual investigator should be the main determinant of the topics for investigation, with statements such as â€Å"Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown. †2 In the latter half of the last century, many countries adopted the model of granting councils, which used a system based on peer review to distribute money for investigator-initiated research. This model has been a great success, but it has also contributed to important changes in universities. Much more money has been available to support medical research, basic science research and engineering research than has been available for the social sciences or arts. Thus, decisions about support for different disciplines devolved from the universities to governments, who decided on the budgets of their various grant-giving bodies. Also, individual researchers who were successful in obtaining grants no longer depended as much on departmental facilities. In my opinion, this not only weakened the power of departmental chairs but also decreased collegiality within departments. With increased enrolments, as a university education became accessible to a greater proportion of the population, and an increased need for infrastructure for the larger student population and for complex research equipment, administrators became more concerned about sources of funding and consequently more detached from the faculty. There is always a tendency for senior academic administrators to speak and behave as though they were the university (when of course they are there to serve the community of teachers and scholars). This is of course a normal human trait, no different from the tendency of politicians to forget that they are elected to serve the people. However, this increasing detachment of senior university administrators from the faculty has facilitated the erosion of collegiality within departments and universities. The individual personalities of university faculty probably also facilitated this change. I learned recently, when looking at the literature on personality, that an inverse correlation between intelligence and conscientiousness has been demonstrated in a number of studies (see, for example, Moutafi et al3). Thus, it might be more than just my paranoia leading me to believe that the small proportion of university faculty who lack conscientiousness and collegiality is larger than in some other walks of life. The erosion of collegiality is not a matter of great significance, except that it probably played a role in making researchers more open to the efforts of governments to transform them into entrepreneurs. The most recent and possibly the most important change in university research resulted from the push by governments to commercialize the results of such research. In the United States, the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 encouraged universities to license to private industry discoveries made with federal funds. 4 The push by governments for commercialization of new knowledge grew during the 1980s and 1990s and continues to have an important influence on universities. Recently, Lord Sainsbury, the science and innovation minister in the United Kingdom, boasted that there had been a cultural change in universities there, which has resulted in a substantial increase in university spin-offs. 5 In 2002 the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada entered an agreement with the government to double the amount of research performed by these institutions and to triple their commercialization performance by 2010. 6 Although this agreement was reached in the absence of any broad consultation with the faculty who are supposed to commercialize their work, the universities seem to be well on track to achieve this objective, with a 126% increase in revenues from licence royalties between 1999 and 2001. 7Most major universities now have a technology transfer office, and at many universities success in commercialization is taken into account when faculty are considered for tenure. Will there come a time when success in commercialization carries the same weight as (or more weight than) teaching and research in the awarding of tenure? The end result of all the changes discussed above is that individual faculty members have become much more like entrepreneurs whose main allegiance is to the maintenance or growth of their own research programs and not infrequently to the commercialization of their research. The researcher exploring Vannevar Bushs â€Å"endless frontier† could be considered the modern equivalent of the homesteader taming the seemingly endless frontier of the 19th century American West. 8 This is not necessarily detrimental if a new generation of university research entrepreneurs provides the new knowledge that will benefit patients and society. However, the change in culture that made university faculty more like entrepreneurs also made them more open to the desire of governments to make them entrepreneurs in the economic sense. Although the nature of universities has been changing, there was no threat