Sociology

anomie as relative to social strata
Anomies are a relative concept. Different groups in society will have different limits, different goals and different expectations. The group with the greatest immunity to anomie is impoverished people, especially for people who have been poor all of their lives. This is because poverty teaches one to live within their means. Wealthy people, on the other hand, are more prone to anomie because as Durkheim puts it, wealthy people have nothing above them no limits, no standards and no ceiling.

Durkheim also mentions that the less limited one feels, the more intolerable all limitation appears. These limits, in the form of norm and expectations, vary by social strata. People are assigned different expectations. Age, for instance, is an important social strata. When youre younger, you have more limits over yourself. Anomie can be a chronic condition among younger people because the youth are extremely enthusiastic, extremely desirous and yet society puts greater limit on that population.

Social limits are neither rigid nor absolute. Overtime, they can change dramatically. For instance, in the 1950s, sexual inequality created very low expectations for women. Society imposed very strict limits over what women were able to achieve in society. Most had to settle for being happy staying at home and raising children. So women were confined to the domestic route by society. These were the limits imposed over womens desires and expectations. Today, most women would suffer extreme anomie if society would impose those limits.

Most groups demanding equal rights and privileges or demanding social change are suffering from anomie because their expectations and desires are greater than their opportunity to fulfill these expectations. At one time a group might have been content with their inequality or used to it and are able to live with it but overtime their expectations grow and they demand more. For instance, in 1920, many African-Americans have resigned themselves to the Jim Crow system but by 1940 and 1950, they were not going to take it anymore. Another example can be seen in the labor movement of the United States. Workers came to believe they deserved more a living wage and a larger license supply. They were suffering from anomie. They were frustrated at their treatment and their low wages because they had higher expectations. Today, workers are frustrated because they are not able to live up to the American standard of living.

economic sources
There are two ways to alleviate anomie. If youre suffering because you think youre falling short of your goals and expectations then you need to bring those goals down and bring them more in alignment with your needs. Or you need to change the system so that you can have new opportunities to meet those expectations. But when you resign yourself to lower standards, that is called fatalism. In any case, to avoid anomie people should not desire more than they could legitimately hope for. This hierarchy of expectations and rewards operates most clearly in the economic level of occupations. For each occupation, society assigns a certain reward and a level of compensation. For those occupations that perform the most vital functions of society the rewards are the greatest. These individuals can form high expectations because society affords them the opportunity to achieve those career aspirations. There could be a considerable disappointment when everybody rushes to these occupations because of the reward.

An obvious source of anomie is sudden downward mobility when individuals are no longer able to afford their customary standard of living and refuse to suffer the shame of downward mobility. For example, any setback in our career, like a demotion, can be devastating because we place a lot of value on career in our society. The less obvious source of anomie is sudden upward mobility. With wealth, economic expectations find no limits because youre able to use your money to overcome social limits. This sense of unlimited aspirations and appetites can leave a person aimless and out of control. The rich can become lost in their endless desires and ambitions. They become accustomed to lavish lifestyle and extravagant spending and can actually develop a sense of relative deprivation if they have to suffer any setback in their lifestyle. For Durkheim, life loses its purpose without limits and wealth destroys purpose by removing all limits. This can become a crisis for a lot of rich people. Theyve reached the top, they have all the money in the world, they have all the success in the world and nothings left. So they have to find a way to create new meaning. That is why a lot of these rich people become philanthropists.

Now Durkheim, like Marx, was concerned about the rise of industrial capitalism and all these wealth it was creating. The laissez faire free market is removing social limits. The deregulation of business and industry from their traditional religious and government constraints has unleashed the desires of capitalists. With the church and the state subordinated, capitalists now find no limits to the maximization of their profits or their private wealth. There is no longer any moral prohibition on wealth accumulation. Gross economic inequality is no longer seen as a moral problem. Those social regulations and moral prohibitions have been removed for the wealthy in the modern age. The moral prohibitions against unbridled greed have been removed. Greed is no longer a sin. Its no longer seen as obscene or decadent.

Marx felt that growing exploitation and economic inequality will necessarily lead to growing resembling hostility among workers. It is unavoidable. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer and the poor would rise up as a result of this exploitation. Durkheim said that thats not necessarily true. The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer and the poor will just accept it. They will just resign themselves and can get used to it.

In Durkheims point of view, perhaps the most revolutionary group is the middle class. As large segments of the middle class are not able to achieve their expectations, they will be disappointed and this disappointment will lead to some sort of movement or revolutionary situation. History shows that the middle class moves to the right wing and follows more of a Fascist route when they get upset or frustrated and will likely scapegoat other groups in society for their own woes.

Bellah et al. on the therapeutic personality
American character types Biblical, Republican, Utilitarian, Expressive

Robert Bellah and his co-authors claim that the early American character was a mix of four different types biblical, republican, utilitarian and expressive traditions.

The biblical character is the oldest and descends from the colonial times. The biblical tradition values the individuals obligation to the community. An individual has a collective spirit that makes him willing to sacrifice his own self-interest for the greater good of the community. For instance, volunteerism would be a reflection of biblical values. Your religious commitment to God will be expressed in your moral commitment to each other. Religious commitment to God is express in ones moral commitment to others. So thats one dimension of the biblical character.

The second dimension is the Republican tradition. This is not the Republican party, this is the Republican ethos. This tradition stems from the Enlightenment. It was embodied by our founding fathers who valued liberty, equality, individual freedom and democracy. One person that could personify this principle is Thomas Jefferson. Sometimes, this Republican tradition is also called the Jeffersonian tradition. But this Jefferson tradition or Republican tradition, even though it valued individual freedom, it did recognize there were limits. Freedom is not free. That with rights come responsibilities. What Jefferson meant by freedom was not your freedom to withdraw from society but your freedom to participate or to become engaged in government. Thats why the constitution does not have any guarantee or proxy. Theres nothing in the constitution about the freedom to be left alone or any protection of your privacy. The Republicans would think that thinking of liberty as being synonymous to privacy is a perversion of liberty.

Utilitarianism or utilitarian individualism has roots in Europe but it was personified in America by Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, like Jefferson realized that this calculating and enterprising individual could only pursue his self-interests in a society where individuals practiced self-control. Utilitarianism values the maximization of individual interests but not at the expense of others.

The most individualistic approach to life is expressive individualism. Expressive individualism was born in the transcendental philosophy of Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson and to some extent Henry David Thoreau. Transcendentalism elevates the individual above all constraints. This is why its the most individualistic. Whitmans poetry and Thoreaus essays on civil disobedience celebrate the individual and Bellah argues that this individualistic tradition is actually compatible with Republicanism. It doesnt necessarily reject community. Its just that the individual should be free to participate according to their own free will. Thoreau and Emerson only opposed authority when it forced individuals to conform. They were against mindless or coerced conformity.

