Child Poverty Dynamics in Seven Nations | Paper Analysis

Child Poverty Dynamics in Seven Nations Paper compendTask to evaluate the explore design, methods of selective information collection and out(p)line, and whatever separate ethical or philosophical issues that arise in the specified research publisher.IntroductionThis assignment will focus on the exertioning constitution entitled Child Poverty Dynamics in Seven Nations (Bradbury et al, 2000). It will identify and analyse the research design, methodology, selective information collection and analysis contained inside the write up. thither will also be an assessment of philosophical and ethical issues as well as a comparison with other documents of a similar nature. The paper is a comparative project examining how children move in and out of want.Research DesignThe agents of this paper atomic number 18 concerned with child privation and how children in divergent countries move in and out of beggary. They importanttain that state welfargon provision operates much ef fectively to reduce child poverty when it has prior research acquaintance of what causes children to move in and out of poverty The research uses standard relative poverty definitions and examines the mobility rate of the poorest fifth of children from, Britain, the USA, Germ either, Ireland, Spain, Hungary and Russia. It is usual at the design stage of a project to decide what approach one is going to take to the research. This is because different epistemological and philosophical assumptions ar an in presentnt part of both approach to research ( Bryman, 2004). At a general take the study is an inter-societal comparison of the dynamics of poverty. Inter-societal comparisons look at the similarities and differences which countries display. Numbers of such studies countenance been under taken, a well cognize recent one of these is Esping-Andersons (1990) research into the welf ar regimes of different countries. Comparative studies have a long history in sociology, e.g. Webe rs work on religion (1930, 1965) and Durkheims work on suicide (1952). Comparative studies ar a big part of research into poverty, whether this is the traditional nonion of poverty as a lack of dispos commensurate in sum, or whether it is the more contemporary concept of social exclusion (Berghman, 1995). Bradbury et al (2000) acknowledge that they have taken a rather broad brush approach in their study and that there ar any(prenominal) problems with this, nevertheless they maintain that charting the f baseborn in and out of poverty cross nationally is useful for policy do that aims to reduce the number of children who are poor. The researchers believe that studying poverty from the vantage point of children needs microscopic or no justification because children represent a lands future. It might be argued however, that is a rather Eurocentric view and whitethorn not necessarily be held in all the countries in the study. The researchers further defend their choice of method i n the following government agencyComparisons crosswise countries put forward a reference point for assessing the results for any single country, for example whether a particular statistic is large or small. Cross-national analysis also raises provocative questions round whether differences in outcomes are due to, say, differences in policy regimes or differences in population characteristics. Of course the usefulness of crossnational analysis relies on having good information, and making information comparable may require compromises in the depth of analysis which would not be required in a single country study. (The trade-off depends on the number of countries considered.) Our paper illustrates the various strengths and weaknesses of taking a cross-national perspective (Bradbury et al, 2000, p.7-8).The pens thus express a generally held view that comparative research does have integral strengths and weaknesses, the following analysis hopes to turn out whether or not the s trengths of this research project outweigh any weaknesses it may have..Methods of Data CollectionThe primary data source for this study is circuit card data drawn from the seven nations involved. This data is largely household survey data and is thereof the income levels are those pass watern by heads of households. The researchers maintain that there study is complementary to one undertaken by Dun finish et al (1993). The studies differ in that Dun fire et als work constricts on the family as the unit of analysis whereas Bradbury et al (2000) concentrate on the child. The units of analysis are children under the age of 18. The data apparels refer to the early 1990s1 with the most recent year being 1996. The researchers want to use the data to compare poverty dynamics mingled with one year and the next, so they looked at data from two years across the seven nations. The data sets differ, with quartette countries, Germany, Hungary, Britain and the US providing data spanning fiv e years and data from Germany and the US spanning ten years. This means that whatsoever countries receive a deeper analysis than others because they collect more data. The income figures provided by households are use as the income of the child with relevant adjustments for household needs. Table 1 below gives a summary description of each of the data sets used.Bradbury et al, 