to the fundamental nature of universities until the drive for commercialization began. A recent report of the Canadian Association of University Teachers9 states that university administrators have been â€Å"building increasingly hierarchical management structures† that â€Å"place the future of academic medicine in danger. † The reports main concern is that â€Å"incentives to create commercializable products push economic concerns, rather than scientific and ethical considerations, to the forefront. †9In the fields of biologic psychiatry and behavioural neuroscience the emphasis on  commercial applications has already, to some extent, moved research priorities away from an emphasis on mental well-being to an emphasis on commercial products. There are many examples of this shift. For example, more research is being carried out on antidepressant drugs than on psychotherapy, even though in mild to moderate depression (the majority of cases) drugs and psychotherapy are approximately equal in efficacy. There is increasing evidence for the efficacy of exercise10,11 and fish oils12,13 in the treatment and prevention of depression. However, these strategies receive much less attention than antidepressant drugs. Even an established antidepressant treatment such as S-adenosylmethionine (SAMe)14 receives little attention. Searching the abstracts of the 2004 meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, I found 179 with the key word â€Å"antidepressant† and only 4 with the key word â€Å"S-adenosylmethionine,† and none of those 4 was concerned with the antidepressant action of SAMe. SAMe is a major methyl donor and seems to work in a fundamentally different way from any product being investigated by drug companies. Surely we could expect that an antidepressant acting through a different mechanism would be a popular topic of investigation. However, SAMe is a natural product and not of commercial interest. Similarly, insights into what exercise or fish oils do to the brain may provide important insights into the pathophysiology of depression and its treatment, but these subjects receive little attention. Many basic science researchers investigating the mechanisms of antidepressants produced by drug companies do not receive funding from those companies. However, enough are lured by drug company research funds into working on topics of interest to the companies to significantly influence what are fashionable topics of research. Laboratories with funding from industry can often afford more trainees, who may then adopt a more industry-centred approach in their own research. While the availability of funds from industry has certainly influenced research, the pressure on university faculty to commercialize the results of their research will undoubtedly cause even greater distortion in the areas of research that are most popular. Granting agencies have increasingly tried to foster research in neglected areas by allocating funds to specific areas of research and requesting applications in those areas. Although this approach is certainly necessary, it has not done much to alter the effects of drug company money on research output. Also, in some ways it moves research even further away from the ideal in Vannevar Bushs report that â€Å"Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown. †2 This model was notably successful in the last half of the 20th century, but it may not survive the pressure to commercialize. While there is still much scope for curiosity-driven research, the curiosity of researchers is likely to be aligned increasingly with the interests of drug companies. As mentioned above, a cultural change has accompanied the increasing commercialization of university research. The pressure to commercialize has been critiqued in some quarters, but many university faculty have nonetheless embraced commercialization, or at least remained unconcerned about it. Are we far from a time when a researcher without a patent that is being commercialized will be regarded in the same way as those who do not publish regularly in the top journals? And how long will it be before governments make commercialization a mandate of granting councils and a requirement for the majority of grants? A fascination with the workings of the brain and how it can malfunction in mental illness is the usual motivator for researchers in neuroscience and psychiatry research. As a result, curiosity-driven research will always tend to serve the best interests of patients. Although research driven by commercial interests will certainly benefit psychiatric patients in some ways, it cannot serve their overall needs, as it is much too narrowly focused. The designation of funds by granting agencies for specific neglected topics will help but is unlikely to produce any large changes in the direction of research. Thus, the biggest losers from the pressure to commercialize will be psychiatric patients. In addition I am concerned whether students who are trained to focus on the short-term commercial implications of their research will be able to maintain the breadth of vision that is a characteristic of the majority of creative researchers. Changes due to pressure from governments to commercialize are not limited to researchers. The increased emphasis on commercialization in universities has in some ways distorted the perceptions of senior university administrators about the purpose of the institutions. For example, there seems to be a lack of concern about some of the sources of funds that universities receive. Universities now hold patents on many life-saving drugs. These patents sometimes limit access to the drugs, particularly in low-income countries. 