Triumph of utilitarian and expressive types embodied  by corporate manager and therapist

While none of these four streams of thought advocate an attitude of unlimited self-interest, the idea of rational, isolated self-interested individual nevertheless became the dominant theme of the 19th century. Bellah identified Alexis de Tocqueville as the most important critic of his radical individualism. In many ways, Tocqueville was very impressed by American culture and American government and personality but he was a critic of American radical individualism. He feared that the narrow-minded pursuit of private wealth was destroying the collective mores on which American democracy was built. He saw that these four types were increasingly coming into conflict with each other and that utilitarian individualism was starting to undermine American biblical and Republican traditions. He worried that the growth of the industry and prosperity encouraged people to surrender their civic responsibilities. And as they became wealthier and became more comfortable, they would lose their Republican vigilance or their spirit of engagement and community participation. Bellah believes that Tocquevilles darkest prophecies have come to pass. Americans by the late 20th century have lost a good deal of their biblical and republican tradition. With the development of industrial and corporate capitalism in the 19th and 20th century, the local community institutions that sustained self-government were displaced by large anonymous cities. Urbanization has also contributed to the decline of these republican and biblical traditions. The mores that attach these people to moral commitments are the habits of the heart. These habits were most valued by the republican and biblical traditions and Bellah fears that were losing them as Americans. Not only do we have fewer of these ties in this contemporary society but the few we do have are weak. In terms of culture, the contemporary individual finds less and less meaning and purpose in communal life. The individual is no longer anchored in the community or defines him or herself by social roles. Biblical and republican moral traditions are unsuited to life in large, anonymous, multicultural urban settings. These traditions havent survived industrialization and urbanization. There was a balance in the 19th century between all four of these but as biblical and republican traditions weaken and fade away, expressive and utilitarian traditions become dominant. The individual is now free to make money and maximize his or her pleasure without countervailing civic responsibilities or moral obligations. Our individualism today is no longer grounded in the community. People have more freedom but with less purpose.

The modern character type that embodies utilitarian individualism in the public realm is the corporate manager. Within the bureaucratic organization of the corporation, the manager has been the most zealot disciple of utilitarian individualism. Managers need to maximize profitability of the firm by maximizing the efficiency of workers. To the managerial perspective, workers are merely costs of production that are subject to the impersonal laws of supply and demand. Managers are retained by the board of directors only as long as they increase profits and they only agree to stay as long as they receive sufficient monetary compensation.

Expressive individualism is personified or embodied by the therapist. Both utilitarian and expressive individualism are concerned with maximizing self-interest. But the measure of self-interest for the manager is quantified as money. The therapist measure of self-interest is the more subjective criterion of personal happiness. From the therapeutic view, the goal of relationships is always self-interest. The individual comes first in a relationship and the individuals happiness always takes precedence over the welfare of the relationship. Being too giving, too dependent or too committed to someone else can threaten the freedom and identity of the self. Needing others to feel okay is the fundamental malady that therapy seeks to cure. Sacrifice and dependency are dirty words in therapy. If youre sacrificing in a relationship, if youre becoming dependent in a relationship then you have risk of losing yourself. Thats a bad thing from this therapeutic point of view. From the therapeutic perspective, mutual selfishness is essential to love. Therapeutic marriage rejects all cultural traditions because culture is a one side fits all. A reflection of this therapeutic approach would be people who for instance could not accept the traditional vows of marriage. They wrote their own vows, thus making their own standards for their own relationship.

Finding Oneself by leaving home  church
The object of family is to fulfill personal needs. If your family life does not personally satisfy and does not allow you to be yourself then you can opt out. Bellah and his co-authors are worried about the family becoming less of a moral community, and more of a lifestyle enclave. According to the authors, the therapeutic attitude deprives the individual of the belief that their love and marriage is part of something greater than each partners personal interests and desires. For the therapeutic point of view, love and marriage have no higher moral authority that commands the couple loyalty. The relationship is not grounded in any transcendent moral order. Love and marriage are essentially just contractual obligations based on negotiation between individuals acting on their own self-interest. Feeling becomes more important than belief. Feelings are a weak basis of a relationship because theyre self-leading and capricious. Belief is an enduring, strong basis of a relationship. Even when your feelings for somebody are not strong and they change, your belief can sustain your relationship when your feelings are hurt. The authors are getting concerned that more and more people are basing their relationships exclusively on feelings and that is why so many relationships fail. Our modern obsession of sex and money are manifestations of this therapeutic attitude. Sex is all about feeling, about a needy gratification. The authors dont believe you could sustain a relationship on sex because sex and money allow us to quantify the cost and benefit in a relationship. Judging the worth of a relationship with the cost-benefit analysis equation tends to cheapen the relationship when you try to quantify it or reduce it to something like a market equation or a contract.

Bellah and his co-authors think that its this therapeutic mentality that is pushing up the divorce rate. You dont even have to believe in God to accept the biblical tradition. You just have to think that your relationship has some moral basis to it. That the two of you are more important than each of you. That this union of two people is more important than the personal happiness of each person. And that you can derive deep important meaning more from that union than you can from your own individual interest.

Personality Types
The Therapeutic Personality (Habits of the Heart)
Ascendancy of utilitarian  expressive individualism (the manager therapist)
The authors recognized that the US has four cultural traditions biblical, republican, expressive and utilitarian. The community traditions are the republican and biblical. The expressive and utilitarian traditions represent our individualistic traditions. In the early part of our history, these traditions were balanced. Any time the individual traditions become too greedy or selfish, the community traditions would bring them back in. The community traditions were not totalitarian or too oppressive because we have these offsetting individualistic traditions. However in the 20th century, they argue that the balance has been tilted in the favor of expressive and utilitarian individualism. Our community traditions are weakening. The embodiment of the 20th century utilitarianism is seen in a corporate manager. The goal of the utilitarian individual is to express his self-interest. The other side of individualism is expressive individualism which is studied in the context of therapy. The therapist epitomizes expressive individualism which is not precisely quantified in terms of money but is measured in terms of personal happiness. The goal of the expressive individual is to maximize his happiness. But all happiness is based on feeling and the authors are critical of feeling. They dont think feeling is a strong basis of relationships because feeling is shallow, superficial and ever-changing. And yet therapists always advise to follow your feelings. There had been an ascendancy of feeling over belief. Strong, deeply held beliefs are what community is grounded in. You have conviction with belief but with feelings, theyre fickle and unstable. A marriage based on feeling is a weak marriage and therefore explains the rising divorce rates. From a community perspective, married individuals should be seen as one or as a union. Their destiny and faith have enjoined. This is an old-fashioned view of marriage.

Sacrifice and commitment are dirty words from the therapists point of view. If youre going to sacrifice, you will lose yourself in the relationship. Therapy warns you against losing yourself in a relationship.

Finding Oneself
Leaving Home
The quest of finding ones self in America is predicated on the value of self-reliance. The first and most significant phase of this quest is leaving home. Leaving home is a uniquely American preoccupation that reflects our cultural value on separation and individualism. American teenagers cant wait to get out on their own and make their own way or living. Part of adolescence is an urgency to break away from parental dependency and supervision. Separation from home, while desired, can be difficult because people still get homesick. But the really frightening prospect for both the parent and the child is the child never leaving home. The conception and expectation of self-reliance actually ties us together with our families. Leaving the home is a common understanding that you have with your parents. Much of the socialization process is about preparing kids to live on their own. So as children age, parents are supposed to teach them to have increasing responsibility or to have so-called life skills. If children continue to live at home past their twenties, the parents are regarded as failures in parenting. Our very notion of adulthood and maturity are defined by self-reliance. If you cant live on your own and take care of yourself, youre immature. It is an indication that youre not taking responsibility.

Leaving Church
Finding oneself in America has also meant leaving church. Whats important from this concept of self-reliance is to arrive at your own sect of Christianity or spirituality along your own path. Under expressive individualism, belief is not a question of belonging or serving. Belief is a question of discovering the self outside of community. The struggle of self-reliance and self-meaning is guided by the myth that our deepest and most genuine beliefs are formed in the isolation of our private selves. Old religions are weakening and the fastest growing faith is the one which celebrates individualism. People are turning away from authoritarian religions and turning to egalitarian religions where they can have a say over their own destiny and salvation.

Work as self-realization therapy or profit
Work has become an extension of the self. Through work, you can make something of yourself. The notion that your work is a calling is more in line with the biblical tradition that youve been called to serve others. Thats not the meaning of work today. People no longer understand the meaning of their work in the context of the larger community, let alone in the religious context. Work is about self-interest and the maximization of personal wealth, status and calling. Success in the career today is completely demised from community service.

