Dualism Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Dualism - Research Paper Example Are medical researchers within their rights to experiment on animals if their research helps cure diseases? Do animal rights properly belong to the realm of philosophy and pedagogy, or is it a matter for the courts? At the crux of the issue is the meaning of â€Å"sentience.† Does feeling (i.e. physical sensation) equate to intelligence? The main thrust of this paper is to argue that the ability to feel pain establishes a minimum ethical criterion for not experimenting on animals and, if by extension, feelings and other â€Å"emotions† are deemed to be present, then animal protection should acquire the force of law. Aristotle wrote that animals meet this minimum criterion, arguing that they are endowed with perceptive sensitivity, â€Å"which appears inherent in all animals, for they have an innate power, which (is called) sensible perception†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Aristotle, 354). But when it came to this sensitivity, Aristotle said, not all animals are created equal. He said that â€Å"sense being inherent Name 2 in some animals, a permanency of the sensible object is engendered, but in others it is not engendered,† as would be the case with insects, for instance (Aristotle, 354). Descartes made a similar distinction, but one which drew on man’s supposedly divine nature, asserting that while animals wield an intelligence that allows them to carry out basic tasks, such as finding shelter, this intelligence â€Å"is of a significantly inferior type to the rational intelligence of man, which comes from his soul† (Kang, 117). Ultimately, Descartes decided that animal intelligence cannot be compared to that of humans, because animals are unable to reason or communicate verbally. Nevertheless, whatever the limits of animal consciousness might be, countless theories have been developed to support the validity of animal intelligence. Physicalist and Neurofunctionalist – philosophical approaches Physicalism postulates that consciousn ess canbe identified with neuron activity, a position that allows for the possibility that intelligence is a characteristic humans and animals share, so long as they are built upon the same â€Å"biological, chemical and physical† properties (Allen, 2010). Such an approach also claims that questions about the relative intelligence of different species becomes â€Å"trivial† â€Å"once neuroscientists have carried out the non-trivial task of determining the physiological basis of consciousness in animals for which no reasonable doubt of their consciousness can be entertained† (Allen, 2010). Neurofunctionalism considers the existence of neural cortex activity in primates as â€Å"the most plausible candidate for being the neural correlate of phenomenal consciousness in these species† (Allen, 2010). In â€Å"On a Confusion About a Function of Consciousness,† N. Block associates phenomenal consciousness with brain processes in certain higher-level perc eptual representations. â€Å"Since the evidence for Name 3 such processes is at least partially derived from animals, including other primates and rats, (Block’s) view is supportive of the that phenomenal consciousness is found in some nonhuman species (presumably most mammals)† (Allen, 2010). Other â€Å"first-order† theories take a more direct line, including representationalism, which insists that an animal’s ability to perceive its surroundings equates to conscious awareness. Aristotle and Locke took a

Amazon's Data Assurance Policies Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Amazon's Data Assurance Policies - Assignment Example Amazon’s customers receive immediate notification of whether the transaction has been successful.   This is done first immediately online, giving them an opportunity to keep a printed record as well as being stored in their account history, which is viewable online.   An electronic mail is also sent to the customer as a further notification and security measure.In a credit card transaction there are three stages to processing an order; namely, authentication of the cardholder, authorization for the transaction from the card issuer, and eventually settlement by the card issuer with Amazon.   Once the card issuer authorizes the transaction Amazon will send a confirmation to the customer.   In a successful credit card transaction for an existing customer the following information assurance policies are embedded within Amazon’s order processing system to safeguard customers, Amazon and the card issuer against the risk of identity theft:Amazon’s information as surance policies ensure that it does not collect any data from customers that is not required either to facilitate online transactions or to improve the quality of their experience whilst on the site.   For example, behind the scenes, Amazon ensures that all credit card numbers are transferred to and stored on a computer that is not accessible by network or modem or connected to the Internet.   This is done via a one-way interface.   This acts as another layer of protection from internal security risks as most staff will have no reason to access that server.Often the weakest point in the information assurance policy is interaction with the end-user, as an organization relies on the end-user to keep personal data accurate and safeguard against threats to the integrity of network systems to which they have access.   Amazon’s success here is mixed.   For example, customers are forced to keep their personal data accurate in order to be authenticated for purchasing from the site and Amazon does not collect personal data for any other reason.  

