Effect of Teacher Empowerment on Student Learning Outcomes

Effect of Teacher Empowerment on Student Learning Outcomes The question that faces educational leaders in Pakistan is how to select and implement appropriate educational reforms that will move schools toward greater effectiveness and provide enhanced learning and work environments for both students and teachers. A vast literature addresses the importance of leadership in school organizations.(Leithwood, 1992; Pounder,2006; Merideth, 2007). However this leadership has to be distributed not only to the principal but to the other stakeholders that are the students and the teachers above all. Although these arguments have been largely mounted in western countries, they also have significance in the Pakistani setting. A supportive school organization typically is not present in Pakistani schools, where internal politics, lack of resources, disinterest in pupil learning and school improvement by management result in demotivating and ignoring the teachers. (UNESCO: Situation Analysis of Teacher Education in Pakistan) According to Pounder (2006), research on the subject of leadership has focused mainly on administrators, principals and district superintendents. Only recently the research focus has moved towards leadership of individuals in other roles, namely teachers. Research indicates that teacher quality, and supportive school organization and management, significantly influence school improvement, and eventually pupil learning. The bottom line, however, is that school improvement is about school learning. Student learning is the most important part of schooling (Harris, 2004) Teacher empowerment has become a popular term widely seen in many discussions on school restructuring or educational reform. Research on teachers professional growth, school organization, school leadership, or educational innovation all consider teacher empowerment as the term which is considered to be synonym and compatible to teacher leadership. According to Viviane et al (2008) the leadership dimension which is strongly associated with the positive outcomes is that of promoting and participating in teacher learning and development-that is empowering teachers, for enhancing students learning outcomes. This literature review will consider an important issue within the focus area: what impact teachers have on the students learning outcomes when they are empowered? The questions guiding this research are; Why is teacher empowerment emphasized upon in recent educational innovation? What does teacher empowerment mean? What is the role of administrators in empowering teachers? How can students benefit from the idea of teacher empowerment? WHAT DOES TEACHER ENPOWERMENT MEAN? Teachers are established as instrumental stakeholders in planning, implementing, and assessing curriculum. They may benefit from undertaking leadership roles.( Stone, Sandra J. (1995) Though faced with an enormous pressure of high level of expectations and demands, they can successfully integrate their knowledge and understanding with new leadership vision, and eventually into the learning experiences of their students.( Blase, J. and Blasà ©, J. 2001) Sheppard, B; Hurley, N; Dibbon, D,(2010) recognize a very positive impact of school leaders on student learning however they establish an indirect link between, the effects of school leadership and students. Their research is directed at identifying the leadership variables that influence student learning, teacher morale and enthusiasm being one of them.. Grant, C. et al (2010),discusses the restricted role of teacher leadership. He believes that although teachers possess the ability and vision of shared leadership, they are rarely involved in activities beyond their classrooms. Some collaboration with other teachers in curricular and extra-curricular activities is seen but there was substantially less teacher leadership in relation to school-wide as well as community issues. Paula M. Short (1994) defines empowerment as a process whereby school participants develop the competence to take charge of their own growth and resolve their own problems. Empowered individuals believe they have the skills and knowledge to act on a situation and improve it. Empowered schools are organizations that create opportunities for competence to be developed and displayed. She adds: Teacher empowerment is a complex construct. While empowerment generally is associated with site-based management and shared decision making Involvement in decision making, teacher impact, teacher status, autonomy, opportunities for professional development, and teacher self-efficacy. School improvement is not possible without the empowerment of teachers. Teachers who are empowered have the power to make decisions about curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, they become risk takers by experimenting with new ideas, reading new books, and attending and planning professional development activities. (McCarty, 1993). Heads and school leaders must provide assistance to provide sovereignty and freedom of movement to the teachers They also need to develop ways that promote teacher participation in the decision- and policy-making activities of the school. Empowerment is considered to be as important an attribute as are mutual trust, support and recognition to bring about a sense of professionalism, leading to the development of leadership qualities in teachers. (Mujis