My Journey to the IIM !!

Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

When the local committees are formed, your task as members is to respond to emerging issues. You do so by involving the "stakeholders" in a consultative process. A stakeholder is anyone likely to be affected by an issue, or by how it is approached; that is, as the name implies, someone who holds a "stake" in an issue.

This document describes the types of consultation required by different issues. It sets out some general guidelines for identifying and involving stakeholders.

Initially, you may expect an upsurge of activity as people take the opportunity to voice their opinions. When this initial activity has settled down, you can probably anticipate that most issues will arise in one of two ways...

The design authority will indicate to you that certain designs are being considered. It may also indicate the design options currently under consideration

A concerned local citizen, or group of citizens, will raise an issue.
There may also be other people or bodies who might occasionally trigger a need for consultation, either through the design authority or directly. No matter how the issue is raised, it will be your role to guide the consultative process to deal with it.



Guiding the consultative process

Your task in guiding the consultative process can be described as that of finding the answers to a number of important questions. In the order in which they are considered, they are...

What is the issue?

What is the purpose of the consultative process?

Who are the stakeholders?

What process can be used?
In more detail...



What is the issue?

At this initial point you do not need a precise definition of the issue. That emerges more fully from the consultative process.

Unless you sufficiently understand what the issue is, however, the stakeholders may be hard to identify. You need to know enough about the issue so that you can work out who is likely to be effected. (You may change you mind about your answer to this question later; that is often to be expected.)



What is the purpose of the consultative process?

That is, what outcomes are required? Some types of issue primarily require information to be channelled from community to design authority, others from design authority to community. Others require both.

In some instances, the process is intended to provide people with an opportunity to understand a point of view not previously considered, and perhaps even to arrive at some collective appreciation of the alternatives. (This is taken up further below.)

In brief, you need to be clear about the primary purpose of the consultation. You can then select the most appropriate and efficient method.



Who are the stakeholders?

Who are the people who are affected in any way by the issue as it is, or by the options for dealing with it, or by the way the options are implemented? These are the people whom you involve in the consultative process.

(There is a separate document on stakeholder analysis, for addressing this issue.)



What process can be used to involve the
stakeholders and achieve the purpose?

The answer to this question has to take into account both the stakeholders, and the type of issue. At this step, you choose or design a consultative process which will secure the widest possible involvement of the stakeholders, and achieve the purpose of informing community, or design authority, or both.

Some types of processes for dealing with different types of issues and different numbers of stakeholders are described later.

The consultative committee may not always be the most appropriate body to deal with such issues.



Temporary local working parties

Where the issue is localised, there may be some advantage in setting up a working party composed of people who have a direct stake in it. This can be a small and temporary working party with a clear brief. When the issue is resolved, the working party dissolves.

It is usually important for a member of your committee to be on the temporary working party. This ensures that the committee is kept informed of developments. I recommend, however, that you do not become involved in the discussion of the working party unless you are also a stakeholder in the issue.

The use of temporary working parties serves the purpose of spreading involvement in and ownership of the consultative process more widely. In addition, it frees up your committee for wider issues. It also acts as a training ground for people who may later become members of the consultative committee.



Types of issue

In deciding the process to be used, it is helpful to think of an issue as falling primarily into one or another of four categories...

Information to the community
Those where information is to be conveyed to the community or some group of stakeholders within it: that is, disseminating information.

For example, the design authority might wish to notify the community about the timetable for acting on decisions already taken. Or the community may wish to know what the long-term plans of the design authority are.

Information from the community
Those where the primary task is to gather information from the community or some group of stakeholders within it: that is, collecting information.

For example, the design authority might wish to know the issues which the community regards as of the highest priority. Or the community may wish to bring some attitude to the notice of the design authority.

Information exchange
Those where there is to be an exchange of information between design authority and community, or between two other groups of stakeholders: that is, exchanging information.

This may arise often. For example, the design authority might advise the community of some design options, and seek a response. Or the community might raise an issue, and require a reply from the design authority.

Developing agreement
Those where it is hoped that an exchange of information may lead to agreement which did not previously exist, or where some change of attitude or position may result: that is, resolving differences.

For example, different groups of stakeholders might each prefer an option which disadvantaged the other group. Or, through misunderstanding or mistrust, the design authority and community activists might misunderstand each others' motives.



Of these, exchanging information and developing agreement will usually be the most valuable and appropriate. There will be occasions, however, when a one-way information flow is all that is required. This will most often occur as an interim measure, or a short-term stop-gap.

These categories are, to some extent, artificial. For example, you can't get or give information without having some influence on attitudes, or at least producing some reaction. Further, you can use many of the methods we later describe in more than one category. The following paragraphs, however, will serve you as an initial guide to making a choice.



Disseminating information

When the main purpose of a consultative activity is to inform the community, the use of mass media or print media is usually indicated. The more detailed the information, the more the benefit of using something relatively permanent, like print, rather than something impermanent like radio or face-to-face contact.

A combination of several media usually achieves better results than any one in isolation. Some examples follow. For all of these, it is a good idea to include a name and telephone number of a contact person for those who wish to follow it up in greater detail.

The list which follows is not exhaustive, and local committee will be able to develop their own alternatives to some of these...

Advertisements or feature articles in the local press
Newspapers which deal specifically with the geographical area affected are often more appropriate than state-wide publications.

They are also sometimes willing, with sufficient notice, to carry a feature article. This is reasonably effective, and quite economical of effort. Features are probably more likely to be read than advertisements. Some newspapers are more likely to carry features for someone who has taken out an advertisement than someone who hasn't.

Direct contact with the editor is likely to be more effective than merely issuing a press release. It is worth building and maintaining a good working relationship with the editor of the local newspaper: when editors understand the aim of the consultative process, they are almost always helpful and cooperative.

It has been our 2 experience that the local press, too, will often take an article you write without wanting to change it.

Letter box drops
Flyers which have attention-getting headlines or graphics, but contain enough text to explain the situation well, can be distributed in letter boxes in the "catchment area" for the issue.

Schools
The same flyers which are prepared for letterbox drops can be distributed to local schools. Some schools may also be interested in involving their pupils in project work; this makes it more likely that the parents will actually get to hear about it.

Notices in shop windows and similar situations
Colourful and informative posters in places where many people pass can be a useful way of reaching the community. A combination of eye-catching headline or illustration and more detailed text is again often appropriate.

Non-print media
Of the non-print media, radio can be an effective vehicle if there is a local radio station. Some stations carry messages of community interest without charge, as a community service. Because of the impermanence of speech, it is not wise to depend only upon non-print media for detailed material.



Collecting information

In collecting information, there is often reliance upon people responding to advertisements. This tends to achieve the greatest response from the vocal minority; it is unlikely to provide you with accurate information about the attitudes of the community as a whole.

Instead, activities which contact all stakeholders, or a representative group of them, generally yield more accurate and reliable information. They also offer other advantages.

The two methods in common use are interviews, and surveys. For some purposes, using a number of representative small groups can gain many of the advantages of interviews and surveys. When time and resources are limited, very small samples may work well if they are set up as panels or juries.

When the required information is about community aspirations or community priorities, search can be a useful technique.

In summary form, the methods are...

Interviews
Interviews can be structured or unstructured. In structured interviews you ask pre-planned questions in a predetermined order. In unstructured interviews you let the questions you ask be guided by what the person has already said.

Structured interviews are in effect a survey in which people reply to an interviewer rather than writing down their responses. More people respond to interviews than to written surveys, giving a more accurate result; but the cost is greater, often much greater, in time and expense.

Unstructured interviews can be effective in gaining information when you don't know enough to be able to ask the right questions, but at even greater cost.

As an alternative, you can combine structure and open questions: the interviewing can use a step-by-step process, but leave the questions very general and open-ended. Such interviews gain the rich data of open-ended interviews. The much smaller (and therefore less costly) samples still provide quite reliable data. A version of structured-process interviews is described elsewhere as convergent interviewing. 3

Small-group surveys
In marketing research, use is often made of a group interview. There are small-group survey techniques which use a similar approach.

Small groups can offer a number of advantages over individual interviews. Different people raise different topics, but all people have a chance to comment on all topics. Less interviewer time is required to contact a particular number of people. On the other hand, it requires a little more skill on the part of the interviewer.

A systematic approach to small-group surveys is known as group feedback analysis. A version of it is described elsewhere. 4

Written surveys
The effective use of surveys requires more expertise than you might imagine. To ask clear questions which do not bias the answer is difficult. So is interpretation of the results. Often, so few people respond that they form a very unrepresentative sample of the community.

Against this, surveys can be a very economical way of collecting a lot of information. If you have access to the required expertise, and can achieve a good response rate, they are worth considering.

In many instances group feedback analysis will allow you to achieve the same ends while avoiding many of the problems.

Panels and juries
The main features of panels or juries are that they are chosen to speak as individuals while representing the community as a whole, and they are asked to function as a jury on behalf of the whole community. One effect of this is often that they take their community role with great earnestness. 5

There are several ways of combining juries with some of the other methods of giving and getting information. The jury can then assist by helping to interpret the information, and can react to the interpretation others place on it. (In this use, the jury is sometimes called a "reference group".)



Exchanging information

For exchanging information, a combination of the methods already mentioned may serve you well. For example, if the design authority wishes to be informed of community views on several design options, you might use print media to spread the detailed information. One of the information collection methods might then allow you to gather community responses.

As an alternative, a number of styles of meeting can be used. Two in particular have functioned well in community consultation: neighbourhood meetings, and search workshops.

Neighbourhood meetings
There is a detailed description given elsewhere. 6 The present description is, accordingly, brief: too brief to convey the real effectiveness of neighbourhood meetings. They are, however, a very involving way of disseminating and collecting information.

Extremely good response rates have been achieved in some consultation exercises. In fact, neighbourhood meeting have achieved better response rates than any other method: sometimes between 60 and 70 per cent of those approached take part.

To conduct neighbourhood meetings, compile a list of all of the stakeholders. Then approach some proportion of them directly, and invite them to hold a meeting in their home. To this they invite other stakeholders who live near them. Give enough guidance that the invited hosts are confident enough to agree to help.

When very high community involvement is the goal, as it is here, neighbourhood meetings are recommended as the method of choice.

Search workshops
A search workshop, as mentioned already, also serves usefully as an information-collection method for some purposes. It is described here, however, for its ability to disseminate and collect information. You can also use it as a useful catalyst in generating community interest and involvement in a major project where priorities are uncertain, but views are not extremely polarised. (A skilled facilitator may be able to use it where there is polarisation.)

Search operates by asking participants to define an ideal future. After taking other information, they then revise this ideal, and use it as a starting point for developing more detailed action plans.

You can give other information to participants during the mid phases of the search. They can then be invited to revise or add to their ideal to take account of the information.



Resolving differences

Most of the processes so far described are reasonably robust, even in the hands of people without a great deal of experience. Processes for resolving differences need to be managed with rather more skill. Intergroup conflict resolution is such a process. Delphi is another.

Here are brief descriptions (detailed descriptions are given elsewhere)...

Intergroup conflict resolution
This is most suitable for issues where there are few stakeholders, and they are polarised into two main camps. It can also be used where larger numbers of stakeholders exist, but two (or occasionally more) groups of key stakeholders are most influential in deciding community views.

Briefly described, intergroup conflict resolution encourages each group to state its own view clearly and specifically. At the same time, people listen carefully. They place themselves "in the shoes of" the other group, so coming to understand issues fully, from the other point of view.

Because there is an appreciation of each other's view, a new and more creative third position often emerges.

Even where both parties maintain their earlier position, if the process is managed well it usually improves relationships. Understanding each other's position, people are less likely to attribute malice to other groups.