Schema as an Active Recognition Device | Experiment

Schema as an Active Recognition Device | Experiment Written report of a cognitive psychology experiment. Schemas are integrated chunks of knowledge stored in memory allowing us to form expectations and make sense of the world. Rumelhart and Norman (1988) described schemas as having variables or slots where schemas vary in the amount of information they contain and overlap to relate together to form systems. For example, a schema for a picnic may be part of a larger system of schemas including ‘meals’, ‘outings’, and ‘parties’ (Gross, 1996). Therefore, suggesting schemas to be active recognition devices where we try to make sense of ambiguous and unfamiliar information in terms of our existing knowledge and understanding. Bartlett (1932) argued that we rely on schemas as well as content to remember stories. Based on his findings of participants recalling a story â€Å"The War of the Ghosts† from a different culture, Bartlett (1932) found that distortions increased over successive recalls and most of these reflected the participants’ attempts to make the story more like a story from their own culture. Changes from the original story included rationalisations, which made the story more coherent as the story was shortened and phrases changed to be more similar to their own language, participants failed to recall unfamiliar details such as the ghosts, and they elaborated certain content and altered its importance (Bartlett, 1932). Therefore, the changes made the story easier to remember. Bartlett (1932) concluded that the changes to the story on recall showed that the participants were actively reconstructing the story to fit their existing schemas and that schemas affect retrieval rather th an encoding or storage. Other evidence suggested schemas influence comprehension and retrieval. For instance, Bransford and Johnson (1972) argued that schemas often influence comprehension processes rather than retrieval. Presenting participants with a passage in which it was hard to determine which schemas were relevant Bransford and Johnson (1972) found that participants who heard the passage without a title recalled an average of only 2.8 idea units compared to the participants who were given the title who recalled an average of 5.8 idea units. Bransford and Johnsons (1972) study show that the title acted as a useful retrieval cue. Anderson and Pichert’s (1978) research showed that a person’s perspective could guide retrieval of information. For instance, Anderson and Pichert (1978) asked participants to read a story about two boys playing in a house from one of two perspectives, that of a home-buyer or that of a burglar and to write as many of the stories detail they could recall. The participants asked to recall the story again but with half of the participants in the home-buyer condition recalling the story from the perspective of a burglar and half of the participants in the burglar condition to recall the story from the home-buyer perspective. Anderson and Pichert (1978) found that people recalled new information following the change of schema. Anderson and Picherts (1978) findings suggested that schemas play a critical role for readers in selectively attending to elements of a passage that is significant for recall. Therefore, this study aims to replicate the Anderson and Pichert (1978) stud y to see if there would be a significant difference in the recall for participants who changed schema compared to the recall of the participants who did not change schema. Participants: Purposive sampling selected a sample of 40 participants: 20 males and 20 females, age range of 20 to 25 for males and 20 to 26 for females, mean ages 20.5 and 32.7 years respectively. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups; home-buyer schema group and the burglar schema group. Design: The study used a repeated measures design, with two conditions: condition A (no change schema) and condition B (changed schema). The IV being the number of story details recalled correctly and the DV measured was recall accuracy for the change in schema perspective. Controlling for order effects, half of the participants of each group were randomly assigning to condition A and half to condition B for the second recall task. Materials: The materials used were the story used in the original study by Anderson and Pichert (1978) about two boys who played truant from school and spent the day at the home of one of the boys because no one was home that day. The story contained many details, of which some were expected to be more salient for a person with a home-buyer schema, such as attractive grounds, leaking roof, and damp basement; and other details more salient for a person with a burglar schema, such as valuable coin collection, nobody home on Thursdays, and an expensive TV. Part B of the Productive Vocabulary Levels Test (PVLT) (Laufer and Nation, 1995) was the ‘filler’ task used before the first recall of the story. Before instructions for the second recall participants were asked to count backwards from 99 until asked to stop as a ‘filler’ task before the second recall, with the stopping cut off point was 30. Procedure: The participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: one group was told to imagine that they were looking for a house to buy (‘home-buyer’ schema group). The other group was told to imagine that they were burglars looking for a house to break into (‘burglar’ schema group). Working with one group at a time, participants were given a story to read about two boys who played truant from school and spent the day at the home of one of the boys because no-one was home that day, and were given two minutes to read the story. Next, the participants were instructed, to complete the (PVLT) test for twelve minutes. When the twelve minutes were up the participants were told to stop the test and to write down as many of the details of the story they could recall. When the participants had completed the first recall task, they were instructed to count backwards from 99 until told to stop. The participants were asked to stop counting at the count of 30, and then han ded envelopes containing standardised instructions for the next stage of the study. Half the participants received instructions asking them to recall the story a second time from the same perspective, the other half of the participants were given instructions asking them to recall the story a second time from the other perspective. For example, half of the participants who had imagined they were home-buyers were asked to imagine they were burglars (the other half kept imagining being home-buyers), and half of those who had imagined they were burglars were asked to imagine