Category: sociology

 
Part one epistemology and background of competence base education
Part two contributions and limitions and criticism in competence base education
Part three suggestions and insight of competence base education

 
Assessment 2:

Length: 2,500 words.

Brief: Critically compare and contrast any two social movement communities operating in the fields of race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion. How effective have they been in challenging discrimination against their respective community?

In this assessment you will choose two areas of difference to compare and contrast e.g. race and disability; sexual orientation and religion and assess how organisations/groups who organise around these identities have succeeded or not in their attempts bring about justice for their communities. In each case you will:

1. Compare and contrast philosophies and objectives of organisations/groups(why they were established, what is that they were/are trying to achieve

2. Compare and contrast strategies and tactics that organisations/groups utilised in their efforts to bring about change.

3. Assess how these organisations/groups activities have been perceived/responded to by the wider public (Media, Government, Policy Makers, public attitudes)

4. In making the comparisons between communities/organisations/groups what does your analysis tell us about how one should fight discrimination in the UK and with what expected results?

 
The paper must include a reference to the article I will upload to my account (“A Symposium on Pop Art”), must also include references to 3 other scholarly sources (JSTOR).

References to and analysis of specific paintings, however many necessary to hit the page requirement.

I’d like the paper to take the position that Warhol poked fun at American culture.

 
Brief for Personal Statement

The main topics are social psychology as a tool do design better public policy, same with behavioral psychology and combining studies in economics, psychology, and environmental issues to become a great professional who can truly design and implement successful and impactful public policy to improve the state of the environment.

You should base the final essay on the following rough draft, which was written by the student:

“Behavioral economics is the study of the effects of psychological, social, cognitive, and emotional factors on the economic decisions of individuals. Besides helping solve many classical economic problems, such as the generation and distribution of financial wealth, the tools and methods of behavioral economics can also key to solving many of the environmental problems we have today. We live in a sad World where people don’t care about the condition of the environment and think it will stay the same way forever. However, this is not true; our planet is collapsing. And as the Planet implodes around us, we are content to continue pursuing pseudo-solutions whose effects will either vanish or prove inadequate in the long run. I think it is much more important to work on changing people’s minds and attitudes to create an inherently sustainable civilization. With the help of behavioral economics -the powerful marriage of psychology and economics- we can design an environment, a playing field that perennially, constantly nudges humans towards acts that are environmentally sustainable. Through behavioral economics, we can create an ecologically balanced society by design. A society that systematically pushes individuals and organizations towards environmentally sound practices and dissuades them from doing things that are potentially harmful to the environment.

Air pollution is responsible for more than 400 000 premature deaths in Europe each year; approximately 40% of the lakes in America are too polluted for fishing, aquatic life, or swimming; and pollution is one of the biggest global killers, affecting over 100 million people. Facts like these are the ones that make us realize, helping the environment is not something someone can decide to do or not to do, we are all forced to help the planet. If we all do not pitch in to help, the planet won’t survive, and we will perish along with it. Or rather, we will perish together with the many other biological species that we are forcing into extinction and the Planet will go on without us. These problems are only our responsibility, and they happen because most people don’t have that sense of consideration towards the environment or are not even conscious of the magnitude of the problem we have.

We know the problem is that the environment is in critical condition. The main reason for the bad state of the Earth is that people simply don’t care enough about it. The secondary reason behind the problem is our inability to design viable long-term solutions. That is to say, the problem is that societies aren’t addressing the calamitous environmental disaster properly. Why? People are focusing on solving compartmentalized ecological problems, but they aren’t trying to get at the root of those problems, which lie in our total disregard for our substrate. We need to start correcting and influencing everyone’s mentality so that they become environmentally aware and that way we would not only help reduce the impact of the environmental problems we have, but we could also prevent future ones.

