Forums

This semester, we have discussed many subjects that concern computers and applying it to our future classrooms to get the students involved. I personally believe that the forum we are doing right now is the thing to use. It is really simple and it is a great way to learn from others’ experiences. In the two forums I had to post this semester, that one is by far the most interesting and complete. We do not need to have quotations from other sources and such, which I believe make a forum boring. It is about anything and everything, about teaching and it helps a lot when we read about other people’s experiences.

If it is possible, in 2 years, I will use forums to have my students participate in the classroom evolution. What I am thinking about is to have them use it to write in English and read, but also to get their suggestions and read about what they would like to do and they like or don’t like about my courses. I want to discuss things they are interested about in my classrooms and I want them to evaluate their choices after we try their suggestions.

I believe forums are a great tool to discuss matters that would not be discussed face to face because one is shy or does not know how to say things. It goes out better when you have time to think about it. I don’t know if I will ever be good with installing things on computers and such, but I will surely try to set up such a thing if the occasion presents itself.

Open-source software

It is really hard for me to have an opinion about open-source software, because before my first computer class, I did not know anything about it. Since my usage of computers limits itself to university researches, emails, and some music downloading, I am not that aware of what is out there. Although, since I know what open-source software is, I can say that before that computer class I never used any, well I do not think I did. However, now I have some that we had to download to figure out what it is and how it works. What I have realized about that kind of software is that it is said to be as good, if not better than the software we can buy in the stores, because it is always updated my the community.

After reading the articles provided, I must say, that I agree with the idea that those software are great tools. They are as effective as the other software I had on my computer and so far, I did not have problems with it. However, it’s only been two weeks, so time will tell.

What I am thinking about regarding those tools is the money that schools put into computer software, and what money they could save by using the free ones. It’s obvious that a lot of money could be saved and put somewhere else.

What amazes me as well is that people are having fun repairing the bugs that the software encounter and from what I get, they are not all paid to do so. I guess it’s seen as practice just like any other field of study where you practice to get better without necessarily being paid.

So far, I do not see a reason not to be for that kind of computer tools, in particular, if the bugs are repaired more effectively than on the tools that we pay for.

Shared

In reaction to my ESL Computer Application teacher blog and the movies he presented in class, I must say I am shared (see Mark Miller’s blog). I believe that technology is important, but I am not a 100% fine with swearing by it as a way to teach.

The Internet is a really interesting source when it comes to researches and teaching. I believe nowadays, you can find everything on there, and it makes human kind in general so much more aware of what is out there, even if, as I go to my computer classes, I find out I don’t know that much about technology and especially the Internet. It is true to say that students spend an incredible amount of time reading “stuff” on there, my problem with it, and the video, is that emails or SMS are not perfect. What I mean is SMS and emails, or blog pages all contain errors and when students read those errors every day, it goes into their head as being okay to write or speak that way. That is one of the reason why, when studying to become a teacher, we spend so much time on grammar, analysing and writing texts, and even after all that practice, most of us still make mistakes once in a while. Now, if what they read is a teacher blog, where errors should not appear, using it to teach is totally fine with me. However, I am convinced that their friends’ blogs are not error free. They contain lots and lots of slang and errors and that is where I start being concerned about what is said in the video.

The part where I agree with the video and my teacher’s view is where it says teachers should use it more when they teach. I agree that instead of having my students do oral communications in front of the class, I could ask them to do a podcast every two weeks or so about the subject they want, they might be more interested in doing my assignment. It could also be used in the way that I produce a podcast and ask them to answer questions according to what they heard in the news and what I say on it. What I mean is that using that kind of technology to involve my students is interesting and is accessible to almost every body nowadays. Not to forget that technology is something that seems to interest boys a lot more, than sit in class and listen to the teacher, which could be a great way to get them involved a little more.

So as I said I am shared in that whole technology situation, although it is hard not to see what it does when your teacher teaches in the PROTIC school program.

Here is the address of one of the videos that we saw in class: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opjnLmwzV-E

Summary

This research is about the use of children in the American rural labour force, which is restricted, but in fact, is not enough to fully protect children against exploitation. Industries, such as the rural industry, benefit from the lack of strictness in the law system. Therefore, I decided to learn more about the consequences it has on children, and explore solutions that have been put forward by scholars, in order to fully protect American children in the rural labour force and stop the consequences it has on them physically and psychologically. My research will go through three aspects that have a negative influence on children when violated, which are the minimum age, work conditions and education and will be enhanced by some Quebec examples. I will examine the regulations concerning those three aspects and analyse the impact it has on children according to many scholars. Finally, my research will provide some ideas about how the themes should be restated in order to fully protect children in the rural American labour force.