Face-to-face delphi
Delphi is most commonly used with a panel of experts who communicate only by mail. Its usual outcome is that the experts on the panel increase their agreement as they learn more information from each other. It depends upon a cyclic process. Panelists are asked to respond several times. At each cycle they are asked either to adjust their opinion in the direction of a consensus, or to provide information to explain their position.

A face-to-face delphi uses a similar process. The panelists, however, meet; and they are usually organised into like groups instead of acting as individuals. It is important to manage the process well, or it breaks down into a vigorous debate without generating agreement.

_____
You also have as one of your responsibilities the maintenance of local involvement. This is a task importance enough to warrant separate attention.



Maintaining involvement

One recurring difficulty with community consultation programs is maintaining involvement and energy over medium and long periods of time. It is not difficult, provided some conditions are met, to generate initial enthusiasm and involvement. Maintaining it demands special attention.

The processes you will use generate more ownership and involvement than many processes would. Even here, though, maintenance in the longer term will require a special effort.

Some of the strategies which may help you to achieve this are as follows...

Realistic expectations
Try to have realistic expectations. Be clear about your goals, and about the goals of other committees or working parties which you set up or join. Try to understand the constraints within which the goals are to be achieved. Unmet expectations are one of the major causes of a loss or morale and membership: satisfaction is usually more a matter of met or unmet expectations than anything else.

Temporary working parties
You will develop more local ownership and involvement if you use local working parties for as much of the work as possible. Except where global and long-term issues are involved, it is usually better to set up a local and temporary working party of direct stakeholders than to attempt to do the consultation yourself.

It is important, however, that you coordinate this work, and stay informed about it. To this end, it is highly desirable that one of you is a member on any working party formed. In the interests of local ownership, it is also desirable that you do not take a typical "chair" role.

If you have process skills, then a role of process facilitation can be extremely valuable to the working party. (In such a role, you guide the process, but do not offer or argue for any of the issues or options which are discussed.)

Facilitated meetings
The use of traditional meeting procedures is a turn-off for most people. If meetings are facilitated, they are more enjoyable, and more effective as well. If they are focussed on specific issues, and consensual in style, they are further improved.

It is also useful to meet only as often, and for as long, as your task requires (though occasional social occasions are also valuable).

Team building
Many of the satisfactions of community work are to be found in the quality relationships which are formed, and the worthwhile nature of the work. This can be enhanced by providing each local committee with relationship building activities, and by ensuring that all involved are kept informed about the wider events which are taking place.



Community interest

Maintaining community interest also helps. Your job will appear more worthwhile if you have the interest of an informed and involved community. You can use both mass media and face-to-face contact to achieve this. (This also helps to ensure that when you need help, it is available.)

An important trap deserves mention here. You may be tempted to use mass media to publicise plans. It is better resisted -- plans arouse expectations. For reasons already mentioned, if those expectations are not met, dissatisfaction or cynicism result.

The recommended procedure is: Use more focussed methods to inform direct stakeholders about plans, to provide them with the maximum opportunity and encouragement to become involved. Use mass media to inform the wider community about what has already been achieved.

Rotation
A slow rotation of community members through the committees is highly desirable. No matter how much "of the community" you are initially, you risk becoming distanced despite your best efforts. If half of you retire and are replaced every six to twelve months, a balance between continuity and renewal is achieved.

Rotation also lightens your workload: you will find more people are willing to become involved if it is for a finite time.



Planning for continuity

You will find it worthwhile to devote effort to maintaining continuity. One way of doing this may be to set up a working party with this as its specific responsibility.

There are a number of tasks such a working party can be given. It can identify and recruit community members with the potential to help with community activities. Perhaps it could maintain a register of community members and their interests and skills. You can give the responsibility for managing the rotation of the local committees to such a committee.
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Thoughts to get You Through Any Crisis


Indecision is the key to flexibility.

You can't tell which way the train went by looking at the tracks.

There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

The facts, although they may be interesting, are irrelevant.

Someone who thinks logically is a nice contrast to the real world.

Things are more like they are today than they ever were before.

Everything should made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

This is probably as bad as it can get, but don't count on it.

If you can smile when things go wrong, you have someone in mind to blame.

One-seventh of your life is spent on Mondays.

Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!


It is not how much we do, but what we get done that counts. Top producing Real Estate Agents and Managers alike understand that if they are clear about what they have to do to hit their goals and concentrate on those things, they will achieve so much more. The reason Real Estate Professionals are not successful is that they do not pursue specific goals.

How do you direct your activities and your time around your goals? Start by setting SMART Goals. SMART is an acronym to guide your efforts.

Specific: "I will contact 3 past clients a day" instead of "I will keep in touch with past clients this month."

Measurable: In order to evaluate how you are doing, you need some measure of your success. How many listing sales do you need this month? This year? This week? How many listings do you have to take this month? How many listing appointments do you have to go on this week?

Attainable: The goal should be something that is challenging but also within your ability to achieve. Is it possible to make 20 calls to past clients in a day, or is 3-5 a better number?

Realistic: Know your limitations and be realistic about what you can accomplish. You can set a goal of writing 10 contracts this week. But if you only have one A-Buyer lead, and no active listings, how realistic is that goal?

Time-bound: Set a start date and a completion date. Then, you can set another goal when you have accomplished the first one. If you are going to concentrate on developing an expired listing plan that really works, set up a time that you will complete that process and when you are going to begin the program.

One very important rule to remember in both Time Management and Goal Setting is to write things down! A goal that is not written down is not a goal, it is a wish. An activity that is not written down and scheduled into your daily plan is a suggestion, not a priority.

When you are breaking down your goals and the activities that need to be completed in order to reach your goals, I suggest using a Master Project List.

Setting goals takes time and organization. However, going through your day reacting to the moment and doing only the things that come at you as urgent is a sure fire way to not manage your time effectively and not hit your goals. Isn't it worth it to spend your time going after what will really make a difference?
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most dangerous region in the world for a baby to be born — with 1.16 million babies dying each year in the first 28 days of life — but six low-income African countries have made significant progress in reducing deaths among newborn babies, according to a new report published today. The report, Opportunities for Africa’s newborns, brings together new data and analysis from the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Africa is finding and developing its own solutions to its health problems, a new report finds. The African Regional Health Report - the first report to focus on the health of the 738 million people living in the African Region of the World Health Organization - offers hope that over time the region can address the massive health challenges it faces, given sufficient international support.
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

I DONT KNOW WHAT I AM DOING THESE DAYS BUT SURE TO REACH MY DAY ONE DAY .............................................................THIS IS MY FIRST STEP ....................................................................THE DAY I WOED FOR.....................................................................THE DAY I WAITED FOR.................
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

3The construction of a number of binary variables from categorical variables is another way to organize the data, although nominally new variables are created. For example, the categorical variable RELIGION, with the values Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, converted to binary form would mean the creation of four new variables CHRISTIAN, MUSLIM, JEWISH, BUDDHIST, all of which took on the value of 0 or 1. As the nature of categorical variables is that there is no hierarchical relationship between the variables (which is why they cannot be converted into a meaningful quantitative scale), their conversion into binary variables and inclusion as additional variables does not change the relationship between the variables nor add any additional variation or correlation in the dataset. Rather, having individual variables, PCA can determine which of the particular religion variables can differentiate between households.
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Theoretically, measures of household wealth can be reflected by income, consumption or expenditure information. However, the collection of accurate income and consumption data requires extensive resources for household surveys. Given the increasingly routine application of principal components analysis (PCA) using asset data in creating socio-economic status (SES) indices, we review how PCA-based indices are constructed, how they can be used, and their validity and limitations. Specifically, issues related to choice of variables, data preparation and problems such as data clustering are addressed. Interpretation of results and methods of classifying households into SES groups are also discussed. PCA has been validated as a method to describe SES differentiation within a population. Issues related to the underlying data will affect PCA and this should be considered when generating and interpreting results.


Key Words: socio-economic status, principal components analysis, cluster analysis, methodology
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

COMING OUT OF SHELL

“Knowledge
Will Be The Currency of Management”. I found this line said by Mr.Sudhir Jalan, President AIMA the best one to start writing my experience about 33rd Nation Management Convention 6&7 Oct.2006, conducted by All India Management Association. The theme of this convention is “Managing the Future”.
Now we are on that stage where we cannot say “key Sara Sara (whatever will be will be)”, we have to manage our future because now we are capable to do that. After some other welcome address including the Convention theme address by Mr. Shiv Nadar, Convention Chairman and CEO, HCL Tech. (a man with courtesy and a kind of aura of a true visionary). Mr. Mark B. Fuller, Chairman, Monitor Group, U.S.A., in his keynote address point out the problem of tendency to trap in present and according to him unexpected changes in environment is the result of this tendency. We Can manage the future by collaboration of Public and Private sector because India have spiritual infrastructure too and that makes India different (a statement under impression of Indian spiritual heritage).
Then all the attendees cheered by the speech given by Shri Kamal Nath, Honorable Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, Government of India.
He said “We are operating within the rule of law. We are operation with institutions. Many times people take about the politics of India. I tell them we had six governments in 15 years, five prime ministers, one direction, one economic policy and eight percent growth. That is India’s Brand.”
Speech seems like a typical political speech but in a ration & Pragmatic way. Indeed that was an inspirational speech. Followed by Shri Kamal Nath the first session of presentation and speeches has begun with the theme of “Management of Next Decade”. The first speaker was Dr. Krishnamurthy with a heavy profile. He has been the chairman of IIM-Bangalore and Ahemedabad, IIT-Delhi, member of planning commission in the year 1991-92 He has been conferred with “Padam Shri” in 1973 and “Padam Bhushan” in 1986 and the list is endless. Followed by Dr.Krishnamurthy, Mr. Peter Schwartz, Chairman GBN Group, U.S.A. talked about rise of India & China and the Importance of R&D (Research and Development) in the coming scenario. Then Dr. Hong Chen, Chairman CEO, The Hina Group Inc., ended this session with these significant lines “If You are not Economically Strong then You are not Able to Hear Your voice in Global Stage. What a true point!
In second session Dr. R.A. Mahelkar started his speech with the topic of “The Talent Imperatives”. Then Dr. Santrupt Misa, Director-HR Adity Birla management Corp. Ltd, who got the position amongst 20 hottest Young Executives in the year 2002, said this line that is “The future has this tendency to become present”, what a deep meaning! He said that India with 311 University is the hub of knowledge, all we need to do is to convert our population in talent. In the next session (that was personally my favorite) the three charismatic personalities Mr. R Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director Tata Sons LTD., Mr. B.N. Kalyani, CMD Bharat Forge LTD., the man with a endless list of awards like CEO of the year 2004 by Business Standard, Global Entrepreneur of the year 2006 by JMCCI and member of many influent Organization of the world like CBC(London) , World Economic Forum and Mr. Deepak Pure, M.D. Moser Bear India ltd.( the man behind the Branded C.D. that we all use because of its quality). In the leadership of this strong entrepreneurial skilled man, Moser Bear has won Dataquest Top 20 ‘Fastest Growth Company’ award for the two consecutive years.
Mr. Kalyani talked about his 200 cost cutting projects in a same time, impotence of white collar work force (the workforce of young college just passed out guys), about telemarketing, Brand marketing, Customer marketing and standard Marketing as the theme of the session was “Winning in the Era of ‘Total Competence’ ”. For the first time I saw such a good rapport between speakers on the stage of any convention. It was totally a spell-bounded session of the whole convention, the way they deliver there speech, how they cote each other words in there speeches that was simply great. That was indeed knowledgeable in terms of public speaking too. Then the first formal day was over and informal evening had started as we all ready to enjoy on dinner at Hotel TAJ Palace. This is the best part of this convention because we the Student of NIMS capture the stage by our dancing skill. First of all we started dancing on the dance flour. I think under the effect of good vibes of not only what we heard but felt too that day makes us so confident so that we could dance there.
That day we felt that the world is ready to embraces ourselves (The future managers), out knowledge which we will have. That day I realize the importance of ‘taking Initiative’ because Mr. Sudhir Jalan told to me on that unforgettable day that you the young people, today’s world is yours world and they salute if you take the initiative with innovate ideas, creativity, knowledge. What a true words!
The very next day we came across some other great minds like Mr. Raj Reddy, Professor of Computer Science and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, U.S.A., Dr. C Kumar N Patel, Chairman & CEO Pranalytic Inc., and Member of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery. Dr. V.S. Arunachalam, Chairman Centre for Study of Science Technology & Policy(CSTEP)and foreign fellow of the Loyal Academy of Engineering(U.K.). Dr. G. Padmanabhan, the great scientist, recipient of ‘Padmashree’ and ‘Padma Bhushan’ award. They talked about “Transforming Technologies for the Future”. Dr. Patel talked about the developing technology by which we will be able to detect the disease by testing of patient’s breath. Dr. Arunachalam shows us a glimpse of 2050 where there are only three largest and strongest economies of INDIA, CHINA and U.S.A. He said that we must find the possibilities in the field of Hydro Power, Solar Power, Ethanol, and wind and Tidal power to become to cut down the dependency independent. The other person by which I am impressed was Dr. Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormick Tribune Professor of technology and Chairman, Technology & Innovation and Industry Management Program at Kellogg School of Management. On his turn he just came to the centre of the stage and started his speech with out any PowerPoint presentation with his clear concept about Branding, how important is Brand for a company and effect of a Brand image on consumers mind. He made audience understood about such a serious concept with a little bit of humor in his speech. Such an impressive speech that was! Mr. Rajive Kaul, Chairman NICCO Groups talked about Indian Brands.
Mr. Douglas Billie, CEO Hindustan Lever Ltd., Mr.Gunender Kapur, CEO Reliance Retail-food and Mr. Arvind Singhal, Chairman Tecnopak Advisior Pvt Ltd. spoke about the possibilities in the Retailing industry in the coming era. And we should thanks to the technology of TELE-conferencing so that we could able to hear the words of the India Pride Mr. L. N. Mittal, no need to say anything about the Profile of this Steel King. And the last session is very morel boosting for us as we saw the Presentation of winners of the 32nd Nation Management Competition in Students and Managers categories. Really this Convention helps us to come out from the thoughts and perception of ourselves. Because of this Convention i am able to think about giving presentation in IIM-Ahmedabad. And now our abstract is selected and i am going to IIM-A for presentation. Really it is like coming out of shell of thinking.
 
