Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one
person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists
refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market.
An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exchange of goods and services for other goods and services,[1] i.e. trading things without the use of money.[1] Modern traders generally negotiate through a medium of exchange, such as money. As a result, buying can be separated from selling, or earning. The invention of money (and letters of credit, paper money, and non-physical money) greatly simplified and promoted trade. Trade between two traders is called bilateral trade, while trade involving more than two traders is called multilateral trade.
In one modern view, trade exists due to specialization and the division of labor, a predominant form of economic activity
in which individuals and groups concentrate on a small aspect of
production, but use their output in trade for other products and needs.[2] Trade exists between regions because different regions may have a comparative advantage (perceived or real) in the production of some trade-able commodity –
including the production of scarce or limited natural resources
elsewhere. For example, different regions' sizes may encourage mass production. In such circumstances, trading at market price
between locations can benefit both locations. Different types of
traders may specialize in trading different kinds of goods; for example,
the spice trade and grain trade have both historically been important in the development of a global, international economy.
A busy market in Mile 12. Lagos - Nigeria
Retail trade consists of the sale of goods or merchandise from a very fixed location[3] (such as a department store, boutique, or kiosk), online or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption or use by the purchaser.[4]Wholesale trade is the traffic in goods that are sold as merchandise to retailers, industrial, commercial, institutional, or other professional business users, or to other wholesalers and related subordinated services.
Historically, openness to free trade
substantially increased in some areas from 1815 until the outbreak of
World War I in 1914. Trade openness increased again during the 1920s but
collapsed (in particular in Europe and North America) during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Trade openness increased substantially again from the 1950s onward (albeit with a slowdown during the oil crisis of the 1970s). Economists and economic historians contend that current levels of trade openness are the highest they have ever been.[5][6][7]
Etymology
Trade is from Middle Englishtrade ("path, course of conduct"), introduced into English by Hanseatic merchants, from Middle Low Germantrade ("track, course"), from Old Saxontrada ("spoor, track"), from Proto-Germanic*tradÅ ("track, way"), and cognate with Old Englishtredan ("to tread").
Commerce is derived from the Latincommercium, from cum "together" and merx, "merchandise."[8]
In the Mediterranean region, the earliest contact between cultures involved members of the species Homo sapiens, principally using the Danube river, at a time beginning 35,000–30,000 BP.[10][11][12][13][need quotation to verify]
Some[who?] trace the origins of commerce to the very start of transactions in prehistoric times. Apart from traditional self-sufficiency, trading became a principal facility for prehistoric people, who bartered what they had for goods and services from each other.
The caduceus, traditionally associated with Mercury (the Roman patron-god of merchants), continues in use as a symbol of commerce.[14]
Trade is believed to have taken place throughout much of recorded human history. There is evidence of the exchange of obsidian and flint during the Stone Age. Trade in obsidian is believed to have taken place in New Guinea from 17,000 BCE.[15][16]
The earliest use of obsidian in the Near East dates to the Lower and Middle paleolithic.[17]
Archaeological evidence of obsidian use provides data on how this material was increasingly the preferred choice rather than chert from the late Mesolithic to Neolithic, requiring exchange as deposits of obsidian are rare in the Mediterranean region.[22][23][24]
Obsidian provided the material to make cutting utensils or tools,
although since other more easily obtainable materials were available,
use was exclusive to the higher status of the tribe using "the rich
man's flint".[25] Interestingly, Obsidian has held its value relative to flint.
Early traders traded Obsidian at distances of 900 kilometres within the Mediterranean region.[26]
Trade in the Mediterranean during the Neolithic of Europe was greatest in this material.[22][27] Networks were in existence at around 12,000 BCE[28] Anatolia was the source primarily for trade with the Levant, Iran and Egypt according to Zarins study of 1990.[29][30][31]Melos and Lipari sources produced among the most widespread trading in the Mediterranean region as known to archaeology.[32]
The Sari-i-Sang mine in the mountains of Afghanistan was the largest source for trade of lapis lazuli.[33][34] The material was most largely traded during the Kassite period of Babylonia beginning 1595 BCE.[35][36]
Later trade
Mediterranean and Near East
Ebla was a prominent trading center during the third millennia BCE, with a network reaching into Anatolia and north Mesopotamia.[32][37][38][39]
A map of the Silk Road trade route between Europe and Asia
Materials used for creating jewelry were traded with Egypt since 3000 BCE. Long-range trade routes first appeared in the 3rd millennium BCE, when Sumerians in Mesopotamia traded with the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley. The Phoenicians were noted sea traders, traveling across the Mediterranean Sea, and as far north as Britain for sources of tin to manufacture bronze. For this purpose they established trade colonies the Greeks called emporia.[40]
Along the coast of the Mediterranean, researchers have found a positive
relationship between how well-connected a coastal location was and the
local prevalence of archaeological sites from the Iron Age. This
suggests that a location's trade potential was an important determinant