2000 pps 10-11This flurry gives an overview of the data that the researchers used in their comparative study. The researchers chose the following features from which to compare the data for different countriesthe type of longitudinal survey, the period to which incomes refer, the definition(s) of income available, and two statistics summarising sample surface (Bradbury et al, 2000, p.11).The chieftain indicator of whether a child is living in poverty and how a child moves in and out of poverty are the income stones throws that are available. The researchers point out however that there are differences bet ween countries on how this is assessed i.e. whether income save is before or after any deductions for tax etc. They acknowledge that such differences have clear implications for differences in poverty dynamics but they do not elucidate what this is.2 This lessens any faith that one might have in their methods of data collection because there is no explanation of how this affects poverty dynamics. Income is recorded as net except in the case of Ireland and the US. The researchers say that net income for Britain finishnot be recorded in all cases and this causes a reduction in sample size, with possible resulting implications of difference (?).Only two countries, Spain and Russia, provide evidence of household expenditure in summing up to household income and arguably this is a weakness in the data set as levels of expenditure may differ widely from country to country and is a great indication of the distinction between absolute and relative poverty (Giddens, 2001).3 Again this mi ght evidence greater discrepancies across nations if more of such data were available and this will raise questions as to the reliability of the findings of the study.The study only uses disposable income as a measurement of poverty, In a wiz this is a step back in terms of theoretical development as Berghman (1995) has give tongue to the focus has shifted from alone financial poverty to whether a soulfulness can fully participate in the society to which they belong. This is not referred to in Bradshaw et als study and as such might be said to evidence a weakness in their choice of conceptual indicators. While the measure did work for the variables that the researchers were interested in it is nevertheless a narrow way of measuring child poverty. This is especially the case when one considers the researchers acknowledgement that they have no single comparable method of measuring income across the seven nations and this raises questions nearly the internal validity of their meth ods.Data Analysis TechniquesThe study uses quantitative data and the study is quite large victimisation household panels from seven nations. The researchers argue that this not only provides them with a cross national comparison of how and why children enter and leave poverty but also allows for any serious discrepancies between nations to be set. The number of households selected for the analysis is between 1 and 2 thousand per country (see table one above). Statistical comparisons are made between child poverty rates, their relative income levels and income contrariety. The statistics are similar to those put up in an earlier chapter but no details of this are given. Arguably, one wonders why they mention any similarities here as they thus go on to say thatthey are not fully comparable because there are differences in the definition of the income measure, the year referred to ,the sample, and in most cases even the survey (this is true in Britain, Ireland ,Spain, and the US) (Bradshaw et al, 2000, p.13).4The researchers say that they use the median income of children to measure material well being but because their data set and methodology are rather convoluted they have to explain what this is.5 Their usage of a median is questionable as they later say (p.15 ibid) that median income levels provide no guide to how incomes vary among children. Their use of arithmetical averages is also questionable as this can obscure the existence of very high and very low incomes, a fact which they also acknowledge.Their methods include the use of a statistical technique kn avouch as the Gini coefficient6 The technique is named after the person who developed it, an Italian statistician called Corrado Gini.7 The use of the Gini coefficient does tend to show whether income inequality is increasing or decreasing and so it is often used in comparisons between countries. However, its capacity to measure inequality is also determined by how disposable income is dealt with an d this information is not available. It is arguable therefore whether the use of the Gini coefficient gives an accurate representation of the data.The use of the Gini coefficient tends to suggest that income inequality for children is substantially different across the seven nations. Western Europe has lower inequality levels than do Russia and America, and there may be further discrepancies here because the Russian data also provides details of household expenditure and this is missing from the American data. Bradshaw et als (2000) findings show that with the Gini coefficient income inequality in Germany stands at 0.3 part in America and Russia it is 0.4 a rise of 10 percentage points which the motives say is larger than the overall income inequality of Britain and the