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Describe Actions Be Taken To That Can Bring About A More Equitable Society For Older People
Describe Actions Be Taken To That Can Bring About A More Equitable Society For Older People.
Introduction
The number of old people in the world in the last decade has been on the rise and will continue to expand in the coming years. According to United Nations report the old people in 2000 accounted for 10 percent of the world population (1). This number is expected to double over the next 50 years and it will constitute 21 percent of the world population. This means that the population of older people will increase from 606 million as recorded in 2000 to about 1.9 billion by 2050. The largest number of older people will be living in developing nations where this population is expected to hit 1.5 billion by 2050. Social differentiation in the society takes many forms and age is one of them. Age, in spite of the fact that it is a biological fact, is also a socially construed perception. Regardless of where one may live age is an escapable fact. In certain parts of the world aged people are respected members of the society, but in others they youth are given more value and the aged are treated negatively. The disengagement theory suggests that in order for the younger people to take important roles inn the society, the older members of such a society should retire from their positions and instead they should assume roles that match they physical ability. The active theory on the other hand suggests that older people can be of value to society and to themselves if they are kept active. The conflict theory suggests that the older people go through various forms of discrimination and prejudice and that they also encounter inequalities along the lines of race/ethnicity, gender, and social class. This paper seeks to explore how a society can live harmoniously with the older people.
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Age discrimination results in negative impacts on the older people like marginalization, isolation, and exclusion. This is a major threat to increasing number of old people in the society and also to social stability of the entire society. The functionalism perspective and the conflict theory perspectives are some of the ways that sociologists have explored this issue of how society treats its older people. The functionalists are interested on how various elements of a society work together. The older people are one such an important part of the society. According to the functionalist, those people with adequate resources and are thus able to adjust well into other roles when they become aged are able to stay active. The functionalist developed the disengagement theory to explain how some people deal with old age. This theory portends that as people grow old they tend to withdraw from the mainstream society. This is attributed to decline in physical health, the need for freedom and to take roles that they like, which may differ depending on whether one is a females or male.
Active theory on the other hand, suggests that as older people withdraw from their previous roles, they require new roles to keep them active. This theory suggests that one of the key elements for happiness among the older people is being engaged in some form of activity. Proponents suggest that the more the older people in a society are kept engaged the more it is likely that they would stay happy. However, critics suggest not all people get the same opportunities to be actively engaged. Additionally, it is critiqued that not everyone would be happy in being actively engaged or being in the presence of other people. Therefore, a balance is established where it is argued that when old people participate in informal activities, for instance hobbies, they are more likely to be satisfied (OpenStax College n.p).
Another theory under the functionalist perspective that explains how old people relate with the rest of the members of a society is continuity theory. This theory suggests that older people deliberately decide to maintain consistency between external structures like relationships and internal ones such as beliefs, and personality structures and as such stay actively engaged throughout their lives in society (OpenStax College n.p). This means that balance in society can be attained by making decisions basically from the existing social roles.
Conflict theory is another perspective used to explore discrimination against the elderly in a society. It perceives the society as inherently unstable comprising of those with power and those without. The privileged or those holding the power keep on marginalizing the rest. Conflict is as a result of competition for scarce resources and power. When this concept is applied in the analysis of the social discriminations against the elderly, it suggests that the old are in constant competition with other groups such as youth in a society to maintain their control of resources. It undercuts the negative consequences of ageism or treating the old people with discrimination and prejudice. The old people in the workforce are negatively viewed because they are of little economic value to the society as they are less productive and because they continue to retain huge control of resources in form of high salaries and health benefits that comes with the ranks held as one develops the career ladder (New Charter University 1).
A more equitable society for the elderly can thus only exists, if we employ mainstreaming society. When mainstreaming is successfully implemented it should enhance social integration of the group under consideration. It should result in equitable development for all members of a society. This means that development decision in a society, for instance, in health, employment, or education should be viewed within the lenses of the older people.
Social integration should aim to create a society that is inclusive. Such a society should ensure that each individual has his or her own rights and obligations and an active role to play (United Nations 2). Therefore, mainstreaming is an important strategy that can create integration especially because discrimination against the elderly is due to lack of inclusion. This has resulted in the lack of participation by the group in society. This recognition should be based on the understanding that they have basic human rights that need to be protected and there is need for social justice, tolerance, and equalization.
Conclusion
An equitable society for the older people can be created. This entails first understanding source of prejudice and discrimination to the old. The conflict theory suggests that this is due to competition for resources and the negative perception that they are less productive, but continue to control huge resources. Functionalist perspective with its active theory suggests that older people are happy when they are kept actively engaged. Therefore, we need to improve on social integration to attain the equitable society for the elderly. This mean there is need to mainstream the challenges faced by the older people in making key decisions on education, health, and other areas in society.