Lifestyle enclaves v. community
Lifestyle enclaves are cult-like groups of people that share similar personalities and would come together periodically to share something of similar interest to all of them. Theyre not communities because they dont share enough. In lifestyle enclaves, you can drop out of at anytime but in communities you have deeper roots. Commitment in lifestyle enclaves is weak. Lifestyle enclave is actually changing traditional communities. For instance, marriage is becoming more of a lifestyle enclave when you find your mate somebody you can relate to only in terms of lifestyle. You share common leisure activities, tastes, preferences, etc.

Narcissistic Personality
Social Influence on Narcissism
Narcissistic traits are well-suited to modern institutional life-narcissism has become the favored personality

The shallow values of narcissists and their fear of intimate personal relations suit him or her well to the impersonal relations of corporate and government bureaucracies. The narcissist can become a very effective and successful bureaucrat because the bureaucracy requires impersonality or detachment or shallowness. The increasing size of organizations like universities and corporations create greater anonymity and reduce individuals to self-interest and competition. The narcissist is receiving positive feedback from the social order yet he feels empty. You see a lot of successful people in therapy. The problem is that therapy becomes less and less effective since most of the therapeutic methods employed by therapists are hyper-individualistic. They only exacerbate narcissistic tendencies. The appearance of normalcy and success overshadows the symptoms of pathology. Narcissists seem like regular people. They are not crazed nor do they dont appear to be sick or insane. They dont appear to be antisocial and can be very charming and sociable. They function well in society.

Corporate gamesmanship
Todays successful corporate leader is no longer a company man or woman who shows loyalty to the firm. Corporate success is now a game that requires the individual to play other people in the organization against each other. The institutional setting that extols individual career success over team work and cooperation is a fertile ground for the narcissistic personality. The narcissist is very political, very shrewd and knows how to play work politics very well. They have the ability to manipulate people and play the role of the corporate gamesman very well. The corporate gamesman is ready to sell the company down the river if another company gives him or her a better offer. And they would already be scheming to take their clients with them in their new job. Of course the corporation will only have its self to blame. It developed this corporate culture that encourages narcissism. The corporation has furthered this culture of individual opportunism by constant outsourcing and downsizing, by making job security a thing of the past. In the end, its not the worker job performance that counts for the corporate manager, what matters is style, panache and the skill of manipulating others.

The cultures of psychiatry and self-help
The social construction of endless diagnoses means that there are more ways for us to deviate from normal physical and mental health. With all these new diagnoses and the medicalisation of behavior, there are so many more ways to deviate from normal mental health. This feeds into the narcissist hypochondria. Theyre very sensitive to their mental health. They can think about new ways to be sick. Every bad sensation that they have, the hypochondriac would want to put a label on it and want a specific definition. They want a diagnosis for this. They need it. Theres an irrational preoccupation with health. This is a symptom of narcissism.

Bourgeois and Bohemian personality types converge into Bobos (Boboism)
The author of Bobos in Paradise, David Brooks looks at two cultural traditions in the United States, the bourgeois cultural tradition and a bohemian cultural tradition. For most of our history, the two remain depart. You couldnt be both. But only in the late 20th century did they merge and become this sort of high-breed culture known as Boboism. Its only with the ascendancy of a class of educated elites in the 1960s that these rival cultures have become consolidated into a single Bobo culture. The baby boomers, the largest generation in American history by far, are these people born between 1946 and 1960.

The Bourgeois strain in American culture is materialistic and pragmatic. It values refined taste and genteel manners. The snobby elite of the ruling class or the ruling elite comes to mind. They were very status-oriented. In contrast, Bohemian culture is artistic, romantic, earthy, spontaneous and anti-establishment. This is somewhat synonymous with expressive individualism.

The boomers themselves were raised mostly by Bourgeois parents in the post war era but in the 1960s, they embraced this sort of hippie culture which had a lot of Bohemian aspects to it. It borrowed a lot from the beat generation from the fifties. They preceded the hippies. Whereas the Bourgeois conspired to differentiate themselves through conspicuous consumption, the Bohemians strived to differentiate themselves to conspicuous consumption of material goods. Non-conformity to conventional norms. Bohemians do whatever comes natural, whatever feels right. Theyre more spontaneous. The bohemian rejects pay materialism and mindless social climbing. Its a blatant, explicit rejection of the Bourgeois lifestyle. But as a concrete culture, Bohemian lifestyle didnt really take root in the United States until after World War I. Ernest Hemingway is considered one of the young Bohemians in the 1920s. Artists, authors, dancers are the Bohemians of the 1920s and 1930s. Many of them left the United States to go live in France, because they thought the United States middle class Bourgeois culture was so stifling that they had to go somewhere else where they could express themselves more freely. The next incarnation of the Bohemian culture would be the beats in the 1950s. The final and most famous or infamous wave of Bohemians were the hippies of the 1960s. Sex, drugs, rock and roll became their slogan.

(1) What is hermeneutics and how can it help social science
The process of hermeneutics is a style of analysis that seeks to further understand the significance and value of interpretation. This philosophical approach seeks to consolidate ideas and come up with particular meanings in a particular topic or scope (University of Toronto, 2006). Given these, it seeks to understand the value of language as a necessary means to transmit information and ideas related to a specific field of study. Due to this, it is often considered relevant in seeking questions that can help utilize and further improve the level of comprehending the value and significance of a particular endeavor (Abulad, 2007).

Relating this idea to social science, the process of hermeneutics remain essential because of its ability to shape and foster better ways to appreciate the history, culture, and interpretation of ideas. The information provided corresponds to carefully utilizing and providing appropriate questions that can cultivate and enhance the level of appreciating the realities as individuals, groups, and society sees it (University of Toronto, 2007). Due to this, it is often considered essential in raising questions and establishes appropriate perspective over issues surrounding the social science.  Thus, it becomes a vital instrument on how language imparts vital insights with reality.

(2) What is phenomenology and how can it help social science
The idea of phenomenology corresponds to the idea of creating interpretation over specific realties with ones sense of consciousness experience. Here, it details the value and perspective of how the individual sees and responds to these trends within the external environment (Wise Geek, 2007). Here, it characterizes the value of using ones cognitive abilities to create a correlation with ones individual surroundings. This dual interaction then creates a perspective of perceiving specific idea and cultivates the creation of knowledge accordingly (Wise Geek, 2007). Thus, this process seeks to objectify the common experiences that an individual faces which are often considered to be subjective in both origin and interpretation.

Relating this to the aspect of social science, the practice of using the phenomenological approach cultivates better the impact that society impacts the individual. It serves as an important framework in creating interpretations on the value that individual makes concerning experiences and how it coincides with the realities that are happening (Wisegeek, 2007). Similarly, the value of experiences serves to illustrate the capacity of how disciplines of social science affect individual perceptions, judgments, and emotions. Through such relationship, it helps create better analysis on the way social sciences influence consciousness and experiences.

Perhaps one of the most intense and controversial issues that should be addressed immediately in the United States is about the minority groups living in the country. For years, racial discrimination, prejudice and racism had been a part of our oldest values and culture alongside equality, freedom and justice. Issues about race, gender and ethnicity will not be resolved easily unless people will be knowledgeable and passionate about resolving issues such as this (Healey xix).

Things seem to happen continuously in our world. Everyday we see in our television, read in the newspaper and magazines and hear from the radio violent conflicts between countries either economically or politically. In a modern world such as ours, it is a question why primitive behaviors seem to re-surface in forms of untoward behaviors towards other people such as prevailing issues in race, gender and ethnicity (Eller 2).