they were home-buyers (the other half kept imagining being burglars). Once participants had read the instructions, they were asked to write down as many details of the story they could recall for a second time. When the second recall task was completed, debriefing took place and the participants were thanked for their participation. This standardised procedure was used for both groups. Ethical considerations: For ethical reasons the following steps were taken Firstly, during gaining consent before the participants’ participated in the study it was explained that the true nature of the study would not be explained until the debriefing after all measures were taken. However, the participants were reassured that their participation will be kept anonymous and that the study was not a test of their intelligence or mental abilities and that they were free to withdraw at any time during the study. Finally debriefing at the end of the study took place informing the participants of the true nature of the study, and that they could withdraw from the study. The debriefing also ensured that the participants suffered no distress during the study. Recall results were collected for the first and second recall tasks and the details recalled which related to the schema perspectives were recorded. Mean scores were calculated for the correct recall of schema related details from the first recall task (table 1). The data was analysed with the anaylsis of variance (ANOVA) showing that there was a significant effect for the number of story details recalled by the participants with different schemas F = 4.49, p The data was analysed with the analysis of variance (ANOVA) (table 3) showing a significant main effect of changing interaction F = 4.3, p Schema theory research has assumed that explicit thought about a schemas topic or an encounter with relevant information can activate a schema. Bransford and Johnson (1972) argued that schemas often influence comprehension processes rather than retrieval where Anderson and Pichert (1978) argued that schemas influence the retrieval of information. The aim of this study was to replicate Anderson and Pichert’s (1978) study, claiming that people store information when reading a passage, which they fail to produce when recalling the passage after changing schemas. This study was a replication of Anderson and Pichert’s (1978) study which predicted that participants who changed schemas would recall more information related to the ‘new’ schema than ‘new’ information for their original schema. An anaylsis of variance (ANOVA) statistical test showed a significant effect if the type of recall presented, showing that the participants who changed schemas re called more additional information which was previously unrecalled than the participants who did not change schemas. These findings supported Anderson and Pichert’s (1978) claims that correct recall resulting from the retrieval of knowledge are strongly influenced by the perspective taken during perception and cognition of the retrieved information. It has been show, that schemas provided after learning can affect recall. For example, when participants are given an additional perspective at test (e.g. home-buyer) may use this perspective as a retrieval cue and remember additional information (e.g. leaky roof) (Anderson and Pichert, 1978). Besides increasing correct recall, use of schemas post encoding may also lead to bias and memory errors. For example new information learned after the fact can activate a schema which participants then use to reconstruct the original events. Lotus and Palmer (1974) demonstrated this phenomenon in their classic study that questioned participants about a slide show they had just seen. One question asked how fast the cars were going when they â€Å"hit† or â€Å"smashed† into each other. One week later, those whose question read smashed were more likely to report seeing broken glass. Post encoding use of schema research has focused on correct recall (e.g. Anderson and Pichert, 1978) or on memory distortions resulting from post event information, which strongly implied the biased memory. This study controlled confounding variables by testing the participants in two separate groups and getting them to carry out a ‘filler’ task between first and second recall. In addition, for each group half the participants were assigned to the no change schema condition and the other half assigned to the changed schema condition for the second recall task to control for order effects. The participants were deceived of the true nature of the study to control for participants expectancies, to ensure that schema change was the only variable manipulated while all other variables are held constant so as not to affect the results. In summary the findings of this study showed, there to be a significant difference in the recall of additional information for the changed schema than for the additional information recalled for the original schema compared to the additional information recalled by the no change schema group. Showing that schemas are active recognition devices and play a critical role in reading where readers selectively attend to details of a passage that is significant to recall and that schemas strongly influence our retrieval of information. As the study used undergraduate students, who have plenty of experience in reading for text from different perspectives future research would benefit from looking at how schema change influences recall when reading from a studying perspective or reading from an entertainment perspective in primary school children. References Anderson, R.C. and Pichert, J.W. (1978) ‘Recalling of Previously Unrecallable Information Following a Shift in Perspective’. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 17: 1-12. Bartlett, F.C. (1932) Remembering: A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bransford, J.D. and Johnson, M.K. (1972) ‘Contextual Prerequisites for Understanding: Some Investigations of Comprehension and Recall’, Journal of Verbal Language and Verbal Behavior, 11: 717-726. Gross, R. (1996) (3rd Ed.). Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour. London: Hodder Stoughton. Laufer, B. and Nation, P. (1995) ‘Vocabulary Size and Use: Lexical Richness in L2 Written Production’, Applied Linguistics, 16: 307-322. Lotus, E.F. and Palmer, J.C. (1974) ‘Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction between Language and Memory’, Journal of Verbal Language and Verbal Behavior, 13: 585-589. Rumelhart, D.E. and Norman, D.A. (1988) ‘Representation in memory’, In R.C. Atkinson, R.J. Herrstein, G. Lindzey, and R.D. Luce. (2nd Ed.) Steven’s Handbook of Experimental Psychology. New York: John Wiley and Son: 511-587.