Works Cited
New Charter University. Sociological Perspectives on Aging. (n.d). Web.
OpenStax College. Theoretical Perspective on Aging. (2013). Web.
Venne, Robert. Mainstreaming the Concerns of Older Persons into the Social Development Agenda. United Nations Report. (n.d). Web.
Creating A Psychological Test
Creating A Psychological Test
Item analysis
Research question(s) or hypotheses
The main research question is addressing reliability as well as the validity concerns which are on the level of the item. it entails the way these two notions can be used in guiding in decisions pertaining the test items that will be kept, the items that need to be changed and the items that will be substituted or abandoned altogether.
Constructs
There are three main constructs that will be used and they are item difficulty, item consistency and item discriminability. These three construct deal with aspects of the item that are of great importance in their own right and they are also connected to each other in one way or another. However assessing these three constructs of tests alone can not give sufficient information to make a decision on the fate of individual items. Therefore the balance of difficulty, dicriminability and consistency of n item is difficult task. These three constructs were arrived at in different ways. The concept of difficulty is a very common one hence this was an easy construct to come up with. This aspect was chosen since every item is designed with specific preferences, beliefs, attributes and behavioral self reports in mind and therefore there can be difficulty arising pertaining items (Key,2010).
The second construct is consistency which involves assessment of how well an item is able to hang together. This construct was arrived at since the approach can be used as a test for other items as opposed to a hypothesis that the overall reliability of an instrument is not in any way affected by a particular item. The third construct is item discriminability, and just as item reliability this construct pays for researchers that are beginning to try and ensure that they familiarize themselves with the literature that pertains to the research and therefore they can maximize on the validity of each item that is being tested.
Tests for measuring constructs
It is very important to note that each construct contributes to the entire scene and therefore they are worth being tested independently. There are various tests that are used to measure the three different constructs for item difficulty, the level of difficulty can be tested and expressed as an average based on the criteria of response that have been received pertaining the difficulty of the item. Item reliability can be test using two approaches incase an item has been deleted; are recomputing an instrument reliability in an undefined number of times and each time deleting different items from the instrument. The second approach is of estimating how reliable a particular test is at the item level. Therefore the consistency can be tested through obtaining an interitem consistency and it is necessary to obtain an average correlation with each item in a particular instrument (Shuttleworth ,2009).
References
Key.P.J.(2010).Reliability and validity.Retrieved April 4,2013 from http://www.okstate.edu/ag/agedcm4h/academic/aged5980a/5980/newpage18.htmShuttleworth,M.(2009).construct validity.Retriebed april 4,2013 from http://explorable.com/construct-validity
Describe a target market in Reece
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Describe a target market for Reece’s Big Cup
Reese’s big cup is a company that focuses on the production of peanut butter chocolate bars. The company has a different variety of products to suite the demands of the different clientele they have. The company was started in 1928 by Milton Hershey of the Hershey Company. The company has been producing all forms of candy to cakes thus making it one of the influential companies in the industry.
The purpose of this paper is to conduct a market analysis of Reese’s peanut Butter cups company. The paper will concentrate on one target market of the company focusing on the reason for the choice of this particular market. The paper finally mentions the geographic coverage of the customers the company supplies.
Target market
A target market is described as the concentration on a particular need of a customer in the market. The customer in this case has specific needs and wants that need to be fulfilled. The focusing of a market allows a company to specialize on the market so that they can gear the production of the product toward the demands of the market.
The country targets a wide range of markets from the children to adults in different areas of the country. The consumers of this product have a particular taste in that they have a weakness for all types of candy products. The target market for the company ranges from small children to teenagers who are the largest consumers of the chocolate bars. Candy is preferred by the younger population in the country. Despite this, the market also consists of families who may occasionally purchase the product for the whole family. The company has set itself apart from other manufacturers in that they focus on peanut butter chocolates. This has earned them more customers who desire an alternative to the other chocolate flavors
Why I selected this target market
The reason for the selection of this target market is that they are the population who consume the product the most. This has been displayed by the records of the company which show that their main customers are aged between (5-17) years. These records were certified by a survey that was conducted in the last financial year. This age bracket mainly consists of young children and teenagers.
Geographic concentration of the brand
The company was located in the southern part of the United States. This is one of the reasons why the product performs well in these parts of the country. Despite this, Reece’s big cup has managed to diverge into other parts of the country. The supply of the product to all parts of the country has enabled it to compete with more established brands thus increasing its market share. The lifestyles of the companies target market play a significant role in the demand for our product. Some of the customers opt to buy the healthy bars as an alternative to the more rich flavors. Other customers are accustomed to snacking on a daily basis. This type of lifestyle ensures that they demand for an adequate supply of the product.
As stated earlier, the company intends to compete with the more recognized companies. The company thus projects to sell its products outside the United States. This will be achievable by conducting extensive marketing in and outside the country.