[Bluestar]

Originally Posted by Variable

I think the reasons for the real problem are varied. My point only being that kids who grow up in families with financial hardship have one less escape route, their problems perhaps having been caused by the financial pressures themselves or related to the same sources (i.e. substance abuse).

well.....no, not always. Sometime people really want to get out of these situations but can't because the same services available to rich people easily aren't available to them as easily. For example, a good english class for people who have come over from another country may cost 700 pounds a year. Is it the individuals fault through drug abuse and other self causes that he/she cannot afford this english course?

I don't think so, i think society is structured in a way in which its people are made to stay or grow worse in their financial position. When you owe money to the bank, they charge interest. Most entertainment is directed to the middle class and so have higher prices. You get free health care but you have to pay for your prescription. You may get refunded for some health care/dentistry but you have to have the money first, pay for it first and then receive the compensation.

I don't think it was very fair to say people stay where they are because of drugs or other self causes. Even if drugs are used, we should be asking, why are they used? Usually people who overdose themselves on pills or coke have problems either to do with the stress of their present life, their past or maybe something else. So maybe it's the lack of counselling available to the lower class that is to blame?

Yes, I agree that it's important to read the statistics carefully and critically. They can hide important factors. But in this case, we are talking about broad sections of populations. We do have to realize that the fact that high child birth, poverty and low education are somehow related, is not the whole story. But would it not be prudent to acknowledge that there does tend to be a corelation?

....the only thing you would be highlighting is that there is a connection but not what the connection is. Also, if you say just that they are connected, you risk being undertstood as saying that they are all correllated and caused by each other and that would be incorrect. I don't agree with using statistics altogether, to me, it's like measuring how happy you are with a ruler. I take the sides of sociologists who have learnt from Weber, where you have to put yourself in the position of the other person to understand them fully. If that is impossible for people in a larger scale, then they shouldn't be measured in a large scale because the number of differences and variables which exist that affect these peoples lives just can't be collected and analysed through objective research.

I see what you're saying about the definition of education. Like who are we to say that a university degree is necessary when some guy can make his own crops grow, and live a happy life. But I think given the opportunity, most people in say, subsitence agriculture would choose to have more options in their lives (through education), even if they decided to continue with their farming.

Umm no not just farming, a couple of friends didn't go to university but know way more about history that I do. These people have sufficient knowledge which can be applicable in any situation but it won't be accepted, not even if it is tested by an employer because that person doesn't have any qualifications. The same is happening in this thread where education isn't being noticed or valued if it's not learnt in an institution. A lot of poorer people can get hold of information, knowledge and pass it on to their children but still be labelled as being uneducated because of GCSE qualifications or haven't graduated in college.

I have actally seen something that made a connection between a dollar value and happiness. It went something like - people living on less than $30 000 dollars per year reported more that they were unhappy, and cited financial stress as main reasons for failing marriages etc. However, people living on $50 000 tended to be happy, and that level of reported happiness didn't increase even into incomes of millions of dollars.

That doesn't surprise me, again because of changing values. If people have to learnt to rely on money, or rather made to rely on money. All of their entertainment, modes of transport, accomodation, food is tied into pieces of paper which happen to have monetary significance.

The problem with the above theory is that, again making sweeping statement organised in that way makes it seem as if the people on $30,000 only have to work harder to earn $50,000 and then their lives will be happy. Sorry, but that seems dodgy to me, maybe we should be asking, why is it that our lives are made miserable with a smaller income? Maybe it is the life that people have, in which, everything they want to do costs money. Not being able to afford it, they stay in and then become depressed about it. Maybe the solution would be to go out for wild walks, morning picnics, in other words, changing the way they live to accomodate their situation so that they can be happier whilst they do have a lower income.

This study's dollar value would only apply in a certain society with certain values, but what it does I think is show that people are after freedom from financial stress.

Yup, but peoples wants change. As they grow richer, they might demand more expensive things on the market and then they'll have the same patterns of cash turnover in a month, it'll just be that now they spend it on unnecessary objects, like laptops, spoilers etc instead of things that are actually necessary.

I said that to address the statment you made regarding children having access to education regarding globalization. There are countries with massive social saftey nets, that really make education available if you want it. But those aren't where the majority of the population lives. Large segments of the planet's population don't have access to schools. Or even books for that matter, lot's of places hardly have any books printed in the local language.

Well yeah in situations like these you couldn't possibly say people poverty is caused by their own causes. The same idea would apply though, where those who actually spend time thinking, interacting and understanding human life form opinions which could be respected in any culture. It's this way that books started being made in the first place, with people like these who put their thoughts to paper. Personally, i don't separate ruminations which lead to a positive understanding of human life to education.

Also, in more developed countries, children in families that don't give them the same kind of encouragement for school work aren't fully equipped to lift themselves from their social stratum.

Hmm, but education isn't often available to them for free, at a time when they might form their own mind and make a decision to learn more. If they really do want to learn more, regardless of the fact there aren't sufficient places for them to learn, they can self teach themselves. But that's going back to modern ways of attaining knowledge, which we've already covered.

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