Perseverative errors during piagets a not b task

Perseverative errors during piagets a not b task Jean Piaget was the first to note infants younger than 8 months engaging in perseverative reaching during the A-not-B task (Bornstein and Lamb, 1999). In this task, an experimenter hides a toy under box A, within reach of the infant. The infant then searches for the toy under box A. This sequence of events is repeated several times. Finally, in the experimental trial, the experimenter hides the toy under box B. After a short delay, the infant is allowed to reach for the box with the toy. Although the infant has seen the experimenter hide the toy under box B, and box B is within reach, the infant will continue to search for the toy under box A. In Piagets theory of cognitive development, stage IV is critical. During stage IV of development, the infant appears to have some sense of object permanence, since she does initially search for the hidden toy. The object concept, however, has a limitation; to the child, the object is bound to its location (Gratch and Landers, 1971). Piaget asserted that this error (stage IV error, perseverative error, or A-not-B error) reveals an incomplete schema of object permanence. Recent researchers, however, found that the perseverative error can indicate deficits in other cognitive abilities, as well (Marcovitch and Zelazo, 1999). In this paper, I will discuss the full range of interpretations that can be derived from various results of Piagets A-not-B task, many of which have little, if anything, to do with object permanence. I will end with a study proposal to examine a newer version of the A-not-B task. THE PROBLEM OF OBJECT PERMANENCE In his work on the sensorimotor development of infants, Piaget asserted that infants at ages 8-10 months show a perseverative error during search tasks due to incomplete object permanence, and that the error indicates a failure to assimilate the new hiding place into the infants object concept (Marcovitch and Zelazo, 1999). When other researchers examined Piagets hypothesis, their studies yielded mixed results. Wellman, Cross and Bartsch (1986) conducted a meta-analysis on all studies conducted on the perseverative error before 1986 and found that infants ages 8-10 months show significant perseveration, reaching for location A much more often than they reached for location B. Length of delay, childs age, and number of locations all had significant effects, while the number of trials reinforcing location A was unrelated to infants performance (Wellman, Cross and Bartsch, 1986). Among the studies examined in the meta-analysis, Gratch, Appel, Evans, LeCompte and Wright (1974) offered some opposition to Piagets hypothesis. After testing 9-month-old infants with the A-not-B task at delay intervals of 0, 1, 3, and 7 seconds, the researchers found that infants showed the perseverative error in all interval conditions except the 0-second condition (i.e. no delay), with children just as likely to show the error at 1, 3, and 7 seconds of delay. These results contradict Piagets hypothesis of failure to assimilate the new hiding place; had this been the case, the infants should have shown the perseverative error even with no delay before search (Gratch et al., 1974). The researchers suggest that after the infants gaze is drawn to B, and without a delay to search, the infant is guided to the correct location (B) by virtue of already looking in that direction. With any amount of delay, however, infants revert back to their original scheme of the toy existing at location A (Gratch et al., 1974). Even incorporating the results, this theory is compatible with Piagets hypothesis of incomplete object permanence and lack of assimilation of the new hiding place into the infants schema. Harris (1973) initially argued that the 10-month-old infants in his study presented the perseverative error due to proactive interference, evident by errors that increased when length of delay is increased. In a follow-up study, Harris (1974) discounts his prior ideas, asserting that a memory problem is not the likely culprit behind the perseverative error. In this study, Harris notes that 1-year-old infants, well beyond Piagets stage IV of sensorimotor development, approach both locations A and B when an object moves; that is, the infants do not treat object locations as mutually exclusive. In the A-not-B task, infants search behind both occluders to find the object (Harris, 1974). If infants are searching both locations, it is unlikely that proactive interference is the reason behind the perseverative error (Harris, 1974). By 1975, researchers had still not found a satisfying cause of the perseverative error. Butterworth (1977), in an attempt to test Piagets hypothesis of incomplete object permanence, found that hiding the object is not a necessary condition for the perseverative error. In testing infants, Butterworth found that infants would sometimes look away