The History and Theory of Magical Realism Essay -- Literature Essays L

The History and Theory of Magical Realism      Ã‚  Ã‚   Fantasy, Magical, Supernatural, Sublime, and Realism are all several genres of literature that may be familiar to many people. However, there may be one that is not as well-known as these: Magical Realism. Although Magical Realism is mostly common in the Latin American countries, one may wonder where and how Magical Realism got its start. On the other hand, one may simply wonder what some of the characteristics of Magical Realism are. By looking at the history and theory of Magical Realism as well as some of its characteristics and influences, these questions will be answered. Interestingly, the term "Magical Realism" was first used in 1925 by a German art critic, Franz Roh. In his essay, "Magic Realism: Post-Expressionism," Roh used the term "Magical Realism" to actually characterize a style of painting instead of a style of literature (15). However, there are still at least two different viewpoints as to where and when Magical Realism truly had its start. In Angel Flores' essay, "Magical Realism in Spanish America," he claims that Magical Realism had its basis in the works of Franz Kafka. Furthermore, Flores thinks that the year 1935 was the year that Magical Realism had its beginning in Latin America because this was the year that Jorge Luis Borges' work, A Universal History of Infamy, appeared in Buenos Aires. After the appearance of Borges' works, several other writers began to follow his style, giving Magical Realism its rise in popularity in the years of 1940 to 1950 (Flores 113). In his essay "Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature" Luis Leal disagrees with Flores' viewpoint. Leal does not think that Magical Realism had its growth during the 1940 to 195... ...Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 125-141. Flores, Angel. "Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction." Magical Realism. Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 109-116. "Garcia Marquez - Biography." 14 Jan. 2001 <http://www.themodernword.com/gabo/gabo_biography.html.>. Leal, Luis. "Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature." Magical Realism. Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 119-123. "Magical Realism." 8 Jan. 2001 <http://www.iskl.edu.my/~Breen_O'Reilly/Chronicle2/page2.html>. Roh, Franz. "Magic Realism: Post-Expressionism." Magical Realism. Theory, History, Community. Ed. Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris. Durham, N.C.: Duke UP, 1995: 15-30.   

Self-esteem and gender

The purpose of this finding is to understand the relations between gender and self- esteem using the method of convenience sample survey Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory. This survey included 6 male and 21 female college students, total n=27 to predict self-esteem levels of each gender. In this study, the PV= gender, the OD= self- report and demographic, the CV= self-esteem, and another OD= score on survey.Researchers will use data collected to analyze self-esteem levels in both male and female college students. In relation to past studies, the hypothesis for this research s that male college students have higher self-esteem than female college students. However, survey results showed no relations between scores in self-esteem and gender. We cannot predict self-esteem levels based on gender because it is not the main factor. One implication for this study is to have larger representative sample to obtain stronger validity and rule out sampling bias.Keywords: self-esteem, gender role , Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, predictor variable (PV), operational definition (OD), criterion variable (CV) Introduction Past researches have shown that self-esteem plays an important role in etermining the academic achievement and health levels of both genders. Researchers predicted that there is a relation between gender role and self-esteem. Therefore, many studies have been done to predict the possible outcome of the above hypothesis.When we try to find out if gender really does play an important role in one's academic achievement and levels of health, we can try to develop new ways to improve these conditions for both genders. Self-esteem creates huge impacts in each individual living standards and performance, for learning to compare self-esteem level in both genders will help researchers to acquire knowledge about ach gender behavior. Researchers could then apply alternative ways to analyze these behaviors and conduct further psychological studies which will benefit th e learning of people's behaviors in general.In The Relationship between Gender Type of Sport, Body Dissatisfaction Self- esteem and Disordered Eating behaviors in Division I Athletes (Milligan & Pritchard, 2006), it is shown that women with eating disorders behaviors have body dissatisfaction, and low self-esteem where as men with disorders eating behaviors only have body dissatisfaction. This shows gender is a factor that proves women do not have strong coping skills as men.Next, the article Linking self-differentiation and mental health in lower grade college students with different genders: Moderating role ot selt-esteem (Yao & explores the association between the selt- differentiation and mental health in both genders, and the results indicate that male students have higher levels of self-esteem than female students. Female students are at higher risk to not seek help for their mental health problems. However, one source disconfirmed these researchers' earlier hypothesis.From th e Gender differences in domain- specific self-esteem: A meta-analysis (Gentile et, al. 2009) hich examines gender differences in ten specific- domain of self-esteem across one hundred and fifteen studies, there was no relationship in gender differences in academic, social acceptance, family and affect self-esteem. These results rejected our current hypothesis in terms that gender is not a factor in determining individual's self-esteem levels which cause better achievement in academic and in health. To conclude, gender role has no relationship with self-esteem.Discussion Our group research finding hypothesis was not supported because we predicted that there is a relation between gender role and self-esteem. After we calculated our onvenience survey Coppersmith Self-esteem Inventory results taken from twenty seven students, both male and females college students at the age of eighteen to thirty five, here are our results: gender, OD = self-report and demographic, CV= self-esteem, OD = CSEI score on survey. Our r value is . 