of human settlements.[41]
From the beginning of Greek civilization until the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, a financially lucrative trade brought valuable spice to Europe from the far east, including India and China. Roman commerce allowed its empire to flourish and endure. The latter Roman Republic and the Pax Romana
of the Roman empire produced a stable and secure transportation network
that enabled the shipment of trade goods without fear of significant piracy, as Rome had become the sole effective sea power in the Mediterranean with the conquest of Egypt and the near east.[42]
In ancient Greece Hermes was the god of trade[43][44] (commerce) and weights and measures.[45] In ancient Rome, Mercurius was the god of merchants, whose festival was celebrated by traders on the 25th day of the fifth month.[46][47]
The concept of free trade was an antithesis to the will and economic
direction of the sovereigns of the ancient Greek states. Free trade
between states was stifled by the need for strict internal controls (via
taxation) to maintain security within the treasury of the sovereign,
which nevertheless enabled the maintenance of a modicum of civility within the structures of functional community life.[48][49]
The fall of the Roman empire and the succeeding Dark Ages brought instability to Western Europe
and a near-collapse of the trade network in the western world. Trade,
however, continued to flourish among the kingdoms of Africa, the Middle
East, India, China, and Southeast Asia. Some trade did occur in the
west. For instance, Radhanites were a medieval guild or group (the precise meaning of the word is lost to history) of Jewish merchants who traded between the Christians in Europe and the Muslims of the Near East.[50]
The first true maritime trade network in the Indian Ocean was by the Austronesian peoples of Island Southeast Asia.[51] Initiated by the indigenous peoples of Taiwan and the Philippines, the Maritime Jade Road
was an extensive trading network connecting multiple areas in Southeast
and East Asia. Its primary products were made of jade mined from Taiwan
by Taiwanese indigenous peoples and processed mostly in the Philippines by indigenous Filipinos, especially in Batanes, Luzon, and Palawan. Some were also processed in Vietnam, while the peoples of Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Cambodia
also participated in the massive trading network. The maritime road is
one of the most extensive sea-based trade networks of a single
geological material in the prehistoric world. It was in existence for at
least 3,000 years, where its peak production was from 2000 BCE to 500
CE, older than the Silk Road in mainland Eurasia and the later Maritime Silk Road.
The Maritime Jade Road began to wane during its final centuries from
500 CE until 1000 CE. The entire period of the network was a golden age
for the diverse societies of the region.[52][53][54][55]
Tajadero or axe money used as currency in Mesoamerica. It had a fixed worth of 8,000 cacao seeds, which were also used as currency.[60]
The emergence of exchange networks in the Pre-Columbian societies of
and near to Mexico are known to have occurred within recent years before
and after 1500 BCE.[61]
Trade networks reached north to Oasisamerica. There is evidence of established maritime trade with the cultures of northwestern South America and the Caribbean.
Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, commerce developed in Europe by trading luxury goods at trade fairs. Wealth became converted into movable wealth or capital.
Banking systems developed where money on account was transferred across
national boundaries. Hand to hand markets became a feature of town life
and were regulated by town authorities.
Western Europe established a complex and expansive trade network with cargo ships being the main carrier of goods; Cogs and Hulks are two examples of such cargo ships.[62] Many ports would develop their own extensive trade networks. The English port city of Bristol traded with peoples from what is modern day Iceland, all along the western coast of France, and down to what is now Spain.[63]
During the Middle Ages, Central Asia was the economic center of the world.[64] The Sogdians dominated the east–west trade route known as the Silk Road after the 4th century CE up to the 8th century CE, with Suyab and Talas ranking among their main centers in the north. They were the main caravan merchants of Central Asia.
From the Middle Ages, the maritime republics, in particular Venice, Pisa and Genoa, played a key role in trade along the Mediterranean. From the 11th to the late 15th centuries, the Venetian Republic and the Republic of Genoa
were major trade centers. They dominated trade in the Mediterranean and
the Black Sea, having the monopoly between Europe and the Near East for
centuries.[65][66]
From the 8th to the 11th century, the Vikings and Varangians traded as they sailed from and to Scandinavia. Vikings sailed to Western Europe, while Varangians to Russia. The Hanseatic League was an alliance of trading cities that maintained a trade monopoly over most of Northern Europe and the Baltic, between the 13th and 17th centuries.
The Age of Sail and the Industrial Revolution
Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama pioneered the European spice trade in 1498 when he reached Calicut after sailing around the Cape of Good Hope
at the southern tip of the African continent. Prior to this, the flow
of spice into Europe from India was controlled by Islamic powers,
especially Egypt. The spice trade was of major economic importance and
helped spur the Age of Discovery
in Europe. Spices brought to Europe from the Eastern world were some of
the most valuable commodities for their weight, sometimes rivaling gold.
Founded in 1352, the Bengal Sultanate was a major trading nation in the world and often referred to by Europeans as the wealthiest country with which to trade.[68]
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Portuguese gained an economic advantage in the Kingdom of Kongo due to different philosophies of trade.[67]
Whereas Portuguese traders concentrated on the accumulation of capital,
in Kongo spiritual meaning was attached to many objects of trade.