Mainstreaming Disabled Students Essay -- Teaching Education Inclusion

Mainstreaming Disabled Students According to the Curry School of Education, approximately 80% of students with learning disabilities receive the majority of their instruction in the general classroom (â€Å"Inclusion.† http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/curry/dept/cise/ose.html. 10 Oct. 1999). That number is expected to rise as teachers and parents become aware of the benefits of inclusion. Because there are so many disabled students in regular schools, it is important to look at whether or not mainstreaming is necessary for their education. For parents, having their disabled children mainstreamed into regular education can be a difficult choice. Although disabled children’s education can be more challenging in regular schools, the benefits of inclusion include enhanced self-esteem, development of social skills, and exposure to regular curriculum. Many people believe mainstreaming only helps disabled children, but there are many challenges that hurt their education rather than help. Both faculty and students can be cruel to disabled students. Because they are not used to interacting with disabled children, faculty and students may be uncomfortable with the situation and be insensitive to the disabled children. By ignoring the disabled children or treating them badly, the children will lose self-esteem and may disrupt the class in order to show their unhappiness. Some teachers are not familiar with teaching disabled children, so the education is lacking for the children....

Automobile and Swot Analysis Essay

1. Introduction This report is based on the company Mercedes Benz, and the chosen country is Singapore. The purpose of the report is to conduct an environmental and marketing analysis of Mercedes Benz in Singapore. Firstly, this report will state the company background. Next, it will state the country background. Thirdly, it will state the SWOT analysis. Fourthly, it will state the PEST analysis. After that, it will state the marketing strategy, new product development, and lastly the conclusion. Company background Mercedes-Benz is a German car company, some sort of multinational department from the German company Daimler AG. The company is used intended for high-class motor vehicles, buses, motor coachs, as well as vehicles. The particular brand made an appearance in 1926 within Daimler-Benz yet history the sources to Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft’s 1901 Mercedes and to Karl Benz’s 1886 Benz Patent Motorwagen, which is commonly viewed as the first car. Mercedes-Benz’s slogan is â€Å"Das Beste oder nichts† (English: â€Å"The best or nothing†). Mercedes-Benz is just about the most commonly known as well as set up car makes in the world, which is on the list of the world’s oldest car company nevertheless around the world today in 2014,possessing the first petrol-powered vehicle. Country background Singapore is an affluent island nation, positioned in Southeast Asia within the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. The occupants of Singapore delight in one of the maximum standards associated on earth, with each capita GDP adequate to in which from the top international locations within American The european union. The particular economy would depend intensely upon exports, and the nation houses one of the busiest ports on earth. 2. SWOT analysis SWOT analysis is part of strategic planning. The SWOT analysis helps organizations assess issues within and outside the organization. The SWOT analysis, made up of an assessment of strengths, weaknesses, external opportunities and threats from competition, provides an outline for strategic decision-making Table 1 From the table above it is seen that strong brand value measures that Mercedes is considered as a premium brand, such as BMW, Porsche, Audi and etc. There is no exception that Mercedes will stay in premium segment for a very long time. Almost all the rich and old people prefer this particular car brand. Also, this company has an advantage over their competitors as increasing production hybrid cars because of environmental friendly and Ð µÃ'€Ã'Æ' exact number of miles driven. To produce high quality cars and hire well – educated employees makes production expensive. That is why Mercedes is interested in upper class people who are able to buy such a car. It makes the brand attractive investment for people with high income (upper class). PEST analysis Originally known as PEST Analysis, this is a macro environmental framework used to understand the impact of the external factors on the organization and is used as strategic analytical technique. Strengths Weakness Opportunities Threats Strong brand value High price cost Fast – growing company Government policy Leader in innovation Expensive service New products and services Increasing in competition High level safety of cars High fuel consumption Developing hybrid cars Decrease in demand Investment. Stereotype that this car is for the rich people Fuel price rises Rising price of raw material High quality It is hard to find manual transmission in such a car Positive attitude towards â€Å"green† vehicles Unexpected problems A PEST analysis is looks at how those external factors can affect a business’s activities and performance, and it can be used in combination with other tools. It helps to determine an organization’s overall outlook for