Last edited:
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

tipy_shell2.jpg



aaja yaar ...........................
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Gender and Violence in Schools

A. The Manifestation of Gender-based Violence in Schools

1. Introduction
This analytical review will consider the evidence of gender-based violence in schools in developing countries and summarise the measures taken to address them. A central problem in identifying the nature and scope of the review is the fact that many forms and incidents of gender violence in schools are not reported as such. Most often, gender violence is not considered differently from other forms of school violence. Identification of gender-based violence in schools as a barrier to increased educational participation, in particular of girls, in the poorer countries of the world, is recent and our understanding of its causes and consequences is not well developed. As a result, the appropriate gender-sensitive framework required to observe and to intervene does not exist, so that these least desirable aspects of school life are either left unreported or unrecognised as gender violence. There is no doubt, however, that this is not an isolated phenomenon, as studies directed at investigating a range of problems in education in developing countries such as underachievement, high pupil drop-out, poor quality of teaching and low levels of teacher professionalism, hint at its presence in schools. There is therefore a need to explore and categorise its manifestations within an explicit gender framework and to examine its impact on the school experience and student learning. Without this, it will be impossible to identify effective system-wide strategies to address it.

Cases of gender-based violence in schools may be categorised and reported differently and without reference to gender, e.g. unregulated and excessive corporal punishment, bullying and physical assault (sometimes with guns or knives) should be included alongside sexual harassment, sexual abuse and rape because they are also manifestations of gender violence. Using a gender-sensitive frame of reference, gender-based violence can be broadly clustered into two overlapping categories: explicit gender (sexual) violence, which includes sexual harassment, intimidation, abuse, assault and rape, and implicit gender violence, which includes corporal punishment, bullying, verbal and psychological abuse, teachers’ unofficial use of pupils for free labour and other forms of aggressive or unauthorised behaviour that is gender specific. These latter are categorised as ‘implicit’ because they are forms of violence which are physical, verbal or psychological in nature but have a gender dimension; in the case of verbal abuse, this may be overtly sexual, e.g. abusive language that seeks to humiliate females, or it may have little sexual content. All these forms of gender violence may be perpetrated by students on other students, by teachers on students, and by students (usually male) on teachers (usually female). Importantly, these forms of gender violence are understood and reported predominantly within a framework of heterosexual gender relations. Both explicit and implicit forms will be covered in detail in later sections of this review.

In order to understand gender violence in schools, it is also important to locate its analysis within the context of the school’s culture, its structures and processes. This will allow for an appropriate level of understanding of the causes and consequences of this phenomenon and subsequently the ability to intervene at the level of the system. What follows then is a summary of the relationship between gender relations and gender violence in schools, followed by an overview of the evidence of school-based gender violence in developing countries and the extent to which it is being addressed.

2. Gender relations and gender violence in schools
International efforts to increase participation in schools, especially for girls, and to improve the quality of the school experience have tended to assume that the institution of the school is universally benign or at least ‘neutral’. Recent research, however, shows this not to be the case. A number of studies have investigated not only formal aspects of the school which have impacted on access and participation, for example the curriculum, examinations and teaching quality, but also and more significantly, the informal school environment and the part that this plays in perpetuating gender differentiation in education. Some examples of the latter are: Gordon (1995), Maimbolwa-Sinyangwe and Chilangwa (1995), Kutnick et al. (1997), Miske and Van Belle-Prouty (1997), Sey (1997), Swainson et al. (1998). Such insights enhance our understanding of the daily life experiences of children in schools and their impact on outcomes. Understanding this dynamic and complex school context will have a direct bearing on the extent to which the incidence of gender violence can be reduced through appropriate intervention strategies.

The school as a social arena is marked by asymmetrical power relations that are enacted not only through gender but also through age and authority; additional social indicators may be ethnicity, disability and language. All are fundamental to school experiences and the quality of school life. Within the institutional culture of the school, there are norms of interaction and explicit and implicit rules and codes that guide behaviour which are re-enacted and re-enforced in the everyday life of the school. Within school the ‘gender regime’ is constructed through everyday, ‘taken for granted’ routine practices. For example, in many schools girls are predominantly responsible for cleaning and boys for digging the school grounds; in the classroom girls may sit at the front of the class and boys at the back (where it is easier to misbehave). The gender boundaries within the institution thus help to construct and reinforce feminine and masculine identities within the school. Gender identities are not given or accomplished passively but are constantly performed over time through individual and collective acts of resistance and accommodation (Butler, 1990). Examples of resistance might include boys’ refusal to carry out duties that involve sweeping or washing in school, which they see as the girls’ preserve, and their insistence on playing sport during breaks.

The gender regime is critical to students as they ‘come of age’ through rites of passage to adulthood. Gender-specific routine behaviour contributes to the production and regulation of sexual identity and forms of femininity and masculinity (Mac an Ghaill, 1994). Transgressions across the boundaries of accepted gender behaviour are discouraged through peer pressure, and in some cases through violence, e.g. physical assault, intimidation, verbal abuse, deprivation (of access to resources, space etc.) and ostracism. Among students, violence is perpetrated more often by boys and on both girls and other boys, for example on boys who do not conform to dominant norms of masculinity or on girls who are not sufficiently modest and retiring in their ‘feminine’ demeanour. Both girls and boys play a part in ‘policing’ the boundaries of gender relations and punishing transgression. These boundaries are determined by the norm of compulsory heterosexuality, which the school as an institution actively promotes (Mirembe and Davies, 2001).

The age/authority relations between teacher and student are a fundamental structure of schooling that interacts with the gender regime. The institution of the school officially condones teachers’ regulation and control of appropriate student behaviour through, for example, the allocation of rewards and sanctions, the distribution of their time and attention in class, and corporal punishment. In this way, by using their age/authority power position, teachers ‘normalise’ certain aspects of male and female behaviour. For example, fighting between boys or their intimidation of girls may be dismissed by teachers as unimportant or as ‘teasing’, using expressions like ‘boys will be boys’, rather than being addressed in any serious and systematic way. Similarly, the teachers’ use of violence as a form of student discipline is also gendered in that corporal punishment is used differentially by female and male teachers; it is also received differentially by female and male students (Dunne and Leach, 2001; Dunne, Leach et al., 2003). Significantly, it is often used in contravention of official rules or national policy directives.

Given the structured asymmetrical power relations of schooling, the excessive use of disciplinary sanctions can lead to abuse by those in positions of authority (teachers and head teachers, also school prefects and monitors) and by those who are able to exercise control through other means, for example physical strength or economic advantage (e.g. male pupils over female pupils or younger male pupils). In many cases, the gender violence engaged in within schools is sexual abuse. Aggressive and intimidating behaviour, unsolicited physical contact such as touching and groping, assault, coercive sex and rape all constitute abuse , as does any sexual relationship formed by a teacher with a pupil. In most contexts the latter is a disciplinary offence according to the conditions of teachers’ employment and/or a criminal offence where the sex act involves a minor. Such teachers, and others working in a professional capacity with children (hostel wardens, social workers etc.) are exploiting their position of authority and failing in their duty of care. Sexual abuse is also perpetrated outside the school by adult men (sometimes called ‘sugar daddies’) who engage in transactional sex (sex in exchange for gifts or money) with children under the age of consent (16 in most countries, 14 in some). Particularly important is the fact that the adult, whether sugar daddy or teacher, may be misleading the schoolchild (e.g. making promises of marriage or expensive gifts) in their efforts to tempt her/him into a sexual relationship. These forms of abuse need to be examined in the context of heightened concerns surrounding HIV infection rates among adolescents, in particular girls, who are the most vulnerable to infection. Latest estimates (UNAIDS, 2002) indicate approximately 29.4 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS, of whom 58% are women (aged between 15 and 49) and 10 million are young people. In the worst infected countries, girls are five to six times more likely to be HIV positive than boys of the same age (www.panos.org.uk). Much of the evidence of gender violence in schools comes from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) due the international attention given to HIV/AIDS in this region, where infection rates are by far the highest in the world.

This notwithstanding, it is important to remember that gender-based violence in schools is not just a developing country problem, nor purely an African problem. The work of agencies such as Zero Tolerance in the UK (www.zerotolerance.org.uk) and the AAUW (whose 2001 report Hostile Hallways documents sexual violence in US high schools) and studies such as Homel’s (1999) review of the literature in Australia show that this is clearly not the case. It is, however, true that its incidence is likely to be highest in contexts with limited development of civic institutions, civil disorder and civil or political conflict, where drugs and arms trafficking is commonplace, or where heavily asymmetrical gender relations are culturally prescribed and gender-based violence is considered ‘normal’. Where law and order has broken down, behaviour in school is likely to reflect this, with young people being routinely exposed to violence and coming to accept it as an inevitable part of their daily lives.