According to economic historian Toby Green, in Kongo "giving more than receiving was a symbol of spiritual and political power and privilege."[67]
In the 16th century, the Seventeen Provinces were the center of free trade, imposing no exchange controls, and advocating the free movement of goods. Trade in the East Indies was dominated by Portugal in the 16th century, the Dutch Republic in the 17th century, and the British in the 18th century. The Spanish Empire developed regular trade links across both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.
In 1776, Adam Smith published the paper An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. It criticized Mercantilism, and argued that economic specialization could benefit nations just as much as firms. Since the division of labour
was restricted by the size of the market, he said that countries having
access to larger markets would be able to divide labour more
efficiently and thereby become more productive. Smith said that he considered all rationalizations of import and export controls "dupery", which hurt the trading nation as a whole for the benefit of specific industries.
In 1799, the Dutch East India Company, formerly the world's largest company, became bankrupt, partly due to the rise of competitive free trade.
When an inefficient producer sends the merchandise it
produces best to a country able to produce it more efficiently, both
countries benefit.
The ascendancy of free trade was primarily based on national
advantage in the mid 19th century. That is, the calculation made was
whether it was in any particular country's self-interest to open its
borders to imports.
John Stuart Mill proved that a country with monopoly pricing power on the international market could manipulate the terms of trade through maintaining tariffs, and that the response to this might be reciprocity
in trade policy. Ricardo and others had suggested this earlier. This
was taken as evidence against the universal doctrine of free trade, as
it was believed that more of the economic surplus of trade would accrue to a country following reciprocal, rather than completely free, trade policies. This was followed within a few years by the infant industry scenario developed by Mill promoting the theory that the government had the duty to protect
young industries, although only for a time necessary for them to
develop full capacity. This became the policy in many countries
attempting to industrialize and out-compete English exporters. Milton Friedman
later continued this vein of thought, showing that in a few
circumstances tariffs might be beneficial to the host country; but never
for the world at large.[69]
20th century
The Great Depression
was a major economic recession that ran from 1929 to the late 1930s.
During this period, there was a great drop in trade and other economic
indicators.
The lack of free trade was considered by many as a principal cause of the depression causing stagnation and inflation.[70] Only during World War II did the recession end in the United States. Also during the war, in 1944, 44 countries signed the Bretton Woods Agreement, intended to prevent national trade barriers, to avoid depressions. It set up rules and institutions to regulate the international political economy: the International Monetary Fund
and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (later
divided into the World Bank $ Bank for International Settlements).
These organizations became operational in 1946 after enough countries
ratified the agreement. In 1947, 23 countries agreed to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to promote free trade.[71]
The European Union became the world's largest exporter of manufactured goods and services, the biggest export market for around 80 countries.[72]
Today, trade is merely a subset within a complex system of companies which try to maximize their profits by offering products and services to the market (which consists both of individuals and other companies) at the lowest production cost. A system of international trade has helped to develop the world economy but, in combination with bilateral or multilateral agreements to lower tariffs or to achieve free trade, has sometimes harmed third-world markets for local products.
Free trade is a policy by which a government does not discriminate
against imports or exports by applying tariffs or subsidies. This policy
is also known as laissez-faire policy. This kind of policy does not
necessarily imply because a country will then abandon all control and
taxation of imports and exports.[73]
Free trade advanced further in the late 20th century and early 2000s:
EC was transformed into the European Union, which accomplished the
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in 2002, through introducing the Euro,
and creating this way a real single market between 13 member states as
of January 1, 2007.
Protectionism is the policy of restraining and discouraging trade
between states and contrasts with the policy of free trade. This policy
often takes the form of tariffs and restrictive quotas. Protectionist policies were particularly prevalent in the 1930s, between the Great Depression and the onset of World War II.
Judeao-Christian
teachings do not prohibit trade. They do prohibit fraud and dishonest
measures. Historically they forbade charging interest on loans.[76][77]
The first instances of money were objects with intrinsic value. This is called commodity money
and includes any commonly available commodity that has intrinsic value;
historical examples include pigs, rare seashells, whale's teeth, and
(often) cattle. In medieval Iraq, bread was used as an early form of
money. In the Aztec Empire, under the rule of Montezuma cocoa beans became legitimate currency.[78]
Currency
was introduced as standardised money to facilitate a wider exchange of
goods and services. This first stage of currency, where metals were
used to represent stored value, and symbols to represent commodities,
formed the basis of trade in the Fertile Crescent for over 1500 years.
Numismatists have examples of coins from the earliest large-scale societies, although these were initially unmarked lumps of precious metal.[79]
The Doha round of World Trade Organization negotiations aimed to lower barriers to trade around the world, with a focus on making trade fairer for developing countries. Talks have been hung over a divide between the rich developed countries, represented by the G20, and the major developing countries. Agricultural subsidies
are the most significant issue upon which agreement has been the
hardest to negotiate. By contrast, there was much agreement on trade facilitation and capacity building. The Doha round began in Doha, Qatar, and negotiations were continued in: Cancún, Mexico; Geneva, Switzerland; and Paris, France, and Hong Kong.[citation needed]
China
Beginning around 1978, the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) began an experiment in economic reform. In contrast to the previous Soviet-style centrally planned economy,
the new measures progressively relaxed restrictions on farming,
agricultural distribution and, several years later, urban enterprises
and labor. The more market-oriented approach reduced inefficiencies and
stimulated private investment, particularly by farmers, which led to
increased productivity and output. One feature was the establishment of
four (later five) Special Economic Zones located along the South-east coast.[80]
The reforms proved spectacularly successful in terms of increased output, variety, quality, price and demand.