Asian, Black, Caucasian- these are some of the terms we often hear when people categorize others when it comes to their race. Oftentimes the term race can be connected to the word racism which commonly causes disagreements between people. Racism can be defined as the prejudice of people when it comes to the physical characteristic of others. The term has been loosely used to define the negative feelings of others towards people who have a different race.

Racism for me is a negative trait especially because we tend to judge people just by their physical differences. For an instance when we see someone with a different skin color from us, we tend to generalize their behaviors without giving them a chance to acknowledge themselves first. We overlook their real capacities just because we have this prejudice that our race is more superior to them.

Racism is a barrier when it comes to effective communication with other people. It also limits our capacities to interact very well with others. However, if people will not realize the barriers racism creates, it will still continue throughout generations. If truth be told, racism cannot simply be changed in one day or just by simply passing laws that will be enforced to stop it. Racism is part of a culture and drastic changes are needed to sometimes change ones culture (Bowser xviii).

Another debated issue which continues to challenge most people is gender inequality. The gap between men and women when it comes to social responsibilities remains to be an issue for others. In our time, our lives are oftentimes in a rush. Because of this some of our family members, let us say both our parents work in order to cope up with our lifes demands. Before, people regard women as solely for housework or chores. Women were regarded as part of the household and not as individuals (Brckner 1). They could not vote before or enjoy other liberties which men had.

In our society nowadays, women are considered to be somewhat equal to men when it comes to the labor market or voting rights. Women can wear anything they want and they can choose their jobs. Women now are not stuck doing household chores and babysitting children. They are now more productive in a sense that they contribute more to the present society than before.

In the present, there are female leaders which spearhead good changes in some countries. The strength of the women worldwide is not greatly recognized because of their major contributions in the world.

Gender inequality is an issue which is slowly being resolved by passing laws which widen the rights of women. Unlike racism, inequality in gender, for me, can be resolved easier because it only involves two factors- the men and the women, regardless of their race or ethnicity.

Ethnicity and race are often confused with each other. Ethnicity can be defined as the group of individuals who consider themselves to be sharing or bonded over same characteristics or behavior. Ethnicity is different from race because race means the similarities of people when it comes to physical attributes or appearance such as the color of the skin or the shape of the eyes (Eriksen 1). Based on the distinction made by sociologist before, race is a biological category while ethnicity is a cultural one (Jiobu 5).

Ethnic issues are becoming prominent over time in the world and these issues are complex ones. It has also gripped the worlds attention like no other. Based on some data gathered, there are almost as many as five thousand to eight thousand distinguishable ethnic groups to date. These issues are shaped by culture or history and the present conditions of the state of mind of the people.

There are several instances when superior cultures try to dominate other cultures through colonialism. Some people tend to influence others through the way they talk, their beliefs, or just the way they dress. Immigrants are sometimes dominated by the culture of the place they go to. I believe that issues concerning ethnicity should be resolved immediately so as to preserve other peoples culture or ethnic identities.

People should learn how to respect others who may possibly have a different race or ethnicity from us. Either they are of the same or different gender as us we are not entitled to act superior to them. We should always respect others for respect begets respect. If we try to put ourselves in their situation, we will be able to comprehend what they have to go through in order to find a place they belong to.

Indeed being able to stop racism or other issues pertaining to race, gender and ethnicity can be too ideal since these kinds of problems cannot be stopped in a day or in a short period of time. It needs immediate and long term solutions and it should begin within us. In a modern world such as ours, we have to open our minds towards development. Development can only be achieved if we stopped acting on primitive behaviors when it comes to social problems.

To new teachers, the primary challenge is usually establishing control over the students (Nucci, 2006). Melissa Reid has just achieved her long time dream of being a high school teacher but that dream is quickly turning into a nightmare. Two months into the experience, she quickly finds herself out of control of the class. It all starts with Gregorys outburst during a session. The outburst derails the academic discussion to Melissas night job and the consequent revelation that she is not yet a fully-fledged teacher. She allows the discussion to dwell on her private life and the students now fail to see her as their teacher, and hence the authority, instead seeing her as a teaching student.

As a new teacher, her main challenge was establishing herself as the authority and maintaining discipline and order in the classroom. She fails to establish herself as the authority in the absence of her cooperating teacher, Jane Maddox. This accompanied by the revelation that she is yet to graduate makes her lose the respect as a teacher and hence the quagmire. The situation deteriorates rapidly with some of the students yelling, sneering and using inapt language bordering on abusive.

The role of a teacher, beyond imparting knowledge, includes class management. She applies good classroom management practices by applying cooperative learning, understanding the students individually and behavior modification but this is not enough to regain control with James. James overreacts and threatens her with violence. James mother has been called to the school twice in a week and she understands that James has an underlying problem and even suggests professional help.

The need for psychological help for James should be a reason enough for Melissa to take the threat seriously and talk to the dean and James parents. She should advice the parents to seek professional help to better understand the underlying problem of their son.

In this discussion, four articles dealing with the treatment of individuals with intellectual disabilities will be reviewed. These four articles will discuss the training of staff engaged in aiding individuals with specialized needs. A systematic review of each article will be conducted in order to understand the role of each in the present body of research. After a review of each of the articles, a comparison will be conducted in order to assess the best manner in approaching the training of staff dedicated to serving individuals with intellectual disabilities. The strengths and weaknesses of the articles will be assessed in order to generate the best platform upon which to base the future training of health institutions staff members.

The first study to be reviewed was conducted by Lowe et al. Lowes study focused on the training of staff to implement positive behavior support. Previous studies had shown that positive behavioral support was the preferred mode of service by patients with specialized needs. However, health institutions had few members of their staff equipped to provide such support. Lowe et al. wanted to address this disparity by providing introductory training to the staff members in general rather than equipping only specialist servers of the staff with comprehensive training.

The researchers remained relevant when they decided to test the depth of knowledge retained by the trainees and the impact that the training had on their attitudes. The researchers further checked for long-term effects of the training by gauging the knowledge and changed attitude of the trainees one year after the conduct of the training. These questions helped to assess the efficacy of the training conducted.

A quasi-experimental design was adopted by distinguishing between registered and unregistered members of the staff who underwent training. Members of the registered staff were perceived as qualified nurses while members of the unregistered staff were perceived as unqualified nurses. The design was high in internal validity because it provided a baseline measure for knowledge and attitude. The participants were asked to complete the questionnaires prior to training proper.

Overall there were three assessment points to consider (1) prior to training (2) directly after training and (3) one year after training. It was only with regard to the last that the internal validity of the study was threatened. The period of time without monitoring and supervision from the researchers allowed the participants to come in contact with members of the other group. It would have been difficult to control for external factors or to attribute changes to the mere passing of time.

The study was also high in external validity for nurses of the age-range focused on in the study. Lowe et al. were able to differentiate nurses between those who received prior training on the material and those who had not. This makes the results generalizable to both groups. However, the study might not have taken into consideration the recent growth in demand of nurses. This has caused schools in recent years to be more rigid in their training in order to produce graduates with a competitive advantage over other job applicants. The findings for the knowledge scores of registered nurses may therefore not be applicable anymore.

The dependent variable in the study was the training received by the nurses. The independent variable was the treatment that the nurses offered to patients with severely challenging behavior. The independent variable was operationalized in terms of knowledge and changed attitude of the staff. This could have been operationalized in a more effective way if patient feedback had been assessed as well. The study revealed that the training improved knowledge and perceived confidence of the staff members. However, the long-term effect of the training was minimal and not statistically significant.