054, df is 25. The critical value for r at a significance level of . 05 (middle column, two-tailed on page 411) is . 3809.Our r value of . 054 is less than the above r value of . 3809. Our r value is not significant and is very close to zero. This means that there was no relation between our variables, for our results were not significant. Therefore, we found no relation between gender and self-esteem; we cannot predict participants' self-esteem based on their gender roles. The only source that would support our result finding was the last article in Gender differences in domain- specific self-esteem: A meta- analysis (Gentile et, al. 2009), which we thought it would disconfirm with our earlier hypothesis.As a result, our prediction was incorrect, for this article supported our current finding. This article indicates gender is not valid predictor variable that can be used to manipulate/calculate the criterion variable, which in this case is a tudent's self-esteem level. Therefore, gender differences have no impacts on students' academic, social acceptance, family relationship and affect self-esteem. Since we had a small sample of participants, it was hard to generalize our finding because there was not much to analyze and we also thought this factor affected our results.Besides, participants' agreement with the CSEI questionnaires did not guarantee their truthful emotions at the time they were taking the inventory because they had a handful of surveys to complete. The likelihood for participants to have responsive bias in this survey is high. For future studies, we would definitely try to get larger and equal number of participants whom would actually be a representative sample that represent both gender populations. This will help us to obtain stronger validity for the study and rule out sampling bias.In sum, we feel that understanding self-esteem levels in each individual is very important because it will help us to de velop better ways to improve our conditions and adopt new ways to cope with our obstacles. As we learn how self-esteem affects our behaviors, we will have more awareness and perception of our own selves and between both genders. It is significant to note that self-esteem has no relationship with gender because this will help people to eliminate stereotypical views tor botn genders in determining their success in academic, mental health, and physical satisfaction.

A study to determine how managers and leaders can motivate a multicultural staff

Cox and Beale (1997 cited Harvey and Allard 2005) define diversity as a group of people in a social system that has different group ties. On the other hand, Thomas (1999 cited Harvey and Allard 2005:p3) defines diversity including not only differences but also similarities, indicating that diversity is â€Å"individuals who are different in some ways and similar in others†.As it was mentioned before, diversity in a workforce includes employees with a variety of backgrounds in terms of race, gender, education, sexual orientation among others. This study will be focused on the understanding of a cultural diverse workforce with the aim of examining its influences on management styles.For this, it is necessary to point out some important definitions and topics that are relevant to management style in an international and heterogeneous business environment to motivate employees. Hofstede, Trompenaars and Hall & Hall are three of the most important and significant contributors in wh at culture and workplace differences regard (Mullins, 2005).General Overview and History of the TopicThe term managing diversity is nowadays becoming more important to organisations, not only because they are interested in diverse groups or they are up to date with the Equal Opportunities legislation and policies, but because they are facing important challenges related to the management and development within a diverse workforce in order to survive in today’s global marketplace (Edwards, 1991 cited Henderson 1994).Ten years ago, the majority of organisations did not think about diversity in the workplace with the intention of having benefit from it. Today, a vast percentage of organisations take advantage of diversity initiatives to enhance organisational performance and most important, they are committed to it (Berrios, 2003 cited Liberman, 2003).According to Mor Barak (2005), managing diversity is basically to bring together employees from different backgrounds. However, t his definition does not take into account the influence that it might have on management behaviours.According to Harvey and Allard (2005), diversity can affect people’s interactions in the workplace since it requires changes not only in the way people interact within each other, but also changes in the functionality of the organization, hence in the business’ performance.Rationale For The StudyManaging diversity is a reality that all Multinationals and International companies are facing. Most organisations nowadays are adapting programmes to manage a culturally diverse workforce in order to fulfil their objectives and gain place in the global competitive marketplace, making the most of its employees potential.Globalisation is one of the reasons workers are moving across borders, increasing the heterogeneity of organisations and development of cross-cultural interaction in order to enhance alliances that go beyond differences such as race, gender, and others (Harris et al, 2004).Not going much further, the European Union is the most important phenomenon of cultural diversity that has happened in the last 20 years. With 25 different countries as members where all of them has different cultures, the EU has faced the challenges that globalisation has brought in order to reach common objectives such as encouraging innovation and business investment through Union identity and national diversity (European Union, 2006).In the early 21st century, organisations have been through important changes related to this trend of globalisation where not only factors such as international competitive pressure and business activities have taken place, but also the diversity of human capital from all around the world where cross-cultural interaction has been in expansion (Mullins, 2005).Therefore, it is important that these companies identify their strategies when managing cultural differences in order to have the right opportunities to gain competitive advantage (Sch neider and Barsoux, 2003).Nevertheless, there are also some risks than can bring difference of cultures in the workplace or business activities; consequently, it is vital that organisations understand that different cultures execute procedures differently (Pooley, 2005; Adler, 1983 cited Miroshnik, 2002).Furthermore, and being more specific, the management of these ethnically diverse workforce has been on the spot of many authors. As Tayeb (1996; p180-181) says â€Å"the first step in the management of a diverse workforce is to recognise and value such diversity†, then he argues that â€Å"once the diversity is recognised, the next step is to ensure that it is effectively utilised and handled†.In this case, utilising those differences contributes to an effective management, thus to bring opportunities for organisational learning and innovation creating competitive advantage in the global marketplace (Schneider and Bardoux, 2003; Mor Barak, 2005).To gain this, managers must have the needed skills to manage a multicultural workforce, this includes, having the ability to recognise and accept cultural differences between their workers as well as coordination, cooperation and communications (Lane et al, 1997; Ravlin et al cited Earley and Singh, 2000).Significance and the Importance of the StudyManaging culturally diverse workforce is nowadays a challenge for international managers. On one hand, diversity represents both differences and similarities that exists on individuals and which make them be unique from one to another (Buelens et al, 2002); and on the other hand Parekh (2000) defines culture as â€Å"a system of beliefs and practices in terms of which a group of human beings understand, regulate and structure their individual and collective lives†.Thus, cultural diversity is a variety of cultural differences that requires awareness, understanding and acceptance of those differences by managers, making the most of them in order to gain po sitive outcomes (Scarborough, 2001; Littrell, 2002; Harris et al, 2004; Smith and Peterson, 2005).Cultural differences might have some influences in the way managers manage and motivate their culturally diverse team, and those ways or styles that are carried out in one culture are difficult to be implemented in another due to the difference of traditions, ways of doing things and values of that culture (Hofstede cited Evans et al cited Jackson, 1995).Therefore, further investigation is recommended to be developed to minimise cultural shock in management which could affect business performance. However, this study has been done to offer an up-to-date source of information about multicultural workforce and its influences on management style to motivate employees, which is going to be executed through secondary research.Hence, factors such as cultural diversity and management style should be analyzed in-depth in order to comprehend what may constrain managers of any multinational organ isation to adjust strategies to maintain the business addressed to its objectives.In this case, there have been other studies more related to the influence or impact of organisational and national culture on management styles and although managing diversity is a topic that has been researched for various authors, it can be said that managing and motivating a culturally diverse workforce is a relative new approach.Therefore, the purpose is to do academic research by studying the related existing literature reviews to analyse and understand the influence of a multicultural workforce in the management styles.Finally, a secondary aim of this research is to encourage people to take similar investigation so as to offer useful up-to-date sources that can help both organisations and researchers to acknowledge what is happening in international business and what forces are influencing the changes within organisations. A study to determine how managers and leaders can motivate a multicultural staff Cox and Beale (1997 cited Harvey and Allard 2005) define diversity as a group of people in a social system that has different group ties. On the other hand, Thomas (1999 cited Harvey and Allard 2005:p3) defines diversity including not only differences but also similarities, indicating that diversity is â€Å"individuals who are different in some ways and similar in others†.As it was mentioned before, diversity in a workforce includes employees with a variety of backgrounds in terms of race, gender, education, sexual orientation among others.This study will be focused on the understanding of a cultural diverse workforce with the aim of examining its influences on management styles.   