success. Political Economic Socio – Cultural Technological Bureaucratic Interest rates Fast – growing society Modern technology Stable government law system High income level Diversity of cultures WI-FI zones Taxation system. High power of the local currency Variety of language cultures Automation of work Law level of corruption Low level of economic freedom (-2) Most of the people are in advanced age Production of high quality medical equipment Foreigners investment Trade freedom Prevalence of upper class Investment in technology Table 2 From the table above let us take 3 characteristics for discussion. Firstly, high income of Singapore measures that Mercedes – Benz is one of the most suitable brands for upper class. It is considered, that Mercedes – Benz is a car which is suitable for old population, especially for men. Therefore, this car brand has a priority to take Singapore as a sales leader in the adult audience because of the prevalence of old population. Diversity of cultures of the populations shows that every single nation has different understanding of car design. That is why this brand can offers cars such as â€Å"family car† like Sedan (C – class) to â€Å"celebrity car† as Crossovers (G – class) with the newest and technology to their customers. 1) Franki Colbert (n. d). Definition of a SWOT Analysis. Retrieved from: http://smallbusiness. chron. com/definition-swot-analysis-43274. html 2) Russ Heaps (n. d) 10 most expensive cars to own and drive. Retrieved from: http://www. bankrate. com/finance/auto/10-most-expensive-cars-to- own-and-drive-1. aspx 3) Chad Brooks (2013, November 22). PEST Analysis: Definition, Examples & Templates. Retrieved from http://www. businessnewsdaily. com/5512-pest-analysis-definition- examples-templates. html 4) Abha Pandey (2011, 26 September). What is PESTLE Analysis? Retrieved from: http://bpmgeek. com/blog/what-pestle-analysis 5) Leading through innovation (n. d/ n. a) http://www. mbusa. com/mercedes/benz/innovation.

The 1944 Education Act and Its Ramifications to Date

The 1944 Education Act and its ramifications to date The purpose of this essay is to identify the features of the 1944 Education Act and its ramifications. The state of education prior to the 1944 Act will be mentioned and how it mirrored society as a whole. A critical appraisal of justifications for selection and comprehensivisation, as a successor to the tripartite system, will be addressed. This paper will also provide an explanation of the selection process and the arguments and problems that relate to it.I will be analysing the sociological ideas and will be discussing post war trends and events in Britain and education in particular and evaluating how issues of ability, IQ, class, gender and or/ethnicity have affected change. At an appropriate point, mention will also be made of the Nature/Nurture debate and how these factors affect academic achievement. Historically education was only available to affluent males. Grammar schools run by the church taught Latin, Greek and R. E. The fees to attend such schools were extremely high, therefore education and social class were very much linked together.Education for women was only made available to extremely wealthy women of the upper class and only consisted of embroidery, music, singing, painting etc. Women were seen to be pure and virginal and their placement within society was in the home. The lower class members of society really struggled and were not offered many educational opportunities. Eventually education for women was offered but it was very limited. During the eighteenth century there were many developments to education, one being the introduction of charity schools (elementary schools), which were aimed at providing a very basic education for the poor.They were taught the basic 3 R’s which were reading, writing and arithmetic. This empowered them with sufficient literacy to function in society but not enough to challenge or change a society, therefore status quo is maintained. The schools w ere created for the 7 – 12 age groups, so with only 5 years of learning and limited resources, the children were not very rounded. This generation of ill-educated children were only educated to fit a certain role such as factory and shop workers. The 1870 Forster Act & the 1902 Balfour Act were beneficial to the working class in that they created expansion/extension of education.Although they created expansion, it still led to greater numbers of children having a ‘limited education. ’ The 1944 Education Act (‘The Butler Act’) was introduced and aimed to remove the inequalities that remained in the system. Education was now mandatory, the school leaving age was raised from 12 to 15 years old and free secondary education was provided for all pupils. The tripartite system was created consisting of three different types of schools; grammar, technical and secondary modern.Children would be allocated a place in one of these schools dependant on the results of a new examination taken at the age of eleven, known as the ‘11 plus. ’ This was intended to give children of all backgrounds equal opportunities to gain a better education, rather than one based on the ability of their parents to pay expensive fees for private education. It did provide the working class with the opportunity to gain entry to grammar schools but the assessment only focused on three subjects: English, Maths & Logic. If one of those subjects was not