In real terms, the economy doubled in size between 1978 and 1986,
doubled again by 1994, and again by 2003. On a real per capita basis,
doubling from the 1978 base took place in 1987, 1996 and 2006. By 2008,
the economy was 16.7 times the size it was in 1978, and 12.1 times its
previous per capita levels. International trade progressed even more
rapidly, doubling on average every 4.5 years. Total two-way trade in
January 1998 exceeded that for all of 1978; in the first quarter of
2009, trade exceeded the full-year 1998 level. In 2008, China's two-way
trade totaled US$2.56 trillion.[81]
International trade is the exchange of goods and services across national borders. In most countries, it represents a significant part of GDP. While international trade has been present throughout much of history (see Silk Road, Amber Road), its economic, social, and political importance have increased in recent centuries, mainly because of Industrialization, advanced transportation, globalization, multinational corporations, and outsourcing.[citation needed]
Empirical evidence for the success of trade can be seen in the contrast between countries such as South Korea, which adopted a policy of export-oriented industrialization,
and India, which historically had a more closed policy. South Korea
has done much better by economic criteria than India over the past fifty
years, though its success also has to do with effective state
institutions.[84]
Trade sanctions
Trade sanctions against a specific country are sometimes imposed, in order to punish that country for some action. An embargo,
a severe form of externally imposed isolation, is a blockade of all
trade by one country on another. For example, the United States has had
an embargo against Cuba for over 40 years.[85] Embargoes are usually on a temporary basis. For example, Armenia
put a temporary embargo on Turkish products and bans any imports from
Turkey on December 31, 2020. The situation is prompted by food security
concerns given Turkey's hostile attitude towards Armenia.[86]
Importing firms voluntarily adhere to fair trade standards or governments may enforce them through a combination of employment and commercial law. Proposed and practiced fair trade policies vary widely, ranging from the common prohibition of goods made using slave labour to minimum price support schemes such as those for coffee in the 1980s. Non-governmental organizations also play a role in promoting fair trade standards by serving as independent monitors of compliance with labeling requirements.[88][89] As such, it is a form of Protectionism.
Social learning (social pedagogy) is learning that takes place at a wider scale than individual or group learning, up to a societal scale, through social interaction between peers.
Definition
Social learning
is defined as learning through the observation of other people's
behaviors. It is a process of social change in which people learn from
each other in ways that can benefit wider social-ecological systems.
Different social contexts allow individuals to pick up new behaviors by
observing what people are doing within that environment.
Social learning and social pedagogy emphasize the dynamic interaction
between people and the environment in the construction of meaning and
identity.
The process of learning a new behaviour starts by observing a
behaviour, taking the information in and finally adopting that
behaviour. Examples of environmental contexts that promote social
learning are schools, media, family members and friends.
If learning is to be considered as social, then it must:
demonstrate that a change in understanding has taken place in the individuals involved;
demonstrate that this change goes beyond the individual and becomes
situated within wider social units or communities of practice;
occur through social interactions and processes between actors within a social network.
It is a theoretical system that focuses on the development of the
child and how practice and training affect their life skills. This idea
is centered around the notion that children are active and competent.
History
18th century
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
brings forth the idea that all humans are born good but are ultimately
corrupted by society, implying a form of social learning.
19th century
The literature on the topic of social pedagogy tends to identify German educator Karl Mager (1810-1858) as the person who coined the term ‘social pedagogy’ in 1844. Mager and Friedrich Adolph Diesterweg
shared the belief that education should go beyond the individual's
acquisition of knowledge and focus on the acquisition of culture by
society. Ultimately, it should benefit the community itself.
The founding father of social pedagogy, German philosopher and educator Paul Natorp (1854-1924) published the book SozialpÀdagogik: Theorie der Willensbildung auf der Grundlage der Gemeinschaft
(Social Pedagogy: The theory of educating the human will into a
community asset) in 1899. Natorp argued that in all instances, pedagogy
should be social. Teachers should consider the interaction between
educational and societal processes.
1950s - 1990s
The field of developmental psychology
underwent significant changes during these decades as social learning
theories started to gain traction through the research and experiments
of Psychologists such as Julian Rotter, Albert Bandura and Robert Sears.
In 1954, Julian Rotter developed his social learning theory which
linked human behavior changes with environmental interactions.
Predictable variables were behavior potential, expectancy, reinforcement
value and psychological situation. Bandura conducted his bobo doll experiment in 1961 and developed his social learning theory in 1977.
These contributions to the field of developmental psychology cemented a
strong knowledge foundation and allowed researchers to build on and
expand our understanding of human behavior.