Harris, 2003).She suggested that teachers can develop into transformational leaders in their schools if all aspects of the system are re-aligned and re-examined. The responsibility of the administration and superintendent has been highlighted by many researchers in order to bring about this transformation. (Pounder, 2006) The leadership of the principal is necessary but not sufficient. Teachers make a big difference. How can teachers skills be developed? What professional difference will they make? Teachers need to work together and trust each other. It is very important that leadership is shared. (Harris, 2006) Teachers have an extraordinary opportunity to exercise leadership because they are the most powerful influence, next to students, on other teachers practice (Darling-Hammond, 2003). York-Barr and Duke (2004) reported, In this day of high accountability, the need and potential for teacher leadership as well as the press for results, has probably never been greater. Because teacher leaders work within a system that either supports or acts as a barrier to its success, the roles of administrators are important to review According to these researchers, teacher leadership is the process by which teachers, individually or collectively, influence their colleagues, principals, and other members of the school communities to improve teaching and learning practices with the aim of increased student learning and achievement. Such team leadership work involves three intentional development foci: individual development, collaboration or team development, and organizational development. Empowered teachers and children become risk-takers, collaborators and self-evaluators.(Stone and Sandra, 1995) They emerge as intrinsically motivated, responsible and independent individuals. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF PRINCIPALS IN ENPOWERING TEACHERS? A variety of research articles and their findings are present in the field of education in USA and UK. Most of them agree on the key leadership roles assumed by the school principals to help teachers to develop as professionals who are confident and committed, possess specialized knowledge and expertise, collaborate with colleagues and undertake leadership roles both within and outside their classes.( Harris, A. and Lambert, L. 2003) Principals are the promoters of a environment which results in a paradigm shift of powers from those at the top of pyramid to those who are working in close collaboration with the learners- that is the teachers. This mode of shifting responsibilities and power to teachers results in shared decision-making, which is essential to school reform and to the changing demands in a global world. Results of various studies indicate that teacher empowerment is most closely related to principals social attractiveness (perceived similarity to teachers) and trustworthiness (perceived willingness to suppress ones own self-interest for the benefit of the school (Blase, J. and Blasà ©, J. 2001). The role of the leaders is to facilitate the development of teachers so that they will have the power and ability to determine important things about their work and schools. As indicated above, recent development on school reform, organizational studies, teachers professional development, and school leadership all point to the importance of teacher empowerment. Empowerment is not easy and it can not be accomplished in a short span of time. However, it can invoke real thinking and learning as well as meaningful action. If teachers are directly involved in leading the improvement effort they, would act as leaders without occupying any formal leadership roles. (Ghamrawi N.2010,). Schools need to cultivate this largely untapped resource for change and improvement in schools by providing teachers with leadership opportunities, appropriate training, and professional support empowerment in short. (Rizvi M.,2008) .An active and effective teacher leader can directly impact the school, its teachers and most importantly the students. There seems little doubt that both district and school leadership provides a critical bridge between most educational-reform initiatives, and having those reforms make a genuine difference for all students. Such leadership comes from many sources, not just superintendents and principals. But those in formal positions of authority in school systems are likely still the most influential. Efforts to improve their recruitment, training, evaluation and ongoing development should be considered highly cost-effective approaches to successful school improvement. School principals have an important role to play in building teacher leadership capacity by promoting teacher leadership learning teams, helping them clarify their vision, and encouraging them to develop habits that will enable them to make the most of their collaborative efforts. Many researchers have tried to develop a link between the distributed leadership of school heads and principals and consider it an important step towards empowering the staff. (Harris, 2003). They consider that the leadership of the principal is necessary but not sufficient. The principal is also more likely to be seen by staff as a source of instructional advice, which suggests that they are both more accessible and more knowledgeable about instructional matters than their counterparts in otherwise similar lower achieving schools Ash and Persall (2000) also in agreement