Interaction of Household Wealth and Women’s Working Status on Child Malnutrition: Evidence from PDHS-2013

Theoretically, it is supposed that women’s working status and household wealth independently contribute towards the children’s dietary status. The working women of the inferior socio-economic class are generally engaged in the informal sector or low paid work. It may be argued that such kinds of service cannot contribute to the nutritious prestige in children. To solve this puzzle whether woman's working status in all socio-economic setups is contributing to children’s nutritional status or not? This is the main focus of the research. A sample data of 1169 households from PDHS (2012-13) are used to explore the influencing factors of child malnutrition. The study employed the binary logistic regression which observes the likelihood of malnutrition in the children. Malnutrition is measured through CIAF. The interaction terms of the woman’s working status and five quintiles of wealth index have been created. The results disclose that working women belonging to the household of the first two quintiles of the wealth index and the fourth quintile of the wealth index are not contributing to the nutritious prestige of the children. Furthermore, in the third quintiles, the working status of women contributes to the nutritional prestige of children. It may be inferred that the socioeconomic status of the household is important for the nutritional welfare of the children, not the woman's employment. However, it may be concluded that women’s employment should be of the level that can support the socio-economic status of the household.

Exploring the Strategies Used by English Language Teachers to Teach Paragraph Writing Skill at Grade 4 in a Private School in Karachi

This qualitative study aimed at exploring the strategies used by English language teachers at primary level to teach paragraph writing skill in the context of Karachi, Pakistan. The data were gathered using semi-structured interviews, observations, document analysis and focus group discussions. Analysis of the data showed that paragraph writing is a challenging task for students. However, the teachers are trying their best to make paragraph writing easier by using a variety of teaching strategies. These strategies included brain storming, mind mapping, providing check list, vocabulary lists, reading for writing, using Venn-Diagrams, and modeling. The study participants revealed that professional development has helped them polish their teaching skills, particularly teaching writing skills. However, the participants stated that they faced some challenges on their way to teach paragraph writing like, lack of vocabulary, spelling and punctuation errors, mixed ability students in the class, gap between written and verbal expression of the students, and grammatical errors. These hindrances make writing a difficult task for students. The study also found that teachers opt for a strategy which was mentioned in their pacing guide. On the basis of the strategy mentioned in the pacing guide document, teachers develop their lesson plans. It was found that the students have a sound understanding about the paragraph, its structure and parts. They also try to jot down their ideas with the help of the strategy used by the teachers. However, for struggling students, paragraph writing is a challenging task. This study encourages teachers to find the factors that result in the low motivational level of students towards writing. Also the study suggests teachers to incorporate more innovative and mnemonic strategies for teaching paragraph writing such as the PLEASE strategy.