Theories
Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Natural Man
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778), with his book Emile, or On Education,
introduced his pedagogic theory where the child should be brought up in
harmony with nature. The child should be introduced to society only
during the fourth stage of development, the age of moral self-worth (15
to 18 years of age). That way, the child enters society in an informed
and self-reliable manner, with one's own judgment. Rousseau's
conceptualization of childhood and adolescence is based on his theory
that human beings are inherently good but corrupted a society that
denaturalize them. Rousseau is the precursor of the child-centered
approach in education.
Karl Mager - Social Pedagogy
Karl Mager
(1810 - 1858) is often identified as the one who coined the term social
pedagogy. He held the belief that education should focus on the
acquisition of knowledge but also of culture through society and should
orient its activities to benefit the community. It also implies that
knowledge should not solely come from individuals but also from the
larger concept of society.
Paul Natorp - Social Pedagogy
Paul Natorp (1854 - 1924) was a German philosopher and educator. In 1899, he published SozialpÀdagogik: Theorie der Willensbildung auf der Grundlage der Gemeinschaft
(Social Pedagogy: The theory of educating the human will into a
community asset). According to him, education should be social, thus an
interaction between educational and social processes. Natorp believed in
the model of Gemeinshaft (small community) in order to build universal
happiness and achieve true humanity. At the time, philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and Immanuel Kant
were preoccupied by the structure of society and how it may influence
human interrelations. Philosophers were not solely thinking of the child
as an individual but rather at what he/she can bring to creating human
togetherness and societal order.
Natorp's perspective was influenced by Plato's ideas about the relation between the individual and the city-state (polis). The polis
is a social and political structure of society that, according to
Plato, allows individuals to maximize their potential. It is strictly
structured with classes serving others and philosopher kings setting
universal laws and truths for all. Furthermore, Plato argued for the
need to pursue intellectual virtues rather than personal advancements
such as wealth and reputation. Natorp's interpretation of the concept of the polis
is that an individual will want to serve his/her community and state
after having been educated, as long as the education is social (SozialpÀdagogik).
Natorp focused on education for the working class as well as
social reform. His view of social pedagogy outlined that education is a
social process and social life is an educational process. Social
pedagogic practices are a deliberative and rational form of
socialization. Individuals become social human beings by being
socialized into society. Social pedagogy involves teachers and children
sharing the same social spaces.
Herman Nohl - Hermeneutic Perspective
Herman
Nohl (1879 - 1960) was a German pedagogue of the first half of the
twentieth century. He interpreted reality from a hermeneutical
perspective (methodological principles of interpretation) and tried to
expose the causes of social inequalities. According to Nohl, social
pedagogy's aim is to foster the wellbeing of student by integrating into
society youth initiatives, programs and efforts. Teachers should be
advocates for the welfare of their students and contribute to the social
transformations it entails. Nohl conceptualized a holistic educative
process that takes into account the historical, cultural, personal and
social contexts of any given situation.
Robert Sears - Social Learning
Robert Richardson Sears (1908 - 1989) focused his research mostly on the stimulus-response theory.
Much of his theoretical effort was expended on understanding the way
children come to internalize the values, attitudes, and behaviours of
the culture in which they are raised. Just like Albert Bandura, he
focused most of his research on aggression, but also on the growth of
resistance to temptation and guilt, and the acquisition of
culturally-approved sex-role behaviors. Sears wanted to prove the
importance of the place of parents in the child's education,
concentrating on features of parental behaviour that either facilitated
or hampered the process. Such features include both general relationship
variables such as parental warmth and permissiveness and specific
behaviours such as punishment in the form of love withdrawal and power
assertion.
Albert Bandura - Social Learning
Albert Bandura
advanced the social learning theory by including the individual and the
environment in the process of learning and imitating behaviour. In
other words, children and adults learn or change behaviours by imitating
behaviours observed in others. Albert Bandura mentions that the
environment plays an important role as it is the stimuli
that triggers the learning process. For example, according to Bandura
(1978), people learn aggressive behaviour through 3 sources: Family
members, community and mass media. Research shows that parent who prefer
aggressive solution to solve their problems tend to have children who
use aggressive tactics to deal with other people. Research also found
that communities in which fighting prowess are valued have a higher rate
of aggressive behaviour. Also, findings show that watching televisions
can have at least 4 different effect on people: 1) it teaches aggressive
style of conduct, 2) it alters restraints over aggressive behavior,3)
it desensitizes and habituate people to violence and 4) it shapes
people's image of reality.
The environment also allows people to learn through another person's
experience. For example, students don't cheat on exams (at least no
openly) because they know the consequences of it, even if they never
experienced the consequences themselves
However, still according to Banduras, the learning process does
not stop at the influence of the family, community and media, the
internal process (individual thoughts, values, etc.) will determine at
which frequency and which intensity an individual will imitate and adopt
a certain behaviour.
Indeed, parents plays an important role in a child's education for two
reasons: Firstly, because of the frequency and intensity of the
interactions and secondly because the children often admire their parent
and often take them as role models.