to the view that principals must create an environment that supports collaboration among teachers; provides time for teachers professional development; and recognizes, rewards, and celebrates the concept of the teacher as leader The crucial role of principal is evident from the survey reports of The American Teacher: An Examination of School Leadership (2009) which reports that many teachers fear their chances to influence decisions about their profession are eroding. Teachers believe that principals spend more time on reporting and compliance than on guiding and motivating teachers, but principals report that the reverse is true. Principals must change this perception so that teachers feel empowered as school leaders. IMPACT OF TEACHER EMPOWERMENT ON STUDENTS Empowerment is important for children, as well. If empowerment changes how teachers view their work, empowering children should improve their view of learning. The foundations needed for empowering teachers and children include respect, validation and success. Once empowered, the individual changes. Research confirms the important influence of the classroom teacher on student achievement (Leithwood et al, 2010). A key issue, then, is how the quality of teaching and learning within individual classrooms can be influenced and improved. They argue that educational leadership has a key influence on the quality of teaching and learning and thus student achievement Motivated, engaged students are central to lasting school improvement. It is a mistake to think that reform done to students by well meaning adults will be successful, since in the end it is students who must do the learning. Students can play an important role in school improvement when they are asked to do so and conditions created to allow them to do so. Until 1960s it was widely believed that schools made little difference to student achievement, which was believed to be largely predetermined due to heredity, family background and socioeconomic context. Opinion on the effect that schools, teachers and educational leaders can have on student outcomes has also fluctuated. The influence of educational leadership on teacher and student performance has generally been underestimated, and that measured direct effects of leadership, which some researchers have found to be very low, are outweighed by indirect and antecedent effects such as school history, context and organization, with school climate acting as an intermediate variable between leadership and classroom achievement (De Maeyer et al., 2007), As noted, school leadership traditionally focused on the principal but today it is recognized that there can be many leaders in a school, including deputy principals, heads of department, program and committee chairs and teachers; it is agreed and seen as desirable that leadership is distributed. Student and community leadership also need to be recognized. Studies show school leaders can improve student learning by enhancing the conditions or status of selected variables on the four paths, i.e., rational, emotions, organizational and family. Leithwood (2010) points out that school leaders and leadership researchers should be guided directly by existing evidences about school, classroom and family variables with powerful effect on student learning, when taking decisions about school improvement. In America endeavors are being made towards developing educators professionally with programmes like learning forward by National Staff Development Council with slogans like every educator engages ineffective professional learning every day so every student achieves Students are considered important ultimate stakeholders .While doing research on the effect of teacher control on series of outcomes Ingeroll (2007) concluded that these outcomes are directly connected to the distribution of power and control in schools. Schools fostering empowerment have fewer student misbehavior problems, show more teacher collegiality and co-operation among teachers and administrators. Donaldson (2006) views teacher leadership cultivates the will and the ability to improve practice by three streams .i.e. by attending to the quality of relationships, by keeping purposes and goals in mind and by focusing on improving children learning. This is how a close bond is established between the empowerment of self and its impact on students learning. CONCLUSION The pendulum has swung for teachers as change agents from the days of relative powerlessness when teachers were cast not only in a passive role but frequently in the role of active obstructionists (Charles, 1971). The educational research has come a long way in establishing theories through evidences and findings. Contrary to the discussions so far, most teachers are known to become disengaged from leadership roles. (Gronn, 2003) discusses the disengagement of school leaders-the shunning of leadership roles by potential candidates (i.e. teachers). He argues that the main cause is the amplification of professional work, describing the new work orders of educational leadership as long hours, endless demands, punishing pace and continual frustration-hardly an attractive proposition for those considering taking up leadership roles. The positive role of principals in fostering the transformation of teachers to participants in decision making ventures cannot be ignored. Similar observations have been recorded by Gokà §e (2009) in Turkish schools, where a