Within the traditional hierarchical power structures of schooling, gender-based violence is a principal means of control and regulation, used by both teachers and students in many forms. It is integral to schools as institutions, which presents serious challenges not only to the task of its elimination but also to achieving gender equity in schooling. It has implications for the quality of the school experience and the participation and performance of both boys and girls, all of which act to sustain the gender gap (Dunne, Leach et al., 2003). An exploration of gender violence in schools also needs to take into account the fact that the violence may stem from discriminatory behaviour on the grounds of ethnicity, religion, age or disability as well as of gender. However, it is beyond the scope of this review to include all forms of violence in school. Thus, for the current purpose, we have focussed on gender violence which includes ‘explicit’ forms of violence such as sexual violence and sexual abuse and ‘implicit’ forms such as corporal punishment, verbal abuse and bullying.

3. The nature of gender violence in schools
The few studies of gender violence in schools that exist come almost exclusively from sub-Saharan Africa. Rather than indicating that it is most prevalent in African countries, the studies are likely to be the result of a concentration of donor and lending programmes in this region, where efforts at poverty alleviation through improved health, education, governance etc. are present on a large scale, and where there are very high rates of HIV/AIDS infection.

3.1. Explicit (sexual) violence
Studies from sub-Saharan Africa have focused almost exclusively on heterosexual relations and violence against girls and have not investigated the incidence of violence against boys or against teachers. They have also addressed primarily the sexual abuse of female pupils by male teachers and male pupils . For example, Leach and Machakanja (2000) and Leach et al. (2003) examined the abuse of junior secondary school girls by older boys, teachers and ‘sugar daddies’ in Zimbabwe, Ghana and Malawi and found that there was a high level of sexual aggression from boys, which went largely unpunished in the schools, and some cases of teachers propositioning girls for sex. This behaviour was largely tolerated and ‘normalised’. All three educational systems were characterised by a reluctance to take action against either teachers or pupils. Teachers downplayed or dismissed the suggestion that some teachers had sex with their pupils, although both male and female pupils talked about teachers offering to give girls high grades or gifts in exchange for sex. At the same time, there was reluctance among girls to report incidents for fear of being blamed for having ‘invited’ the abuse, being ridiculed or victimised (e.g. a male teacher singling a girl out for beating in class because she turned him down, or threatening to fail her in tests and exams).

Omale (1999) reported similar behaviour in schools and higher education institutions in Kenya, including incidents of rape on the way home from school, teachers found guilty of sex with primary pupils and in some cases impregnating them. She reminds us of the infamous St Kizito incident in 1991, in which boys went on the rampage through the girls’ dormitories in the school, killing 19 girls and raping 71 others. Hallam (1994) has also reported sexual harassment in the SSA region. It is important to note, however, that sexual violence in schools is not a new phenomenon. Niehaus (2000) documents the history of masculine sexuality as a political issue during the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and shows that sexual liaisons between male teachers and schoolgirls were commonplace in the 1950s and continue today. Much supplementary evidence of sexual abuse comes from media coverage in a range of countries. The recent furore over sexual abuse by UN workers in refugee camps has further highlighted the issue.

Other studies from sub-Saharan Africa and other regions of the world have uncovered explicit gender-based violence in schools as part of more general research into girls’ education. It is interesting to note how the issue of sexual violence is raised: Brenner (1998) talks of ‘girls trying to get too close to male teachers’; Anderson-Levitt et al. (1998) mention ‘a tiny minority’ of male teachers pressurising girls for sexual favours and of boys ‘teasing’ girls who have rejected their sexual advances. The issue is dealt with largely as an ‘aside’ which is barely worthy of comment and the terms chosen to describe it appear to be an attempt to downplay its seriousness or suggest that the authors are too embarrassed to mention it. It is also of note that many studies of girls’ education provide evidence of high levels of pregnancy and drop-out among girls but very few make the link with sexual harassment and coercive or transactional sex.

Some of the most interesting studies of adolescent violence are located outside the school setting within discussions of adolescent sexuality. For example, Wood and Jewkes’ (1998) study of violence in heterosexual relationships among pupils in a South African township found that physical assault, rape, and coercive sex had become the norm, making it very difficult for young women to protect themselves against unwanted sexual intercourse, pregnancy, HIV infection, and other sexually transmitted diseases. Masculine prowess was largely defined by numbers of sexual partners or claimed conquests, choice of main partner, and ability to control girlfriends. As a result, multiple sexual partners featured in intensely competitive struggles for position and status within the male peer groups. The boys clearly saw sex as their right and so forced sex was legitimate. Girls found it difficult to escape from violent relationships because of the status attached to being in a relationship and fear of reprisals. At the same time, in accepting this subordinate relationship girls were showing themselves to be complicit in the construction of their own unequal gender relations. Mensch et al. (1999), in a study of pre-marital sex in Kenya, cite a report where one third of 10,000 girls reported that they were sexually active, of whom 40% said that their first sexual encounter was forced. CIET, a South African NGO running a community project in Johannesburg, found that one in four adolescent men in a sample of 30,000 male and female youth claimed to have had sex without a girl’s consent before the age of 18 (Dreyer, 2001). The WHO World Report on Violence and Health (2002), referring to studies in parts of Nicaragua, Peru, Indonesia, Tanzania, South Africa, Mexico, Zimbabwe and the UK, suggests that ‘up to one-third of adolescent girls report forced sexual initiation’ (p.18).

Other studies on HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa (e.g. Bennell et al., 2002, on Botswana, Malawi and Uganda; Mirembe and Davies, 2001, on Uganda) have similar findings which expose adolescent sexual violence in schools (see also special issues of the South African journals Agenda, 53, 2002 and Perspectives in Education, 20,2, 2002). Clearly in this context, there is an important contradiction between the school as a location for high risk sexual practice and the school as an effective forum for teaching about and encouraging safe sex.

Beyond sub-Saharan Africa, the evidence of sexual violence is very sketchy. Save the Children in Nepal has worked with girls who reported being harassed by boys at school and subject to inappropriate touching by male teachers (including on the buttocks and breasts) and undoing of girls’ brassieres (Save the Children Fund, n.d.). Fox (1997) found that female students in Papua New Guinea fear sexual assault and violence in schools and in society generally, and feel threatened by male teachers’ sexual advances and by unemployed youths on their way home from school. Evidence that teachers are not just the perpetrators of violence but also its victims comes from a USAID (1999) report of girls’ access to primary school in rural areas of North West Pakistan, where female teachers are frequently threatened or assaulted in the villages where they work and are frightened to leave the school. Some teachers were under pressure to marry local men who seek financial gain from the teacher’s salary.

3.2 Implicit gender violence
There is a wide range of implicit violence in schools which is perpetrated by teachers and students. Bendera, Maro and Mboya (1998) looked at gender and violence in selected primary schools in six areas of Tanzania, which included insults and verbal abuse, stealing money, food and stationery. Bunwaree (1999) found high levels of verbal abuse in schools in Mauritius; this was also found by Leach and Machakanja (2000) in Zimbabwe and was particularly prevalent among female teachers, who often preferred to use it rather than corporal punishment. Brenner (1998) studied gender differences in classroom interaction in Liberia and Anderson-Levitt et al. (1998) examined factors affecting girls’ participation in schooling in Guinea. Some studies have uncovered gender violence while investigating underachievement, e.g. Gordon (1995) in Zimbabwe, Dunne, Leach et al. (2003) in Botswana and Ghana. Terefe and Mengistu (1997) look at violence in secondary schools in Ethiopia, and Human Rights Watch (2001) in South Africa. With the exception of the latter, they are all small scale studies.

Corporal punishment is the most widely reported form of implicit gender violence in schools and there are numerous studies and reports documenting its abuse worldwide. There is evidence of very widespread use of corporal punishment in many of the above reports. This is reported against girls even where it is banned e.g. in Zimbabwe (Leach and Machakanja, 2000) and there are cases where teachers get students to give corporal punishment to other students (Anderson-Levitt et al., 1998). Beyond sub-Saharan Africa, reports of violence in schools exhibit only slight, if any, consideration of gender in the analysis and are largely interpreted within gender-blind frameworks of school discipline and security (e.g. Ohsako, 1997), or of human or children’s rights. A UNICEF overview of school corporal punishment in seven countries in South Asia (2001) found examples of excessive forms of corporal punishment such as tweaking ears and slapping, and in Bangladesh and in Pakistan there were reports of children being put in chains and fetters. A 1998 government report in India cited in the UNICEF document cited above noted that physical and verbal abuse was often directed at lower caste pupils by higher caste teachers.

The nexus of gender, age/authority relations (which is often further complicated by caste, socio-economic status, ethnicity etc. depending on the location and the circumstances) is crucial to an understanding of the gendered nature of corporal punishment. A report by Kuleana (1999) (a children’s rights organisation) investigating corporal punishment in seven schools in Tanzania offers some clues. The beating of girls was rationalised by a few of the girls and women interviewed as being part of their socialisation into becoming respectful and obedient wives and mothers. Conversely, the harsh beating of male students by male teachers could be viewed both as performance of domination by an adult male in authority over a juvenile male in an inferior position, and as a juvenile male’s initiation into adulthood. This latter interpretation is underscored by comments by (male) teachers and head teachers that corporal punishment can be used to ‘toughen’ them (UNICEF, 2001).

It is precisely this ‘coming-of-age’ that makes some older boys contest a teacher’s authority (Kuleana, 1999), particularly a female teacher’s, as gender takes precedence over authority (Mirembe and Davies, 2001; Dunne, Leach et al., 2003). Such performances of masculinity are also evident in relations between students where the boys subject the girls to a range of physical and other forms of implicit violence. In parts of Africa, prefects too are often encouraged to enforce discipline in the absence of the teacher and to beat other students (Kuleana, 1999; Bendera et al., 1998). Peer violence, especially through authority and gender relations, is condoned and discipline thus blurs with bullying. This is associated largely with student interactions, including male on female as well as older male student on boys in the lower classes. The absence of evidence of girl on girl violence presents girls as innocent victims, although they may in fact be complicit in such acts. Bullying takes a variety of forms including verbal and physical violence. Examples include the appropriation of space and resources in the classroom and school compound, the use of teacher time, boys shouting down girls trying to answer teacher questions and public ridicule. In Latin America bullying is manifest in extreme forms of violence e.g. gun culture and male gang conflict.

4. The scale of gender violence in schools

4.1 Explicit gender violence
As regards the scale of gender violence in schools and whether it is endemic in educational systems across the developing world is difficult to answer, given that this is largely uncharted territory. The Akiba et al. (2002) study of school violence in 37 mostly industrialised nations found that it is widely prevalent, while the six case studies provided by Ohsako (1997) (all but one in the developing country category) reported sharp increases to what were in some cases already very high rates. However, there are no surveys that specifically examine gender violence in schools. Most countries gather statistics on sexual assault and rape of children but their published statistics do not identify whether the victims are school children, nor where the rape took place. However, domestic violence, mostly against women and children, is well documented in most societies, as is sexual violence in situations of civil conflict (where rape is a common form of retribution) and in many social institutions, including religious organisations, children’s homes, prisons, the military and refugee camps. Region-specific forms of violence such as dowry deaths and acid attacks in South Asia and jackrolling (ritualised kidnapping and gang rape) in South Africa may implicate women as well as men. Given the school’s role in the production and reproduction of forms of social relations and social control, it would be surprising therefore if gender violence was not endemic across the education sector in all countries, but in more overt and aggravated forms in certain schools and locations. As schools are not immune from social forces in the outside world, it would not be surprising that increased poverty and unemployment, family disintegration, migration, AIDS, divorce etc. contribute to increased violence in schools.

Most of the statistical evidence on sexual violence against schoolchildren comes from sub-Saharan Africa. For example, the Kenya Gender Series briefing book on violence and abuse against women, men and children documents physical and sexual abuse throughout the life cycle and in all locations (Population Communication Africa, 2002). According to Terefe and Mengistu in Ohsako (1997), 20% of the 240 violent incidents reported in schools in and around Addis Ababa in 1996 were of attempted rape.