United States throughout the whole of the 1980s. However, further questions are brocaded as to the reliability of the data from the US because the US Census Bureau shows that the calculation of the index of the US was changed in 1992 this led to an upward shift of 0.02 in the coefficient making comparisons after that period misleading.8Bradshaw et al (2000) claim that their major finding is a significant (but not total) uniformity in patterns of income mobility and poverty dynamics across the seven countries. The key exception is Russia, where the economic transition has led to a much higher degree of mobility (Bradshaw et al, 2000, p.6).Having said this, the authors later go on to demonstrate that rather than there being significant uniformity, there are considerable differences between the seven countries. Their findings indicate that the US has the highest rate of income inequality which affects the income mobility but as has already been indicated American figures after 1992 may be misleading. Another factor that understands their finding snarly is that the data for all countries is only available for two years, for some five and for two countries it is available over ten years, as the authors admit longer time spans significantly affect the dynamics of poverty. Income mobility is greater in those countries where the most data is available it is therefore arguably the case the only significant comparison of income mobility is that between America and Germany. The ways in which the data is analysed, is, like the rest of this paper, rather complex. It is not always easy to decide when they are talking about method and when they switch to data analysis techniques as the information tends to be rather mixed together. The complexity of this paper makes it difficult to assess what the authors may have missed in their analysis, while the authors claim a number of findings from the research there is also evidence to suggest that they could have found the contrary.ConclusionAnalysing this research paper has been a problematic task. The authors continually refer back to other papers/chapters in the collection of which this paper is a part but because they do not give enoug h information on what they are referring to it might be argued that it is pointless referring back to work that is not available for comparison. The structure of this paper is confusing it does not give clear indications as to when it goes from research design, to data collection, to analysis. Discussion of the issues is ongoing and at times repetitive. There are significant weaknesses in this paper, there is little watchword of ethics as they use secondary data analysis but by their own admission there are significant differences and discrepancies in the data and this leads to the view that the both the reliability and validity of the methodology and findings are questionable. On the positive side the researchers do recognise that there are weaknesses in the data set and that this may affect the findings. There are points where the researchers (arguably at least) make claims for their data that are difficult to substantiate e.g. that there are significant similarities between patt erns of income mobility across the seven countries. This claim does not really hold up in view of their further analysis of the data which lists the differences between countries. In sum to this much of the data relating to the US could, according to the US Census Bureau, be misleading. Finally the constant referring back to other papers without elucidating the issues does not help the researchers to make their case and their use of income as a major conceptual indicator does not really tell the reader how poverty affects the lives and well being of the children who are meant to be the focus of the research.BibliographyBerghman, J. 1995 Social Exclusion in Europe Policy, context and analytical framework inRoom, R. ed Beyond the Threshold The Measurement and Analysis of Social Exclusion University of Bristol, Policy PressBradbury, Bruce, Stephen P. Jenkins and John Micklewright (2000), Child Poverty Dynamics in Seven Nations. Innocenti Working Paper, No. 78 Florence UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre.Bryman, A 2nd ed. 2004 Social Research Methods Oxford, Oxford University PressDuncan, G.J., Gustafsson, B., Hauser, R., Schmauss, G., Messinger, H., Muffels,R., Nolan, B., and Ray, J.-C. (1993). Poverty Dynamics in EightCountries. Journal of Population Economics, 6 29534.Durkheim, E. 1952 Suicide London, RoutledgeEsping-Anderson 1990 The Three Worlds of Welfare capitalism Cambridge, PolityGiddens, A 4th ed 2001 Sociology Cambridge, PolityWeber, M. 1930 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism London, George Allen and UnwinWeber, M., 1965 The Sociology of Religion London, Methuenhttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient accessed 28/4/06http//www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/ie6.htmlhttp//hampshire.edu/apmNS/design/RESOURCES accessed 28/4/061Footnotes1 This is the terminology used by the researchers see page 10 of the study2 This working paper apparently forms part of a collection of such papers on child poverty. The researchers continually refer back t o issues mentioned in other papers without elucidating what these issues are.3 Again the paper refers back to