from B before searching, usually indicating that proactive interference was a possibility; however, infants showed the perseverative error even while continuously looking at B, or continuously tracking the object (Butterworth, 1977). As a post-hoc theory, Butterworth suggests that the problem may not be that of incomplete object permanence, but that infants during stage IV simply have not acquired the skill to identify and retrieve objects in a coordinated manner. THE SPATIAL LOCALIZATION HYPOTHESIS Butterworth (1975) examined the perseverative error from a different point of view: does the location of the object change the rate of error? Under various conditions, errors were, indeed, found to be a function of the objects location. Results from this study show that infants made the error when the object was moved away from the midline (Butterworth, 1975). Butterworth hypothesizes that errors were produced due to prior experience of the object at the midline (A), which made it difficult to assimilate the object at a location away from the midline (B). In this experiment, it is especially clear that infants are not simply repeating previously successful responses; that is, they make errors after a change in the relationship between locations, without prompting from the experimenter (Butterworth, 1975). In a similar study, Bremner and Bryant (1977) set out to differentiate between Piagets egocentric response perseveration hypothesis, and, as an alternate hypothesis, perseveration to a certain location in space. There is a clear distinction between the hypotheses, perhaps best characterized by relative and absolute location. For example, if a child reaches for an object to her left, but changes the way she reaches if she is moved to the opposite side, then she is perseverating to a certain location in space. If the child continues to reach to her left even if she is moved to the opposite side, then she is showing egocentric response perseveration. Both hypotheses predict different results and different reasons for the perseveration error. Interestingly, Bremner and Bryant (1977) were able to confirm Piagets hypothesis, finding that infants were repeating past successful actions, even when they were re-located and facing a new direction. Perseveration does seem to be of responses, not places. To explain why infants persist in their responses in spite of location changes, the researchers hypothesize that stage IV infants, unlikely to be crawling yet, may ignore visual information when an object needs to be relocated. After initially finding an object (at location A), the infant, in most cases, simply needs to repeat the motion to find the object again (Bremner and Bryant, 1977). In another study, Schuberth, Werner and Lipsitt (1978) created a condition in which half of the infants found a new toy at location B rather than the same toy they saw at location A. These infants were less likely to show the perseverative error than their same-toy counter-group, theoretically because they mapped the location as part of the toys scheme, consistent with Piagets object concept hypothesis. However, the researchers found that although most infants in the toy-change condition showed less perseveration, one-third of them continued to err and search at location A. It is possible that these infants failed to identify the new toy as different from the old toy, but other than this speculation, the researchers have no explanation for the contrasting behaviour. Their results support Piagets hypothesis over the spatial localization hypothesis: it appears that infants during stage IV do not differentiate between concept of object and concept of place (Schuberth et al., 1978). MEANS-ENDS ABILITIES After researchers failed to come up with tested alternative explanations for the stage IV error, they began to test infants object permanence itself, perhaps to reaffirm Piagets original hypothesis. In an infamous study by Baillargeon, Spelke and Wasserman (1985), five-month-old infants were habituated to a clear-screened drawbridge, moving from an upright position to a flat position. Infants were then exposed to a possible event and an impossible event: in the possible event, the screen stops when it reaches an occluding box; in the impossible event, the screen goes straight through the box. The results showed that infants looked significantly longer at the impossible event, indicating that the infants expected the screen to stop when it hit the box, and were surprised when it did not. This experiment served two purposes: (1) it disproves Piagets original claims, showing that five-month-old infants appear to have a schema of object permanence; and, (2) as object permanence is an ins eparable aspect of how objects behave in time and space (Baillargeon et al., 1985, p. 206), the results raise even more questions about the perseverative error. If five-month-old infants understand the permanence of objects, their ability to exist