International Journal of Social Research

As governments around the world aim to develop and enact policies that promote benefits to the public good, there is an increasing need to identify and acknowledge the social impacts of such policies. In some cases, the social impacts may be unexpected. An example is the social impact related to renewable energy policies, particularly as related to industrial-scale wind power generation. In Ontario, Canada, the push toward large-scale or utility-scale wind power development has resulted in: economic change; social discontent in some affected rural communities; and, concerns about adverse health effects. If the usual avenues of social input to decision-making processes have been removed by legislation, an imposed government policy may result in loss of confidence and, despite the government’s good intentions, may not achieve the intended outcome. While citizens may protest that a policy has inflicted significant social change without consent, some governments may maintain that the overarching goal of environmental benefit outweighs social concerns. This article explores the social impact of wind energy development in Ontario, Canada’s rural communities, and suggests a greater role for social research in informing future policy development.

Basic education in rural areas is an important part of China’s basic education system. It plays a significant role in improving the quality of the rural population and promoting the economic and social development in rural areas, and is of great importance to the new countryside construction. Although China’s rural basic education has made great achievements since reform and opening up, many problems still exist. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of the above problems, this paper takes the case of basic education in County Zijin of Heyuan City as an example, and proposes some practical countermeasures for the reference in better development of basic education in rural areas.

The traditional Christianity shows itself full of contradictions when we casually look into it. Is it itself cracked to begin with? Upon reflection, we realize that its contradictions actually show how much beyond all our human wits and logic the Beyond-all is. This realization clues us into looking again, and Christianity then reveals itself with many levels of depths of love and justice in God our Creator. This paper instantiates some of these stunning revelations unnoticed before.

Literature generally evolves from a people’s historical and cultural experiences. Though both male and female writers explore their culture for sources of inspirations, and occasionally, for their techniques, the linguistic items employed by both writers to portray their visions are slightly different in the nature of language use as seen in Akachi Ezeigbo’s The Last of the Strong Ones. This paper investigates language use in Ezeigbo’s work using the feminist discourse approach with particular reference to Elaine Showalter’s ‘Gynocriticism’, which is the study of women as writers. This theoretical thrust provides critics with four models concerning the nature of criticism of female writers’ works. The paper affirms that in spite of what patriarchy calls the feminine in language use, which are gender differentiated linguistic behaviours Ezeigbo like most other female writers, employs language for distinctiveness and identity to express genuinely female consciousness in a personal, intimate tone. The preponderance of personal pronoun ‘I’ helps to present things in an involved and relational way; the frequent use of rhetorical questions are signs of conversational control, whereas the recurrent reference to land, nature and culture reaffirms women as great mothers. In all, Ezeigbo endows women with the power of speech as subjects in their use of linguistic features. Since the novel is a diversity of social speech types, language use also predisposes both sexes along linguistic differences. In conclusion the paper submits that language use as reflected in the feminist world-view, deals with women’s development and identity and not ‘otherness’ as patriarchy perceives it. Therefore, through the careful selection of the linguistic items, Ezeigbo extends the limits of the English language to accommodate her perceptions of African cultural world view from the female perspective.

The 21st century seems to have been eclipsed by conflict, which makes people presume conflict as necessary part of the society resulting to emphasize on peace education. This paper having taken a critical study on various peace building models of peace education observes that these models as good us they may be have not addressed the root of conflicts in the modern society. However, the researcher being interested in finding a peace building model that will address this gap spotlights on Taoism as having the potential to offering the world their peace-dream. This tradition anchors on the principles of Tao, Yin-yang and Wu-wei. Basic to the trio concepts are the idea of pluralism, non-interference, and non-action. This paper in adopting historical and sociological methods of investigations concludes that if Taoist tradition is adopted as a peace building model, the desired peace shall soon become a reality.

The study explored the effectiveness of hand washing (hw) education on primary school pupils in Nkanu West LGA of Enugu state. Comparison group pretest-posttestdesign was utilized to execute the study. The population for the study was 9746 pupils. The samplefor the study was 48 pupils made up of 23 and 25 intact primary 5 classes from two separate schools. The instrument utilized for data collection was a 10-item hw achievement multiple-choice test (HaWaT) adapted from hw testdeveloped by Massachusetts Department of Public Health Division of Epidemiology and Immunization-MDPHDEI (2000). The HaWaT had sections A and B that sought data on knowledge and skills of hw respectively. The face and content validity of the instrument was established through the judgment of three expertsin health education, psychology and measurement/evaluation. The instrument was pilot tested in a school in the LGA that was different from the schools selected for this study using a test-retest method. The resultant data were correlated using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and it yielded a reliability coefficient of .78. Kuder-Richardson formula 20 was utilized to determine its internal consistency and it yielded a reliability index of .71. Data that were generated from the pre and posttest were analyzed using SPSS version 21. Descriptive statistics of mean (x ̅) and standard deviation (SD) were used to answer the research questions while ANOVA was used to verify the hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The majorfindingsfrom the study showed that the mean achievement gain on: knowledge of hw of the intervention group (x ̅=10.87%) was higher than the comparison group (x ̅=.08%); skills of hw of the intervention group (x ̅=12.81%) was greater than the comparison group (x ̅=4.40%). Additionally, the ANOVA test showed that null hypothesis one which stated that there was no significance difference between experimental and comparison…

Because of the success of keeping people alive after a life-threatening arrhythmia, the implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) has become an invasive medical device posing unique challenges to patients, physicians, and healthcare personnel. This paper examines the unique societal challenges of the ICD in the context of consent and informed consent in the Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia. The main societal issues in consent and informed consent regarding implantable life-saving medical devices involve the types of information (individual vs. societal) that are to drive the discussion between patient and his or her physician.

Rural women play a critical role in the rural economies of both developed and developing countries. In most parts of the developing world they participate in crop production and livestock care, provide food, water and fuel for their families, and engage in off-farm activities to diversify their families’ livelihoods. In addition, they carry out vital reproductive functions in caring for children, older persons and the sick. To understand the situation of rural women, it is necessary to examine the full diversity of their experiences in the context of the changing rural economy, including their position within household and community structures. A multi-stage sampling method was employed to select 136 respondents. Primary data was collected through the use of questionnaires and interview schedule and were subjected to both descriptive and inferential statistics. The mean farming experience was 11.4years, while mean farm size was 1.4ha. The main source of agricultural information was radio. Regression analysis showed that level of education, age and marital status were significantly related with level of participation. The findings conclude that women voices and level of participation is influenced by level of education, marital status and age. Therefore, the study recommends that women participation in sustainable livelihoods can only be achieved by empowering them with training and access to land in order to raise their voices in agricultural sector.