I became interested in environmental problems at school when we got involved in a project to clean rivers and establish recycling programs. That was when I realized I was very interested in environmental and conservationist issues. That was when I realized that not many people paid attention. In the field of economics, I like mathematics, and I think it’s very interesting to understand the distribution and consumption of the good and how it is all about the psychology behind human behavior. I have also always been very interested in human behavior; I have learned it is not predictable and that it all depends on the way things are presented to us, that humans are emotional, irrational and that we get carried away by incentives. So it’s very difficult to predict that by putting some ad or billboard, it is going to have the same impact or that everyone will act in the same way when they see it. Issues like these that are not evaluated or taken into account before presenting an environmental project or initiative to the people cause many of them to fail. Maybe the project itself is very promising, and it probably could solve the problem that proposes to solve but perhaps the town where they put the product was not studied and wasn’t shown in a way that to that specific people would have caused some effect. If we apply behavioral economics and study every aspect that surrounds the project, then we could truly get people to act or think in the sustainable way we need to help solve these problems.”

Also, it is important to mention that the student wants to study a double or triple major or degree in Economics, Social Psychology/Behavioral Psychology and Environmental Issues. Why? To learn how to conjugate the sciences of psychology and economics to design better, more impactful pro-environment, pro-sustainability public policies and private policies. Policies for both governments and private organizations. Policies that have a better chance of succeeding because they are financially viable, because they are efficient (regarding resources spent versus positive impact achieved). Policies that are better because they appropriately take into account human behaviour to make the policies truly implementable and durable. Because by taking into account human behaviour and social dynamics, said policies can catalyze long-term culture shifts to make people’s attitudes, systems, and social structures environmentally friendly and sustainable.

It is important to note that the student was a superior student in high school, earning a 4.0 GPA, but also earning college credit because she took and passed university classes in Costa Rica: University Pre-Calculus, University Calculus, and University General Chemistry.

Note that Marielle’s father is a successful self-made businessman in the construction and real-estate development businesses and that Marielle wants to take her learning from her education to help transform her father’s building and development company into a sustainable building and sustainable urbanization company.

Marielle has great intellectual ability in all areas (most notably in maths and hard sciences) and a predilection for the hard sciences. However, she also has a great commitment to the environment social issues in general. She has developed a keen interest in the behavioral sciences, and she wishes to combine said interest (in the behavioral sciences) with her inclination for the hard sciences (research, calculations, analytical math) to do very robust, rigorous research and R&D in the social sciences. She wants to work in economics, psychology, and public policy to elevate said endeavors to the level of legitimacy and effectiveness of the natural and hard sciences, so that social problems can be truly solved using not just well-intentioned creativity but scientific rigour and precision. Especially regarding the social problems that pertain to sustainability and environmental solutions.

Also, it is important to note that Marielle has always had an interest in the human mind; at one point she even considered studying criminal science and criminal psychology because he was son interested in learning about the depths of the human mind.

It should NOT be ignored, but rather forcefully acknowledged, that Marielle is in greatly inspired by the awesome social achievements and social and political idiosyncrasy of her home country of Costa Rica. From this inspiration comes her determination to tackle the fields of psychology, economics, behavioral science and environmental issues. From this patriotic inspiration stems her yearning to become a great producer of insights and designer of strategies to create better, more innovative, modern public policies. Costa Rica, although a small, poor country, is a great social innovator, especially in the areas of sustainable development, production of clean energies, creation and protection of biological reserves and other protected areas. Costa Rica houses about 5% of the whole World’s biodiversity and strives hard to protect these species from extinction. Our country’s great statesmen (Presidents of the Republic, etc.), have done a lot to put us at the forefront of sustainable development. President Daniel Oduber created lots of protected areas, which earned him a knighthood from the Queen of England. José María Figueres Olsen made sustainable development a core element of his government. José Figueres Ferrer abolished the army, thereby creating a lasting piece and absence of civil war that we still enjoy today. Luis Alberto Monge declared Costa Rica perpetually neutral/non-aligned in armed conflicts, which has kept us out of international military conflicts. Óscar Arias Sánchez (a Nobel Peace Price laureate) ended the Central American civil war, and made worldwide disarmament his life’s mission. Many great Costa Ricans have truly strived (like our whole society) to create a peaceful, egalitarian and sustainable society. Although we have many social and environmental challenges yet to solve, we continue to be inspired by people such as Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen. Ms. Figueres Olsen is a Costa Rican lady who heads the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and who is considered the most likely leader to be able to negotiate a significant impactful international treaty whereby governments and private enterprises will commit to specific actions to curb climate change and heal the environment.