For this, it is necessary to point out some important definitions and topics that are relevant to management style in an international and heterogeneous business environment to motivate employees.Hofstede, Trompenaars and Hall & Hall are three of the most important and significant contributors in what culture and workplace differences regard (Mullins, 2005).a)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   General Overview and History of the TopicThe term managing diversity is nowadays becoming more important to organisations, not only because they are interested in diverse groups or they are up to date with the Equal Opportunities legislation and policies, but because they are facing important challenges related to the management and development within a diverse workforce in order to survive in today’s global marketplace (Edwards, 1991 cited Henderson 1994).Ten years ago, the majority of organisations did not think about diversity in the workplace with the intention of having benefit from it. Today, a vast percentage of organisations take advantage of diversity initiatives to enhance organisational performance and most important, they are committed to it (Berrios, 2003 cited Liberman, 2003).According to Mor Barak (2005), managing diversity is basically to bring together employees from differe nt backgrounds. However, this definition does not take into account the influence that it might have on management behaviours.According to Harvey and Allard (2005), diversity can affect people’s interactions in the workplace since it requires changes not only in the way people interact within each other, but also changes in the functionality of the organization, hence in the business’ performance.b)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Rationale For The StudyManaging diversity is a reality that all Multinationals and International companies are facing. Most organisations nowadays are adapting programmes to manage a culturally diverse workforce in order to fulfil their objectives and gain place in the global competitive marketplace, making the most of its employees potential.Globalisation is one of the reasons workers are moving across borders, increasing the heterogeneity of organisations and development of cross-cultural interaction in order to enhance alliances that go beyond differe nces such as race, gender, and others (Harris et al, 2004).Not going much further, the European Union is the most important phenomenon of cultural diversity that has happened in the last 20 years. With 25 different countries as members where all of them has different cultures, the EU has faced the challenges that globalisation has brought in order to reach common objectives such as encouraging innovation and business investment through Union identity and national diversity (European Union, 2006).In the early 21st century, organisations have been through important changes related to this trend of globalisation where not only factors such as international competitive pressure and business activities have taken place, but also the diversity of human capital from all around the world where cross-cultural interaction has been in expansion (Mullins, 2005).Therefore, it is important that these companies identify their strategies when managing cultural differences in order to have the right opportunities to gain competitive advantage (Schneider and Barsoux, 2003).Nevertheless, there are also some risks than can bring difference of cultures in the workplace or business activities; consequently, it is vital that organisations understand that different cultures execute procedures differently (Pooley, 2005; Adler, 1983 cited Miroshnik, 2002).Furthermore, and being more specific, the management of these ethnically diverse workforce has been on the spot of many authors. As Tayeb (1996; p180-181) says â€Å"the first step in the management of a diverse workforce is to recognise and value such diversity†, then he argues that â€Å"once the diversity is recognised, the next step is to ensure that it is effectively utilised and handled†.In this case, utilising those differences contributes to an effective management, thus to bring opportunities for organisational learning and innovation creating competitive advantage in the global marketplace (Schneider and Bardou x, 2003; Mor Barak, 2005).To gain this, managers must have the needed skills to manage a multicultural workforce, this includes, having the ability to recognise and accept cultural differences between their workers as well as coordination, cooperation and communications (Lane et al, 1997; Ravlin et al cited Earley and Singh, 2000).c)  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Significance and the Importance of the StudyManaging culturally diverse workforce is nowadays a challenge for international managers. On one hand, diversity represents both differences and similarities that exists on individuals and which make them be unique from one to another (Buelens et al, 2002); and on the other hand Parekh (2000) defines culture as â€Å"a system of beliefs and practices in terms of which a group of human beings understand, regulate and structure their individual and collective lives†.Thus, cultural diversity is a variety of cultural differences that requires awareness, understanding and acceptance of th ose differences by managers, making the most of them in order to gain positive outcomes (Scarborough, 2001; Littrell, 2002; Harris et al, 2004; Smith and Peterson, 2005).Cultural differences might have some influences in the way managers manage and motivate their culturally diverse team, and those ways or styles that are carried out in one culture are difficult to be implemented in another due to the difference of traditions, ways of doing things and values of that culture (Hofstede cited Evans et al cited Jackson, 1995).Therefore, further investigation is recommended to be developed to minimise cultural shock in management which could affect business performance. However, this study has been done to offer an up-to-date source of information about multicultural workforce and its influences on management style to motivate employees, which is going to be executed through secondary research.Hence, factors such as cultural diversity and management style should be analyzed in-depth in or der to comprehend what may constrain managers of any multinational organisation to adjust strategies to maintain the business addressed to its objectives.