significant difference was found between the opinions of teachers and school principals. Teachers expect principals to show more effective behaviour in the change process. Bush (2008) in an editorial quotes Leithwood et al.s (2006) assessment that leadership is second only to classroom teaching as an influence on pupil learning leading to the inevitable conclusion that head teachers, principals and senior staff should undertake specific preparation for the distinctive role of educational leadership and management., then, and only then can the teachers feel empowered to exercise control over the different domains in and outside the classroom. In a study conducted by Rhodes and Brundrett (2008) emerging from the focus group phase, empowerment, support and controlled risk taking, were endorsed by heads to contribute towards effective in-house leadership development .. A culture of trust and collaboration is essential, as is a shared vision of where the school needs to go.. In the developed and emergent teacher leadership schools, barriers to teacher leadership were mainly external to the school (Daniel Muijs and Alma Harris2007).They suggest that developing teacher leadership is not an easy process. It is closely related to re-culturing as it means a fundamental shift in the purposes and practices of the school Literature in favour of the role of teacher as a change agent in transforming learners includes James S. Pounder (2006), according to whom the third wave emphasizes that teacher leadership is a process rather than a positional concept. A fourth wave of teacher leadership could include transformational classroom leadership as one of the defining qualities of a teacher leader and could embrace both school and university contexts. According to Leithwood, K., et al (2004): There seems little doubt that both district and school leadership provides a critical bridge between most educational-reform initiatives, and having those reforms make a genuine difference for all students. Such leadership comes from many sources, not just superintendents and principals. But those in formal positions of authority in school systems are likely still the most influential. Efforts to improve their recruitment, training, evaluation and ongoing development should be considered highly cost-effective approaches to successful school improvement. In contradiction to the various theories put forward by the renowned researchers like Leithwood et al (2004) and Gronn (2003), and beliefs adopted by agencies like the National College for School Leader ship (NCSL) in England, David Hartley (2009) in the book Distributed Leader ship According to the Evidence, suggests a casual relationship between distributed leader ship and pupil outcomes. He suggests two outcomes of distributed leadership which we assume form the predecessor of empowerment of teachers; one being the organizational variable, the other effect is that upon pupils achievement. According to the co-authors of the book, there is no clear correlation between the pattern of leader ship distribution in the qualitative data and the student test results evidence. This is a notoriously difficult matter to measure, for it is not easy to isolate the direct effect of distributed leader ship as an independent variable as the policy-makers have been ahead of the evidence in their en dorsement of distributed leader ship as a means to bring about the effective school The optimistic views presented by the renowned authors opens many a venues for further researches in this context.. Teacher leadership research is well established in the USA and Canada and, in the last decade, it has become a focus of research activity in the UK. However, in Pakistan teacher leadership is relatively unknown as an area of research although, UNESCO and the World Bank are funding studies to develop strategies for teacher education and professional development. We have still to go a long way to recognize and change the mind-set of our school heads and principals to empower the teachers and include them in decision making and policy making activities. Muijs and Harris (2003), summaries the concept of teacher leadership, empowerment, and its governing factors as below, and accept that there is still a need for research in the UK. In summary, teacher leadership is centrally concerned with forms of empowerment and agency which are also at the core of distributed leadership theory It is concluded that teacher leadership could have beneficial effects on school improvement, school and teacher effectiveness and teacher motivation and retention, but that the right conditions need to be in place in order for teacher leadership to flourish. The lack of research on teacher leadership in the UK is noted. More than a decade ago, findings by Pounder, D.G. et al.(1995), pointed towards the lack of obvious leadership relations between levels-school district, school, and classroom-and their effect upon multiple measures of school performance. Much research has been undertaken since then, still the latest review of literature shows that there is a need to fill the void existing between a direct impact of teacher empowerment and the enhancement of students learning. We have to look further for measurable success indicators in order to produce quantitative results in support of the myriad of qualitative results that establish the positive association between teachers empowerment and student achievement.