Marielle, for now, sees herself working mostly in Academia and the Private Sector after finishing her undergraduate and graduate studies. Nevertheless, she surely draws lots of inspiration from the previously mentioned heroes. She wants to follow in their footsteps and do her part to leave behind a better World. She is determined to do so because she knows she possesses the right combination of intelligence, discipline, commitment and passion for doing so. And she will not let her talents and zeal do to waste.

Costa Rica (Marielle’s country) is well on its way to becoming carbon neutral in the decade of the 2020’s. We heavily base our energy production mix on clean sources of energy and renewable sources of energy. Sustainable usage of our water supplies has become a key national priority, as has environmentally sustainable waste management.

Our constitution and jurisprudence from the Constitutional Court have upheld that the human, fundamental rights to peace, life, and health depend on ensuring the well-being of the environment, for which reason Costa Rica has exceptional protections for the environment.

However, Marielle knows that the legal status of the environment and political and popular will to defend and heal the environment are not enough. Scientific, technical, interdisciplinary, complex, thoughtful, research and ulteriorly, intelligent and viable (economically, scientifically, socially, psychologically, technologically) solutions and new structures, systems and paradigms are necessary.

Part of this challenge is designing policies based on an appropriate understanding of people’s motivations and conducts. All this to craft more viable policies from the perspective of whether people will be able to comply with them. But it also involves changing people’s hearts and minds to create a new world culture where sustainability and environmental health are automatically, second-naturedly take into account in all human actions and all individual and social endeavors.

Marielle aspires to go to a school and higher education program where she can study psychology, economics, and environmental issues. Hopefully, she will enroll in a program where she can get involved in research projects, activist groups, networks of like-minded people and, thus, be challenged to gain a deeper, more sophisticated understanding of the problems that concern her. And not only will she get a more complex, strong understanding of the problems and issues themselves, but also (maybe more importantly) of the world of possibilities to address them, fix them and create a better, more prosperous, yet more balanced world for all. All the while without recurring to authoritarian policies or systems, but rather by changing hearts and minds and approaches and philosophies.

FINAL INSTRUCTIONS:

You should write the essay in the first person (Marielle being the narrator).

You should include lots of research and external references, especially regarding how interdisciplinary approaches such as environmental psychology and design for social innovation, amongst others, if approached with scientific rigor, truly are our best chance of solving complex social problems.

The final product will consist of two parts: a) an extended essay of 1,500 words; b) an abridged (yet not less forceful nor less impressive) abridged version of 650 words.

 
Pick one of the following controversial experiments which crossed ethical boundaries. Research and summarize the experiment. Pick a second experiment for extra credit. Feel free to explore the Web and to pick an unethical experiment not listed. Refer to the Belmont Report a document that created standards for ethical research.

Write up a couple of pages on one of these experiments. Summarize the experiment, what ethical boundaries were crossed? What were the research findings? Also feel free to pick your own selection of an experiment that crossed ethical boundaries.
1. Stanford Prison Experiment/Philip Zimbardo
2. Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
3. Fernald School in Massachusetts/The Eugenics Movement/Radiation Experiments
“The Science Club”.
4. LSD Experiments/Frank Olsen/Tim Leary’s Prison LSD experiments/Whittey Bulger and LSD Experiments.
5. Eugenics Movement in the United States
6. The Monster Study

Also, read the article on (The MASTER RACE Boston Magazine) This is an article by Welling Savo that describe the eugenics movement as it effected Western Massachusetts. To access the article type in: The MASTER RACE Boston Magazine. Go to Google and type in: Boston Magazine The Master Race Welling Savo. Summarize the article, the research institutions behind the research, and what their hypothesis was relative eugenics.