McClean et al. directed their research to the assessment of Person Focused Training as a service delivery mode to persons with severe challenging behavior. In this study it is also accepted that positive behavioral support is acknowledged as the most effective method of caring for individuals with severe challenging behaviors. To address the problem of actualizing positive behavioral support in the practice of health care staff, McClean et al. propose that a person-by-person adaptation of the method be implemented. This would take into consideration the individual differences of patients thereby promoting personal improvement.

The study was a non-experimental design although in the analysis of data the nature of the patients behavioral problems were categorized as were the nature of the treatment facilities availed of. The study was high in internal validity because it provided a baseline mark for the condition of the patients and the practice of the caregivers. The period of time prior to the application of the independent variable was sufficient to gauge the pre-test condition. Thus, changes subsequent to the introduction of Person Focused Training could be attributed to the training.

The research is also high in external validity because of the wide sampling that was conducted thereby covering a vast range of severe challenging behavior and platforms for treatment introduction. Moreover, the extended period of time throughout which data was periodically and systematically collected allowed for the tracking of changes in the dependent variables. The effects of extraneous variables were minimized and controlled for through the extended period of data collection.

The independent variable in this case was the manner in implementing positive behavioral support. The dependent variable was the condition of the patient. The researchers operationalized the dependent variable by introducing positive behavioral support in a case-per-case basis and taking into account the peculiarities of each patients case. The dependent variable was operationalized by assessing reductions in patients target behaviors.

The results of the research showed that Person Focused Training had significant effects on reduction of target behaviors. Moreover, the training sustained changed behavior over an extended period of time. However, a problem is encountered in the replication of effective methods that were used by the caregivers.

The Person Focused Training should have been further qualified in terms of actual techniques and actions taken by the caregivers in the classes of severe challenging behavior encountered. The lack of analysis in this regard could have introduced extraneous variables which could have better accounted for the improvements of behavior. The deeper analysis of the case-by-case treatment in Person Focused Training would be a good subject of future research.

The third article to be reviewed deals with pyramidal training of staff in order to promote skill-acquisition by all caregivers within the health care institution. The goal of the research was to reduce client behavior targets by improving the skills of the health care staff. This was conducted by employing an experimental design wherein patient progress was noted at varied times. In one case the behavior of the patient and of the staff member was noted every time the staff member administered a particular training session. In the second case, progress was taken note of all throughout the day thereby accounting for the daily behavior of the patient and the behavior of the different staff members assigned to him during the course of the days shifts. For the third group the assessment was conducted only after completion of supervisor training.

The experiment employed a multiple baseline design. The independent variable was the method of training and the dependent variable was the change in behavior in clients and staff members. The method of training was sufficiently operationalized with a method outlined for supervisor training and for supervisor communication of the training to subordinates. The dependent variable was operationalized using different sets of indicators for the various groups in the study. This did not present problems because of the nature of treatment implementation in these groups.

Two baselines were adopted in this study. The first baseline was collected from the staff members and the patients during a treatment and generalization session. The second baseline was obtained prior to the training of supervisors. Upon the initialization of the exhaustive training program, measurements were not collected by the researchers. However, upon completion of the training, the collection of data was resumed.

The research reflected a high degree of internal validity because of the contrast given by the three sets of experimental groups. The first two groups reflected current practices of the facility and as such tracked the improvements that those practices provided. The third group tracked the improvements that could be achieved if the training program were implemented. The use of multiple baselines ensured that the comparisons made between the groups were parallel. The utilization of a single baseline would not have ensured such parallelism in comparisons.

The research was rather limited in its generalizability because it focused on only a small range of behaviors to be reduced and treated. The efficacy of the training might not be evidence considering the number and variety of client cases prevalent in health care institutions. The effectiveness of the model may not be evidenced when it is used to teach the whole array of behaviors to be treated and addressed. Another problem would be the population size of the study. The population studied was rather small. The results might not be produced if a health care institution employing several hundreds of staff members were to adopt it. Taking into consideration the manpower needed to make the training effective, it may be inconvenient or impractical for large health care facilities to adopt this mode of training.

The study showed that the implementation of treatment procedures improved as a result of the pyramidal training employed. The improvement was evidenced by significant improvement in staff implementation as well as improvement in reduction of client target behaviors. The pyramidal technique of communicating skills employed by Shore et al. required a labor-extensive program. This would transfer many of the staff from client treatment to training thereby producing an imbalance in services while staff members undergo and facilitate training.

The fourth and final article to be reviewed involves the implementation of a 3-day training for treating challenging behavior. The goal of the research was to reduce negative emotional reactions and promote self-efficacy of staff members confronted with challenging behaviors. The research also aimed to improve the causal beliefs of staff members regarding challenging behavior.

The research employed a non-experimental design. The design was low in internal validity because of the nature of the collection of data. The questionnaires were sent and collected by post. The threat of social interactions with other practitioners or with other training programs was not controlled for. Baselines were obtained in the study. This increased the likelihood of internal validity. Questionnaires were filled out prior to the 3-day training and once again filled out 3 months after the 3-day training. While the pre-test was sufficient to mark out baseline, the 3 month period opened the opportunity for contamination of the effect of the 3-day training. It is well to note the absence of control conditions to ensure that the changes observed in the 3-day training group was attributable to the training.

The research is high in external validity because it tested a sample of staff members across a wide range of demographic categorizations. The diversity of the practice and personal background of the participants ensured that the research population was representative of the general population at large. However, the low level of internal validity made the research findings doubtful.

The results showed that changes in causal belief and negative emotional responses were not present. However, there was a significant improvement in self-efficacy and confidence of the staff members. The independent variable in the study was the training process and the dependent variable were the self-efficacy of staff members, their causal beliefs and their negative emotional responses. The operationalization of both the independent and dependent variables were sufficient and replicable. However, there was a problem in the manner of operationalizing self-efficacy in that it was largely self-report. The opinion of supervising staff members and the progress of the patients should also have been looked into. This failure to adequately operationalize the dependent variable also contributed to the low internal validity of the study.

Critical Analysis
The four articles that were reviewed all focused on the improvement of services and staff member skills directed towards the treatment of severe challenging behavior. The four articles studied the effectiveness of different training programs that could be utilized for this purpose. Lowes study showed the importance of having all staff members retain skills in treating challenging behavior.

It is noted however that in Lowes design there was a failure to assess the staff members skills in terms of patient progress. This was similar to Tierneys study because the improvement of skills was assessed only based on self-report data given by the staff members. The studies of McClean and Shore on the other hand assessed improvement through the reflected reduction of target behaviors in patients. This provided a more objective measurement of staff member improvement and treatment application.

It is also observed that in Lowe and McCleans designs there was no qualification on the training provided to the staff members. The actual practice of the training was therefore not capable of being reviewed nor could an objective assessment of the actual implementation of the skills be conducted. In Shore and Tierneys studies the training was discussed in detail to ensure that the skills practiced could be identified and assessed. Although in Tierney no such assessment was conducted thereby weakening the study design.

Conclusion
The studies reveal the need to conduct training of staff members in order to improve self-efficacy and in order to lessen negative emotional responses to challenging behaviors. In order to ensure that training is communicated into patient progress then the training should be personal and extensive in nature. Introductory training may improve short-term treatment but will not be retained by staff members in the long-term. Also, a Person Focused Training is effective in promoting staff member understanding and empathy for patients. Person Focused Training coupled with a pyramidal or 3-day training would promote reduction in target behavior as well as reduction of staff member negative emotional response.

Studying the socio-cultural characteristics of North Korea will reflect many important interesting aspects about the country that can improve the knowledge base and stock information of the individual, not to mention the analysis that can explain the socio cultural condition in the country as it is today. Because of this inquiry, the focus of this paper is the discussion of the socio-cultural characteristics of North Korea and the aspects that impact the socio-cultural characteristics of this particular country, from its people to its government to its society and cultural practices.