issues covered in other papers without indicating what these issues are.4 For example, the UK figures in BJM Chapter 3 (the UK is defined as Britain and NorthernIreland) are based on the Family Expenditure Survey while the results for Britain in this paper arebased on the British Household Panel Survey.5 By median income for children we mean the median of the distribution of children, ranked bythe value of equivalised income of their household (p, 15 ibid).6 This is a measure of inequality of distribution which is often used in the measurement of income levels. It is a measure between 0 and 1 where 0 corresponds to fatten equality and 1 to complete inequality7 http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient accessed 28/4/068 http//www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/ie6.htmlTen Critical Traits of convention Dynamics Article AnalysisTen Critical Traits of host Dynamics Artic le AnalysisWith the industrial revolution and latest globalisation effects, competitive nature of businesses has increased more than ever. In edict to survive in this newfangled competitive world, businesses must find solution to their problems faster and also it is more important to do their work more effectively. With that companies have identified that collaborationism or in other words, separate or police squad works will find more creative solutions for the problems that they are facing as modern day businesses. Therefore more and more companies nowadays use teams as a part of their organisational strategies.On the other hand as the Article has mentioned in its introduction, the issue is, putting some people together and expecting them to work effectively as a group would rarely work. Therefore understanding the term Group Dynamics and Group Processes and effectively get it on them in groups is becoming more important.The hold Ten Critical Traits of Group Dynamics which was written by Helene F. Uhlfelder who is a PhD holder in educational psychology has acknowledged the importance of identifying and improving the Dynamics of groups and teams in organisations in order to improve their effectiveness and performance. Further the author has introduced 10 critical traits that can be used to categorize group dynamics. Finally the member has mentioned the importance of assessing groups regularly in order to find issues that are facing groups and how those traits can be used to improve group dynamics in order to build effective teams.Main objective of this assignment is to retell the given article giving my opinion on the main argument of the article. For that task various sources will be researched including text books, online journal articles and some other web sites. And the complete article will be summarized in a critical manner giving my views on prerequisite points using the research findings and my own experiences on the subject matter.The Main Argument of the ArticleThis article mainly discusses the importance of 10 traits that have been identified by the author, which can be used to categorize dynamics of groups. match to the author these traits can be used to identify any areas that groups need to improve and areas that they are good at. The author argues that by doing so groups or teams will be able to work together more effectively and increase their performance levels.When analysing the article it can be seen that the author has successfully explained her argument more clearly with providing examples and covering many supplementary topics which are required to further clarify and make it easy to understand the main argument for the audience.Helene Uhlfelder has covered many technological terms like Group Dynamics, Group Process, and has defined the difference between Group and Team before explaining about the 10 critical traits.Although the article has explained group dynamics and group process before explaining wha t is group and team, as I believe in order the article to be more logical the author could have explained terms like Group and Team first. If the author has assumed that the readers having the knowledge about those terms then she could not have covered them later. Anyhow to begin with explaining the term group and team would be appropriate.Group and TeamThe term group is defined in the article as situations where two or more people coming together in order to achieve a common purpose. Further it is mentioned that in a group people should interact each other, depend on each other and they should have a task to realize.According to the article the team also a group, that is in a work environment. The author has mentioned various characteristics that are possessed by teams.It is and intact social system with boundaries. Therefore who is in the team and outside the team can be clearly identifiable. There is interdependency among members.Members are collectively responsible for the tasks to be performed.Operates in an organisational context and therefore members have relationship with other members of the organisation.It is obvious that the author has comprehensively explained the terms group and team using various sources and in different contexts like systems terms. exactly she has overlooked the theory of group formation, which could have added great value addition to the article. As the author has mentioned various stages during some parts of the