Social Sciences

This article discusses about the preliminary study of the social cohesion level among ethnics in Penang. The purpose of this study is to explore the extent of social cohesion that exists among the Malays, Chinese and Indians, through their daily interactions. A total of 90 respondents were surveyed in this study. The study found that the level of social cohesion between these three ethnic groups; Malays, Chinese and Indians are less satisfactory. The Chinese respondents have full daily interaction (100 percent) with other Malays but only 83 percent of Indian respondents and 60 percent of Malay respondents have daily interaction with other Chinese. However, for the location of the interaction, all three ethnic groups studied recorded the highest number of daily interactions in their workplace. More than 30 percent of respondents found among the Indians and Chinese had never interacted with other ethnic groups in school. Overall, the findings showed an alarming level of social cohesion because more than 20 percent of Indians have bad relationship with other Chinese and Malays and 49 percent of the Chinese have very bad relationship with other Indians and Malays.

India has come a long way from being called the ‘land of snake-charmers’ to one of the fastest developing countries of the SAARC region. Having seen the rise and fall of many a kingdoms and being ruled by many, India has soaked up the essence of almost every dynasty resulting in a rich cultural milieu which manages to enthrall everybody. Post independence, India witnessed the drafting of the Constitution which pronounced India as a ‘Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic, Republic’ and as a newly emerged welfare state. Since then and after 66 years of Independence, India has been growing steadily though not without challenges. To contextualize this article, we can argue that the health care system of India has been facing many challenges in terms of the perspective of being user friendly and distributed equitably, to favor all the sections of the society equally. Widespread loopholes have been noticed in the delivery of the health care system in India. Availing quality health care has now become the prerogative of only the well to do section of the society, leaving the marginalized section of the society at the mercy of governmental setups which are drowned in their own incompetence and corruption therefore failing to provide quality health care to the society. This paper proposes to take a look at these existent inequalities in the delivery of the health care system. In this effort data has been collected from 6 districts of Karnataka, 3 of which are rural districts and 3 of which are urban. Rural and urban districts are operationally understood as 3 districts each having lowest HDI and 3 districts having the highest recorded human develop index (HDI) of Karnataka respectively. High human development Index (HDI) is being represented by Bangalore, Udupi and Mangalore consisting of 1136 people interviewed in total, whereas low level of HDI is represented by Raichur, Chamarajnagara and Gulbarga, with a total of 1327 respondents.

This study seeks to investigate the conversion patterns among mualafs in Malaysia. Its focus is to find out the demographic information of mualafs and to identify the popular conversion patterns among mualafs in Malaysia. Three (3) conversion patterns i.e. intellectual, mystical and affectional are being investigated in this study. Data collection was done at PUSBA, Kedah whereby mualafs from all states were gathered. A total of 42 responses were collected from these mualafs using a census study method. This study found that majority of the respondents were Sabahan and came from other races such as Iban, Asli, Myanmar, Kadazan and Thai. More than half of the respondents were unemployed but most of the mualafs had an adequate academic level. Results showed that majority of the mualafs were influenced by someone who are close to them which is linked to the affectional conversion pattern. It is hoped that this study will provide insights to JAKIM in terms of conversion patterns among the mualafs in Malaysia.

Education has the key role in human capital formation. It empowers the society by increasing awareness, skills, efficiency and productivity, but does it empowers the people who educate the society? This paper scrutinizes the impact of different education levels on teacher’s earnings of public sector educational institutes in Pakistan. By employing Mincerian Human Capital model. A sample of 150 teachers is used for the analysis. Data is collected through field survey and questioner about educational level and experience from public sector teaching staff of Quetta city and OLS Regression method is used to determine the impact of Education and experience on earning. According to our results, completed years of education and years of experience have positive significant impact on monthly income. But years of experience increases income at a decreasing rate.