Just I need tow plaghragh

 
This essay received a mark of 75
Please read the tutor’s assessment of why it deserved the mark: “An incredibly strong and well researched essay. You have marshalled the evidence with considerable skill to produce to produce eloquent and well considered piece of work.
This essay contained a strong central argument around the need for laws in utopia because they are good rather than perfect societies. The structure of essay ensures this point is never lost and every sentence is connected to assessing the validity of this hypothesis. I was particularly pleased that you used the standard definition of utopia as a means to expose the dilemma of all utopian writings, in that they remain imbedded within their culture and society, thus imagining a perfect society is not possible. By stressing the importance of context, especially around More, you demonstrate how what may appear to be primitive forms of punishment were actually quite sophisticated at that time. This of course enables us to see utopian writing as incipient forms of proto-socialism prior to the historical materialism of Marx. As such Owen’s utopian proposals around general education could be more practically significant than Marx’s economic model.
The essay is very well-written and you have a nice writing style in which you can express complex arguments in straightforward language.
Overall a very good piece of work. Well Done!”
Q: If a utopia is supposed to be a perfect place, why do utopian places always include laws?
Whenever the word ‘utopia’ is encountered, whatever the context, the image of a perfect society springs to mind. Within this perfect society, all forms of human vice and social disorder have been eliminated leaving nothing but positivity, stability and wellbeing for every citizen regardless of their character. We may therefore find ourselves labelling this a ‘perfect society’, free from structural dysfunction and the many imperfections of the past. However, if we consider the etymology of ‘utopia’, and, more importantly, if we critically assess Utopian texts, we cannot accept this label of a ‘perfect’ place since this was never the intended definition and, more frankly, it has never been the outcome. Utopias are not characterised by their ‘perfection’ as such, but rather by their portrayal of idyllic social conditions in relation to the detestable conditions existing at the time the text was written.