Gang Leader for a Day

Innovate Your Life In the book, Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociology student from the University of Chicago starts out simply trying to understand â€Å"how it feels to be poor and black,† and ends up spending years and years figuring out the ins and outs of a gang society (Venkatesh 14). Sudhir receives the chance of a sociologist’s lifetime to see first-hand what life is like in the projects. He follows gang leader, J. T. around and studies his life at the Robert Taylor homes for years. Throughout Venkatesh’s experience he witnesses many things some people go a lifetime without seeing.For example, he was no stranger to seeing people use drugs or get beat up by gang members. One interesting aspect of Venkatesh’s experiment is the community aspect of the gang life. Although it was hard for Venkatesh to understand during his adventure, even the gang had a sense of what it was like to help out their community and how important it was. There were a lot of aspects of the book that showed the sociological perspective of the Robert Taylor community. The book Gang Leader for a Day shows the sociological perspective by bringing Robert Merton’s structural strain theory to life.Robert Merton created the structural strain theory in 1938. This theory states that deviance occurs when a society does not give all of its member’s equal ability to achieve socially acceptable goals (Conley 192). The goals Merton is referring to is the ‘American dream’; everyone wants to have a good job, a nice home, and a nice family. In the strain theory Merton talks about 5 different types of people that make up society. There are conformists, innovators, ritualists, retreatists, and rebels. Conformists are the people who accept the goals of society and the means of achieving those goals.Innovators accept the goals of society but find new means of achieving these goals. That’s where J. T. falls. Ritualists don†™t really accept the goals of society but they accept the means of achieving those goals, they often do the bare minimum to get by. Retreatists don’t accept the goals or the means of society and lastly, rebels are the people who don’t accept the goals of society or the means of achieving those goals but they create their own goals while using new means to get there. J. T. is the leader of a gang called the Black Kings.This gang lives in the Robert Taylor homes in Chicago and runs their â€Å"businesses† there. Venkatesh finds out that this group sells drugs for money but the more he learns about this group he finds more and more interesting ways they earn their money. When Sudhir first met J. T. he admitted that â€Å"the last word I expected to exit this man’s mouth was ‘college’† (Venkatesh 19). J. T. surprised him when he told him that he had â€Å"gone to college on and athletic scholarship and found that he loved reading about history and politics† (Venkatesh 27). Venkatesh came to find out that J. T. ad a corporate job after college and within two years he quit that job and returned to the gang life due to feeling that his â€Å"chances of success were limited because he was black† (Venkatesh 27). It is always said (especially now a days) how important it is for people to attend college now. You always hear left and right that you’ll need a degree to be successful and people often look down on you if you decide to take another route instead of college. People accept college as one of the means to reach the American dream. That’s what makes J. T. the perfect example of an innovator.Although he belongs to a gang which is often frowned upon in society, he accepted the means of achieving the American dream by attending college and getting a degree. Another aspect of the American dream that people accept is having a successful job. Most people would say that an acceptable successful job would mean a 9 to 5, Monday through Friday, job. But that depends on how you measure your success. J. T. may not be considered successful in the eyes of the business world but he considers himself more successful in the gang world than he was in the business world.J. T. has more money than he knows what to do with. He makes his money in various ways. Besides selling drugs through his gang, he also runs three buildings. He would allow people who were known as squatters to stay in the building when it was cold out. They were allowed to hang out in the stairwells and the gang provided them protection for a little bit of money. The gang was always finding ways like this to collect money. They would allow prostitutes to come and live there and some of them would do business there but they also had a fee to pay. Anyone who J.T. allowed to stay in his buildings without a lease would get taxed on their earnings for whatever type of business they were doing. But in return the Black King s would provide them with protection. Venkatesh learned a lot about the gang’s hierarchy and J. T. ’s â€Å"business plans. † Early in their relationship, J. T. explained the structure to making money in the drug game to Sudhir while he planned his move to running the Robert Taylor homes. He calls the Robert Taylor homes â€Å"easy money† because of how convenient the location was for white people to drive over.He also says he would go from making thirty thousand dollars a year to seventy-five thousand dollars or maybe even a hundred thousand a year (towards the end of the book J. T. is making somewhere around two hundred thousand dollars a year). This is where J. T. begins to explain the ladder of moving up in the gang and how he wants to move up. Throughout the book Venkatesh watches J. T. move up this ladder after his transition into more buildings becomes successful. J. T. finds himself going to meetings with the big wigs of the Black Kings and gainin g more and more respect from them.Gang Leader for a day shows a fascinating connection of the gang world and what people would consider ‘normal society’. J. T. ’s a successful gang leader which besides all the drugs and illegal doings of that gang, he seems more like a successful CEO of a business. He moves up a ladder of the drug business just like a regular business man has the opportunity to do. He makes most of his money through sales just like a regular company would. He provides protection to the tenants of his building as a service which