15 In Canada, one-quarter of the faculties of medicine receive funding from the tobacco industry. 16 Perhaps a suitable future definition of a university will be a â€Å"whole body of teachers and scholars engaged in turning ideas into profit. † In 13th century Italy the response to interference by the Roman Catholic Church in the work of scholars was a move to another location to escape the interference. In the 21st century that option is not available even to the minority who are concerned about the drive to commercialize. However, the picture is not entirely bleak. Charitable foundations will remain immune to commercial interests. In addition, even though charitable foundations will probably remain relatively small players in the funding of research, there are promising signs. For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, created in 2000, has an endowment of about US$27 billion and is striving to use its money for the benefit of humankind in areas neglected by governments. This foundation is not involved in psychiatric research, but its focus on preventive approaches may help to direct interest to that important area. Research on prevention in psychiatry is still in its infancy and will certainly remain that way if short-term commercial considerations stay paramount. However, charitable foundations cannot be expected to have any large effect on the change in university culture brought about by the drive to commercialize. Although I would like to be able to end this editorial on a more hopeful note, I am concerned about these cultural changes, and I do not see any solution. Still, one lesson from history is that the communities of teachers and scholars making up universities have adapted to many changes over the centuries without changing the fundamental nature of universities, and they will surely continue to do so. I am just not sure how. Go to: - Footnotes Competing interests: None declared. Correspondence to: Dr. Simon N. Young, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, 1033 Pine Ave. W, Montreal QC H3A 1A1; fax 514 398-4370; simon. [emailprotected] ca Go to: - References 1. History. Padua (Italy): Universita Degli Studi di Padova. Available:www. unipd. it/en/university/history. htm (accessed 2004 Dec 13). 2. Bush V. Science the endless frontier. A report to the President by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, July 1945. Washington: US Government Printing Office; 1945. Available: www. nsf. gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945. htm (accessed 2004 Dec 13). 3. Moutafi J, Furnham A, Paltiel L. Why is conscientiousness negatively correlated with intelligence? Pers Individ Differ 2004;37:1013-22. 4. Thursby JG, Thursby MC. Intellectual property. University licensing and the Bayh-Dole Act. Science2003;301:1052. [PubMed] 5. Sainsbury L. A cultural change in UK universities [editorial]. Science2002;296:1929. [PubMed] 6. Allan Rock welcomes framework on federally funded university research [press release]. Toronto: Industry Canada; 2002 Nov 19 [modified 2003 Jun 16]. Available:www. ic. gc. ca/cmb/welcomeic. nsf/558d636590992942852564880052155b/85256a220056c2a485256c76004c7d44 (accessed 2004 Dec 13). 7. Berkowitz P. Spinning off research: AUCC sets new tool to measure universities commercialization performance. Univ Aff [serial online] 2004;June/July. Available:www. universityaffairs. ca/issues/2004/junejuly/print/spinningoff. html (accessed 2004 Dec 13). 8. Kennedy D. Enclosing the research commons [editorial]. Science2001;294:2249. [PubMed] 9. Welch P, Cass CE, Guyatt G, Jackson AC, Smith D. Defending medicine: clinical faculty and academic freedom. Report of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) Task Force on Academic Freedom for Faculty at University-Affiliated Health Care Institutions. Ottawa: Canadian Association of University Teachers; 2004 Nov. Available:www. caut. ca/en/issues/academicfreedom/DefendingMedicine. pdf (accessed 2004 Dec 21). 10. Salmon P. Effects of physical exercise on anxiety, depression, and sensitivity to stress: a unifying theory. Clin Psychol Rev2001;21:33-61. [PubMed] 11. Depression: management of depression in primary and secondary care. Clinical guideline 23. London (UK): National Institute for Clinical Excellence; 2004 Dec. Available:http://www. nice. org. uk/pdf/CG023NICEguideline. pdf (accessed 2005 Mar 8). 12. Nemets B, Stahl Z, Belmaker RH. Addition of omega-3 fatty acid.