Therefore, even if the stimuli is the parents' interactions with their
children, if their child did not admire them, their children would not
reproduce their behaviour as often. That is the main difference between
early social learning theory and Bandura's point of view. This principle is called reciprocal determinism,
which means that the developmental process is bidirectional, and that
the individual has to value his environment in order to learn for it.
Bandura also states that this process starts at births; indeed,
research shows that infants are more receptive to certain experiences
and less to others.
Albert Bandura also says that most human behaviours are driven by
goals and that we regulate our behaviour through weighing the benefits
and the troubles that we can get into because of a particular behaviour.
Application in education and pedagogy
Social learning and social pedagogy has proven its efficiency with the application in practical professions, like nursing,
where the student can observe a trained professional in a
professional/work settings, and they can learn about nursing throughout
all its aspects: interactions, attitudes, co-working skills and the
nursing job itself. Students who have taken part in social learning
state that they increased their nursing skills, and that it could only
be possible with a good learning environment, a good mentor, and a
student who is assertive enough.
It means that social learning can be achieved with a good mentor, but
one needs to be a good listener too. This mentoring experience creates
what Albert Bandura called observational learning, when students observe
a well-trained model/teacher and the students's knowledge and
understanding increase.
Experiences in the field for student teachers are a good way to
show how social pedagogy and social learning contribute to one's
education. Indeed, field experiences are part of a student's life in
their route to their teaching degree. Field experiences are based on the
social learning theory; a student follows a teacher for some time, at
first observing the cooperating teacher and taking notes about the
teaching act. The second part of the field experience is actual
teaching, and receiving feedback from the role model and the students.
The student teachers try as much as they can to imitate what they have
learned by observing their cooperating teacher.
Cyberbullying
being an issue in schools, social pedagogy can be a solution to
decrease this trend. Indeed, the bullied pupil can build a relationship
with a particular mentor or role model, which in return can empower the
student to deal with issues such as cyberbullying.
This can work both on the victim and the bully, since both may lack
confidence and affection. Using social pedagogy instead of punishments
and reactive actions is also a way to derive from the traditional model
of raising children, and teaching, which relies on punishments and
rewards.
Parent education is also based on social learning. From birth,
children look at their parents and try to model what they do, how they
talk, and what they think. Of course, a child's environment is much
larger than only their familiar environment, but it is an influential
part. A study by Dubanoski and Tanabe,
was made on parenting and social learning, where parents had to attend
classes that would teach them social learning principles to improve
their children's behaviour. The classes taught the parents how to record
objectively their children's behaviour, and to deal with them by
teaching the correct behaviour, not by punishing the wrong one. A
significant number of parents improve their children behaviour by the
end of the study.
The issue of how long social learning takes is important for the
design of learning initiatives, teaching experiences and policy
interventions. The process of going beyond individual learning to a
broader understanding situated in a community of practice can take some
time to develop. A longitudinal case study in Australia looked at an environmental group concerned about land degradation.
The whole project was led by a local committee, Wallatin Wildlife and
Landcare. They wanted to "encourage social learning among landholders
through field visits, focus groups, and deliberative processes to
balance innovative 'thinking outside the box' with judicious use of
public funds".
They found that social learning was documented after approximately
fifteen months, but was initially restricted to an increased
understanding of the problem without improved knowledge to address it.
Further knowledge necessary to address the problem in focus emerged
during the third year of the program. This suggests that learning
initiatives could take around three years to develop sufficient new
knowledge embedded in a community of practice in order to address
complex problems.
Social media and technology
Benefits
Social
pedagogy is in fact the interaction between society and the individual,
which create a learning experience. Therefore, if talking about the
current development of social pedagogy and social learning, the recent
trend in term of learning in our society, is the use of social media
and other forms of technology. On one side, if well designed within an
educational framework, social media can surely help with the development
of certain essential skills:
Therefore, it can be seen that social media can be extremely useful
for developing some of the key skills needed in this digital age. For
instance, “the main feature of social media is that they empower the end
user to access, create, disseminate and share information easily in a
user-friendly, open environment".
By using social media, the learning experience becomes easier and more
accessible to all. By allowing social media in the pedagogical program
of our young students, it could help them to grow and fully participate
in our digital society.
With the growing use of technology and different social platform
in many aspects of our life, we can use social media at work and at home
as well as in schools. It can be seen that social media now enables
teachers to set online group work, based on cases or projects, and
students can collect data in the field, without any need for direct
face-to-face contact with either the teacher or other students.
Disadvantages
The
benefits of social media in education stipulate how easier the
communication between individuals becomes. However, others will argue
that it excludes the vital tacit knowledge that direct, face-to-face
interpersonal contact enables, and that social learning is bound up with
physical and spatial learning. Social learning includes sharing
experiences and working with others. Social media facilitates those
experiences but make it less effective by eliminating the physical
interaction between individuals. The more time students spend on social
sites, the less time they spend socializing in person. Because of the
lack of nonverbal cues, like tone and inflection, the use of social
media is not an adequate replacement for face-to-face communication.
