Essay on My Definition of Social Studies - 455 Words

My Definition of Social Studies Social studies is the study of world cultures, social and economic issues. It took some time for me to come up with this definition but after years of studying history I feel social studies is not just geography, civics, and history. I do not remember my childhood years of social studies other than studying about white men and the black men they enslaved or the white men who signed the constitution and what great men they were. I always felt the history I learned was one-sided. When I got to junior high school not much had changed. We did begin to learn about a few great black people such as, George Washington Carver, WEB Dubois, and Harriet Tubman. By†¦show more content†¦I am now in college and my professors have opened my eyes to many things, as well as, challenged me to want to learn what was not taught to me long ago. I had Dr. Combs for Urban Geography where I learned about what urban sprawl and contaminated water can do to a community. By learning what causes urban sprawl helped me to understand why family businesses that have been in business for fifty years are now closed. Whenever we discussed our surrounding communities I was always asking questions because I had a genuine interest. I am a forty-year-old black female that grew up in sixties in eastern Arkansas. I do not have many out of school social studies experiences other than the family cultures and traditions I was taught down through the years. One that stands out is Sunday dinners and the stories that my grandmother used to tell about our heritage. The characteristics of an effective social studies teacher would include learning about your students’ socioeconomic background, their interest, and there likes and dislikes. The instruction should not be all lecture, notes, and then test. There should be some hands on opportunities as well as cooperative learning groups. Students could use the computer to communicate with other students in foreign countries to learn of different cultures. Social studies is fun, good, and interesting when it is used toShow MoreRelatedEssay about Research Methodology Report1448 Words   |  6 PagesMethodology Report My themed research project will centre its focus upon the link between Riot Grrrl and its relation to Third-Wave Feminism. Primarily I aim to analyse Riot Grrrl’s music scene, but also its subculture mentioning its DIY punk ethic, political activism and most importantly its influential Zine network. However the purpose of this report is to demonstrate a grounded understanding in three research methodologies and how I will apply each one in regards to my own project. FirstlyRead MoreAnalysis Of Matthew Arnold s Culture And Anarchy785 Words   |  4 Pagessemester. Culture, hegemony and ideology must be part of any study of popular culture. 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Queen Elizabeth Of The Elizabethan Era - 1369 Words

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, bounteous, layered skirts we re all the rage, so much so, laws were made to keep clothing in line. These laws were made to clearly divide the social classes of the time (Alchin). Knowing these laws was very important, because punishments for breaking the laws were harsh. Queen Elizabeth I saw the significance in the clothes people wear and how appearance alters the way people see others. This is why the Elizabethan people would sacrifice anything, even their health, to be beautiful. Queen Elizabeth definitely influenced the clothing of her Era and some of the clothing today by creating Sumptuary Laws, clearly dividing the social classes, and by raising the importance of body image. Unlike today, in†¦show more content†¦Back then, the upper class children would dress almost exactly the same as their parents. Their outfits were identical to each other (Tomecek). Of course, children s clothing was slightly simpler, but not by much. According to Alchin, young boys would wear skirts, making them almost indistinguishable from the young girls. When boys reached the age six, they would begin to dress more like their father. There was a variety of colors in clothing that could be worn, but only high-ranked citizens were allowed to wear colors like purple or gold, which symbolized royalty (Alchin). Crimson, a dark red color, was the color of the church. It symbolized the presence of God and the blood of martyrs (Alchin). The Cardinal at the time wore bright robes that were Crimson colored. Blue was mainly worn by servants and maids, and gray was a color normally seen on the poor. Gray clothing symbolized humility and poverty, it was a color that would never be seen on Queen Elizabeth I (Alchin). Due to Queen Elizabeth s strict laws, much of the lower class did not have as much of a variety of clothing as the upper class did. Gold, silver, purple, and many more colors could only be worn by royalty and nobility (Alchin). By looking at what somebody was wearing, you could tell which social class they came from. There was a time during the Elizabethan Era where men s clothing was fancier and more decorative looking than the women s clothing (Leed). The Elizabethan Era was sometimes