your strong point, then your whole life chances were determined of that one exam.Also the 11 plus only focused on a child’s performance on that particular exam day, so if you were ill or were suffering from family or domestic problems that had a bearing on how you were thinking or feeling, it was not taken into consideration. In that respect I feel the 11 plus selective system was unfair. An individual’s opportunity to get the best possible education was all down to that one particular day. Acc ording to Rick Roger’s book ‘Education & Social Class: â€Å"In reality, the notion of ‘equal but different’ failed and parity of esteem between the three different schools was never created.Few technical schools were established and the secondary modern became the cinderellas of the education service despite providing for the majority of the school population. †(Roger 1986: 3) This extract shows that new system didn’t manage to reduce the social division it merely replaced it with a newer form of social division. The nature/nurture debate is neither unique nor particular to the 1944 Act, but it is something to be addressed. Nature, suggesting your intelligence is inherited from your parents and nurture, the belief that learning is affected by the home and the school environment.Relating the debate to the 1944 Act, brings to our attention the difference in education between social classes. The upper and middle class children would have definit ely had advantage over the working class children, in terms of cognitive development, as their parents would have been well educated and able to pass on far greater knowledge. They also would have had better living conditions and quieter homes to concentrate on homework. The working class tended to have many children, shared bedrooms would have been common, which was not the ideal learning environment.The philanthropic aspects of the act were very much linked to the Second World War. The generally poor fitness standards of the working class recruits highlighted to the government that changes needed to be made. Free milk in schools, regular free dental and health checks were therefore introduced. After the Second World War, Butler was faced with societal problems such as rebuilding bomb damaged cities on an epic scale and re-fashioning an educational system. Six years of fighting in the Second World War led to a common bond between people in all walks of life who shared the same valu es and goals to rebuild their country.Butler realised that there was a need for builders, carpenters and engineers to facilitate this. These skills were taught in the secondary modern schools, which 75% of students attended. When the 11 plus exam was introduced it created an element of elitism. Some pupil’s self-esteem would have been lowered due to achieving low grades, making them feel inferior intellectually and socially. Some pupils progress educationally at different rates and ages, this system did not take this into consideration. It was such criticisms that would eventually give rise to the comprehensive school.The comprehensive system was introduced by the labour party in 1965 to replace the tripartite system and is still used today. Rather than having three different schools; grammar, technical and secondary modern it combined all three. From a governmental prospective this proved much more economical. The system offers a wide range of subjects across the academic sp ectrum and the selection process is removed. It gives a greater number of children a better chance of social mobility, teaching children how to get along with one another regardless of class differences.Classes are streamed which means children can move between sets depending on academic ability and individual progress. The advantages are that children work alongside others of the same ability and that certain lessons can be taught in more depth. However streaming and setting does reinforce social division within a school, with an elitist grammar stream. Another disadvantage is that classes are large therefore students don’t always get the individual attention needed. In 1972 the minimum school leaving age was raised to 16. Students could sit GCE or CSE examinations depending on their abilities.In 1988 these examinations were fused together to form the GCSE (General Certificate of secondary education). Over the last 70 years there have been significant changes made to the edu cation system. Girls are now educated on par with boys. The 1948 welfare act, which introduced the NHS and benefits, instigated mass immigration which meant that British schools had to cater for ethnic minorities and different religious beliefs. The integration of different cultures meant that children began to have a better understanding of other countries ways of life but this did also lead to racial discrimination.The 1944 Education Act has narrowed the gap between the social classes. It was unheard of for working class people to attend university but today it is quite common place. However the increase in fees due next year is likely to reverse this trend. It is still the children from the higher social classes that have the advantage of being able to attend public and independent private schools. It is these selective and expensive establishments that give students a greater opportunity to attend the top universities. Bibliography Rogers, R (1986) Education and Social Class. Gr eat Britain: Taylor & Francis Ltd