when occluded, and that objects move on undeviating paths, why do 8- to 11-month-old infants commit the perseverative error during the A-not-B task? Baillargeon, Graber, Devos and Black (1990) claim that infants do poorly on the A-not-B task because it requires them to produce means-ends sequences. Their general hypothesis is that these younger infants have trouble planning such sequences due to limited problem-solving ability. The researchers believe that the infants representations of the initial and goal states are unlikely to be the problem. Instead, it is likely that the infants are unable to reason about the actions required to transform the initial state to the goal state (Baillargeon et al., 1990). In this study, the researchers showed that infants do understand whether certain actions are sufficient to retrieve the object; consequently, the researchers hypothesize that infants are unable to select and sequence these actions adequately, even when they understand the actions. It seems, then, that it is a problem with planning. Matthews, Ellis and Nelson (1996) partially agree with Baillargeon et al.s (1990) hypothesis. After examining infants engage in a means-ends task several times during the longitudinal study, the researchers found the ratio of means-ends errors to total means-ends trials within a session to be non-significant. Means-ends errors dropped for infants across testing sessions, but no group differences between ages were found. Despite these results, infants continued to perseverate during the A-not-B task, leading the researchers to question what might be behind the perseverative error. They concede that despite the results of the means-ends portion of the study, the performance during the A-not-B tasks may, indeed, be due to some limitation of means-ends problem-solving ability. However, Matthews et al. (1996) also note that the function that mediates performance on the A-not-B task may be memory-related rather than one of perseveration. Similarly, Munakata, McClelland and Johnson (1997) found that 7-month-old infants who were trained on means-ends behaviours still showed different behaviours in tasks that required the same means-ends abilities. For instance, after being trained, infants completed more toy retrievals when the toy was hidden behind a transparent occluder than when the toy was hidden behind an opaque occluder. In terms of means-ends abilities, both the transparent and opaque conditions required the same actions and the same effort. As the infants appeared to have more difficulty in the opaque condition, means-ends deficits were likely not the culprit. In a latter experiment, Munakata et al. (1997) found similar results, with infants showing greater toy retrieval in the transparent occluder condition. The researchers concluded that their difficulties with the opaque occluder could not be attributed to means-ends abilities alone. Essentially, deficits in means-ends abilities seem to not cause problems wh en the goal object is not hidden. PERSPECTIVES FROM NEUROPSYCHOLOGY Neuropsychology views the Piagetian A-not-B task as testing the immaturity of the frontal lobe. At stage IV of sensorimotor development, the frontal lobe, still underdeveloped, is unable to support cognitive skills such as working memory, inhibition, and attention. Bell and Adams (1999) examined 8-month-old infants and their performance on both the looking and the reaching versions of the A-not-B task. From a neuropsychological perspective, the aforementioned cognitive skills are used to search in both looking and reaching tasks. If both versions test the same skills, it is possible that the reaching task is simply more motorically complicated for infants to complete properly. Indeed, Bell and Adams (1999) showed, in a within-subjects design, that there is no difference in performance by infants in either the looking or the reaching version of the A-not-B task. Clearfield, Diedrich, Smith and Thelen (2006) discuss successfully completing the A-not-B task as requiring a combination of two sets of cognitive processes: fast processes tied to the present, and slower processes tied to the past. Very young infants are often able to complete the task without error; Clearfield et al. (2006) attribute this to the use of the fast processes alone. These processes decay quickly, and the researchers argue that the perseverative error is how infants learn how to balance the fast and the slow processes, making it an important developmental milestone. In fact, the results of their experiments show that the infant must achieve some level of stability before perseveration occurs (Clearfield et al., 2006). With eight-month-old infants smooth reaches and five-month-old infants poorly-controlled reaches, the eight-month-olds are more likely to form strong motor memories, possibly leading to perseveration at location A. These motor memories, formed during stage IV, are also only likely to be used during