Students who spend a great amount of time on social networking sites are
less effective at communicating in person.
With the omnipresence of technology in our life and the easy
access to unlimited source of information, the difference between using
technology as a tool and not as an end in itself needs to be understood.
A scatterplot in which the areas of the sovereign states and dependent territories in the world are plotted on the vertical axis against their populations
on the horizontal axis. The upper plot uses raw data. In the lower
plot, both the area and population data have been transformed using the
logarithm function.
In statistics, data transformation is the application of a deterministic mathematical function to each point in a data set—that is, each data point zi is replaced with the transformed value yi = f(zi), where f is a function. Transforms are usually applied so that the data appear to more closely meet the assumptions of a statistical inference procedure that is to be applied, or to improve the interpretability or appearance of graphs.
Nearly always, the function that is used to transform the data is invertible, and generally is continuous.
The transformation is usually applied to a collection of comparable
measurements. For example, if we are working with data on peoples'
incomes in some currency unit, it would be common to transform each person's income value by the logarithm function.
Motivation
Guidance
for how data should be transformed, or whether a transformation should
be applied at all, should come from the particular statistical analysis
to be performed. For example, a simple way to construct an approximate
95% confidence interval for the population mean is to take the sample mean plus or minus two standard error units. However, the constant factor 2 used here is particular to the normal distribution, and is only applicable if the sample mean varies approximately normally. The central limit theorem states that in many situations, the sample mean does vary normally if the sample size is reasonably large. However, if the population is substantially skewed
and the sample size is at most moderate, the approximation provided by
the central limit theorem can be poor, and the resulting confidence
interval will likely have the wrong coverage probability. Thus, when there is evidence of substantial skew in the data, it is common to transform the data to a symmetricdistributionefore constructing a confidence interval. If desired, the confidence
interval can then be transformed back to the original scale using the
inverse of the transformation that was applied to the data.
Data can also be transformed to make them easier to visualize.
For example, suppose we have a scatterplot in which the points are the
countries of the world, and the data values being plotted are the land
area and population of each country. If the plot is made using
untransformed data (e.g. square kilometers for area and the number of
people for population), most of the countries would be plotted in tight
cluster of points in the lower left corner of the graph. The few
countries with very large areas and/or populations would be spread
thinly around most of the graph's area. Simply rescaling units (e.g., to
thousand square kilometers, or to millions of people) will not change
this. However, following logarithmic transformations of both area and population, the points will be spread more uniformly in the graph.
Another reason for applying data transformation is to improve
interpretability, even if no formal statistical analysis or
visualization is to be performed. For example, suppose we are comparing
cars in terms of their fuel economy. These data are usually presented as
"kilometers per liter" or "miles per gallon". However, if the goal is
to assess how much additional fuel a person would use in one year when
driving one car compared to another, it is more natural to work with the
data transformed by applying the reciprocal function, yielding liters per kilometer, or gallons per mile.
Data transformation may be used as a remedial measure to make data suitable for modeling with linear regression if the original data violates one or more assumptions of linear regression. For example, the simplest linear regression models assume a linear relationship between the expected value of Y (the response variable to be predicted) and each independent variable
(when the other independent variables are held fixed). If linearity
fails to hold, even approximately, it is sometimes possible to transform
either the independent or dependent variables in the regression model
to improve the linearity. For example, addition of quadratic functions of the original independent variables may lead to a linear relationship with expected value of Y, resulting in a polynomial regression model, a special case of linear regression.
Another assumption of linear regression is homoscedasticity, that is the variance of errors must be the same regardless of the values of predictors. If this assumption is violated (i.e. if the data is heteroscedastic), it may be possible to find a transformation of Y alone, or transformations of both X (the predictor variables) and Y, such that the homoscedasticity assumption (in addition to the linearity assumption) holds true on the transformed variables and linear regression may therefore be applied on these.
Yet another application of data transformation is to address the problem of lack of normality in error terms. Univariate normality is not needed for least squares estimates of the regression parameters to be meaningful (see Gauss–Markov theorem). However confidence intervals and hypothesis tests will have better statistical properties if the variables exhibit multivariate normality.
Transformations that stabilize the variance of error terms (i.e. those
that address heteroscedaticity) often also help make the error terms
approximately normal.
Examples
Equation:
Meaning: A unit increase in X is associated with an average of b units increase in Y.
Equation:
(From exponentiating both sides of the equation: )
Meaning: A unit increase in X is associated with an average increase of b units in , or equivalently, Y increases on an average by a multiplicative factor of . For illustrative purposes, if base-10 logarithm were used instead of natural logarithm in the above transformation and the same symbols (a and b) are used to denote the regression coefficients, then a unit increase in X would lead to a times increase in Y on an average. If b were 1, then this implies a 10-fold increase in Y for a unit increase in X
Equation:
Meaning: A k-fold increase in X is associated with an average of units increase in Y. For illustrative purposes, if base-10 logarithm were used instead of natural logarithm in the above transformation and the same symbols (a and b) are used to denote the regression coefficients, then a tenfold increase in X would result in an average increase of units in Y
Equation:
(From exponentiating both sides of the equation: )
Meaning: A k-fold increase in X is associated with a multiplicative increase in Y on an average. Thus if X doubles, it would result in Y changing by a multiplicative factor of .