AP by John Updike Essay Example For Students

AP by John Updike Essay I think that in AP the author describes how life was decades ago and how it seems to me how life should be today, with out the arguments over petty situations. I think that the story line of AP is a typical situation in a small town in which the story is situated. I think that this particular story is based in a small vacationing town on the east coast where familys come back every year to spend there summer days in the sun playing on the beach or in the ocean, where mothers can send there kids to the store barefoot and not have to worry about strange people kidnapping them. Where customers have been coming for years and are treated with the respect you would treat someone in your own family. Sammys role in this story seems to be a strange one. He seems to be a teenager yet somehow attracted physically to adolescent girls. He seemed to be in a ways stalking the girls and making sexual notations towards them. Of course I am sure that three girls walking into a grocery store in nothing but bathing suits is not normal but considering the size and type of town I think that it is acceptable. This strikes me in a bad way because first of all its not normal to see little kids in anyway but little kids who like having a good time. Secondly, why would you quit your job in front of little kids to try and impress them or maybe make them feel better that someone was on there side because of the incident that the check out line and Mr. Lengal. It seems so childish how people make a big deal out of something that is so tiny that people often forget what they are arguing about when it really comes down to it.

Perfect Competition and Sources of Market Failure an Example of the Topic Economics Essays by

Perfect Competition and Sources of Market Failure Perfect Competition and Efficiency Perfect Competition is an ideal market structure (theoretical structure) primarily utilized as a standard to existing (real) market structures. This is sometimes called pure competition. This market structure is characterized as follows: 1) all firms basically produce and sell similar products; 2) all firms are subjected to the prevailing market price; 3) all firms have a small, almost uniform market share of a particular product; 4) buyers have complete information of the nature of the product sold as well as its corresponding price; and 5) firms have the freedom to enter and exit market (Perfect Competition, 2007). In perfectly competitive market, when a single firm decided to increase the price of a particular good, consumers will naturally shift their expenditure schedule (for that product) to firms selling the same product at a lower price. Need essay sample on "Perfect Competition and Sources of Market Failure" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed How much do I have to pay someone to write my assignment online? Essay writer professionals propose: Your Best Essay Helper Corollary to that, if a firm decided to decrease the price of a particular good, in order to capture a significant portion of the consumers income, the firm will be left earning profit less than the earnings of firms offering the same product at a higher price (market price). This is so since all firms in this market structure have a small portion of the products market share. This relationship between price and the relative market share of firms for a particular product is facilitated by of complete dissipation of knowledge of market prices (and the nature of products sold in the market) to consumers. If a firm raises the price of its product, the consumer can easily turn-around to firms selling the same product at a lower price. Thus, the firm (which offered a price higher than the market/equilibrium price) loses its market share for a particular product (forcing it to exit the market). Thus, it can be said that in perfect competition, price is constant (horizontal line represented as the demand curve). The volume of goods bought by consumers is unaffected by price increases. The firms receive an almost equal proportion of the consumers income. The overall profit in the short-run are almost fixed for each firm. If the demand schedule of consumers increase (maybe because of a change in taste or preference or a change in consumer expectation), the price also increases. Here a new level of market equilibrium is achieved. Firms supplying a particular product will negotiate with consumers for a new price level. After the price negotiation, a new fixed price level is established (in the long-run). Inherent in perfectly competitive market is its theoretical adherence to efficiency. Efficiency can be roughly defined as the condition of balanced welfare surplus; that is, the goods produced in the market are transferred through transactions to potential consumers. Efficiency is of two types: allocative efficiency and productive efficiency. Allocative efficiency can be defined as the guiding principle of modern economic policy when all mutually beneficial trades have been made, and all the goods are in the hands of those who value them most (Kaiser, 2007). Productive efficiency is the condition where there is the assurance that whatever is being made is produced in the most efficient manner, that is, no change in the mix of inputs would result in increased output, given the current technological constraints (Kaiser, 2007). Here what is given primacy is allocative efficiency (in relation to perfect competition). In a perfectly competitive market, welfare surplus is the volume of potential welfare (in terms of goods and services) directed to potential consumers. Deadweight loss is the opposite of welfare