South African society is well known to have very high levels of violence, including rape. The Human Rights Watch report (2001) entitled Scared at School has a wealth of statistics on rape but does not provide school specific data. It cites one research study which states that from 1996 to 1998, girls aged 17 and under constituted approximately 40% of reported rape and attempted rape victims nationally. The South African Police Service in 1998 reported that rape accounted for one third of all serious offences against children and another police report stated that girls aged 12-17 constituted the highest ratio of rape cases per 100,000 with 472 cases per 100,000 nationally (in Western Cape this was nearly 900 per 100,000). It also noted that young children are increasingly perpetrators of sexual violence. A recent article in the UK medical journal The Lancet by Jewkes, Levin, Mbananga and Bradshaw (2002) reported on a 1998 study of the frequency of rape among a nationally representative sample of 11,735 South African women aged 15-49: this found that, of the 159 women who had been the victims of child rape (under the age of 15), 33% had been raped by teachers. Young girls are increasingly targeted in locations where HIV/AIDS prevalence is high because they are seen to be free of the AIDS virus; the myth that sex with a virgin cures AIDS has led to the rape of very young infants.

Shumba (2001) analysed reported incidents of child abuse by teachers in Zimbabwe, covering sexual, physical and emotional abuse. On the basis of 246 reported cases of abuse by teachers in secondary schools between 1990 and 1997, 65.6% were cases of sexual intercourse with pupils, 1.9% cases of rape or attempted rape and the remainder were cases of inappropriate teacher conduct (writing love letters, fondling, kissing and showing pornographic material to pupils). A Ghana survey of violence against women and adolescent girls reported that 49% of the 481 adolescent girls surveyed had been touched against their will at some time in their lives, 12 % of the offenders being pupils and 2% teachers; 4% of sexual assaults on adolescent girls were by fellow pupils and 2% by teachers (Appiah and Cusack, 1999: 69).

In Latin America, the World Bank country study of Ecuador (2000) reports that 22 per cent of adolescent girls were victims of sexual abuse in an educational setting. Salas in Ohsako (1997) reports high levels of sexual abuse in the Latin American countries covered by the report (Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru) but not within the school context. However, since reports on domestic violence in the region point to a high percentage of sexual abuse and rape of women by men, it would not be unreasonable to presume that it is also an issue in schools, which has yet to be researched. The school violence that is reported in Latin America is largely seen as political violence or related to gangs and drug trafficking, not as gender violence.

There are indications that boys too are victims of sexual abuse in schools. A UN study (2001) on sexual abuse and exploitation of children and young people in Pakistan reported boys being sexually abused by teachers; the predominance of single sex schooling would suggest that the perpetrators were male, although it is not stated. Also in Pakistan, a USAID (1999) evaluation of a programme to improve girls’ access to primary schools in rural areas in the North West of the country reported that some boys are enrolled in girls’ schools because families believe that female teachers are ‘less likely to be sexually abusive or violent’ (p. 13). In a large nationwide survey on peer sexual harassment in Jewish and Arab state schools in Israel (Zeira et al., 2002), interestingly, boys reported much higher levels of sexual harassment (between 21 and 50.5%) than girls (between 11.4 and 35.7%). Sexual assault and rape were not included in the survey; nor were respondents asked to identify the sex of the perpetrator. Reports of the coercion of boys or young men into sex by older women have also been reported in the wider society (WHO, 2002) so it is possible that such abuse also occurs in schools.

Another un- or under-reported area of school gender-based violence is that which is directed at gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and transgender pupils, particularly since the existence of people outside the heterosexual ‘norm’ is denied or criminalised in many countries. However, a recent report by Human Rights Watch and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (HRW & IGLHRC 2003, pp. 107-109) investigating such rights violations in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa highlights its prevalence in schools in all these countries. Gay pupils interviewed frequently experienced physical or verbal abuse or harassment from peers, teachers and, on occasions, even from head teachers. In Namibia, nearly all gay and lesbian interviewees had experienced some form of gender-based discrimination. While gay pupils feared physical or verbal harassment more, lesbian pupils feared sexual violence. As one lesbian pupil explained, there is a popular myth that rape by a man will make a lesbian ‘straight’. The Director of Sister Namibia, a women’s rights NGO, reported that most black lesbians she knew had dropped out of school. In Uganda there have been cases of gay/lesbian students being expelled from school on account of their sexual orientation (Mirembe and Davies, 2001).

In their study of a Ugandan boarding school, Mirembe and Davies (2001) note that not only are homosexuals ostracised, but the term ‘homosexual’ is also used as a term of abuse for boys who refuse to or do not have girlfriends. Morrell (1998) recounts similar behaviour in South Africa.

As with heterosexual gender violence, this is neither an exclusively African nor a developing world phenomenon (see HRW 2002b for similar reports from the US, UK, France, Australia and New Zealand) In Brazil, high rates of gender-based violence, including murder, have been recorded against lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people in society more generally (www.ilga.org) while similar press coverage on attacks reported in other countries in Latin America and Asia point to a worldwide societal phenomenon. This is likely to be as much an issue in school as it is out of school and is an area of gender-based violence which needs to be further researched and addressed.

4.2 Implicit gender violence
Corporal punishment is the most widely reported form of implicit gender violence in schools and there are numerous studies and reports documenting its abuse worldwide. Although difficult to assess the scale, many qualitative studies indicate the institutionalisation of implicit forms of gender violence in schools. The widespread incorporation into formal and informal aspects of daily life in schools normalises violent gender and age relations. The few studies that have been carried out suggest that much gender violence in schools is unreported or under-reported; students fear victimisation, punishment or ridicule (HRW, 2001; Leach et al., 2003). Moreover, girls might not report some incidents of abuse because they have been ‘normalised’ to the extent that they don’t recognise them as violations and the laissez-faire attitude of teachers around the ‘natural‘ inter-relations between boys and girls results in their non-intervention in incidents of implicit gender violence, usually against girls (Humphreys, 2003).

Similarly, violence perpetrated against young female teachers by male teachers, and also by (older) male pupils goes unreported. The study by Dunne, Leach et al. (2003) and also a report on retention of female teachers in rural areas of Ghana by Casely Hayford (2001) suggest that these might not be isolated cases. Dunne, Leach et al.’s study also shows that boys often refuse to be punished by female teachers. Their analysis suggests that the boys’ performances of masculinity attempt to subordinate female teachers according to the gender order in school and society and thus challenge the female teachers’ authority position in the school hierarchy. In some cases this gender hierarchy is reinforced by the female teachers using their male colleagues to administer corporal punishment on their behalf.

There have also been several quantitative studies on the issue, for example in Malaysia (Ahmad & Salleh, 1997), in Korea and China (Kim et al., 2000) and in Israel (Benbenishty et al., 2002), but these reports do not give gender-disaggregated data, nor is there any exploration of the gender-differentiated dynamics of the teachers and the pupils involved.

Even in countries which have abolished corporal punishment in schools, it is widely practised, e.g. in China (Kim et al., 2000) and in Pakistan (UNICEF, 2001). In other countries where corporal punishment is permitted, it is usually specified that it should be administered as a last resort and according to strict guidelines. These regulations, however, are frequently contravened as pupils are reportedly kicked, punched, slapped or hit with instruments other than the official cane (Tafa, 2002; HRW, 2002b). In The Human Rights Watch (1999) investigation into corporal punishment in 20 schools in Kenya, only one school was found to be applying corporal punishment according to the regulations. The numerous reports of violations of corporal punishment regulations in Africa (Youssef et al., 1998; HRW, 1999; Chianu, 2000; Tafa, 2002) are supplemented by evidence of its widespread use and abuse by teachers in Asia (UNICEF, 2001).

Other forms of physical punishment include being forced to ‘frog jump,’ a practice banned on women even in military camps in Tanzania and yet practised in schools (Kuleana, 1999), or ‘murgha banana’, a punishment reported in North West Pakistan where the child is made to squat down, buttocks raised ready to be beaten while holding on to their ears with their hands. (NGOs’ Coalition on Children’s Rights, 2001).

The Kenya Gender Series briefing books report high levels of physical violence; 65% of ‘out of home’ physical abuse takes place at school and is perpetrated by peers and teachers (Population Communication Africa, 2002). In a survey of eight junior and senior secondary schools in Ethiopia, 72% of student respondents said that girls were the main victims of school violence (Terefe and Mengistu, 1997). Evidence from the previous section strongly supports this finding in terms of explicit gender violence and this is also likely to be the case for implicit forms of gender violence, especially bullying by peers. The majority of studies, however, indicate that boys experience more frequent and harsher forms of corporal punishment from teachers (Youssef et al., 1998; Lloyd et al., 2001; Benbenishty et al., 2002). Occasionally, these have resulted in serious injury, loss of consciousness, hospitalisation, permanent disability or even death (HRW, 1999; Kuleana, 1999; Chianu, 2000).

Boys are also more likely to be involved in public acts of implicit gender violence in the school and classroom. In South America, the dominant male culture in the region is ‘machismo’, which is significant in the construction and performance of a form of hyper-masculinity (Welsh, 2001). Widespread male on male violence contributes to the highest regional murder rate which is usually associated with extreme poverty, unemployment, crowded living conditions (Rogers, 1999) and drug related crime. Often violence from gang members outside the school moves into schools, as students and teachers are subjected to explicit and extreme forms of bullying through threats of, and actual physical violence (Guimarães, 1996; Webb, 1999). In some cases schools are controlled by local gangs who simultaneously offer protection from rival gangs. Similarly, intrusions from the wider society occur in school in contexts of civil conflict e.g. abduction of students from schools in Congo (HRW, 2002) and the burning of girls’ schools in Afghanistan (UN Commission on the Status of Women, 2003). Again in these studies, there is limited attention to the gendered dimensions of this violence.

5. Impact of gender violence in schools
It is only through the above named studies that we can assess the impact of gender violence in schools. They suggest that gender violence is an important cause of poor performance and drop-out, although it is difficult to establish cause and effect. The study by Dunne, Leach et al. (2003) on the impact of gendered experiences on retention and achievement found that gender violence in the form of sexual intimidation, verbal abuse and physical assault was a significant contributor to irregular attendance and underachievement of girls. Pregnancy (which in some cases may be the result of sexual abuse) has been identified in other studies also, along with early marriage, as a major reason for girls’ drop-out. Schoolgirls who became pregnant rarely returned to school. Boys developed strategies to avoid excessive corporal punishment, of which truancy was the most common; this also led to permanent drop-out in some cases.

The same study shows how the manipulation of gendered space by boys both inside and outside the classroom constrained girls’ participation in lessons while boys themselves are distracted by the need to confirm their masculinity through performances of disrupting the lesson, demanding the teacher’s attention and distraction (boys sitting at the back of the class and gossiping and eating snacks). Other studies report that boys resent girls being ‘favoured’ by male teachers (Brenner, 1998; UNICEF, 2002) and that seeing male teachers proposition female students encourages them to behave likewise (Leach and Machakanja, 2000); this may, in turn, contribute to further bullying and sexual harassment. So, for both girls and boys, the gender relations that are played out in the school serve to reduce academic performance.

A number of the above studies also show that teachers’ widespread use of verbal abuse (especially by female teachers who resort to verbal abuse rather than corporal punishment) generates low self-esteem and is found by many pupils to be more hurtful than corporal punishment. Loss of self-esteem may also stem from teachers’ low opinion of either male or female students, e.g. in Zimbabwe, Gordon’s (1995) study found that some teachers viewed girls as less able academically, as lazy and as lacking in concentration; they were said to ‘only think about boys’. The HRW Scared at School (2001) study reports the consequences of gender violence on girls in South Africa as including disrupted education (absenteeism, changing schools, drop-out), ridicule by classmates (especially taunting by boys), diminished school performance through trauma, emotional or behavioural disorder, and risk to health.

