Social Studies

Mortality refers to the state or condition of being subject to death that occur within a population. It is a basic demographic component of population change. Mortality and its causes vary both in space and time due to the factors such as advancement in medicines, propagation of education, improvement of nutritional level and improvement in general conditions of sanitation. Many demographic studies have revealed that mortality levels vary with the racial characteristics since every ethnic society has their own culture, socio-economic background, and attitudes. Sri Lanka has a multi ethnic condition and the levels of mortality in such ethnicities are diverse from one to another. Main purpose of this paper is to identify the trends in CDR, NMR, IMR, CMR, ASDR and CSDR and causes for the mortality in Indian Tamil population in Osborn Estate in Nuwara-Eliya District after 1980s. Finding the causes for the prevailing trends and examination of current socio-economic and health situation in the estate are the minor objectives. Both primary and secondary data were used for this study. Mortality trends were analyzed by using relevant annual death reports from 1984 to 2012 collected from the Osborne Estate Hospital. Questionnaire survey was conducted to identify the socio-economic and health care situation in the estate with the help of 75 households those who were selected randomly from six divisions in Osborne Estate. Analysis was done with the help of SPSS 17.0, Minitab and Microsoft Excel 2010 computer tools. According to the trend analysis, downward trends were found for CDR, NMR, IMR and CMR and slight upward trend for ASDR in 15-30 age group and downward trend for ASDR in 60 + age group in the target population. Causes for the deaths have totally changed from 1984 to 2012 and specifically hypertension was found as the major cause for the general mortality in present day. Suicide is one of the major causes for deaths among youth population due to poor thinking. Advancement of health condition is the main reason for declining trend of child mortality in currently. The study suggests to draw an extensive attention to youth population and to conduct counseling programs in order to minimize the suicide cases. Increasing of workers’ wages is positive impact for improving their demographic condition further.

Present study was designed to investigate the role of instructional practices in determining students’ satisfaction. Major objectives of the study include, comparing instructional practices adopted by private and public sectors universities. It was descriptive in nature in which university students’ satisfaction was measured in relation with teachers’ instructional practices. Here instructional practices were taken as independent variable while students’ satisfaction was considered as dependent variable of the study. For sampling a stratified random sample of 700 respondents was collected from respondents of two distinct groups’ i.e., students, and teachers. Two different tools were developed and use to get the views of students, and teachers in public and private sector universities. Collected data was analyzed statistically (descriptive and inferential statistics) in relation with objectives of the research. Various statistical tests such as mean, Standard Deviation, Analysis of variance, correlation and regression were used to explore research variables with the help of SPSS 21. On the basis of results it reveled that students of public sector universities are more satisfied with instructional practices of their teachers.

Objective: To describe the strengths and weaknesses of current media to act as a prime tool to tackle rural poverty and help in development. Design: A descriptive, cross sectional study design, collecting relevant quantitative and qualitative data was conducted. A data on retrospective histories and experiences of poverty was also captured to link the exposure pattern on the availability of government assistances through media vehicles. Setting: Urban community comprising of reporters and journalists belonging to different media houses in East Khasi Hills District from both the print and electronic media. Results: The working journalist in the State suggested that the media should create awareness programmes and make people aware of the schemes and loans being provided by the government. In addition, the media should also highlight the needs of the poor. These working professionals are consciously aware of its role but mentioned that they find it difficult in allotting space to information on government monetary benefits to the masses through their media houses. Conclusion: This study concludes that media has been ignoring poverty for too long. Media’s role in projecting and highlighting government’s assistance to help alleviate economic poverty in the State is a highly conscious elucidation endorsed by all.

Festivals and traditional ceremonies are part of the cultural heritage of Africa. This is why the traditional Egungun festival in Yorubaland, till date, still enjoys indigenous monopoly. However, its resources as a unique cultural asset of Africans are presently under-utilized and therefore need to be further explored for greater relevance with the sophistication and demands of contemporary age. This, thus, constitute the subject of this paper. The paper, therefore, focuses on the exploration of the content and form of traditional egungun Ado festival in order to define the basis for its enduring value in Ado Ekiti. This is discussed from analytical and mythological perspectives. The paper establishes that for any art to thrive, it must remain dynamic. And more interesting, the paper unravels the dynamics, the beauty, the uniqueness and multiple potentials of this Egungun Ado festival. Through interviews, personal experience and observation, the paper posits that Egungun Ado festival plays pivotal roles in the social, religious and political milieu of the Ado people and has remained a rallying point. It concludes that Egungun Ado festivals with its rich content and form are crucial to the nation building process in African societies and in fact, capable of yielding great dividends in the global economy if appropriately explored. However, it is imperative that African countries implement credible cultural policies to index and protect the vulnerability of aspects of this Yoruba culture in the face of Western encroachments and onslaught of Islam and Christianity.