Is Volunteer Tourism Defeating The Point Tourism Essay

Is Volunteer Tourism Defeating The Point Tourism Essay Volunteer tourism is described as the modern phenomenon of travelling overseas as a volunteer (Guttentag 2009: 538), which is exactly what I did in March of 2010. Eleven senior students from my secondary school were chosen to partake in a humanitarian mission trip to the Dominican Republic. We, along with our school chaplain and two teachers, worked with a local organization called Asociacià ³n para el Desarrollo de San Josà © de Ocoa, Inc. (ADESJO), and they sent us on a two hour trip up a bumpy and steep mountain to the village of El Cercado. For two weeks we worked on building ten latrines in the village while getting to know the villagers and making friendships and memories that we would carry with us for the rest of our lives. There is no doubt that as a volunteer tourist I took away a great deal from this trip, but I have begun to wonder what impact volunteer tourism has on host communities and the world at large. After researching the topic of volunteer tourism I have come t o discover that most of the benefits of volunteer tourism are felt by the volunteers themselves and not the host communities and their members. In the area of Global Development Studies this reflects the influence that the Global North has upon the Global South. Even though volunteer tourism is veiled by altruistic intentions, any positive effects could potentially lead to extremely negative effects in the global spectrum. Unsatisfactory work is being done by unskilled volunteers, cross-cultural misunderstanding and cultural stereotypes are being increased and reinforced, and neo-colonialism and capitalism are being supported. This paper will argue that volunteer tourism is more beneficial for the volunteers themselves, while in reality it has negative effects on the locals in host communities. While there are potentially macro scaled negative effects of volunteer tourism, it is important to analyse the initial micro negative effects that lead to these larger negative effects. The first and most important of these micro effects is that unsatisfactory work is being done by unskilled volunteers, while the needs of locals are put aside to focus on the experiences of the volunteers. In recent years volunteer tourism has become very popular, especially among post-secondary students (Bailey and Russel 2010 :353), automatically one is left to question the level of experience these students have in the areas such as infrastructure, education, or environmental conservation. Daniel A. Guttentag (2009) points out that there is a hindrance in work progress and the completion of unsatisfactory work, caused by volunteers lack of skills; (537) and there is even a decrease in employment opportunities (ibid.). It is evident that a great number of volunteer tourists lack certain skills which is undoubtedly due to the fact that they ..do not have enough knowledge, reflection capacity, appropriate skills or qualifications, volunteering and international experience, time to get involved with the locals or altruistic intentions (Palacios 2010: 2). Despite these facts the volunteers experiences are still focused upon. Organizations that plan volunteer tourist trips focus on making the experience of the volunteer tourists trip as enjoyable and safe as possible and work around the needs and desires of the volunteers (Guttentag 2009: 539). Even though some would argue that organization choose volunteers carefully and train them beforehand (Tomazos and Butler 2009:13), this cannot be generalized to all organizations. When the needs and desires of the locals are being ignored in order to service volunteers this negatively affects the lives of the locals in the host communities for they are the people that must endure the potentially poor work done by the volunteers. Volunteer tourists are described as experiential or experimental' (Bailey and Russell 2010: 3), and those two words automatically imply the word different. Volunteer tourists want to experience a different culture in order to grow and re-evaluate who they themselves are as a person (ibid.). Once again the volunteer is experiencing a benefit , but one is left to question what preconceived notion the volunteer has of the culture he or she is entering in to. Another issue that arises with volunteer tourism is that volunteer tourists that arrive in host communities in the Global South with stereotypical ideas increase and reinforce cultural stereotypes and cross-cultural misunderstanding (Raymond and Hall 2008:1). The preconceived notions of the volunteer tourists risk being stereotypical ideas of an impoverished and hungry family living in a shack, which creates a separation between themselves and the locals they come in contact with. If that separation is never bridged, or if the volunteer never gains a true knowledge of the culture because they are too focused on helping the stereotypical other, it creates and enforces cultural stereotype, especially because volunteer tourists may assume that host communities accept their poverty (Raymond and Hall 2008: 2). If there is a lack of communication between the volunteers and the members of the host community then the volunteer gains little to no true experience with the culture they are expe riencing, which can actually negatively impact the host culture (Guttentag 2009: 547). This problem is partly due to how the cultures are being portrayed by organizations. Reflecting true Eurocentric ideals (the notion that the correct way of living is the Western way and all other ways are exotic and irregular), organizations tend to portray volunteer tourist destinations in a way that will attract the volunteer tourists to participate in these excursions. A gap year is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a