for the most part they pay him for, much like how regular services are ran.So maybe J. T. doesn’t have the regular 9 to 5 job or the nice comfortable home but in his business world he is considered successful. That sounds like an innovator to me. When Venkatesh begins his study on the Chicago projects, he plans to use surveys. He starts off going into the poor community and tries to ask people questions. As Sudhir f inds out later on, the people of these communities weren’t so welcoming to new faces. On his first attempt to ask his survey questions, he was stopped and questioned by people in the building.These people did not want to allow him in and assumed he was from a rival gang. His first shot at actually asking the question â€Å"how does it feel to be young and black? † he gets laughed at. Then he asks J. T. the questions and J. T. tells him that he won’t learn anything about the life there with questionnaires and says â€Å"with people like us, you should hang out, get to know what they do, and how they do it. No one is going to answer questions like that. You need to understand how young people live on the streets† (Venkatesh 21). With that, Venkatesh changed his study technique from surveys to a field study.I believe that without a first-hand account of what living in the projects was like he couldn’t fully understand what it was like to be black and poor. I think that there are so many hardships of living the type of life that people lived in the Robert Taylor homes. People could go without eating, or couldn’t walk outside of their homes because they were afraid of getting shot. But oddly enough, I don’t think it was all bad. Throughout the book there is a strong theme of helping the community. For example, when the Pride group comes in and tries to register everyone to vote.Even though the Black Kings tried to dictate who people would vote for in order to help themselves continue to grow, they were educating people on their rights. There were people like Ms. Bailey who wouldn’t let anyone go without eating and found places to donate warm winter jackets for the people in the community. Without witnessing these acts of kindness in the community I don’t think Venkatesh’s results would have been as accurate. Most books you read or movies you watch about gangs portray them so negatively and make i t seem like everything they do is horrible for the community around them.Needless to say selling drugs openly on the streets is no way to live a life, but Venkatesh’s field study brought to light all the good things that go on in communities like these that a survey couldn’t have. I’m sure the people living in the Robert Taylor homes would ask for a nicer place to live or more food to eat and they more than likely didn’t enjoy being poor but Venkatesh proved through his study that just because someone is poor and lives in gang territory doesn’t mean that they can’t be as nice or as crazy as someone who lived in the suburbs.I strongly believe that if he had used the survey method he would not have found these types of things out about this community. Through his field study, the question arises, was this study ethical? There are definitely some gray lines in answering this question. Sociologists are supposed to make sure their participants ar e aware of what the study consists of. Throughout the book Venkatesh constantly asks himself what his intentions were of his study. If the researcher barely knows what his intentions are how are the participants supposed to understand?They are also supposed to make sure none of the participants can be harmed in their study. He also questions the ethics of his study when he watches J. T. beat up C-note for working on cars where he wanted to play basketball. He asks himself how he is supposed to stand by and watch violent acts like these take place without putting his morals at stake. I absolutely believe that in a field study like this Venkatesh’s ethics were on the line, but I don’t believe he would have gotten the same results if he didn’t cross that line.In Gang Leader for a Day I think that Venkatesh proved that poor people aren’t completely poor. They may not have money and might not always be able to afford food but I believe that he proved they stil l enjoy their lives to the most they can. I also think that it’s an assumption that someone can’t be successful if they’re from the projects because your poor and don’t always have the means to get there. Venkatesh’s study showed through J. T. that’s not true. Even though J. T. isn’t successful in society’s eyes he is in his mind because he has the money, the cars, and the clothes.He doesn’t view himself as a criminal he believes that since he’s doing good things for his community he isn’t a criminal. He just has a different way of doing things. People look up to J. T. in the Robert Taylor homes and support him. For example, during Ms. Bailey’s monthly meeting with her tenants, people question how she can support J. T. knowing all the illegal activities he conducts. She points out to these people that the community has become much safer and that there had been less shootings in their area due to the help from J. T. and his gang. J. T. eld so much power in the community and he tried to use that power to make positive changes. He had his younger officers clean up after community parties and did other community service like projects to prove to others that they weren’t always bad people. All in all, Gang Leader for a Day taught me that people in the projects aren’t all miserable, bad people. Sure, they lead a hard life but there are people there that have their hearts in the right place and do what they can to help even if they engage in activities that might be frowned upon like dealing drugs.You see all different types of people in these types of communities. That’s why this book was such a good example of the structural strain theory. There are people like J. T. that use new ways of finding their own success and there’s people like Sudhir who follow the means to achieve the goals of society by going to school and getting a job. I genuinely enjoyed th is book and would definitely recommend it for someone who is interested in getting a wider perspective on what the project life is like. Read and Reviewed by Logan Beck I used academic integrity in completing this assignment.