I. Civil Considerations The analysis of the socio-cultural characteristics of North Korea involves the analysis of its people the government that governs them the social structure that controls them the society where they live the customs and traditions that comprise an important aspect of their everyday practices and act as a source for the continuum of the North Korean tradition the culture that defines who they are and the language that allows people to communicate with one another and allows the transfer of information from one source to another and allows North Korea to document its existence via oral tradition as well as written history rendered tangible through the written word of the existing language in the country.

a. History  The socio-cultural characteristics of North Korea is largely affected by its history. Like most people, practices as well as beliefs in North Korea stem from age-old beliefs. The manner by which they live is a form of tradition passed from one generation to another. More importantly, the significant events in the history of North Korea impacted the socio-cultural characteristics of North Korea as it is seen today. For example, communism and anti-west sentiment found in the modern-day North Korea is hinged on important historical events that ingrained this mindset, political perspective and outlook deep in the psyche of North Korea and its people. The occupation of foreign armies and the experience of North Korea as a colony or occupied territory by other East Asian countries and other countries left lasting marks that can be seen today as one of the noticeable characteristics of the North Korean socio-cultural characteristics. b. People  North Koreas socio-cultural characteristics is also shaped by its people. In the history of North Korea, many different people from different ethnic tribes and origins have come and gone or settled permanently in North Korea. Some bloodlines and ethnicity still persist today, while some were reduced to marginalized minorities. Others completely disappeared over time, either because of migration or because it was wiped out by war, famine or natural causes like the inability of its reproduction rate to sustain the ethnic group. Socio-cultural life in North Korea is greatly empowered by the people per se. The movement in social life in North Korea is dependent on the activities. On the other hand, this may not be entirely true especially politically. Compared to its East Asian and Asian neighbors, North Koreas alignment with communist ideals and the presence of communism in the country has somewhat curtailed the free movement of the people. If any socio-cultural changes of development were stunted or refrained from happening, a large factor at play in this condition is the politics and the political condition in the country.

1. Society  Like most modern countries in the world, North Korea, despite its communism, is characterized by a society that preserves the important roles of different institutions, like school and education and religion, among others. Analyzing the North Korea society varies depending if one is outside looking in, or inside examining itself. Critics of communism will easily point at the negative social characteristics of the society of North Korea to say that the social set up in the country is poor or is not ideal, not as an attack against North Korea per se but resulting from purely anti-communist perspective. Those who grew up conveniently inside North Korea will describe North Korea society as something that is enjoyable and amenable to positive growth and development. Despite its political condition, North Korean society is still similar in other countries wherein people are still strongly attached to religion as well as to common traditional beliefs, the society empowered by the values of the people that maintain the stability and balance of the society.

2. Social structure - The social structure of North Korea features different kinds of people found in different groups, including working class people, business entities and industrialists, political leaders. While the wealthy in North Korea strongly contrasts with its poorest people, its social structure is never or hardly defined by position on society based on wealth unlike other countries with strong feudal and capitalist history. This is to consider the fact that the history of North Korea featured leaders who have strongly campaigned for the ideals involving strong working ethics and hard work among its working class citizens as encapsulated in its Juche socio-political outlook and perspective.
3. Culture  North Korean culture has been molded by the country to becoming somewhat its true own culture even when there are aspects of the North Korean culture that was influenced by other countries. Nonetheless, its culture is very distinct and has become an entity on its own, characterized by arts as well as science, traditional beliefs and practices and modern day socio-cultural aspects involving language, aesthetics, cultural practices and beliefs, etc (Seth, 2006, p. 224). The rich and ancient cultural tradition of Korea did not die out as much as it was transformed by the exposure to the western-dominated world of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Seth, 2006, p. 224). Because of the central role of politics in the North Korea life, it is not surprising that its culture is also strongly influenced by politics and the political direction of the country.

4. Language - The development and changes in the language system is strongly influenced by socio-political and socio-cultural aspects, but the current status quo in these two aspects allow North Korean language to be a strong cultural factor of the country. Like any other aspects of the society and culture, language continually changes. In North Korea, some of the changes include the impact of foreign languages the common, day to day language used by North Koreans however limited it was. Also, the growing strength and unity inside North Koreas society and culture expunges foreign influence in the past, like in language as Chinese characters known as the Hanja has been slowly being removed from North Korean language in place of purely North Korean language. Despite the political differences with the democratic South, there are still many ties that bind them together. This is found in language particularly in the phonetic writing system. This is known in North as Chosongul and is known in South Korea as Hangul. Lastly, North Korean language featured the use of a modified McCune-Reischauer system on the Romanization of North Korea language.

5. Power and authority The central government of North Korea is composed of various positions from the eternal president to the Supreme Leader to the Premier, as well as the legislature. This form of government was strongly influenced by Kim I1-sung who was an important political leader for North Korea who worked for the establishment of North Korea free from the shackles of its previous occupiers. The local government is represented by the Supreme Peoples Assembly. Being a single party government under the Korean Workers Party, North Korea hardly has any political interest groups. The direction of the politics of the country is dictated significantly by the direction the central government wants to pursue. This political structure defines North Koreas present day culture. Inside North Koreas politics, three parties formed a coalition that will be known as Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland. The majority of the membership of this coalition comes from the influential Workers Party of Korea and is supplemented by the members of two other parties that are relatively smaller compared to the Workers Party of Korea. These two parties are the Chondoist Chongu Party and the Korean Social Democratic Party.

6. Interest  North Korea is peopled with individuals who are focused on working so that they can help themselves, not naturally to become more empowered consumers. Its leader Kim Il-sung ingrained in the consciousness of North Koreans the value of working hard so that one can sustain himself or herself. Unlike other democratic countries found close to North Korea, the rate of capitalism and consumerism in this country is minimal, with citizen spending mostly on basic needs. c. Government - The government of North Korea is strongly influenced by the previous powers that was influential in this part of Korea, like China and Russia, both strong communist countries that inspired and influenced the creation of a socialist republic in North Korea. The upper echelon of the government features its leaders including the Supreme Leader and its other top level government servants lodged in different positions and functions, different from the common democratic structure of government. There is also the presence of the Supreme Peoples Assembly. The people in North Korea are generally satisfied with the present structure of the government. This type of government was able to sustain the current and existing socio-cultural characteristics in North Korea.

II. Terrain Analysis  Physical geography
North Koreas terrain has played an important role in the North Korea way of life. From the earliest settlers in North Korea until today, the terrain and the natural geography of North Korea, its mountains and valleys and those converted into urbanized cities dictate the flow of people in and around the country as well as the traffic of resources. The terrain and geography has an important cultural as well as economic, historical and political significance in North Korea based on how this particular aspect of the country acted as an important factor in how things happened as they were and how things have become today.

a. Complex Terrain  North Korea, overall, has a complex terrain. This is largely because of the natural geographic characteristics of the country that features mountains, flat lands, water ways etc. The geography transitions from mountains to valleys with flat lands. Each mountain stand side by side other mountains that act as natural boundary and protective defense wall of North Korea versus any enemies coming from any of its different boundaries in the north, east, south and west (although this is highly unlikely since China and Russia, two of the most powerful countries close to its boundaries, are its long time allies). The mountainous regions of the country can be navigated through the use of road ways paved by the government so that moving in and around these mountainous and sometimes treacherous terrain especially during winter is possible. Making North Koreas terrain more complex is the combination of the rural, mountainous and underdeveloped terrain with the concrete jungle. It defines its key cities located in mainly urbanized locations where most of the roads and pavements are cemented and the road system is more organized, wider and leading inside suburbs of the cities where part of the overall population settles.

b. Suburban and Urban Terrain- There are eight major cities in North Korea, including its capital Pyongyang, as well as other major cities like Kaesong and Sariwon. Navigating the major cities can be done by using a private car. There are also taxi or cab services available for those commuting in and around the cities, not to mention buses as well as a train system, courtesy of the Choson Cul Minzuzui Inmingonghoagug. Trolleybuses and trams are popular sight in urban North Korea. When it comes to its trains, trams and trolleybuses and its cars, North Korea is characterized by the presence of a mix of original North Korean made transportation as well as those imported from neighboring Asian countries like China and Japan as well as those which are made by western companies.