period of time (usually an academic year) taken by a student as a break from formal education, typically between leaving school and starting a university or college course, and often spent travelling or working (2010). There are organizations that specifically service these gap year students, but they are criticized for: [imposing] a simplistic view of the other so that difference can be sold and consumed. This occurs through the use of sweeping generalisations of destination communities in promotional materials and continues throughout the VTP [Volunteer Tourist Programs] due to lack of critical engagement with the experience. (Raymond and Hall 2008: 3) This simplistic view is meant to enhance the difference between the volunteer tourists and the locals of the host community in order to enhance the volunteers experience, but this is detrimental because it only reinforces Third World stereotypes and has the potential for romanticisation of the other stereotype (Matthews qtd. In Ooi and Lang 2010:3). Once again, the volunteers are benefiting from their experience as volunteer tourists, but it comes at the cost of the people of the Global South who must endure further victimization and stereotypes that create the idea that they must be saved by the Global North because the inequalities between the developed and developing worlds [are highlighted] (Simpson qtd. In Ooi and Land 2010:3). These inequalities reflect global capitalism and neo-colonialism. Poor work quality and issues of cross-cultural misunderstanding and the reinforcement of stereotypes all in the name of the volunteer tourist experience leads to macro-scaled problems of neo-colonialism and the support of capitalism. The Oxford English Dictionary defines neo-colonialism as the use of economic, political, cultural, or other pressures to control or influence another country; especially the retention of such influence over a developing country by a former colonial power (2010), and, broadly defined, capitalism is a system having accumulation at its core (Lippit 2007:179). Volunteer tourism is a new way of exploiting the Global South for the gain of the Global North because, as previously mentioned, the needs of the volunteers are focused on despite the fact that poor quality work is being done and it reinforces the notion of the other in order for the volunteer tourists to gain personal experience. Volunteer tourist trips support the notion of the other and reinforce po wer inequalities and thus represent a form of neo-colonialism or imperialism with respect to developing nations (Raymond and Hall qtd. In Ooi and Laing 2010:3). These power inequalities reflect capitalism because it puts the Global South at the bottom of global hierarchy, where they are used in order for those in higher positions the Global North to accumulate money and in this case, to accumulate global experience. This global experience is being gained at the cost of creating a gap between the North and the South in terms of advancement in technology and power, further supporting capitalism. This is reflected in what Guttentag (2009) has termed as the demonstration effect, a term that signifies how a host culture is impacted when tourists draw attention to their lifestyles and items of wealth (11) which leads to the possibility of locals trying to imitate the tourists consumption patterns, and discontent can emerge when these items of wealth are beyond the reach of a host community (ibid.). When attention is drawn to what the volunteer tourists from the Global North have and what the locals of the Global South do not have, it also draws attention the amount of power and wealth that their home countries possess on a global scale. Even now, organizations are aiming to attract the privileged volunteer tourists (Lyons and Wearing 2008: 187), which only increases the gap between the developed and t he underdeveloped, the rich and the poor, capitalism and equality. This inequality between these two worlds has a long history of colonialism, and although that ended after centuries of suffering and exploitation volunteer tourism is arguably a new form of colonialism. Volunteer tourism could possibly degenerate into a voyeuristic exploitation of the cultural other that masquerades as academic sanctioned servant leadership' (Butin qtd. In Sin 2009: 484). The Global North displays altruistic intentions of helping the people of the Global South, while in reality they are exploiting them for their own personal gain which is to train youth to become more socially aware and active, but this only leads to further dependence of the South on the North to repair their problems and ease their hardships. The North remains at the top of the global hierarchy: The basis conclusions of many authors that have contributed to this critical theory of development is that the Western intention of helping underlying the development aid goal as humanitarian as much a colonialist. However , it tends to reproduce the same global patterns of inequality and poverty. Leaving intact if not reinforcing the dominant position of the North. (Escobar et al. qtd. In Palacios 2010: 4) Neo-colonialism, the new form of colonialism, defeats the purposes of all of the fighting that occurred in to end colonialism, while once again the Global South faces the negative consequences of being exploited by the Global North through volunteer tourism. Despite the macro- scaled negative effects that volunteer tourism has the potential of causing, many defend its benefits. Volunteer tourism can enhance civic-related knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours, improve interpersonal skills and emotional regulation, and contribute to better academic performance and meaning in life (Billig et al. qtd. In Bailey and Russell 2010: 3). Also argued