stage IV (Clearfield et al., 2006). Cuevas and Bell (2010) presented results consistent with the neuropsychological view, asserting that the cognitive skills required for looking and for reaching are very similar, and likely determined, in part, by the development of the prefrontal cortex. Infants initially appear to exhibit better performance on the looking version of the A-not-B task; later in age, they exhibit comparable performance on both looking and reaching versions. The researchers assert that this difference is due to differences in brain circuitry: infants show looking responses very early, while reaching responses are not consistently shown until 3-4 months, which still remain poorly-controlled until 8-9 months. Additionally, reaching creates more demands on cognition, requiring memory of the hidden location, planning of a means-ends action sequence, and a reaching response (Cuevas and Bell, 2010, p. 1369). It is possible that infants exhibit the perseverative error due to cognitive overload caused by reachi ng. FUTURE DIRECTIONS STUDY PROPOSAL An interesting way to look at infant cognition during the A-not-B task is to use a gaze-tracking procedure. Once the eight-month-old infant is sitting on her parents lap, the researcher will begin the training trials, during which he will hide a toy under an opaque box (A), and then allow the infant to search for the toy. At this point, the infants gaze should remain on the researcher, the toy, and box A. During the test trials, the researcher will hide the toy under another opaque box (B), and, again, allow the infant to search for it. Before reaching (and presumably reaching for box A), where does the infant look? Does she look at box A immediately, or does her gaze linger on box B? Does she look at the researcher for clues, or does her gaze move back and forth between boxes? As the aforementioned research says that she is likely to perseverate at box A at eight months, when looking measures are unlikely to be used, it would be interesting to see if the infant has a more immediate response to the task before engaging in the reaching behaviour. Because looking develops before reaching, I predict that infants will not engage in perseverative behaviour through eye gaze, even if they ultimately reach for box A; that is, they will look at box B, but reach for box A. CONCLUSION Currently, there are few true answers to the problem of the perseverative error. Although it is a robust and well-researched area of developmental psychology, researchers are still unsure why infants in stage IV of sensorimotor development are unable to reach for the correct location during the A-not-B task. Future directions, as mentioned above, involve finding another way to test infants object concepts in order to circumvent the perseverative error.

Death of a Nation Essay

Clifford Dowdey’s Death of a Nation: The Story of Lee and His Men at Gettysburg is a military history examining the Confederate loss at this epic battle, particularly the decision-making process and the Southern commanders’ failure to perform up to their potential. Partly a fawning defense of Robert E. Lee and partly an insightful study of why the South even dared invade the North, it demonstrates the author’s Southern bias without trying to justify slavery, as well as Dowdey’s fusion of history and storytelling. The book looks almost exclusively at the Civil War’s largest battle, in which Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia invaded the North in hopes of scaring Lincoln into halting the war and recognizing the Confederacy. Instead, as Dowdey’s title implies, it proved the Confederacy’s apex as a military power, beginning its two-year decline and ultimate collapse. Dowdey, a native of Richmond, Virginia, who produced numerous histories and novels about the Civil War, takes a decided pro-Southern stance and offers a rather generous view both of the Confederacy, never approaching its defense of slavery, and of Lee, the inventive, chance-taking commander who proved the South’s greatest leader. The first chapter, â€Å"Rendezvous with Disaster,† conveys in its title how Dowdey sees the battle, yet he is loath to blame Lee for the loss. He opens with an account of Confederate troops invading Pennsylvania, depicting them not as a menacing enemy but as a somewhat merry band: â€Å"[The] Confederate soldiers had not committed acts of vandalism or abused the inhabitants. On the contrary, the troops had been highly good-humored in the face of taunts and insults† (3). The author then introduces the general as a striking, almost godlike figure, quoting an officer who deemed him â€Å"a kingly man whom all men who came into his presence expected to obey† (5); this description recurs throughout the book. Subsequent chapters describe the buildup and the battle itself. In chapter two, â€Å"The Opening Phase,† Dowdey portrays the decision-making process that led to Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania as a Jefferson Davis-engineered travesty, â€Å"a necessary expedient in the policy of static, scattered defensiveness† (27). The author considers Lee almost a victim of Davis’ vanity, rigidity, and inability to admit his own lack of military expertise, and he absolves the man he believes â€Å"embodied the image of the patriarchal planter who, as military leader, assumed benevolent responsibility for his domain† (33). Throughout the battle, which dominates much of the book, Dowdey introduces Lee’s subordinates as characters in a novel or drama, describing their personalities in lively, even somewhat chatty detail. Jeb Stuart, whose cavalry failed in its reconnaissance duties before the fighting began, appears as a capable soldier who refused to believe he erred; Richard Ewell is a crusty but soft-hearted eccentric whose marriage softened his fighting skills; and John B. Hood is â€Å"a fighter, not a thinker† (174). He reserves his harshest criticisms for James Longstreet, deeming the lone general to openly question Lee’s decision to wage the unwise assault best known as Pickett’s Charge, a lying defeatist. Dowdey claims that â€Å"objective historians and Longstreet partisans have tried to re-evaluate him outside the text of controversy. This is almost impossible. . . . Many other men performed below their potential at Gettysburg, but only James Longstreet absolved himself by blaming Lee† (340). By the end of the book, one realizes that Dowdey will not concede that the figure he admires may have simply made fatal errors at Gettysburg. Dowdey’s descriptions of the battle cover the three days in a generally accurate but not original manner. He alternates between broad, sweeping pictures of dramatic combat and close-up accounts of individual Confederate units and soldiers. (He gives little mention to Union action throughout the book, making clear that his sole interest is depicting Lee’s army and not providing a holistic history of the battle. ) Though his approach provides reliable but not groundbreaking information, Dowdey makes clear that he considers Lee’s defeat not the venerable commander’s fault (despite his own tendency to take long chances against the larger and better-armed Union Army), but rather his subordinates’ inability to perform as competently as they had in previous battles. In this account, Stuart’s ego kept him from realizing he failed in his scouting duties, A. P. Hill lost his usually strong will, Richard Anderson staged a poor excuse for an assault on Cemetery Ridge with undisciplined, poorly-led Carolinian troops (rather than the Virginians that Dowdey, the Virginian, favors), and Ewell did not adequately prepare his troops for their attack. While Dowdey concedes that Lee, â€Å"alone in the center of the vacuum, could not have been less aware of the total collapse of co-ordination† (240). However, he implies, Lee’s unawareness was not his fault, but that of usually-reliable subordinates who curiously failed all at once. The work ends somewhat abruptly, with Lee’s broken army withdrawing from Pennsylvania after Pickett’s failed charge (in which the general whose name it bears appears as a minor figure) and returning to Virginia; the author offers no broad conclusion or explanation of the battle’s meaning within a larger context. Dowdey, primarily a fiction writer and college instructor who also produced numerous histories of the Army of Northern Virginia, approaches the work with a storyteller’s vigor and flair, writing this history with a novelist’s attention to visual details and his characters’ personalities and quirks. Frequently, he aims to stir the reader’s attention by adding what his characters may have said or thought in rich, occasionally overstated terms. For example, he deems Ewell â€Å"this quaint and lovable character† (121); Jubal Early becomes â€Å"the bitter man [who] became as passionate in his hate for the Union as he had formerly been in its defense† (123); and Union general Daniel Sickles (one of the few figures for whom he shows genuine scorn) is â€Å"an unsavory, showy, and pugnacious character from New York who went further on brassy self-confidence and politicking . . . than many a better man went on ability† (203). In trying give his characters personality, Dowdey writes often picturesque and lively prose but also offers a somewhat distorted picture that more detached academic historians may find objectionable. For example, while Lee can do no wrong, Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy’s much-reviled president, appears as nearly as much a villain as Longstreet. Of Davis, Dowdey writes: â€Å"The crisis [in the South’s military fortunes] was caused largely by the defense policies of the president. . . . Among the limitations of this self-aware gentleman was an inability to acknowledge himself in the wrong† (14). As a Lee apologist, Dowdey implicitly blames David for the South’s collapse, though he wavers on this by