article, it would be a necessary part to be explained.Group FormationAccording to (Luthans, 2008) there are five stages that are generally recognized as stages of group formation.Forming this stage is characterized by uncertainty and confusion. Members are testing the appropriate behaviour for the team.Storming in this stage leadership will be determined. Intragroup conflicts are common.Norming Members settle down into abidance and cooperation.Performing The group will perform the task that they were grouped.Adjou rning After the task is completed group will disband.Group Dynamics and ProcessAccording to the author either positive or negative, group dynamics exists in every group and hence teams. Although authors definition about group dynamics and processes a crisp confusing at the end of that particular section she has given a simple explanation to identify those terms distinctly.According to that group processes are simply referred to as specific processes used by group members and leaders whereas group dynamic is defined as forces and dynamics of the group as a whole.It is found in literature research that the term Group Dynamic has been defined in many different ways. According to (Forsyth, 2010) it was first defined by Kurt Lewin, as the processes of the ways groups and individuals act and react to changing circumstances. According (Luthans, 2008) another view on group dynamic identifies it from the viewpoint of the internal nature of groups like how they are formed, structure and pro cesses, how groups function and affect its membersAfter explaining basic definitions and concepts the author moves her discussion into the main content of this article, the 10 critical traits.Ten Critical TraitsAccording to the author, using 10 critical traits approach it is possible to characterize group dynamics and identify issues that are pillowcased by groups. Those 10 critical traits include, safety, inclusion, free-interaction, appropriate level of interdependence, ropiness, trust, conflict resolution, influence, accomplishment, and growth. Helen Uhlfelder has explained them comprehensively using examples to make them easy to understand by the readers.Safety according to this trait team members need to feel safe within their teams and members of the team should be safe from any disruptive behaviour of other team members.Inclusion all members should be allowed to participate with equal opportunities. Everyone should be taken as members of the group and efforts should be ta ken in order to include new and quiet members.Free interaction there should not be any restrictions on which members interact with which members and every member should be allowed to interact with others. According to the author teams can become less effective when only few members are allowed to interact with the leader.Appropriate level of interdependence there should be an appropriate balance between individual needs and group needs. It is mentioned there the important of sand of belonging and affiliation that comes from being interdependence as well as maintaining individual identity.Cohesiveness members should feel as they are a part of a team. Without the attraction of cohesiveness a group can fall apart. Therefore it is very important that members having a bond or affiliation among them.Trust team members should trust each other and they should trust the leader. There should be consistency between what they say and do.Conflict resolution as any team could face conflicts at any stage there should be a way to resolve those conflicts in order to continue the team work.Influence there should be ability for team members to influence other members. They should be able to motivate each other. If there is no method to influence members through usage of requite and punishment productivity could be minimized.As the author has mentioned it is very important to make sure that influence will not be confused as control because controlling can lead to group problems.Accomplishment team should be able to complete its tasks. They should possess skills, knowledge to do their tasks. If they cannot perform their duties defeat would lead to conflict.Growth As in any situations group members should have opportunities to grow. Also as a team they should be able to learn and growth. other than boredom can result in failure in the group.When looking at those traits it is obvious that those traits in nature would help teams to achieve its goals by eliminating group is sues. But one weakness of this finding is that the author has not ranked the order of importance of these traits. Perhaps one could argue that these all could be as important. But according to my point of view some traits are certainly superior or more important than others. For example cohesiveness, conflict resolution, etc. could be more important than growth or influence, because first, the group must work together and achieve their goals. Other things like growth, etc. comes next to that.However it can be clearly said that these 10 traits would (although few traits could be more important than others) help groups or teams to achieve their goals and improve performances.Benefits of 10 Critical TraitsAccording to the author these 10 traits can help teams or groups in great ways by helping them to identify weaknesses and strength of their group dynamics.Therefore she