is that: the volunteer tourism experience is a direct interactive experience that causes value change and changed consciousness in the individual which will subsequently influence their lifestyle, while providing forms of community development that are required by local communities. (Wearing 2001: 2) Unfortunately, it is evident here that the focus is primarily upon what the volunteer tourists gain from the experience, not the locals of the host communities. These benefits are indeed positive, but mostly for the volunteers and the country that they come from. It is arguable that when the volunteer tourists gain more awareness about these social issues and gain more of a feeling or a desire to make a difference then this will lead to them making a difference in the Global South. However, this is not completely positive because it aids in making the Global South dependent on the Global North. This also reinforces the stereotype of an impoverished and disease-stricken Global South that is doomed unless they are saved by the hero that the Global North has been portrayed as. There is still the argument that volunteer tourism appears able to offer [an] alternative direction where profit objects are secondary to more altruistic desire to travel in order to assist communities (Wearing 20 01: 12) , but this can be an example of the desire for profit being hidden under a veil of altruism there truly is no way knowing whether or not the intentions of volunteer tourists are purely altruistic or driven by egoistic ambitions. Despite the many negative issues that volunteer tourism brings into light, there are attempts to minimise them. Firstly, problems concerning poor work quality done by inexperienced volunteers are being addressed by organizations that offer training to their volunteers that must go through a difficult selection program to begin with (Tomazos and Butler 2009:13). Organizations are also attempting to involve locals in the host communities as much as possible in the work that volunteer tourists are doing, which creates more employment and helps the locals continue with the projects after the volunteers leave (ibid.). Secondly, in an attempt to reduce cross-cultural misunderstanding and the reinforcement of stereotypes, more and more organizations encourage their volunteers to be culturally sensitive and learn from their experience creating understanding and tolerance for other people and cultures (ibid.). Finally, there is a strong desire and attempts to make volunteer tourism beneficial in a way that it teaches others to travel responsibly, especially in regards to the environment, through what has been termed as justice tourism and solidarity tours (Lyons and Wearing 2008: 187) . These forms of tourism aim to move tourists to engage with the lived reality of the locals and to establish interactions based on equity and respect (ibid.). Evidently, there is an attempt to foster more positive effects of volunteer tourism in order to better serve both the volunteers and the locals. To conclude, volunteer tourism is portrayed as being driven by altruistic intentions, however it is evident that the volunteer tourists themselves experience more benefits than do the locals of the host communities. This issue must be addressed because it emphasizes the long standing notion that the North is the only hope of the South in order to be saved from poverty, disease, environmental crises, and even debt, which is actually the exact opposite of what so many theories in this course have implied. The negative consequences of volunteer tourism questions the intentions of volunteers and the organizations that send them, and also questions the intentions of transnational corporations and governments that have come to form global capitalism. Is the intention specifically to always keep the Global South at the bottom of the global hierarchy in order to reap the benefits of the cheap resources that continue to flow from those areas in order to service the lives of the wealthy North? This question can be argued to no end, but there is no answer as straight forward as the fact that even in volunteer tourism the needs of the Global North are put ahead of those in the Global South, while the Global South continues to suffer on too many levels.

Womens Roles in Epic of Gilgamesh, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and

Changing Women's Roles in The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Canterbury Tales Over the course of time, the roles of men and women have changed dramatically. As women have increasingly gained more social recognition, they have also earned more significant roles in society. This change is clearly reflected in many works of literature, one of the most representative of which is Plautus's 191 B.C. drama Pseudolus, in which we meet the prostitute Phoenicium. Although the motivation behind nearly every action in the play, she is glimpsed only briefly, never speaks directly, and earns little respect from the male characters surrounding her, a situation that roughly parallels a woman's role in Roman society of that period. Women of the time, in other words, were to be seen and not heard. Their sole purpose was to please or to benefit men. As time passed, though, women earned more responsibility, allowing them to become stronger and hold more influence. The women who inspired Lope de Vega's early seventeenth-century drama Fuente Ovejuna, for instance, rose up against n ot only the male officials of their tiny village, but the cruel (male) dictator busy oppressing so much of Spain as a whole. The roles women play in literature have evolved correspondingly, and, by comparing The Epic of Gilgamesh, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and The Wife of Bath's Prologue, we can see that fictional women have just as increasingly as their real-word counterparts used gender differences as weapons against men. The epic poem Gilgamesh is the first heroic epic of world literature. The role of the primary mortal woman mentioned in it is only to benefit and please men, and with little or no consideration as to how she feels... ...orks Cited Burrow, J.A. "From The Third Fitt." Twentieth Century Interpretations of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.' Ed. Denton Fox. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968. 27-45. Cox, Catherine S. Gender and Language in Chaucer. Gainesville, Florida: U of Florida P, 1997. Everett, Dorothy. "From The Alliterative Revival." Twentieth Century Interpretations of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.' Ed. Denton Fox. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968. 3-26. Harris, Rivkah. Gender and Aging in Mesopotamia. Oklahoma: U of Oklahoma P, 2000. Lawall, Sarah, et al. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Vol. I. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 1999. Nelson, Marie. "Biheste is Dette: Marriage promises in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales." 2001. Dept. of English, Wentworth University. 15 July 2003 <http://www.wentworth.edu/nelson/chaucer>

Causes of Plagiarism Essay -- Plagiarism Essays

Plagiarism has become a major issue among university students around the world. Academic misconduct has been a concern to those teaching at the universities. Hence, to prevent this from occurring the educational bodies have implemented measures to avoid plagiarism. Presently, the newly recruited students are informed of the consequences of plagiarism and that stern action is in place (Ashworth, Bannister, & Thorne,1997,p.1). However, plagiarism can be divided into two parts: deliberate and inadvertent. Presented here are the reasons why student plagiarism is considered quite high at western universities, even though many of the university students do not mean to cheat. There are three reasons as follows: (1) lack of clear understanding about the concept; (2) lack of knowledge about citation and referencing skills; and (3) poor time management. The first focus is on definitions of plagiarism and the differences between two types of plagiarism, reasons for inadvertent plagiarism, and l astly why international students have became the most plagiarising students in western universities. Plagiarism is one type of academic misconduct which is treated seriously in today’s universities. Plagiarism is defined as † literary theft, stealing ( by copying ) the words or ideas of someone else and passing them off as one’s own without crediting the source†(Handa & Power, n.d., p.66). For example, use of any material which is taken from any sources, such as books, electric journals, the Internet, or from other people’s work comprises plagiarism. There are two types of plagiarism: (1) deliberate (intention to cheat); (2) inadvertent (no intention to cheat). If students do it on purpose or intend to cheat, it means that the students have cheated... ...), 471-488. http://www.elearning.tcu.edu/resources/faculty/turnitin/Why%20Students%20Plagiarize.pdf Peter Ashwortha, Philip Bannistera, Pauline Thornea, "Guilty in whose eyes? University students' perceptions of cheating and plagiarism in academic work and assessment" Studies in Higher Education, Volume 22, Issue 2, 1997 Roig, Miguel (1997) "Can Undergraduate Students Determine Whether Text Has Been Plagiarized," The Psychological Record: Vol. 47: Iss. 1, Article 7. Available at: http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/tpr/vol47/iss1/7 Walker, John. "Student Plagiarism in Universities: What are we Doing About it?" Higher Education Research & Development, Volume 17, Issue 1, 1998 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0729436980170105?journalCode=cher20 Wang, Y. (2008). University student online plagiarism. International Journal on E-Learning, 7(4), 743-757.

Disability Discrimination Law

In the recent news about Disability Discrimination Law, a particular employee named Kevin Tobin achieved justice after almost a decade of his case (Mulvany, n. p. ). Tobin was employed at Liberty Mutual and had been good in carrying out his tasks (Mulvany, n. p. ). However, he was suffering from bipolar disorder. On Tonbin’s part, he exerted effort to compensate his lost hours of work. But then, his employer still perceived him as high maintenance (Mulvany, n. p. ). Eventually, he was fired. Just recently, the CA affirmed the reinstatement of $1. 3 million to Tobin. The article proves that discrimination in workplace still exists.This is brought by conflicting interest between the state, employee, and employer. As to the state, it enacts laws to protect the general welfare, especially the disabled persons. On one hand, the disable person exerts effort to disregard his disabilities by showing that he can be normal. On the other hand, the employer protects its interest from prof iting and having disable employees only adds them loses. In this scenario, the law tries to equalize the conflicting interests. On the part of employers, they should not forget their moral responsibility to the society.Helping the disabled person can be part of fulfilling such duty. Besides, among many disabled people, there are always special are where they are capable of doing and even surpassing the expectations of employers. Instead of discriminating, the employers should help in eradicating the gaps that continued to detach people living in one country. Giving chance to disabled people is one. The case of Tobin also proves that the Disability Discrimination Law is being upheld in the country. Furthermore, Tobin’s case brings hope to other disabled people who are still suffering discrimination due to their special qualities.