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In the 16th century, when Thomas More formed this neologism from the Greek ‘Ou’ (meaning ‘not’) and ‘Topos’ (meaning ‘place’), it was with the intention of describing ‘no-place’ or, more literally, ‘nowhere’. Even if we were to consider Utopia as a homophone (meaning ‘good-place’ from the Greek prefix ‘Eu’), it would still not describe a ‘perfect-place’. Indeed, what he was proposing in his novel was, in his view, an ideal view of how society should be structured and ran, but in no way was it perfect. Living in Tudor England, Thomas More was faced with many conditions which he saw as unfit for the people and damaging to society, yet he also envisioned many ways that the status quo could be improved for the general public. Utopia belongs to an extensive genre of political writings concerned with an ideal commonwealth, a form of writing which can be traced back to its initiation with Plato’s Republic (Logan, p.7). With the publication of More’s bestseller a trend in literature began to ensue, resulting in a range of works we have since come to label ‘Utopian’.
Legislation in Utopian texts is generally reflective of the era in which they are written. For instance, in Thomas More’s time, there were a multitude of laws in place, many of which strictly regarded property and most of which were not intelligible to the uneducated masses. Until fairly recently in human history, many actions have carried the death sentence as a punishment. Property theft in More’s England, for example, was punishable by death. This legislation attempted to protect the wealthy since possessions were thought to be equivalent in value to human life or, rather, human life was less sacred than material acquisition and retention. These stringent laws continued to be established and enforced until they finally came to be known, in retrospect, as the ‘Bloody Code’, and one could find themselves at the gallows at the pinch of a hat, so to speak (Oldbaileyonline.org, 2014).
Many Utopian thinkers have held the view that crime in society, on the most part, is a direct result of poverty and property laws, and in their utopias they have set out to fix this via the abolishment of private property and the equal distribution of wealth. Therefore, we find in Utopia that theft is no longer treated in such a Draconian way. More, through the character of Raphael
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Hythloday, asserts that the death penalty as a punishment for thieves ‘is very hurtful to the weal- public’. He explains that sending such individuals to the gallows does not address the motivating factor – their poverty. ‘It is too extreme and cruel a punishment for theft, and yet not sufficient to refrain and withhold men from theft’. More also criticises the vastness and complexity of legislation in his time, likening men of the law to ‘evil schoolmasters, which be readier to beat than to teach their scholars’ (19). Likewise, in a collection of essays entitled A New View of Society and Other Writings, Robert Owen attacks the idea that many ‘criminals’ act out of malevolence. He argues that the vast, contrived and ambiguous nature of legislation results in citizens who ‘acquire no other knowledge than that which compels them to conclude that those actions are the best they can perform’ (Owen, 22). Taking a tabula rasa approach to human nature, Owen’s ultimate contention is that humans are nothing less than the products of their circumstances, that generation after generation are taught crime by their circumstances and that the expansive and intricate nature of legislation counterproductively results in law-breaking.
Legislation, then, may be viewed as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, laws are required for a society to function properly, to prevent a state of anomie and to clarify the rights of an individual. In theory, laws allow humans to live communally and in relative harmony with one another since every member of a community is aware of how to interact with each other. On the other hand, unfortunately, many foolish laws come into effect which are of no benefit to society but are enforced just the same, and these unwise laws have a general tendency to seek out the poor and uneducated. Additionally, the law is not written in Standard English or a form which the masses may easily comprehend. Legal English, or legalese, requires an exceptional amount of studying to be understood properly and some form of legal qualification has to be acquired in order to practice the law. The average citizen of a society is likely to know little about how the law that they abide by functions, and this is fundamentally problematic since it delays the emergence of a better society. An ideal society cannot emerge as long as its citizens are ignorant of its laws and whilst those laws are being used against them.
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Though the island of Utopia may have its faults, Hythloday recounts the ‘divers acts and constitutions whereby these our cities, nations, countries and kingdoms may take example to amend their faults, enormities and errors’ (15). In Utopia, contrary to More’s England, ‘they have but few laws. For to people so instruct and intuitive very few do suffice’. With so few laws, the Utopians are aware of how to behave, which is paramount in making their society function properly. The resulting factor is incredibly important to Utopia: ‘every man is a cunning lawyer’ because ‘the simple, the plain and gross meaning of the laws is open to every man’ (94). The law, no longer clouded by deliberate language obscurities and stripped of its insignificant legislation, has left very few rules to be misunderstood or challenged. The Utopians live within a very tight system which allows little room for dysfunction. We can see, however, that capital punishment is still practiced (repeated adultery carries the punishment, for example) though the Utopians are much more disposed to make bondsmen of their criminals. This is still an issue to discuss, however, since it follows that laws are still ultimately necessary even in Utopia – the ideal commonwealth. This suggests that vice is still intrinsically within the Utopians and that crime cannot be fully abolished in any given society, no matter how little legislation they have and how clear it is to them. It also shows that More was aware of the duality of human nature and how to control it, explaining that their behaviour is successfully regulated in two distinct and simple ways. There are deterrents from crime, in the form of public humiliation and bondage, but there are also incentives to good behaviour in the form of public honours such as statues. The custom of marking bondsmen leaves little room for retribution, though, since the ‘tip of one ear is cut off’ (More, 29). However, retribution was not generally considered possible for offenders in Tudor England, so the Utopian way of using their criminals to serve them in their most humdrum and arduous tasks was certainly a progressive idea.
Perhaps the greatest difference between early Utopian texts and the more recent texts, certainly with regards to law, is the width of their scope. More’s Utopia, as a text written in the Age of Discovery, concerns itself with a little island whose inhabitants live in idyllic conditions. Similarly, Henry Neville’s The Isle of Pines includes the creation of an ideal island by shipwrecked George Pines