Alternative
Generalized linear models
(GLMs) provide a flexible generalization of ordinary linear regression
that allows for response variables that have error distribution models
other than a normal distribution. GLMs allow the linear model to be
related to the response variable via a link function and allow the
magnitude of the variance of each measurement to be a function of its
predicted value.
Common cases
The logarithm transformation and square root transformation are commonly used for positive data, and the multiplicative inverse transformation (reciprocal transformation) can be used for non-zero data. The power transformation
is a family of transformations parameterized by a non-negative value λ
that includes the logarithm, square root, and multiplicative inverse
transformations as special cases. To approach data transformation
systematically, it is possible to use statistical estimation
techniques to estimate the parameter λ in the power transformation,
thereby identifying the transformation that is approximately the most
appropriate in a given setting. Since the power transformation family
also includes the identity transformation, this approach can also
indicate whether it would be best to analyze the data without a
transformation. In regression analysis, this approach is known as the Box–Cox transformation.
The reciprocal transformation, some power transformations such as the Yeo–Johnson transformation, and certain other transformations such as applying the inverse hyperbolic sine, can be meaningfully applied to data that include both positive and negative values
(the power transformation is invertible over all real numbers if λ is
an odd integer). However, when both negative and positive values are
observed, it is sometimes common to begin by adding a constant to all
values, producing a set of non-negative data to which any power
transformation can be applied.
A common situation where a data transformation is applied is when a value of interest ranges over several orders of magnitude.
Many physical and social phenomena exhibit such behavior — incomes,
species populations, galaxy sizes, and rainfall volumes, to name a few.
Power transforms, and in particular the logarithm, can often be used to
induce symmetry in such data. The logarithm is often favored because it
is easy to interpret its result in terms of "fold changes."
The logarithm also has a useful effect on ratios. If we are comparing positive quantities X and Y using the ratio X / Y, then if X < Y, the ratio is in the interval (0,1), whereas if X > Y, the ratio is in the half-line (1,∞), where the ratio of 1 corresponds to equality. In an analysis where X and Y are treated symmetrically, the log-ratio log(X / Y) is zero in the case of equality, and it has the property that if X is K times greater than Y, the log-ratio is the equidistant from zero as in the situation where Y is K times greater than X (the log-ratios are log(K) and −log(K) in these two situations).
If values are naturally restricted to be in the range 0 to 1, not including the end-points, then a logit transformation may be appropriate: this yields values in the range (−∞,∞).
Transforming to normality
1.
It is not always necessary or desirable to transform a data set to
resemble a normal distribution. However, if symmetry or normality are
desired, they can often be induced through one of the power
transformations.
2. A linguistic power function is distributed according to the Zipf-Mandelbrot law. The distribution is extremely spiky and leptokurtic, this is the reason why researchers had to turn their backs to statistics to solve e.g. authorship attribution problems. Nevertheless, usage of Gaussian statistics is perfectly possible by applying data transformation.
3. To assess whether normality has been achieved after transformation, any of the standard normality tests may be used. A graphical approach is usually more informative than a formal statistical test and hence a normal quantile plot is commonly used to assess the fit of a data set to a normal population. Alternatively, rules of thumb based on the sample skewness and kurtosis have also been proposed.
Transforming to a uniform distribution or an arbitrary distribution
If we observe a set of n values X1, ..., Xn with no ties (i.e., there are n distinct values), we can replace Xi with the transformed value Yi = k, where k is defined such that Xi is the kth largest among all the X values. This is called the rank transform,[14] and creates data with a perfect fit to a uniform distribution. This approach has a population analogue.
From a uniform distribution, we can transform to any distribution with an invertible cumulative distribution function. If G is an invertible cumulative distribution function, and U is a uniformly distributed random variable, then the random variable G−1(U) has G as its cumulative distribution function.
Putting the two together, if X is any random variable, F is the invertible cumulative distribution function of X, and G is an invertible cumulative distribution function then the random variable G−1(F(X)) has G as its cumulative distribution function.
Many types of statistical data exhibit a "variance-on-mean relationship", meaning that the variability is different for data values with different expected values.
As an example, in comparing different populations in the world, the
variance of income tends to increase with mean income. If we consider a
number of small area units (e.g., counties in the United States) and
obtain the mean and variance of incomes within each county, it is common
that the counties with higher mean income also have higher variances.
Univariate
functions can be applied point-wise to multivariate data to modify
their marginal distributions. It is also possible to modify some
attributes of a multivariate distribution using an appropriately
constructed transformation. For example, when working with time series and other types of sequential data, it is common to difference the data to improve stationarity. If data generated by a random vector X are observed as vectors Xi of observations with covariance matrix Σ, a linear transformation can be used to decorrelate the data. To do this, the Cholesky decomposition is used to express Σ = AA'. Then the transformed vector Yi = A−1Xi has the identity matrix as its covariance matrix.
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