adding: â€Å"Lincoln had at his disposal unlimited wealth, the organized machinery of government, a navy, the war potential of heavy industry, and a four-to-one manpower superiority. Davis led a disorganized movement in self-determinism composed of proud and fiercely individualistic provincials (15-16). Dowdey comments little about the South in general and does not directly glorify the Southern cause, though he also refrains from any mention of slavery or racism. He seems to simply accept the South as it was, writing his works to illustrate a particularly regionalist sense of pride, if not in its plantation past, then certainly in Lee, its most shining example of military leadership and manhood. He reveals, perhaps unintentionally, his own sense of romance about the South when he writes: â€Å"In a land where the age of chivalry was perpetuated, the military leader embodied the gallantry, the glamour, and the privilege of the aristocrat in a feudal society† (15). Characters like Lee, he implies, gave the South respectability and nobility, while lesser individuals, like the supposedly duplicitous, disloyal Longstreet and the rigid, arrogant Davis, somehow stained it and failed to match its ideals. Despite Dowdey’s biases, he cannot be faulted for failing to do research. He includes a short bibliographic essay at the end, explaining his sources’ strengths and limitations. In addition to using many secondary sources, he relies heavily on participants’ personal documents, such as letters and memoirs, though he concedes that â€Å"the eyewitness accounts are subject to the fallibility of memory, and many of the articles suffer the distortion of advocacy or indictment† (353). This last comment is telling, because Dowdey himself neither advocates nor indicts the Old South, but rather aims to depict the military aspects. The result is a work that shows clear fondness for the South’s self-image as an embattled land of chivalry, but to his credit, Dowdey does not excoriate the North or its leaders. Lincoln scarcely appears in this volume, but the author pays some compliments to Union generals whom historians have seen less favorably, such as Joseph Hooker (whom Lee soundly defeated at Chancellorsville) or George Meade (who won at Gettysburg but failed to pursue and destroy the remains of Lee’s army as it withdrew). Death of a Nation is not a comprehensive history of the battle of Gettysburg, but neither does it claim to be. Instead, it is an often-entertaining, well-researched account of the Southern side’s participation, including its ill-starred behind-the-scenes planning and the personal dynamics among the commanders who underperformed at this key point in the war. Though Dowdey’s conclusion is so brief as to be unsatisfactory, one can draw one’s own conclusion from this volume’s title and the battle it describes: that defeat at Gettysburg meant the Confederacy’s failure to win its nationhood. Dowdey does not openly lament this fact, but instead shows the process that made this failure a reality. Dowdey, C. (1958). Death of a Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Feminism, Civil rights, Sexual Freedom in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 2 Words: 728 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2019/07/30 Category Literature Essay Level High school Tags: Civil Rights Movement Essay Feminism Essay Where Are You Going Where Have You Been Essay Did you like this example? The short story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been by Joyce Carol Oates highlights the female stereotypes of the era through the protagonist Connie. The story is set in the 1960s, which was a time of great change in America. Topics like feminism, civil rights, sexual freedom, etc. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Feminism, Civil rights, Sexual Freedom in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" essay for you Create order were only just starting to gain momentum in what was still a deeply conservative society. Connie was a naive teenager trying to navigate her way to adulthood in a time when women were expected to behave in a certain way. She began to rebel in her own way, essentially living a double life. Everything about her had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home. (Oates, 1966). Connie lacks any type of male guidance in her life. Her father was away at work most of the time, and when he came home he wanted supper and he read the newspaper and he went to bed. He didnt bother talking to them much. (Oates, 1966.) Connie wants her fathers love and attention, and because of the patriarchal society in which she was raised, craved that male attention and dominance. She looked for male attention and affirmation wherever she could get it. Who they were didnt matter to her. But all the boys fell back and dissolved into a single face that was not even a face, but an idea, a feeling . (Oates, 1966) In an attempt to gain some sort of