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and his female company, though his utopia was not even close to perfection and, on the whole, it more closely resembles a passing male fantasy that had been given too much thought. H.G. Wells’ A Modern Utopia, on the other hand, widens its scope to that of the entire planet or ‘World-State’, since ‘no less than a planet will serve the purpose of a modern Utopia’ (Wells, 15). Wells considers many important aspects of society in his bizarre utopia. In chapter 5, he addresses the reality of ‘failure in a modern utopia’, which is one of the lesser discussed aspects of Utopian fiction and one which explains, quite concisely and convincingly, that a ‘perfect society’ is not attainable in terms of how sparse, differing and complex modern society is. In simple terms, we would be hard-pressed to even begin to develop an ‘ideal’ world with such evermore increasing ideological differences. In the preface to Karl Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia, Louis Wirth (1954) acknowledges that ‘the worlds in which [past intellectuals] lived were apparently more stable and integrated for all the members of the community than our enlarged universe of thought, action and belief has come to be’. It is for this reason that a modern utopia will be increasingly difficult to envision, since early utopias didn’t anticipate the multiplication of personality types as a population increases in number and subsequently becomes more fragmented. Wells acknowledges the many different characters in modern society and considers these people in his own utopia ‘with only such moral and mental and physical improvements as lie within their inherent possibilities’ (95). He asks what his utopia will do with its idiots, mad-men, drunkards and other such unpleasant types, even suggesting that the World-State would practice eugenics and terminate the unfit before they have the chance to become members of his utopia: ‘no doubt Utopia will kill all deformed, and monstrous and evilly diseased births’ (100). For this reason, some writers have seen the link between Utopias and Fascism. Parrinder (1997) has asserted that the ‘incorporation of mildly eugenic measures in socialist utopias… has been seized on as proof of the existence of logical and historical links between socialist theory and Fascism’. The eugenics of Wells, however, is visionary on account of the technological advances and practices that would develop in the latter half on the 20th century. Prenatal diagnosis allows modern families to test for genetic disorders such as Down’s syndrome and the legality of
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abortion in many cultures – even in some cases of late-termination – allows for a form of eugenics to be practiced by families so that they may construct their own ideal world (Holtzman, 1998).
Wells does, however, take a liberal view of punishment in his utopia since he is aware that every human need and want would be provided for, so offending would, in theory, be minimal and would originate from the will of the offender alone. His utopia focuses on rehabilitation, as opposed to More’s Utopia whose bondsmen are permanently marked as such. Wells asserts that in his utopia, ‘first offenders, and for all offenders under five-and-twenty, the Modern Utopia will attempt cautionary and remedial treatment’ which will be in the form of a straightforward lesson: ‘’which do you value most, the wide world of humanity, or this evil trend in you?’’ (Wells, 100). Writing at the turn of the twentieth century, what Wells had proposed here was no less than visionary. In 1908, the Children and Young Persons Act was passed which established juvenile courts and Borstals which now separated young offenders from the ‘hardened criminals’ of regular prisons. This legislation began to change what it meant to be a young person in England – at the turn of the 20th century, legislation began to place much more emphasis on rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Paul Turner (1965), in his introduction to More’s Utopia, raises the question of ‘just how perfect would [Utopia] be to live in?’ (p.13). He acknowledges that all material benefits (i.e. food, clothing, shelter, education etc.) are provided by the state for the welfare of all its citizens. But when we critically assess the conditions the Utopians live under, they are actually quite limiting and not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Individual liberty is practically non-existent: everyone wears the same colourless garments, for instance, and a citizen can only be granted a licence to travel if he has good reason to do so. If any man over-steps his ‘bounds’, he is ‘sharply punished’ (p.68). The few laws that exist are incredibly limiting to human liberty, so despite whether the Utopians are well rehearsed in those laws is of little importance since the result is a lack of liberty. To many modern readers, the reduction of basic human rights (such as the right to travel and the right to free expression) is the epitome of imperfection and an indication of totalitarianism. Indeed, the
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more modern readers try to envision Utopia as a real place, the more we begin to see the blueprint for an Orwellian dystopia, since the rules in place limit human behaviour in such a way that the Utopians willingly accept ‘Big Brother’ over disorder and dysfunction. But considering Utopia in Tudor England, what Thomas More was writing about was remarkably ahead of its time. The idea of abolishing private property, providing for all members of society, being tolerant of religious beliefs – these were all ideas which More saw as beneficial to society. Whether those ideals were to be realised in More’s lifetime was another issue altogether.
Writers who have contributed towards the Utopian genre have brought the world progressive ideas and their ultimate aim has been nothing less than the attainment of societal perfection. Writers try to picture an ideal future by criticising the imperfections of their own time and imagining solutions, and these attempts have not been in vain. Utopian thinkers throughout history have helped to shape future legislation. Robert Owen, for instance, was an early pioneer of Socialism and he believed that education was fundamental to the formation of character. His work, which was heavily focused on the education of workers, culminated in the emergence of schemes for the education of the poor (Robertowen.org, 2014), without which no ideal society could ever emerge. The bitter pill to swallow, perhaps, is that society is permanently in an embryonic state, always in need of improvement but never quite pleasing the dreamers once those improvements have been brought about. There will always be the dissatisfied; those dissenters who are not happy with the way this rudimentary world works, but it is through the ongoing discourse of how to bring about idyllic social conditions that we can only hope to come close to perfection. Utopias include laws quite simply because we cannot see the world in any alternative way at the present moment. It is much more likely and reasonable to suspect that society, at best, will only look ideal when we consider how far it has come in terms of its improvements.
2532 words