surplus. It is the potential welfare surplus converted to a firms profit because of inefficiencies in the market. In an ideal state of affairs, deadweight loss is zero because the market (which is perfectly competitive) offers a fixed price for particular goods. Hence, the marginal rate of substitution is identical for all consumers. No consumer can be better off without making the other worse off. This leaves all the consumers achieved what economists call the Pareto efficiency. In practical terms, it is a measure of welfare, a condition where an inpidual can be made better without making another worse off. This is generally an extension of the concept of welfare surplus. Thus, in a perfectly competitive market, all the potential consumers are theoretically satisfied of the transactions in the market (increased welfare surplus). Allocative efficiency serves as a means to increase welfare surplus. Sources of Market Failure: The Imperfect Markets There are different types of imperfect markets. When only one firm is producing/selling a particular product to potential consumers, it is called monopoly (a monopsony is market structure in which there is only one buyer of a particular product). Because entry into a particular market or industry corresponds to high costs and other impediments, the market is left with only one producer of a particular product. Monopoly though is not necessarily bad. There are certain industries in the economy that are monopolized for economic reasons. For example, monopolizing the power industry would prove efficient both for the government and the consumers. It is often embarrassing to the eye of a consumer to see different electric posts owned and run by different power companies. Monopoly though becomes inefficient if the firm produces less goods/services from that demanded by potential consumers. This generally results to an increase of price of the particular good/service. This increase in the price of a certain good also results in the reduction of welfare surplus. A portion of the welfare surplus is converted to the firms profit. Hence, in this type of market, the amount of potential welfare surplus depends largely on the price dictated by the firm (since consumers have no alternative, the power to dictate price changes rests on the single firm). Added to that, consumers often do not have complete information (imperfect information) of the internal workings of the firm; the cost of production, expected revenues, profit level, and the most important, the volume of goods produced. Needless to say, in this type of market structure the firm controls the amount of goods produced to enable it to dictate prices. When only few firms are selling/producing a particular product to potential consumers, it is called oligopoly. This group of firms usually has control over the price of a particular product. Entry to the market becomes impermissible because of high costs and other impediments. So in order to maintain the market profit of each firm, an economic reaction from a particular firm will be imitated by other firms. So if firm Y increased the price of its product by 11%, firms X and Z (in the same industry) follow suit. If firm Z decreased the price of its product by 13 %, firms X and Y will approximately decrease the price of its product by 13%. Unlike the perfectly competitive market, oligopoly rests on the assumption of economic collaboration. A group of firms in the same industry can virtually increase gradually the price of a particular product. Consumers are left without protection from these unwarranted price increases (thus, many governments institutionalized the so-called anti-trust policy to protect consumers from unwarranted market behavior of some firms). Thus, both monopoly and oligopoly result in both allocative and productive inefficiency. The market is flooded with price increases without an overall increase in the volume of goods/services offered in the market. Added to that, because entry to the market is difficult, capital becomes stagnant (concentrated to few firms). Nonetheless, the creation of more public goods (from the taxes of firms) of the government can be severely threatened. Since most governments use the so-called specific taxes (tax per unit of good produced), a general decrease in the volume of goods/services offered by a particular industry results to an overall decrease in government income. In the case of externalities (externalities are of two types: negative externalities and positive externalities the former is a market structure with negative spillover effects on others the latter is a market with positive spillover effects on other), market price of major industries becomes unpredictable in the long-run. In a May 1996 issue of the Wall Street Journal (entitled Economists Say Gasoline Tax Is Too Low), economists argued because of the unpredictable behavior in the long-run of oil prices in the world market, the US government was forced to keep the gasoline prices low (Calmes and Georges, 1996). This instance enabled oil companies to double their revenues at the expense of the consuming public. References Calmes, Jackie and Christopher Georges. (1996). May 7 Issue The Wall Street Journal. Economics Basics: Monopolies, Oligopolies and Perfect Competition. (2007). Investopedia. Retrieved on October 23, 2007 Kaiser, Hanno. (2007). The Goals of Antitrust and Economic Policy: Consumer Welfare? Efficiency? Perfect Competition? Retrieved on October 23, 2007 from http:// http://www.lawsocietyblog.com/archives/55. Perfect Competition. (2007). Investopedia. Retrieved on October 23, 2007 from http:// http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/perfectcompetition.asp.