suggests that organisations can use a form that includes those 10 critical traits in order to evaluate teams. Accor ding to the article teams can be assessed in 5 lots continuum. Also it is important to assess teams on regular basis in order to keep and improve their performance levels.As the author explains, this evaluation can be done by any person who is not in the team, given that he has required evaluation skills. Further it is noted there that this asshole can be used to evaluate a team in any development stage and find out their dynamics and processes in order to improve them.There are several steps that need to be taken after evaluation is done,The assessor should meet team members and provide reasonableness for the score that they have got for each criterion.Appropriate actions should be taken for traits that are scored below 3. Action plans can be implemented to resolve issues.Team should go along scores over 3 and reinforce them in order to retain and improve performance.Last step is to follow this procedure regularly again and again after agreed time period.As I understand this i s the most important part of this article, because this can be really used by any team in real world to improve their performances. Instructions are clearly given using examples. Therefore nobody would find any difficulties in implementing this.Ultimately through this procedure teams will be able to improve group dynamics and group processes and will be able to build mesomorphic teams and improve their performance level.But there are some drawbacks in this method itself as it has not addressed all issues that could affect the performance of groups or teams.Shortcomings of the 10 Traits MethodWhen analysing the article in depth it is clear that the author has failed to identify some of the important aspects of group and team management that are identified by other researchers and authors. Those aspects could directly affect the outcome of the group in terms of performance and effectiveness.For an example phenomenon like groupthink and groupshift that could hinder the ability of the group to come into quality decisions by evaluating alternatives objectively. According to (Robbins, Millett, Waters-Marsh, 2004) groupthink is related to the group norms. It describes that with the pressure from group to conformity group may eliminate unusual, minority or unpopular views from evaluating when making decision. Groupshift is a situation where when group arriving at a decision they could go for more risky decision as members initial positions are exaggerated toward more extreme positions.Further (Robbins, Millett, Waters-Marsh, 2004) has identified many factors that could affect group performances than the group dynamics that have been identified by the author of the article through her 10 critical traits. Size of the group, availability of resources for a group to perform, effects of social loafing, etc. could affect the outcome of groups greatly.From the shortcomings mentioned earlier it is clear that the phenomenon of groupthink could clearly contradict with cohesi veness trait that she has mentioned in the article. She has mentioned that cohesiveness as an important dynamic in performance. Without cohesiveness a group can fall apart. But she has failed to mention the cook of cohesiveness because as mentioned earlier, extreme cohesiveness can cause groupthink and ultimately affect the effective decision making in the group.ConclusionPutting some people together and expecting them to work effectively as a group would rarely work. Therefore understanding the term Group Dynamics and effectively manage them in groups is important.The author of the article has mainly discussed the importance of her 10 traits method in categorizing group dynamics in order to identify and manage any areas that a group/team need to improve or they are good at. The author argues that by doing so groups or teams will be able to work together more effectively and increase their performance levels.The article has organized its arguments in a logical manner and has introd uced many theories and concepts that need to understand the main argument of the article. Apart from few adjustments that I suggested in the analysis part of this assignment, it can be concluded that the author has succeeded in those aspects. Further the article has written in simple English that is a good point because readers will be able to understand the content of this article easily. In addition to that the author has provided lot of examples to make readers understand complex theories and concepts more clearly.When critically evaluating the article, it is found that those 10 critical traits are actually important and very hardheaded in evaluating and managing group performances except for few drawbacks that were discussed in the body of this assignment. Those drawbacks include the failure to mention some of the important aspects that could affect the performance of groups, like groupthink, the size of the group, effects of social loafing, etc.Finally it can be concluded that if any organisation follows the method that the author has suggested to evaluate group/team dynamics and manage them with taking care of the additional points that I have mentioned earlier, organisations will be able to increase performance and effectiveness of their groups/teams.