Comparison: O.J. Simpson and Tom Robinson Trials Essay

â€Å"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.† This was taken directly from the Bill of Rights (Amendment XIV section I), and it clearly states that nothing should make or enforce any law that dispossesses the immunity of the citizen on trial. In the trials of Tom Robinson and Orenthal James Simpson, this amendment seemingly may not have been considered. Every man should be treated equally, regardless of his race and social status, and in these two trials that statement was not being applied. The social and political climate of the town in both cases was a major factor in the result of Robinson and Simpson’s trials. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Tom Robinson was a man of innocence that was accused of rape, a crime he did not commit. Back in the 1930’s, white men were constantly trying to prove the â€Å"natural inferiority† of the African American race, condemning them as unreasonable. The jury was unable to look past race and praise the integrity of Tom and epitomize the opposite of prejudice. If Tom Robinson were a white man, the outcome of the trial would be entirely different. However, in 1994, times have shown to have changed from the extent of racism and prejudice from the early 1900’s. Now, money and popularity is power, despite the race of a person. OJ Simpson was an African American, who was ranked fairly high on the social scale. He was a well-known, NFL-all star with a great deal of money on his side. The jury were in favor of OJ Simpson’s innocence from the beginning because they felt that a man like himself could not a crime as extreme as the murder of two people. Thus, in both cases, the race and rank of the defendant detained a major position in the result of their trials. In both trials, the evidence appeared to be somewhat disregarded by the jury. In Tom’s trial, there was no medical verification that he took advantage and  raped Mayella Ewell. The jury could only base their guilty sentence of Tom on what was said by the Ewells in the courtroom. Back then, a white person’s word was automatically the truth when it was held up to the credibility of someone whom was black. At Simpson’s trial, the substantiation of murder was observed wrongfully. At the crime scene of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman, blood was found in OJ ‘s car, his socks, and a pair of his rubber gloves, upon many other things. For some reason, the jury looked past this evidence of guilt, and that is wrong. Although there are many similarities present between the two trials, there are also some differences. One difference is that there was a change of venue made in one case but not the other. It was deliberated in Tom’s trial but in the end it was determined that a change of venue would not be necessary due to the fact that any jury would find a black man guilty in any case. OJ ‘s case was moved to the downtown district instead of where the crime occurred to avoid racial imbalances and to accommodate the media crash in Los Angeles (trial was moved to Santa Monica). This also made it possible to change the jury, which also had a major effect on the result of OJ ‘s trial. The final verdicts of the two trials are not truthful. Both Tom and OJ were not treated equally as citizens of the United States. Instead, they were thought of as an evil and unreasonable black man and a NFL all star who would never commit a crime. Perhaps if the jury had realized that they were treating these two people unequally and unfairly the verdicts of these trials would be utterly different. These trials demonstrate how race, social status, and money have an effect on the current law system. All people are created equally, so they shall be treated equally in any matter

Essay on Late Adulthood - 1279 Words

Late Adulthood and Death Crystal Leden Psy/280 February 20, 2013 Shannon Hilligoss Late Adulthood and Death In this paper I will be looking at ageism and stereotypes that associated with late adulthood, evaluating how people in late adulthood can promote health and wellness to help prevent the negative effects of aging. I will also be analyzing the importance of relationships and social interactions towards the end of a person’s life and identifying the cultural and personal attitudes about death and dignity in late adulthood. The word ageism means anyone over 60.Ageism is a form of prejudice where people are categorized based on their age. There are more differences in development in late adulthood than in the other stages. At†¦show more content†¦There are three different groups in late adulthood. The first one being young-old, this group is the largest group, most of people in this group are completely independent. The next group is old-old, this group may have some health issues such as memory loss and weight loss, but they are independent and actually take care of other people. The last group is oldest-old, this group is dependent on others to take care of them and some are in put in nursing homes. As a person ages their nutritional needs change. For the most part all the requirements are the same just less of them. Because they have slower metabolism and do not do as much the need for larger amounts of calories is no longer there. Most elderly people do not dink enough fluids, part of this is do the as they age they become less aware that they are thirsty. This has to do with their kidneys and bladder not working as well. By not drinking enough fluids they become a higher risk for dehydration. Also by not drinking enough the age faster and their skin shows more sings of aging. Exercise is important but older people do not exercise enough or at all. 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