Through this complex set of public and private transportation, people are able to navigate the rural and urban locations in North Korea. Navigating inside smaller suburban roads and streets feature the use of bicycle, which is also a popular mode of transportation in North Korea, either in rural or urban places. The people living in the key cities are housed in either multi-family dwellings or single family homes, depending on the financial status and capability of the family or depending on the situation of the family, whether they opt for such setting or personal conditions resulted to such set up. Most North Koreans leave home to go to work every day they criss-cross all around the major cities aboard private vehicles of public means of transportation.

c. Key Infrastructure  North Korea features many infrastructures that has cultural significance and has defined the North Korean culture in the past as in the modern, present day North Korea. For example, its railway system is one of the touchstones to North Korea culture and life. It has many different cultural landmarks through the buildings erected in the country and other forms of landmarks that is part of the socio-cultural life in North Korea. Education is symbolized by its many different schools like the Kimchaek University located in the capital city of Pyongyang. There is also the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology and the Kim Il-sung University (Pak, 2008, p. 33).

North Korea culture is popular for its Complex of Goguryeo Tombs, a set of tombs found in North Korea from the ancient kingdoms of Korea (Pak, 2008, p. 33). These have significant socio cultural meaning due to its history and what it says about past North Korean culture especially when it comes to the practice of burying the dead. It was considered as very important to the preservation of culture in North Korea that it was listed as a World Heritage Site under UNESCO. Because of the significance of Kim Il-sung, his burial place, known as the Kumsusan Memorial Palace, is also an important building in North Korea because of its political as well as cultural value. Religion is seen through the landmark buildings, like the Christian churches which are found in the capital city of Pyongyang, as well as sculptures and images of Buddha and Confucius denoting the Confucianism and Buddhism roots of North Korea that created relics of images found mostly in mountains, like the one in the mountain of Kumgang (Pak, 2008, p. 33).

Another significant landmark in North Korea is the Rungnado May Day Stadium. This is significant for North Korea because of many reasons. This includes the fact that one of the most important celebrations in North Korea called the Mass Games is often held here. This stadium is considered as one of the biggest stadiums found all around the world (Mitchell, 2007, p. 9). There is also the Tower of the Juche Idea. North Korea also has important infrastructures besides its railway system, like airports for example. One of these is found in Sunan, the Sunan International Airport. Sea ports are also found in North Korea. This includes the sea ports in North Koreas west coast named Nampho and the four different east coast ports named Hamhung, Rajin, Wonsan and Chongjin. Besides moving through air and sea, there is also the presence of bridges in North Korea, like the Sino-Korea Friendship Bridge (Mitchell, 2007, p. 9).

d. Lines of Communication- North Koreans communicate with one another using what modern technology offers, including the use of computers and the Internet, as well as cellular phones and the older land line phones. North Korean companies provide these services, but the important aspect in the practice of the use of the lines of communications is that the government is strictly controlling the use of this equipment. Unlike in other countries wherein changes in political status quo and political movement is supported by the abilities of the communication technology, in North Korea, the government makes sure that the communication technology will not cause any problem that can upset the political stability. The Internet and the computer as well as mobile phones and its features like text messaging cannot be used to spread information against or detrimental to the government. The government has not shied from exercising any and all possible course of action to obtain optimal level of control in the publics communication lines and the use of it.

III. Weather Analysis The weather and climate in North Korea strongly impacts the socio-cultural characteristics like activities of the people. Because of its position in the planet, North Korea annually experiences four different seasons (Moreddu, 1999, p. 20) that bring with it different climate characteristics which in turn impact the lives of the people. These are the changes in the supply and demand in the society as well as the changes in production based on what is ideal and possible to produce (especially agriculturally) during certain times of the year and what cannot be produced.

a. Affects on population -The weather in North Korea impacts its population in many ways. The weather dictates the human activities  school and work schedules, agricultural planting patterns and schedules, market supply trends and even trends in health. There are diseases prevalent during the cold weather seasons. There are diseases that have the tendency to shoot up when the weather is warm. The winter in North Korea is considered as harsh. In times when the snowfall is very thick, many activities like school and other office work are suspended especially if it is impossible for students or for workers to travel either by car or by public transportation system. This is especially true in mountainous areas. Roads are rendered unsuitable for passage because of the thickness of the snow on land and the zero or poor visibility caused by the falling snow. This can endanger drivers into falling into unseen ravines, risking collision from incoming traffic or inability to navigate and negotiate the roads that can lead to accidents especially in turns and blindsides. The snow and the winter can also create serious damage and impact to air traffic in North Korea especially when flying conditions become difficult or nearly impossible for aircrafts to fly or land from or to the airport (Moreddu, 1999, p. 20).

Because of this, the winter season is one of the seasons that can potentially cause many problems for the people in North Korea, disrupting the movement of their normal life because of how it can change living conditions overnight. The next three seasons  spring, summer and fall  may not be as problematic as winter. However, this does not mean that these three other seasons have not brought problems to the people of North Korea in the past. If the winter season brings snow, the next three seasons is where typhoons are most likely to occur. These typhoons may not be as often compared to other typhoon-heavy countries in Asia. North Korea nonetheless experiences the impact of strong typhoons, which often results to flooding, especially in low lying urban areas where water moves in (Moreddu, 1999, p. 20).

Compared to the winter season, the next three seasons are not as cold and are often dry, save for the few rainy days and the typhoons that come every once in a while. An important problem in the dry seasons of North Korea is the problem of drought. Many times, North Koreas temperature becomes so dry and hot. Water sources are quickly drying and threatened massive drought problems all over the country. The weather is affected by the wind entering North Korea like that coming from the Pacific Ocean. This brings a kind of wind that is moist that helps the temperature in the country improve especially during warm season.   b. Affects on agriculture - Like in any other countries, agricultural practices in North Korea are affected by the changing of the seasons. One of the most commonly affected aspects is the type of plants (fruits or vegetables) that North Korean farmers would plant in consideration to the season when it was planted and if the season is still amenable to such plant once harvest time comes. Over time, North Korean farmers have learned to adjust their planting and agricultural practices. Farmers know what type to plant during particular seasons, and what adjustments to make if any of the seasons become extended or shortened that can impact the life and harvest quality of the plants on the ground. Similarly, the raising of livestock has been adjusted to the weather and climate in North Korea. If there are any impacts, often, it happens when there are unexpected characteristics in the seasons, like the shortening or extending of the seasons or the unexpected amount of snow or unexpected level of humidity and dryness during hot seasons (Moreddu, 1999, p. 164).IV. Crime and illegal activities

a. Crime - Despite the government control in North Korea, the government and the country is still battling the problem regarding the presence of crime in the country. Like in other countries, there are petty crimes as well as serious and heinous crimes in North Korea. One of the reasons why the occurrence of these crimes is not as well known globally and worldwide is because of the restrictions of the government in information dissemination and in the content of mass media and public information channels like telephones and the Internet. Under the tenets of the socialist North Korea, crimes include actions that are equivalent to supporting or patronizing anything coming from its enemy South Korea, including their music, their clothing, their radio and television broadcast etc. So aside from managing the petty crimes, the government is also focusing on the persecuting crimes against the state both by civilian and military individuals. Besides the crime versus the state, other crimes committed in North Korea include smuggling. This is highly possible considering the many different ports and the many different back door channels that can be used to smuggle items in and out of North Korea towards many different destinations all around the world. For example, North Korea was implicated in a smuggling involving Scandinavia in 1976 (Cornell, 2002, p. 61).