independence, Connie begins leading a double life. When she was home she was an innocent 15 year old, when she went out with her friends it was a different story. She wore a pull-over jersey blouse that looked one way at home and another way when she was away from home (Oates, 1966). Connies attempts to act like a mature woman in order to attract male attention outside the home are a direct result of the lack of attention shown to her by her own father. Lack of attention from fathers is a main theme of the story, not only from Connies father, but from the other fathers who drive them to and from the mall. They all fail to provide any type of interest or involvement in their daughters lives (Oates, 1966). This causes these young girls to then seek attention from other male figures, making it easy for them to fall prey to a predator like Arnold Friend. On the surface he has all of the qualities that Connie is attracted to in a young male the clothes, the hair, the car, the music. Arnold is described as familiar and similarly dressed like all the rest of them (Oates, 1966). Arnolds bad intentions are not immediately evident to Connie, who was never taught about such things by her parents. As the conversation with Arnold progresses, Connie begins to see things a little clearer, and realizes there is something off about him. When it finally becomes clear that Arnold is much older than he lets on, she understands that the situation is much more dangerous than she thought. It is then that Arnold begins his psychological attack on Connie. He begins by telling her things about her family he shouldnt know, like where they are, and what they are eating. He calls himself her lover and begins describing his sexual intentions towards her, throwing her into a panic. He threatens to hurt her family is she doesnt come with him. Arnolds friend Ellie even offers to cut the phone line. She attempts to phone the police, but has a panic attack. Arnold continues to threaten her family until he convinces her to come outside to him. Thinking she has no choice but to obey, Connie disassociates herself from her body and mind as she walks toward the end of everything she has ever known. (Oates, 1966) American society has long placed men above women, giving men the ultimate authority. Connie, like most teenage girls, is taught from the beginning the importance of obedience to patriarchy. With a detached father, and lack of any other father type figures, Connie finds herself forced into giving herself over to a rapist and possible killer all because of her struggle to gain attention from an older male figure. As Arnold Friend asks Connie, what else is there for a girl like you but to be sweet and pretty and give in? (Oates, 1966)

A4c Project Proposal - 1198 Words

The proposal from Catholic Relief Services (CRS) for their Agriculture for Basic Needs (A4N) project should not be funded. Although CRS includes meaningful participation mechanisms in program implementation and monitoring and evaluation (ME) procedures, certain critical aspects of the project remain unclear and this is too large of a risk for a grant of this size. Project Background CRS proposed a three-year, four-country project with a $15 million budget. A4N intends to combat food insecurity in rural communities in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua by implementing programs that address poor crop and livestock yields. This builds from previous complementary HGBF programming in the region, Mi Cuenca, which cultivated†¦show more content†¦Participatory Mechanisms Here, participation is defined as: the local population’s (targeted community) involvement, in addition to relevant local stakeholders, in the creation, content, and distribution of tools and resources to shape their lives and achieve their own goals. The program design has some mechanisms for participation, but the problems and objectives have largely been determined by CRS. CRS lists â€Å"shrinking plot size, unsustainable agricultural practices, poor soil, water shortages, increasing severe weather events, and rising costs for agricultural inputs† as key problems facing smallholder farm families. These key problems are seen as drivers of malnutrition and reduced resiliency and ability to cope with natural disasters at the household level, which weaken innovation, agricultural productivity and sustainable practices, access to financial services, market engagement, and the capacity of organizations at the community level. CRS expects that members of targeted communities can help develop objectives and goals to achieve CRS’s objectives through participation and therefore representation in the baseline assessment and also engagement in dialogue to develop community targets. During Year Zero, CRS’s baseline assessments in the target communities will determine needs, strategize and tailor programming, and develop target goals and indicators. After, A4N will foster community savings