B. Measures to Address Gender based Violence in Schools

As has already been stated, studies specifically about gender-based violence in schools have only been carried out in a very small number of countries in the developing world, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently, measures to tackle the problem are equally sparse and concentrated in the same countries, in particular where the issue has received most publicity, and donor funding has been made available . Because the existence of widespread gender-based violence in schools is not fully recognised, or is classified as, for example, bullying, lack of discipline, youth crime and excessive corporal punishment, it is unlikely that many governments will have addressed the issue explicitly at the policy level. It has not been possible within the scope of this review to investigate fully whether any Ministries of Education have developed such a policy and so what follows is by necessity partial. There is no doubt, however, that the country that has made the most effort to develop interventions to tackle the issue is South Africa, largely within the context of HIV/AIDS.

1. National initiatives
Ministries of Education have policies on school discipline and codes of conduct for teachers that outline procedures for disciplinary measures, sanctions and prosecution in cases of teacher misconduct. However, all the evidence from the reports cited above points to a lack of enforcement, with efforts at the national level to tackle teacher misconduct being patchy at best. The studies from sub-Saharan Africa (and regular media coverage) suggest that prosecutions of teachers for having sexual relations with their pupils, or for sexual assault or rape are rare, that those few that are followed up take years to progress through the courts and that they do not often end in dismissal. There is a lack of political will to tackle the issue and much shifting of responsibility from one government office to another (HRW, 2001; Leach et al., 2003). Cumbersome bureaucracy, a backlog of cases and a reluctance to confront the problem mean that the only punishment a teacher found guilty of sexual abuse is likely to suffer is transfer to another school. At the school level, head teachers are reluctant to report cases as they know it will lead to lengthy paper work and possibly unwanted media attention. Through their inaction, education officials and Ministries are implicated in perpetuating gender violence in schools. Many charges against teachers for sexual misconduct with a pupil are dropped by parents themselves, who either prefer to make a financial settlement with the teacher, or who find the court proceedings too onerous, time consuming, incomprehensible and/or expensive. Police units tasked with tackling rape cases of children report that parents drop cases at the last minute and teacher unions fight to defend teachers accused of rape (Leach et al., 2003). Communities also find it difficult to report teachers or head teachers for misconduct, whether for sexual abuse, excessive corporal punishment or misappropriation of school funds. As for sanctions against students, although a girl who becomes pregnant will have to leave school, the boy is rarely required to do likewise, even in countries such as Botswana where there is a policy that he should. National policies in sub-Saharan Africa to allow for the re-admittance of schoolgirl mothers appear not to be working effectively (See Chilisa, 2002).

Student on student violence is often shrugged off as part of growing up, except where it involves severe injury or the use of weapons, when it is likely to result in dismissal. As for implicit forms of gender violence such as corporal punishment by teachers and bullying by students, as the above has made clear, both are endemic in many educational systems and are largely seen as a necessary part of school life.

Although most governments have made explicit commitments to meeting the goal of gender equity in education, and some are taking active steps on gender mainstreaming at the policy formulation and implementation stages, there is little evidence of national strategies and/or examples of good practice specifically to tackle gender violence in schools. South Africa stands out in that the government has recently introduced initiatives to address it by banning corporal punishment, developing a National Crime Prevention Strategy for schools and requiring through the Employment of Educators Act the dismissal of teachers found guilty of serious misconduct, including sexual assault of students (HRW, 2001: 7). However, it has yet to produce a national policy on gender violence in schools (although Western Cape province has developed one). Evidence also from Uganda (Hyde et al., 2001) suggests that resolve by the Ministry of Education there to address the issue, leading to the dismissal/expulsion and imprisonment of some teachers and male students who have had sex with under-age girls, has had a positive impact in reducing sexual misconduct and violence in schools.

There is also little evidence that Ministries of Education have incorporated topics about gender violence in schools in their curricula. South Africa’s Curriculum 2005 has tried to do this within the context of its Life Skills programme for schools. The Department of Gender Equity in the Education Department has produced a training manual for use by teachers and other educators entitled Opening Our Eyes: Addressing Gender-based Violence in South African Schools (Mlamleli et al., 2001). A national NGO, CIET (Community Information Empowerment and Transparency Foundation) has also developed two training models for primary school teachers on the topic of ‘Gender and Conflict’. The ‘Safer Schools’ Intervention (Khoza, 2002: 76) is seeking to tackle the issue ‘through a holistic intervention to address all forms of violence and crime in schools’.

Beyond the sphere of government policy, there have been a number of national initiatives using the media which have tackled gender violence among adolescents and developed associated materials for use within schools. Again from South Africa, the best known example is Soul City (www.soulcity.org.za), a TV drama series set up by a national NGO with a focus on health (in particular HIV) and development issues, which has been running for over ten years. It periodically tackles issues of gender violence and rape. The project has subsequently expanded to include a radio series, a second TV and radio series aimed at primary-aged children, and packs of educational materials such as cartoon strips, booklets etc. for use in schools. Some of the Soul City materials are now used in other African countries and in parts of Asia and Latin America. Another South African national programme which harnesses popular media to tackle HIV/AIDS is the LoveLife campaign (www.LoveLife.org.za). It is designed for 12-17 year olds both inside and outside school. It has four main innovative features: LoveTrain, an outreach train staffed by volunteers who offer peer counselling and recreational services to rural towns and villages; LoveTours, a roving broadcasting unit, also staffed by volunteers; Love Life Y Centres, which also run events in schools, and the Love Games, which consist of annual inter-school sporting, debating and drama competitions. Additionally, there are regular newspapers, magazines, a helpline and a website. On-going monitoring from both these initiatives indicates positive responses from adolescents.

In South Asia, Save the Children Fund and UNICEF have used film to help boys question their views of gender and masculinity so as to develop more positive attitudes towards women and girls (Poudyal, 2000).

2. International and regional initiatives
A common framework to tackle gender violence has been produced by the Commonwealth Secretariat as part of a series of gender mainstreaming manuals; this is entitled Promoting an Integrated Approach to Gender-based Violence (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2002a). While the materials acknowledge that both women and men can be ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’ of gender-based violence, it is emphasised that women and girls are most at risk. Education is also included in the reference manual Gender Mainstreaming in HIV/AIDS (Commonwealth Secretariat , 2002b).

ActionAid’s Stepping Stones (Welbourn, 1995) is a widely used HIV/AIDS prevention programme. Originally designed for use with illiterate rural communities in Africa using participatory methods, it has now been adapted for use in various contexts with people of all ages in over 100 countries in Asia, North and Latin America and Europe and has been promoted for use in schools (Commonwealth Secretariat, 2002b). Feedback suggests increased awareness, improved self-confidence and attitudinal change among participants (Jewkes et al., 2000; Welbourn, 2000), although in some case the facilitators have found the content of the materials too controversial or difficult to deal with.

Peer counselling is judged to be an effective way to approach sensitive issues such as HIV/AIDS and sexuality, gender violence and abuse. In Latin America, Save the Children Fund has been working with the Institutes of Education and Health in Brazil, Colombia and Peru to train young people as peer counsellors to work within schools on sexual and reproductive health issues from a gender perspective. In Peru, an evaluation (Webb, 1999) suggested that the programme has led to increased levels of self-esteem, greater awareness and discussion of gender and HIV issues, and more widespread use of health facilities.

The relatively late realisation by organisations working in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention and care that they need to integrate gender into their interventions has led to the development of a number of internationally promoted HIV/AIDS workshop manuals such as IPAS’ ‘Sex or Gender: Who Cares?’ (De Bruyn and France, 2001). Developed in close collaboration with the Instituto de Educacion y Salud in Peru, this is aimed at peer or adult educators of young people and has been used in various countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia. It specifically addresses gender-based violence as one of its key issues within a gender framework which is not exclusively heterosexual. Similarly, the UNIFEM training manual on gender, HIV and human rights (Nath, 2000) presumes both hetero- and homosexual relationships.

Nicaragua has also been heavily involved in getting men involved in exploring their masculinities and developing skills in critical reflection and gender awareness through the organisation CANTERA (Welsh, 2001). This runs workshops for men to get them to assist women in achieving their practical and strategic gender needs. Using a popular education methodology, CANTERA has developed training manuals which other groups in Latin America could use. In a similar vein, MAVG (Men Against Violence Group) has flourished in Nicaragua and has now spread to El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica. What remains is for men’s groups to be established in schools.

There are also a number of anti-violence interventions in schools, which centre on the abolition of corporal punishment. As the research studies show, the gendered nature of both the process and the effects of corporal punishment are often not acknowledged by researchers or policy makers, although the differentiated application of corporal punishment in many countries points to a subconscious gendered practice. Corporal punishment in schools has in fact been outlawed in many countries and is only allowed as a last resort and under very strict conditions in many other countries. And yet, its practice and abuse is widespread worldwide, particularly in developing countries, where it has many advocates among teachers and parents, and even among pupils (provided that it is administered fairly and with moderation). Its continuing widespread use confirms that strong statements at government policy level and government commitments to international conventions on human rights, for example, are not sufficient to ensure behavioural change.

UNESCO is involved in an international anti-violence initiative in schools called Living Values Education Founded by a Hindu spiritual leader, the programme was launched in 1993 to reach a wider audience and now operates in 66 countries in 4000 sites, many of which are schools. It has a rights-based approach to fostering positive self-development and social cooperation in children and young people. The programme provides activities, methodologies and materials for teachers and facilitators to use with young people.

Although not explicitly aimed at schools, the White Ribbon Campaign, which started in Canada in 1991 and has spread worldwide, is an international campaign aimed at involving men in working towards eradicating all forms of violence against women. By wearing the white ribbon, men are taking a public stand against gender violence. They are also encouraged to participate in awareness-raising and fund-raising events for women’s shelters and advocacy campaigns. Some women have also been involved in promoting the campaigns in schools. UNICEF also supports an initiative to coordinate the work of organisations working with men and boys to end violence against women and girls (Hayward, 2001), some of which operate in schools. The aim of the initiative (which in 2001 listed 60 such organisations) is to foster networks and to share good practice, to stimulate the creation of more groups to combat violence, and to counteract stereotypes about masculinity and violence.

UNICEF has also been instrumental in producing excellent materials for use in Guidance and Counselling lessons in a number of sub-Saharan African countries. These include topics on sexuality, sexual health and violence. However, evidence from research in Zimbabwe (Leach and Machakanja, 2000) suggested that teachers did not like using these books as they required a pupil-centred approach which they had not been trained to use, and they tackled difficult topics such as homosexuality, which they were uncomfortable talking about.

3. Local initiatives
Much of the most innovative work with young people has been done by NGOs, mostly in connection with HIV/AIDS education. Some of this work has been carried out with schoolchildren, although not always in a school setting, with the overall aim of changing sexual behaviour and developing more constructive gender relations. Again, South Africa has been the most pro-active. NGO initiatives tend to have in common the use of participatory approaches and popular media forms, including drama and storytelling. For example, The Storyteller Group based in Cape Town uses comic stories as a dramatic tool to explore previously undiscussed topics such as rights over one’s body, male violence, sexual double standards, teenage sexuality, and traditional gender roles. Dramaide, a national NGO, has used drama to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and gender among schoolchildren in Durban The drama work allowed the learners to reflect critically on their lives and to challenge entrenched ideas about gender inequality. In Namibia, parents in one community took the initiative, with assistance from the UK NGO ACORD, to develop ‘The Total Child’ programme, which sought to create a safer and more conducive school environment for their children in the face of an increasingly violent world (ACORD, 1998). In Asia, the Safe Spaces project in Nepal, funded by Save the Children Fund, has involved girls in participatory research which has proved a source of empowerment for them by allowing them to identify the characteristics of a safe environment and to develop an action plan to ‘take back their space’ The difficulty with such initiatives is that of scaling up as they are by their nature small scale and expensive. Such projects have been developed by NGOs outside the formal school setting in part because Ministries of Education have chosen not to address the issue of gender violence themselves. There is therefore an urgent need for the development of national gender-sensitive initiatives to tackle gender violence in schools, which can be fully integrated into the educational system and addressed through the curriculum and teacher training. It is particularly important, in the face of the threat to young people from HIV/AIDS, that schools become an effective forum for teaching about and encouraging safe sex. That is not possible while violence is allowed to go unchecked.