Over centuries the field of psychology has been dominated by men. For a long time, women have been labeled as inferior and men have dominated the field of psychology. Male superiority and dominance has infiltrated the social structure and reduced the role of the female in society. Myths of Social Darwinism based on sexual selection among other attributes saw the females struggle over centuries. There were many others who refuted this myth including Helen Thompson, Mary Calkins, and Mary Putnam Jacobi. Their theories include equity model and relational theory that has left the women fighting for equality based on early concepts of feminism. The main purpose of the paper is to investigate the history of women psychology and liberation of feminist in research and psychology. Narrative analysis of various literature from different nations on feminism, women and psychological research. The findings indicate that feminism is a thing of the past, there has been development in gender equality. Both men and women have been given equal chances in practicing psychology and more scholarships have been given out to women to encourage them to participate in research and psychology. Continuous empowerment has encouraged women to grow and develop their self-confidence, self-efficacy, and self-esteem.

The transition of the students from secondary school to college/university level becomes a major challenge for majority of the students in Kenya. Moreover, compounding challenges have increasingly affected the student population towards adjusting in the university level. It is therefore recommended that a strategic orientation programme especially on guidance and counselling services for the first year diploma students. Accordingly, this paper advocates for the review of student support programmes towards the adjustment of first year students in the university/college environment. Finally, there is need for the inclusion of psychologists, counselling psychologists and psychiatrists in student support services.

The main objective of this study is to evaluate the correlated factors of landslide using certainty factor (CF) Model in Latyan catchment, north Tehran, Iran. At ?rst, a landslide inventory map was prepared using aerial photographs and the extensive ?eld survey. For this purpose, 208 landslides were mapped and out of which 145 (70 %) were randomly selected for building landslide susceptibility models, while the remaining 63 (30 %) were used for validating the models. In this study, 10 conditioning factors with their classes were evaluated. These factors including: slope; slope aspect; altitude; plan curvature; lithology; land use; distance from faults, rivers and roads and topographic wetness index (TWI). The validation of landslide susceptibility map was carried out using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results shows that the slope class 20 ?–30 ?(0.10640), slope aspect northwest (0.53335), the altitude 1800 - 2000 m (0.40805), curvature concave (0.00788), geology Jd (0.86675), Land Use forest (0.94588), distance from faults 6500–9500 m (0.47110), distance from river 0–200 m (0.25148) and distance form roads 0–500 m (0.24822) have the highest CF values. The result of ROC curve also shows that the certainty factor model has high value of AUC (0.832) which indicates the model employed in this study reasonably good accuracy in predicting the landslide susceptibility of Latyan catchment.

The paper deals with the fate of homo gravitas. As an archetype of the existing humans, homo gravitas is mirroring in Heraclitus’ universe like into its whole. In spite of this privileged astral position, homo gravitas is experiencing trouble with its own life at home, on the earth and behaves cruelly to its environment. This paper brings proof that all trouble is due to some disconnections occurring with its gravitational and energetic ties. Some of the damage lasts for a long time, but most has been produced during the former cultures. Those disconnections disturb what Paracelsus called the inner harmony of humans and psychic disorders result. They disclose the existing conflicts between the body and the mind. It was evaluated that 25% of total population is seriously affected by the disease called here schizophrenia astralis. It is not an infecting disease, but its danger increases with population growth. By raising awareness and eliminating its causes with equanimity, schizophrenia astralis can be eradicated before it is too late. Then, with a well-balanced body-mind couple, homo gravitas automatically becomes homo astralis. Anyway, there is no longer need to emigrate on other planets or meet aliens.

The Madrassa education system, which produced many legendary figures in strengthening the religious and social wellbeing of the Kerala state, is in the verge of decline. The responsibility for the failure of the system falls on the religious organizations, teachers, parents and the Mahallu committee. Contemporary Kerala society needs the rejuvenation of the Madrassa education system to ensure religious harmony and overall development of the community and the society. This paper tires to expose the failures of the Madrassa education systems in Kerala and puts forth the remedial measures to rejuvenate the system.

This study is a descriptive survey conducted on four primary schools based in the Kgalagadi North Sub-District in Botswana with purpose to cross-examine the instructional challenges faced by teachers based at schools in remote areas. After establishment of validity, interviews were conducted (individual and focus group). Results show that all the four remote schools sampled had homogeneous instructional challenges. Of the challenges, teachers identified discipline and academic challenges as a major factor in all the sampled schools. Even though parental support related challenges did not feature prominently in this study, the study identified that parents we not active in supporting their children in learning. The frequency of these challenges was found to be hampering positive academic output. These challenges were perceived to be capable of adversely affecting Botswana’s national objectives of Vision 2016 pillar of, an educated and informed nation. The study found out that learner achievement at remote schools is low and that parents are not actively involved in their children's education. The final thought of the study was that teachers based at remote schools need capacity building to deal with instructional challenges to enhance their effectiveness. On this ground, the researcher agrees with literature on the need for family learning as an approach to assist parents to support their children.