 
MSc Social Policy 2015 – 2016

Social Policy: Ideology, Theory and Practice
Assignments
Note: Students should also check the General Guidance on Assignments on the Programme site.

Assignment One – Conference Paper
Submission date: Tuesday 15th December, 2015
Weighting: 50%
Length: 3000 words. Students should provide a word count at the end of their assignment, before the list of references. There is no 10% discretion so stick to the word limit to avoid losing marks.
Marking criteria: All Assignments will be marked in accordance with the level 7 grade descriptors which can be found on blackboard on the MSc Social Policy programme site.

Learning outcomes: This assignment addresses learning outcomes 2, 3 and 4 which are set out below. Students will be able to:

2. Identify and critically evaluate levels of influence in the policy-making process.

3. Demonstrate a theoretical understanding of the role of ideology in relation to specific areas of social policy.

4. Demonstrate a conceptual understanding of the formulation of ideology, implementation and impact on service delivery and outcomes.
Conference paper
Identify and critically discuss the role, influence and drivers of ideology in the policy process for one of the following areas:
• Social Security
• Education
• Health
• Housing
• Social Services
• Employment

Assignment specific guidance
• The assignment should follow a conference paper format. An abstract should be included and the paper should be organized under appropriate headings
• You will be provided with sample papers during the module to support you in writing this assignment
• You must use the title given and indicate which one of the areas listed you will be covering
• You may concentrate on one or more stages of the policy process
• You may discuss one or more ideologies. It would probably be easier to stick to one
• Examples or other empirical data should be drawn upon where possible to stick to illustrate your analysis
• You may discuss the policy process at local, national or devolved level in the UK, including the supranational level as appropriate. However, due to the limited word count it is recommended that you primarily focus on one level
• Should you wish to write about another country you can only do so at the discretion of the Module Leader, and should remember that you cannot repeat any part of your assignment on the second Social Policy module or on any other module
• All sources should be referenced appropriately within the assignment, with a list of references provided at the end. References should use the Harvard (APA 6th) edition
• A range of academic literature should be used for this assignment and your work should be academically strong to achieve good marks.

Further guidance on the assignment will be provided during the course of the module, and there will be opportunities for individual discussion with module staff, who can also comment on a short assignment plan, but will not read draft assignments.
Assignment Two
Submission date: Tuesday 12th January, 2016
Weighting: 50%
Length and 3000 words. Students should provide a word count at the end of their assignment, before the list of references. There is no 10% discretion so stick to the word limit to avoid losing marks.
Marking criteria: All Assignments will be marked in accordance with the level 7 grade descriptors which can be found on blackboard on the MSc Social Policy programme site.