In tackling gender violence in schools, a whole school approach involving management, teachers, pupils and the curriculum is necessary to ensure that the messages are consistent and reinforced by teachers and pupils alike. Teachers can be key instruments for change. However, they have their own experiences as gendered beings. To play an effective role in addressing gender-based violence, teachers need to understand and confront their own attitudes and experiences regarding gender and violence. Given that some teachers are perpetrators of abuse, and others may be victims of abuse, it is important that strategies to address gender violence in schools acknowledge and address teachers’ experiences as well as pupils’, so that constructive and collaborative relationships can be encouraged. The teacher training curriculum will need to prepare teachers for such a role.

C. Conclusion

This review has sought to document the extent of gender-based violence in schools in developing countries. Much of the evidence comes from sub-Saharan Africa, although, as has been shown, this does mean that it does not exist elsewhere in both the developing and the developed world. In the developing world, however, the failure of educational authorities to acknowledge its existence and to address it, in particular in contexts of weak policy compliance, low resources and entrenched gender roles, has allowed it to flourish unchecked and to become institutionalised. To prepare for effective interventions against gender-based violence in schools, it is important that broad dissemination of the analysis of gender relations and their complexity as well as further research using an accepted gender sensitive
 
Last edited:
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Philip Morris has adopted the role of good citizen these days. Its Web site brims with information on the dangers of smoking, and it has mounted a campaign of television spots that urge parents, oh so earnestly, to warn their children against smoking. That follows an earlier $100 million campaign warning young people to “Think. Don’t Smoke,” analogous to the “just say no” admonitions against drugs.

All this seems to fly against the economic interests of the company, which presumably depends on a continuing crop of new smokers to replace those who drop out or die from their habit. But in practice, it turns out, these industry-run campaigns are notably ineffective and possibly even a sham. New research shows that the ads aimed at youths had no discernible effect in discouraging smoking and that the ads currently aimed at parents may be counterproductive.

That disturbing insight comes from a study just published in The American Journal of Public Health by respected academic researchers who were supported by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Using sophisticated analytical techniques, the researchers concluded that the ads aimed directly at young people had no beneficial effect, while those aimed at parents were actually harmful to young people apt to see them, especially older teenagers. The greater the teenagers’ potential exposure to the ads, the stronger their intention to smoke and the greater their likelihood of having smoked in the past 30 days.

Just why the costly advertising campaigns produce no health benefits is a rich subject for exploration. The ads are fuzzy-warm, which could actually generate favorable feelings for the tobacco industry and, by extension, its products. And their theme — that adults should tell young people not to smoke mostly because they are young people — is exactly the sort of message that would make many teenagers feel like lighting up. (Trial testimony has made it clear that the goal of Philip Morris’s youth smoking prevention programs is to delay smoking until adulthood, not to discourage it for a lifetime.)

The most exhaustive judicial analysis of the industry’s tactics, by Judge Gladys Kessler of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, concluded that the youth smoking prevention programs were not really designed to effectively prevent youth smoking but rather to head off a government crackdown. They are minimally financed compared with the vast sums spent on cigarette marketing and promotion; they are understaffed and run by people with no expertise; and they ignore the strategies that have proved effective in preventing adolescent smoking. The television ads, for example, do not stress the deadly and addictive impacts of smoking, an emphasis that has been shown to work in other antitobacco campaigns.

Philip Morris says it has spent more than $1 billion on its youth smoking prevention programs since 1998 and that it devised its current advertising campaign on the advice of experts who deem parental influence extremely important. But the company has done only the skimpiest research on how the campaign is working. It cites June 2006 data indicating that 37 percent of parents with children age 10 to 17 were both aware of its ads and spoke to their children about not smoking. How the children reacted has not been explored. And somehow the company forgot to tell the parents, as role models, to stop smoking themselves.

Philip Morris, the industry’s biggest and most influential company, is renowned for its marketing savvy. If it really wanted to prevent youth smoking — and cut off new recruits to its death-dealing products — it could surely mount a more effective campaign to do so
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Chi square is a non-parametric test of statistical significance for bivariate tabular analysis (also known as crossbreaks). Any appropriately performed test of statistical significance lets you know the degree of confidence you can have in accepting or rejecting an hypothesis. Typically, the hypothesis tested with chi square is whether or not two different samples (of people, texts, whatever) are different enough in some characteristic or aspect of their behavior that we can generalize from our samples that the populations from which our samples are drawn are also different in the behavior or characteristic.
A non-parametric test, like chi square, is a rough estimate of confidence; it accepts weaker, less accurate data as input than parametric tests (like t-tests and analysis of variance, for example) and therefore has less status in the pantheon of statistical tests. Nonetheless, its limitations are also its strengths; because chi square is more 'forgiving' in the data it will accept, it can be used in a wide variety of research contexts.

Chi square is used most frequently to test the statistical significance of results reported in bivariate tables, and interpreting bivariate tables is integral to interpreting the results of a chi square test, so we'll take a look at bivariate tabular (crossbreak) analysis.
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Bivariate Tabular Analysis
Bivariate tabular (crossbreak) analysis is used when you are trying to summarize the intersections of independent and dependent variables and understand the relationship (if any) between those variables. For example, if we wanted to know if there is any relationship between the biological sex of American undergraduates at a particular university and their footwear preferences, we might select 50 males and 50 females as randomly as possible, and ask them, "On average, do you prefer to wear sandals, sneakers, leather shoes, boots, or something else?" In this example, our independent variable is biological sex. (In experimental research, the independent variable is actively manipulated by the researcher; for example, whether or not a rat gets a food pellet when it pulls on a striped bar. In most sociological research, the independent variable is not actively manipulated in this way, but controlled by sampling for, e.g., males vs. females.) Put another way, the independent variable is the quality or characteristic that you hypothesize helps to predict or explain some other quality or characteristic (the dependent variable). We control the independent variable (and as much else as possible and natural) and elicit and measure the dependent variable to test our hypothesis that there is some relationship between them. Bivariate tabular analysis is good for asking the following kinds of questions:

Is there a relationship between any two variables IN THE DATA?
How strong is the relationship IN THE DATA?
What is the direction and shape of the relationship IN THE DATA?
Is the relationship due to some intervening variable(s) IN THE DATA??
To see any patterns or systematic relationship between biological sex of undergraduates at University of X and reported footwear preferences, we could summarize our results in a table like this:

Table 1.a. Male and Female Undergraduate Footwear Preferences

Sandals Sneakers Leather
shoes Boots Other
Male
Female


Depending upon how our 50 male and 50 female subjects responded, we could make a definitive claim about the (reported) footwear preferences of those 100 people.

In constructing bivariate tables, typically values on the independent variable are arrayed on vertical axis, while values on the dependent variable are arrayed on the horizontal axis. This allows us to read 'across' from hypothetically 'causal' values on the independent variable to their 'effects', or values on the dependent variable. How you arrange the values on each axis should be guided "iconically" by your research question/hypothesis. For example, if values on an independent variable were arranged from lowest to highest value on the variable and values on the dependent variable were arranged left to right from lowest to highest, a positive relationship would show up as a rising left to right line. (But remember, association does not equal causation; an observed relationship between two variables is not necessarily causal.)

Each intersection/cell--of a value on the independent variable and a value on the independent variable--reports the result of how many times that combination of values was chosen/observed in the sample being analyzed. (So you can see that crosstabs are structurally most suitable for analyzing relationships between nominal and ordinal variables. Interval and ratio variables will have to first be grouped before they can "fit" into a bivariate table.) Each cell reports, essentially, how many subjects/observations produced that combination of independent and dependent variable values. So, for example, the top left cell of the table above answers the question: "How many male undergraduates at University of X prefer sandals?" (Answer: 6 out of the 50 sampled.)

Table 1.b. Male and Female Undergraduate Footwear Preferences

Sandals Sneakers Leather
shoes Boots Other
Male 6 17 13 9 5
Female 13 5 7 16 9


Reporting and interpreting crosstabs is most easily done by converting raw frequencies (in each cell) into percentages of each cell within the values/categories of the independent variable. For example, in the Footwear Preferences table above, total each row, then divide each cell by its row total, and multiply that fraction by 100.

Table 1.c. Male and Female Undergraduate Footwear Preferences (Percentages)

Sandals Sneakers Leather
shoes Boots Other N
Male 12 34 26 18 10 50
Female 26 10 14 32 18 50


Percentages basically standardize cell frequencies as if there were 100 subjects/observations in each category of the independent variable. This is useful for comparing across values on the independent variable, but that usefulness comes at the price of a generalization--from the actual number of subjects/observations in that column in your data to a hypothetical 100 subjects/observations. If the raw row total was 93, then percentages do little violence to the raw scores; but if the raw total is 9, then the generalization (on no statistical basis, i.e., with no knowledge of sample-population representativeness) is drastic. So you should provide that total N at the end of each row/independent variable category (for replicability and to enable the reader to assess your interpretation of the table's meaning).

With this caveat in mind, you can compare the patterns of distribution of subjects/observations along the dependent variable between the values of the independent variable: e.g., compare male and female undergraduate footwear preference. (For some data, plotting the results on a line graph can also help you interpret the results: i.e., whether there is a positive (/), negative (\), or curvilinear (\/, /\) relationship between the variables.) Table 1.c shows that within our sample, roughly twice as many females preferred sandals and boots as males; and within our sample, about three times as many men preferred sneakers as women and twice as many men preferred leather shoes. We might also infer from the 'Other' category that female students within our sample had a broader range of footwear preferences than did male students.

Generalizing from Samples to Populations
Converting raw observed values or frequencies into percentages does allow us to see more easily patterns in the data, but that is all we can see: what is in the data. Knowing with great certainty the footwear preferences of a particular group of 100 undergraduates at University of X is of limited use to us; we usually want to measure a sample in order to know something about the larger populations from which our samples were drawn. On the basis of raw observed frequencies (or percentages) of a sample's behavior or characteristics, we can make claims about the sample itself, but we cannot generalize to make claims about the population from which we drew our sample, unless we submit our results to a test of statistical significance. A test of statistical significance tells us how confidently we can generalize to a larger (unmeasured) population from a (measured) sample of that population.

How does chi square do this? Basically, the chi square test of statistical significance is a series of mathematical formulas which compare the actual observed frequencies of some phenomenon (in our sample) with the frequencies we would expect if there were no relationship at all between the two variables in the larger (sampled) population. That is, chi square tests our actual results against the null hypothesis and assesses whether the actual results are different enough to overcome a certain probability that they are due to sampling error. In a sense, chi-square is a lot like percentages; it extrapolates a population characteristic (a parameter) from the sampling characteristic (a statistic) similarly to the way percentage standardizes a frequency to a total column N of 100. But chi-square works within the frequencies provided by the sample and does not inflate (or minimize) the column and row totals.
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Generalizing from Samples to Populations
Converting raw observed values or frequencies into percentages does allow us to see more easily patterns in the data, but that is all we can see: what is in the data. Knowing with great certainty the footwear preferences of a particular group of 100 undergraduates at University of X is of limited use to us; we usually want to measure a sample in order to know something about the larger populations from which our samples were drawn. On the basis of raw observed frequencies (or percentages) of a sample's behavior or characteristics, we can make claims about the sample itself, but we cannot generalize to make claims about the population from which we drew our sample, unless we submit our results to a test of statistical significance. A test of statistical significance tells us how confidently we can generalize to a larger (unmeasured) population from a (measured) sample of that population.