b. Terrorism - The discussion of terrorism is a very sensitive matter for North Korea. This is because much of the western world has viewed North Korea as an important Asian base for terrorist actions targeting western installations and locations in Asia. The United States in fact was one of the first to brand North Korea as the source of evil and terrorism, although this is hardly proven with very strong proofs to show. The argument hinged largely on North Koreas political pro communist and socialist stand which the US has disapproved many years ago. If anything, North Koreas guilt in terrorism is found in the fact that North Korea aided the dissidents when possible since their activities could potentially weaken the South Korean government (Lutz, Lutz, 2004, p. 60). Much of Asia, like Indonesia, the Philippines and other locations are victimized by the terrorist attacks geared at targeting western targets. North Korea appeared to have been spared from terrorist actions not because it is a supporter or terrorist but because its isolationist policy and anti-west stand makes the country nearly free from the targets that terrorists want to destroy.

North Korea is a country that has very rich and diverse socio-cultural characteristics. History as well as its current political setting has so far been the most important factors that impact the countrys socio-cultural conditions. North Korea, despite its socialist background, strongly supported efforts at preserving culture and heritage. It is seen as a tool that can be used to improve the sense of nationalism and patriotism of the people which can help the socialist North Korea maintain not just its socio cultural status quo but as well as its political condition.

Dementia can be described as a severe loss of cognitive ability in a previously normal person, exceeding what is normally expected with advancing age. It may be static which comes as a result of the whole brain damage or it may be progressive leading to prolonged decline due to damage or the disease in the body. Dementia is quite common among aged populations, but it can also occur at any stage of development. Cognition is the process of thinking, perceiving, and learning. Therefore, cognitive functions which can be impaired by dementia include decision making and judgment, memory loss, spatial orientation, thinking, reasoning, attention, and verbal communication. It can also result to behavioral changes based on the part of brain damaged. For the disease to be diagnosed, the symptoms must have persisted for six months or more because dysfunctions which are observed over a short period of time are called delirium. In all the affected cognitive dysfunctions, higher mental functions are the first to be affected (Chenoweth, 2010).

In advanced stages of the disease, the affected individuals become disoriented completely not knowing what day of the week, month and even the year. These people also get lost and cannot recognize where they are. The disorientation gets worse to an extent that the person cannot identify himself. Although dementia can be treated to some degree, it usually results from causes which are progressive and cannot be cured.  In the US, about 4 -5 million individuals are suffering from some degree of dementia, and that number is expected to rise over the next few decades since the population is aging. Dementia is reported in about 1 of people between the ages of 60 -64 and about 30 -50 of people older than 85 years.  Dementia is the main reason why elderly people are sent to institutions like nursing homes. Cases of dementia have increased over the past few years, either as a result of increased awareness and more accurate diagnosis, or because of increased life expectancy which has resulted into higher numbers of elderly people in the population. An estimate which was done last year indicated that there are about 35 million people throughout the world who have some degree of dementia (Connell, Janevic  Gallant, 2001).

There are various types of dementia. There is reversible dementia which can be treated partially or completely. For dementia to be reversible, the underlying cause must be identified quickly and treated promptly. The other type of dementia is the irreversible type which is caused by a condition which cannot be treated like Alzheimers disease. People suffering from this type of dementia are rendered incapable of taking care of themselves and may need care all the time (Skoog, 1994).

The major risk factor for dementia is advanced age. It is also associated with inheritance of genes which are associated with conditions such as Alzheimers disease and Huntingtons disease. There are other infections which if not treated can result to dementia.  Metabolic diseases and drug abuse are also linked to the development of dementia. Other factors which can facilitate the occurrence of dementia include brain tumor, cardiovascular diseases like hypertension, high levels of cholesterol, and atherosclerosis. It is also associated with diabetes, injuries involving the head, organ failures like kidney and liver, thyroid disease, and deficiency of vitamins like B12, folic acid and thiamine (Dunkin  Anderson, 1998).

There are several conditions associated with dementia among them being degenerative neurological disorders such Alzheimers disease, cardiovascular diseases such as multi- infarct disease, inherited conditions such as Huntingtons disease, and other infectious conditions like HIVAids. Alzheimers disease alone is reported to be the cause of about 50-70 of all reported cases of dementia. Lou Gehrigs disease, Huntingtons disease, and Parkinsons are also reported to cause dementia. HIVAids is a viral condition that can result to Aids dementia complex especially at the terminal stages. Creutzfeldt- Jakod disease which is closely related to mad cow disease in herbivores initially present as vogue personality change, but this is later followed by speedily advancing dementia (Hughes et al., 1982).  

Another major cause of irreversible dementia is multi infarct disease. In this condition, numerous infarcts results in continuous reduction in cognition. This type of dementia is quite common in men aged above 50 years. Alcoholism can result in thiamine deficiency which is associated with seizers, and head injuries which is also a cause of dementia. Prolonged substance abuse can cause signs similar to those of dementia. Other causes can also be viral, bacterial, and fungal infections, neurosyphilis dementia, other structural abnormalities like neoplasia of the brain and metabolic disorders (Connell, Janevic  Gallant, 2001).

Symptoms of this dysfunction are related to the impairment of cognitive functions. The most common signs observed are memory loss, inability to make decisions, judgment, disorientation in time and space, and verbal communication problems. There are also behavioral changes that might be noticed. They include loss of interest in individuals hobbies, inability to care for ones self, unable to carry out household chores, and loss of personality.

Dementia results in considerable medical, social, and economic concerns since it affects individuals, their families, and health care providers. It has received huge amounts of resources and attention directed towards its medical aspects which are aimed at achieving better understanding of the disease, its causes, risk factors and treatment. Attention has also been given to the family members of the patient since they also get affected by the disease.  Families carry the burden of the patient in terms of caring and also getting the needed medication (Chenoweth, 2010).

There is no treatment available which can help reverse or even stop the disease from continuing, patients can get treatment with the available medication and also undergo cognitive training. Currently there are drugs which can be used to treat dementia and many patients have benefited from them. These drugs do not stop the disease or reverse the brain damage, but they help improve symptoms and slow the progression of the disease. They help by improving the patients quality of life, reduce the burden of giving care, and delay the progression of the disease therefore delays time for admission in the nursing homes. There is research going on to determine if these drugs can be used to manage other types of dementia (Edwards, 1993).

There are number of factors which have been identified which if put under control can prevent or even delay the onset of dementia. People with tightly controlled sugar levels score high on cognitive test unlike those with diabetes.  People Involved in intellectually stimulating activities like chess, crossword, social interactions, and playing musical instruments have low chances of developing dementia. These activities are believed to stimulate the brain in a special way therefore increasing the cognitive reserve (Connell, Janevic  Gallant, 2001).

People suffering from advanced or moderate dementia will require full time care and supervision to prevent them from hurting themselves or other people around them. They may also need to be assisted in carrying out routine activities, caring for themselves like bathing, dressing and eating. The people assisting should have some patience and understanding. There can also be changes in home arrangement to remove any objects which can present danger like keeping away sharp objects. To prevent outdoor wondering without supervision, there is need to lock the gate and other doors.