Below are some comments to guide you as you proceed with the weekly homework ARTICLE assignments (format is in your syllabus if you need to review). I have included some general mistakes that are being made so that you will not lose points unnecessarily. If you have issues, please speak with me.
Common Mistakes:
1. Summaries are too long: Summaries should be brief. The point is not to summarize the article, it isn’t a book report. The point is to engage in more college level, analytical connections between current events issues and the content in your textbook. As a trick, if you look at your assignment and half of your typed page is a summary, it’s entirely too long.
2. Not enough connections: 3 or more connections are required.
3. Too many connections: Some of you are doing the opposite of #2, trying to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. I’d prefer you choose 3 concepts that are related to your article, and analyze them in detail (see my example below in ‘strong statement’)
4. Weak Analysis: Many of you are simply throwing in vocabulary that you see in the article. For example, “This article mentions types of density, which we learned about in class”. This is not what I’m looking for. The exercise is not to skim the article to find the vocabulary, but to understand how general concepts (like density) can be analyzed in real world situations (like the physiological density in India, for example).
Weak Analysis: “This article talks about China’s One Child Policy, which has lowered China’s population – we learned about this in class. It had both positive and negative effects on China”
Strong statement: “In this article the author discusses China’s One Child Policy enacted in 1979, which was an attempt to lower the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of China, the most populous state on Earth. As discussed in class, this policy was successful in lowering the Crude Birth Rate (CBR) of China over the past several decades, but also had many unintended consequences, including a skewed age/sex ratio, which could be seen in China’s population pyramid, as well as a severe gender imbalance. This imbalance has impacted China’s population pyramid by shortening the 0-4-age cohort, as well the right hand side (females). This has created several social problems for China (particularly in the countryside).
SAMPLE HOMEWORK:
(by Mr. Chris Nelson, Sewanhaka Central High School, Floral Park, NY)
*This is an example of what your homework should look like ideally. It will take some time, but strive for something that looks like this:
Article: “Seven Brothers: India’s Skewed Sex Ratio” (The Economist)
This article tells the story of India’s gender imbalance and the impact of such an imbalance on Indian society. Specifically, cultural gender preferences have created a skewed sex ratio in India (similar to that in China as a result of its own One Child Policy) that has impacts on the both India as a country, and on the lives of women in Indian society.
The article most clearly relates to the concepts of population pyramids. A population pyramid is a visual aid that represents the age/sex ratio of a country, as well as indicating that country’s stage in the Demographic Transition Model (DTM). As discussed in the article, India is experiencing a skewed sex ratio with a strong preference for boys, causing rampant social problems such as sex-specific abortions, and the sale of young daughters to older males as wives. Such a gender-imbalance would case India’s population pyramid to have smaller female cohorts, creating a lack of available wives in future generations. In addition, the lives of women are severely impacted as females are not valued as much as males due to cultural preferences, leading to difficult lives for young Indian girls.
Geographically, the impact is worst in the northern provinces of India, including Punjab, where the male to female ratio is approximately 1,000:830 according to the author. The imbalance and preference for sons has actually spread into regions of India that have seen more economic prosperity. In such regions, sons have a greater opportunity to earn money for families, and since girls traditionally do not enter the job market (or go to college), having a son is preferred. This is related to economic globalization, a type of hierarchical diffusion. As India has become more Western the desire for economic prosperity has altered the culture of India, including impacting cultural preferences for boys, and resulting in a shift in India’s Population Pyramids.
As we discussed in class (and watched in the National Geographic video “China’s Lost Girls”), having a gender imbalance can lead to increased crime rates, a lack of available wives, sex-trafficking, rape, and foreign adoption of Chinese and Indian children. This also relates to our summer assignment article on Dowries, or the price paid to a husband’s family for marriage.