U.S climate change policy has evolved under various administrations. It has passed through two environmental eras. In the first environmental era which started in 1960’s and ended in 1990’s main focus was on addressing environmental issues domestically by passing a number of environmental legislations. However by the end of 1990’s U.S. realized that climate change issues are beyond the control of sovereign states and only through international cooperation it can be tackled. However U.S was not willing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the only existing international emission reduction treaty, pointing out that it excludes developing countries from committing to binding emission reduction targets. Though Clinton administration had signed Kyoto Protocol in 1997, in 2001 George W Bush administration rejected the treaty completely. In the context of framing a new climate change treaty replacing Kyoto Protocol by world nations, if it has to be successful, at first it should ensure the participation of United States, the second largest greenhouse gas emitter. Apart from that, participation of key developing countries is also important; however their emission targets must be set up after considering their population size and per capita income.

The purpose of this study is to address the gaps in the literature and to examine the predictors of job satisfaction. In this study, the hypothesized predictors influencing one’s job satisfaction are a) gender, b) age, c) level of education, d) salary, e) role in the job, and f) years of working in the organization. This study used Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) as a data gathering tool. The questionnaires were administered to 89 male respondents, and 121 female respondents. For data analysis, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was employed. In addition to conducting a multiple regression analysis (MRA), descriptive statistical analysis was also carried out as part of the data analysis. Of all the predictors studied, results indicated gender as the only significant predictor of one’s job satisfaction. Several recommendations for future studies were also listed.

The paper explores the link between Islamic accounting and the cash Waqf. It exposes and introduces the reader to accounting for cash Waqf in medieval times and in contemporary times. It tracesdiachronically the legitimacy and use of cash Waqf, describes Islamic accounting and highlights its relevance for cash Waqf accounting. The paper concludes with an opinion on the application of the seemingly recent phenomenon of Islamic accounting with specific reference to cash Waqfs.

Motivation is possibly the most imperative aspect that educators can target in order to develop learning. Several cross-disciplinary theories have been suggested to elucidate motivation. While each of these theories has some reality, no single theory seems to effectively explain all human motivation. The truth is that human beings in general and students in particular are multifaceted creatures with complex needs and wishes. With regard to students, very little if any learning can occur unless students are motivated on a regular basis. The focus of this paper is to provide the educator with suggestions from each of the motivating forces that can be used to motivate his or her students. What is the finest approach to motivate students? The short answer is that all of the approaches listed in this paper can be used…as often as likely. Educators could start just by choosing and trying the new possibilities for inspiring student motivation. Or, more prominently, educators could watch themselves and their own behaviors to become self-aware of new understandings about motivation.

Institutional ranking has become a competitive trend in promoting quality education across the globe. This ranking system facilitates fare competition in terms of teaching-learning and investment among its various stakeholders namely students, teachers, parents and investors with special focus on academic excellence leading towards lucrative placement in the corporate world. The college and university ranking practice mostly conducted by leading magazines, newspaper, websites, government and academics has been primarily observed since long in the western world especially in the USA and Europe. However it has not remained confined within that territory only; rather it has expanded its boundaries and reached all corners of the world including South- East Asia as well. This article is a critical review of the existing ranking systems available worldwide with special focus on the USA and European college and university ranking practices. Thus this paper has critically reviewed various ranking systems along with their general and specific criteria such as admission acceptance rate, average alumni donation rate, average graduation rate and performance, class size, expenditure per student, faculty compensation rate, faculty with PhD or terminal degree, lucrative placements of alumni, peer assessment, SAT/ACT score and Student-teacher ratio and many more. Finally this study has highlighted many important issues relevant in our context some of which are not feasible to adopt in this very socio-economic as well as cultural context of our country. However the study has been found very significant in the context of our education system to promote fare competition among the relevant stakeholders and ensure quality education both in public and private universities leading towards pertinent placement in the Government and industrial sector.

This paper explored the hedonic price model to demonstrate the effects of housing attributes on the price structure for duplexes in Lekki Peninsular area of Lagos metropolis. The hypothesis that house prices are influenced by a combination of housing attributes was tested with a standard hedonic model using a sample of 193 duplexes sold between 2008 and 2010. Each of the sixteen explanatory variables involved manifested their a priori signs and statistically significant at the required level of significance except for quality of sanitary wares, availability of shopping centers and availability of swimming pool. The results suggest, among others, that structural attributes, particularly attributes that border on convenience, comfort and display of affluence, constitute the principal predictors of duplexes’ prices in the study area.