How does chi square do this? Basically, the chi square test of statistical significance is a series of mathematical formulas which compare the actual observed frequencies of some phenomenon (in our sample) with the frequencies we would expect if there were no relationship at all between the two variables in the larger (sampled) population. That is, chi square tests our actual results against the null hypothesis and assesses whether the actual results are different enough to overcome a certain probability that they are due to sampling error. In a sense, chi-square is a lot like percentages; it extrapolates a population characteristic (a parameter) from the sampling characteristic (a statistic) similarly to the way percentage standardizes a frequency to a total column N of 100. But chi-square works within the frequencies provided by the sample and does not inflate (or minimize) the column and row totals.
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Chi Square Requirements
As mentioned before, chi square is a nonparametric test. It does not require the sample data to be more or less normally distributed (as parametric tests like t-tests do), although it relies on the assumption that the variable is normally distributed in the population from which the sample is drawn.

But chi square, while forgiving, does have some requirements:


The sample must be randomly drawn from the population.
Data must be reported in raw frequencies (not percentages);
Measured variables must be independent;
Values/categories on independent and dependent variables must be mutually exclusive and exhaustive;
Observed frequencies cannot be too small.
1) As with any test of statistical significance, your data must be from a random sample of the population to which you wish to generalize your claims.

2) You should only use chi square when your data are in the form of raw frequency counts of things in two or more mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories. As discussed above, converting raw frequencies into percentages standardizes cell frequencies as if there were 100 subjects/observations in each category of the independent variable for comparability. Part of the chi square mathematical procedure accomplishes this standardizing, so computing the chi square of percentages would amount to standardizing an already standardized measurement.

3) Any observation must fall into only one category or value on each variable. In our footwear example, our data are counts of male versus female undergraduates expressing a preference for five different categories of footwear. Each observation/subject is counted only once, as either male or female (an exhaustive typology of biological sex) and as preferring sandals, sneakers, leather shoes, boots, or other kinds of footwear. For some variables, no 'other' category may be needed, but often 'other' ensures that the variable has been exhaustively categorized. (For some kinds of analysis, you may need to include an "uncodable" category.) In any case, you must include the results for the whole sample.

4) Furthermore, you should use chi square only when observations are independent: i.e., no category or response is dependent upon or influenced by another. (In linguistics, often this rule is fudged a bit. For example, if we have one dependent variable/column for linguistic feature X and another column for number of words spoken or written (where the rows correspond to individual speakers/texts or groups of speakers/texts which are being compared), there is clearly some relation between the frequency of feature X in a text and the number of words in a text, but it is a distant, not immediate dependency.)

5) Chi-square is an approximate test of the probability of getting the frequencies you've actually observed if the null hypothesis were true. It's based on the expectation that within any category, sample frequencies are normally distributed about the expected population value. Since (logically) frequencies cannot be negative, the distribution cannot be normal when expected population values are close to zero--since the sample frequencies cannot be much below the expected frequency while they can be much above it (an asymmetric/non-normal distribution). So, when expected frequencies are large, there is no problem with the assumption of normal distribution, but the smaller the expected frequencies, the less valid are the results of the chi-square test. We'll discuss expected frequencies in greater detail later, but for now remember that expected frequencies are derived from observed frequencies. Therefore, if you have cells in your bivariate table which show very low raw observed frequencies (5 or below), your expected frequencies may also be too low for chi square to be appropriately used. In addition, because some of the mathematical formulas used in chi square use division, no cell in your table can have an observed raw frequency of 0.

The following minimum frequency thresholds should be obeyed:


for a 1 X 2 or 2 X 2 table, expected frequencies in each cell should be at least 5;
for a 2 X 3 table, expected frequencies should be at least 2;
for a 2 X 4 or 3 X 3 or larger table, if all expected frequencies but one are at least 5 and if the one small cell is at least 1, chi-square is still a good approximation.
In general, the greater the degrees of freedom (i.e., the more values/categories on the independent and dependent variables), the more lenient the minimum expected frequencies threshold. (We'll discuss degrees of freedom in a moment.)
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Collapsing Values
A brief word about collapsing values/categories on a variable is necessary. First, although categories on a variable--especially a dependent variable--may be collapsed, they cannot be excluded from a chi-square analysis. That is, you cannot arbitrarily exclude some subset of your data from your analysis. Second, a decision to collapse categories should be carefully motivated, with consideration for preserving the integrity of the data as it was originally collected. (For example, how could you collapse the footwear preference categories in our example and still preserve the integrity of the original question/data? You can't, since there's no way to know if combining, e.g., boots and leather shoes versus sandals and sneakers is true to your subjects' typology of footwear.) As a rule, you should perform a chi square on the data in its uncollapsed form; if the chi square value achieved is significant, then you may collapse categories to test subsequent refinements of your original hypothesis.
 
Re: WORST CASE SOME ONE!!!

Computing Chi Square
Let's walk through the process by which a chi square value is computed, using Table 1.b. above (renamed 1.d., below).
The first step is to determine our threshold of tolerance for error. That is, what odds are we willing to accept that we are wrong in generalizing from the results in our sample to the population it represents? Are we willing to stake a claim on a 50 percent chance that we're wrong? A 10 percent chance? A five percent chance? 1 percent? The answer depends largely on our research question and the consequences of being wrong. If people's lives depend on our interpretation of our results, we might want to take only 1 chance in 100,000 (or 1,000,000) that we're wrong. But if the stakes are smaller, for example, whether or not two texts use the same frequencies of some linguistic feature (assuming this is not a forensic issue in a capital murder case!), we might accept a greater probability--1 in 100 or even 1 in 20--that our data do not represent the population we're generalizing about. The important thing is to explicitly motivate your threshold before you perform any test of statistical significance, to minimize any temptation for post hoc compromise of scientific standards. For our purposes, we'll set a probability of error thresold of 1 in 20, or p < .05, for our Footwear study.)

The second step is to total all rows and columns:

Table 1.d. Male and Female Undergraduate Footwear Preferences: Observed Frequencies with Row and Column Totals

Sandals Sneakers Leather
shoes Boots Other Total
Male 6 17 13 9 5 50
Female 13 5 7 16 9 50
Total 19 22 20 25 14 100


Remember that chi square operates by comparing the actual, or observed, frequencies in each cell in the table to the frequencies we would expect if there were no relationship at all between the two variables in the populations from which the sample is drawn. In other words, chi square compares what actually happened to what hypothetically would have happened if 'all other things were equal' (basically, the null hypothesis). If our actual results are sufficiently different from the predicted null hypothesis results, we can reject the null hypothesis and claim that a statistically significant relationship exists between our variables.

Chi square derives a representation of the null hypothesis--the 'all other things being equal' scenario--in the following way. The expected frequency in each cell is the product of that cell's row total multiplied by that cell's column total, divided by the sum total of all observations. So, to derive the expected frequency of the "Males who prefer Sandals" cell, we multiply the top row total (50) by the first column total (19) and divide that product by the sum total (100): ((50 X 19)/100) = 9.5. The logic of this is that we are deriving the expected frequency of each cell from the union of the total frequencies of the relevant values on each variable (in this case, Male and Sandals), as a proportion of all observed frequencies (across all values of each variable). This calculation is performed to derive the expected frequency of each cell, as shown in Table 1.e below (the computation for each cell is listed below Table 1.e.):

Table 1.e. Male and Female Undergraduate Footwear Preferences: Observed and Expected Frequencies

Sandals Sneakers Leather
shoes Boots Other Total
Male observed 6 17 13 9 5 50
Male expected 9.5 11 10 12.5 7
Female observed 13 5 7 16 9 50
Female expected 9.5 11 10 12.5 7
Total 19 22 20 25 14 100


Male/Sandals: ((19 X 50)/100) = 9.5
Male/Sneakers: ((22 X 50)/100) = 11
Male/Leather Shoes: ((20 X 50)/100) = 10
Male/Boots: ((25 X 50)/100) = 12.5
Male/Other: ((14 X 50)/100) = 7
Female/Sandals: ((19 X 50)/100) = 9.5
Female/Sneakers: ((22 X 50)/100) = 11
Female/Leather Shoes: ((20 X 50)/100) = 10
Female/Boots: ((25 X 50)/100) = 12.5
Female/Other: ((14 X 50)/100) = 7


(Notice that because we originally obtained a balanced male/female sample, our male and female expected scores are the same. This usually will not be the case.)

We now have a comparison of the observed results versus the results we would expect if the null hypothesis were true. We can informally analyze this table, comparing observed and expected frequencies in each cell (Males prefer sandals less than expected), across values on the independent variable (Males prefer sneakers more than expected, Females less than expected), or across values on the dependent variable (Females prefer sandals and boots more than expected, but sneakers and shoes less than expected). But so far, the extra computation doesn't really add much more information than interpretation of the results in percentage form. We need some way to measure how different our observed results are from the null hypothesis. Or, to put it another way, we need some way to determine whether we can reject the null hypothesis, and if we can, with what degree of confidence that we're not making a mistake in generalizing from our sample results to the larger population.

Logically, we need to measure the size of the difference between the pair of observed and expected frequencies in each cell. More specifically, we calculate the difference between the observed and expected frequency in each cell, square that difference, and then divide that product by the difference itself. The formula can be expressed as:

((O - E)2/E)

Squaring the difference ensures a positive number, so that we end up with an absolute value of differences. If we didn't work with absolute values, the positive and negative differences across the entire table would always add up to 0. (You really understand the logic of chi square if you can figure out why this is true.) Dividing the squared difference by the expected frequency essentially removes the expected frequency from the equation, so that the remaining measures of observed/expected difference are comparable across all cells.

So, for example, the difference between observed and expecetd frequencies for the Male/Sandals preference is calculated as follows:


Observed (6) minus Expected (9.5) = Difference (-3.5)
Difference (-3.5) squared = 12.25
Difference squared (12.25) divided by Expected (9.5) = 1.289
The sum of all products of this calculation on each cell is the total chi square value for the table.

The computation of chi square for each cell is listed below Table 1.f.:

Table 1.f. Male and Female Undergraduate Footwear Preferences: Observed and Expected Frequencies Plus Chi Square

Sandals Sneakers Leather
shoes Boots Other Total
Male observed 6 17 13 9 5 50
Male expected 9.5 11 10 12.5 7
Female observed 13 5 7 16 9 50
Female expected 9.5 11 10 12.5 7
Total 19 22 20 25 14 100


Male/Sandals: ((6 - 9.5)2/9.5) = 1.289
Male/Sneakers: ((17 - 11)2/11) = 3.273
Male/Leather Shoes: ((13 - 10)2/10) = 0.900
Male/Boots: ((9 - 12.5)2/12.5) = 0.980
Male/Other: ((5 - 7)2/7) = 0.571
Female/Sandals: ((13 - 9.5)2/9.5) = 1.289
Female/Sneakers: ((5 - 11)2/11) = 3.273
Female/Leather Shoes: ((7 - 10)2/10) = 0.900
Female/Boots: ((16 - 12.5)2/12.5) = 0.980
Female/Other: ((9 - 7)2/7) = 0.571


(Again, because of our balanced male/female sample, our row totals were the same, so the male and female observed-expected frequency differences were identical. This is usually not the case.)

The total chi square value for Table 1 is 14.026.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top