Learning outcomes: This assignment addresses learning outcomes 1 and 5 which care set out below. On successful completion of this assignment, students will be able to:

1. Critically discuss theoretical models of citizenship, social inclusion and exclusion.

5. Critically assess user participation in service delivery decision-making.
Essay Title

Critically assess the impact of ideology on one of the following:

Citizenship
Social inclusion/exclusion
User participation
Assignment specific guidance
• For this assignment you may focus on one area of social policy or write across a range of areas. If you do focus on one area, this should not be the same area as Assignment One
• You should concentrate on only one of the theoretical models (i.e., citizenship, social inclusion/exclusion, user participation)
• You should review the definition and main debates around the theoretical model
• You may discuss one or more ideologies. It would probably be easier to stick to one
• Examples or other empirical data should be drawn upon where possible to illustrate your analysis
• You may discuss the theoretical model at local, national, or devolved level in the UK including the supranational level as appropriate. However, due to the limited word count it is recommended that you primarily focus on one level
• Should you wish to write about another country you can only do so at the discretion of the Module Leader, and should remember that you cannot repeat any part of your assignment on the second Social Policy module or on any other module
• You must use the title given, which must indicate which ideology you are focusing on
• All sources should be referenced appropriately within the assignment, with a list of references provided at the end. References should use the Harvard (APA 6th) edition
• A range of academic literature should be used for this assignment and your work should be academically strong to achieve good marks.
Plagiarism/Unfair Means
Students should not plagiarize or copy content from any source – printed, or on-line. Students cannot copy the work of any other student, and cannot re-use any assignment or part of an assignment previously submitted at the University of Salford or elsewhere. Copying will show up on the Turnitin system, and students can check their assignments before final submission. Where there is significant plagiarism or copying, assignments will be referred for investigation. In other cases, where there is less copying, marks will be deducted and assignments can be failed. It is your responsibility to ensure that there is no plagiarism/copying or the use of unfair means. Where the use of unfair means is suspected, assignments will also be referred for investigation.

 
1 page for mind map. You need to ensure your mind map includes four elements of your culture ( family, food, travel, exercise) and shows how knowledge, experiences, and behaviours are related to each element. Then 200 -250 words -notes about the relationship between knowledge, experience and behaviour based on one element of your cultural self. instructions will be in downloaded file for eg assessment criteria and information. Do they do assignments with a mind map? I am so concerned, i hope that this will be done to 100% as the last company i went through due to their assignment failed both units, the company then refused to give a refund 😊 if this assessment can be pleased followed and does this get sent in a word document just in case if i need to change anything. Regarding the mind map do you have a really fancy mind map template just to get extra marks for design.

 
Answer ONLY ONE of the following questions. Use Times New Roman 12 to write three double-space pages.

1. From the reading material and class discussions, reflect on a. both the strategy of the Environmental Movement in Germany to mainstream its discourse and actions, in terms of being integrated within state’s political system, and acting through it, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, b. the critique it received from radical activists.
2. From the reading material and class discussions, explain networking in social movements.
3. From the reading material and class discussions, reflect on framing as an essential strategy of social movements.
4. From the reading material and class discussions, explain how threats and opportunities shape strategies and actions of social movements.
5. From the reading material and class discussions, explain how new social movements are different than traditional social movements.
6. From the reading material and class discussions, reflect on the innovative work of Fair Trade Movement.
7. From the reading material and class discussions, reflect on Hacktivism.
8. From the reading material and class discussions, compare traditional Left to the World Social Forum.

Answer ONLY ONE of the following questions. Use Times New Roman 12 to write three, double-space pages.

1. Write a short essay on Fethullah Gülen Movement, and its network of educational institutions, non-governmental organizations of dialogue and peace-building, media projects and businesses.
2. Write a short essay on the Waste Pickers Movement in India.
3. Write a short essay on framing and both its potential and its limitations in shaping the debate between pro-choice and pro-life movements in US.
4. Write a short essay on the Arab Spring, in terms of the opportunities and threats that surrounded its emergence.
5. Write a short essay on the legal struggle of LGBT communities in US to change the laws of marriage.
6. Write a short essay on Wiki Leaks.
7. Write a short essay on Doctors Without Borders, comparing them to the Red Cross Organization.

plz no plagiarism it will be checked

Descriptions on the background of the topic and the sample data you chose. Then run several different regression models (two or three) with variables and analyze their differences using Stata. I will provide the professor’s instruction to you in the attachment, which is crucial and all the requirements inside should be fulfilled. Additional information I collected will also be uploaded as a reference to you. From the PPT I provided, you need to choose at least four variables and at least two models to compare the multicollinearity, heteroskedasticity, and serial correlation.