Physical and Psychological Consequences of Using Children in the Rural American Labour Force

As I grew up in the rural area, I worked on the farm as did my parents. In Québec, many people participate when it comes to the work that has to be done, I do, and so do my cousins, my uncles and aunts, even the neighbours and their children. The rural community is a really tight community, and whenever someone needs help, there will be someone to help. Thinking about what I was doing to help on the farm, when I was a child, today really makes me wonder if it was really safe to do everything I did. Sitting on the tractor wing going from a field to another, standing in the bale wagon and pushing them on the bale stacker that brought them up in the barn, driving the ATV, going by myself to get the cows in the field, pushing the bales down the barn to feed the cows, taking care of the calves farm by myself, where they were raised, all of those activities related to help on the farm, did not seem to be dangerous, but in fact could have killed a careful adult. Therefore, what about a child that sees fun in helping on the farm? Moreover, for many children in the rural environment, working during haymaking season is their summer job, because they are too young to work anywhere else. In addition, because farmers need more staff during that time of the year, they hire younger children and pay them on the black market. In Canada, we have strict regulations about the minimum age for employment, and in them, industries are specified where there are specific amendments. However, not all children are protected as they are here when it comes to working on farms. Actually, “of nearly 250 million children engaged in child labor around the world, the vast majority- 70 percent, or some 170 million-are working in agriculture” (Abusive Child Labor) and are exposed to extremely dangerous working conditions. Moreover, I found out that even though it is regulated, child labour on farms is spread in developed countries as well as in the Third World countries. As a result, this research will examine and analyse the situation and conditions of working children in the agricultural labour force of the United States, to find what social progress has to be made in order to protect children against any form of exploitation or harmful labour enhanced with examples from Quebec situations, which may have negative physical or psychological consequences on them.

First of all, there is, in the United States, a minimum age standard for employment on the federal level. On the non-agricultural employment federal level, the minimum age standard for non-hazardous work is 14-years-old, except for some jobs, such as newspaper delivery. As for hazardous work, the minimum age set is 18-years-old (Child Labor Bulletin 101 3). As stated in the Child Labour Bulletin 101 and 102 “[t]hese provisions were enacted to ensure that when young people work, the work is safe and does not jeopardize their health, well-being or educational opportunities” (1). However, even though both the bulletins state the same preoccupation, the laws concerning the minimum age standard changes when it comes to agricultural employment.
As reported in the Child Labor Bulletin 102, the minimum age standard set on the federal level to work is 10-years-old. Nevertheless, it is also specified that a child of any age may be employed at any time by their parents if the farm is theirs. Then, when working on a farm, 10 and 11-years-old only need parental consent. As for 12 and 13-years-old, they can work on any farm with parental consent. Finally, for 14 and 15-years-old, there are no restrictions concerning non-hazardous work, whereas, the minimum age standard for hazardous work (See appendix 1) on farms is 16-years-old (3). Why is it this way? Is it less dangerous to operate a tractor in the field than operate any other machine? Is it less dangerous to pickup fruits in the field than deliver newspapers?
The answer is no, it is not less dangerous, hazardous means hazardous, no matter in what field of industry it takes place. As a matter of fact, Lois Whitman, executive director of the children’s rights division rights watch says that “farm work is the most dangerous work open to children in this country”, talking about the United States (Abusive Child Labor). Moreover, Lee Tucker, author of the report Fingers to the Bone, states that a “twelve-year-old can work on a farm, but is not allowed to work in a fast-food restaurant”, and believes that “there is no good reason to have such a double standard” (Abusive Child Labor).As an example taken from Tucker’s report (33), “[i]n a Florida orange grove in January 1999, two young farm workers fell off the tailgate of a moving pickup truck. Several crates of oranges fell on top of them, killing one of the boys and wounding the other. […] The accident occurred on a school day”.
One may think that because some children have their parents consent or work with them, they are protected from injuries, but the facts may prove one wrong. In a research done on children working on family farms in the United States, it was found that the parents are more likely to let their children do hazardous work, like driving tractors at a really young age, because they do not really feel the danger of it. Instead, they believe that their children by working on family farms will “learn responsibilities, work ethics, skills, and how to solve problems” (Kim, et al. 164). In the same manner, psychologists suggest that children are more likely to develop moral and financial responsibility through family interaction rather than through work experiences outside the home because the family is still the primary place for child development (Kim, et al. 165), therefore working on the family farm might be beneficial, but at what cost? As an example, being children rose on a family farm in Quebec, my cousins were allowed to drive the tractors from the field to the house. One might think it is not dangerous, because there are roads, but the reality is that a child can lose control of the tractor and make it fall on its side and being severely injured from it. One of them broke his leg, because his 15-years-old brother lost control and he felt down. Moreover, it is illegal to let a child drive without a license, here and in the United States as well.
Meanwhile, in the United States, children are employed at any age, as the law allows it, on commercial farms where their parents work. Furthermore, the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs reported to the federal Fair Standard Labor Act that children as young as 6 years old were working in the fields (GA0 17). These kinds of violations of the minimum age standard may have direct impact on children in many ways, such as health problems related to pesticide exposure or farm accidents, such as tractor rollovers (David, and Leonard 9). Moreover, these children are brought to work in the fields for many reasons, but most of all, because of the poverty in their family (Tucker 12). To sum up, the minimum age for employment in the agricultural labour force should be the same than in any other area of employment for the benefits of the children that are mainly physically injured from working on U.S. farms.

Second of all, work conditions are really important in the respect of a country’s workers, and it makes sure that every worker is treated with the minimum requirements regarding the quality of the environment in which they work. In the agricultural labour force, however, those requirements are most of the time not respected by employers, and children are the most vulnerable when it comes to these abuses. Work conditions in the United States for children are various, among them a maximum of hours worked during school days is stated, the respect of the minimum wage, health and safety facilities, protection against hazardous work conditions and so on.
For starters, the maximum hours allowed of work during a school day, which has a major impact on school attendance, differs, in the same manner as the minimum age, when it comes to the agricultural employment. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) states that a child, aged fourteen or fifteen, who works in the non-agricultural settings, can work for limited hours outside of school. According to The Child Bulletion 101, they are allowed to work a maximum of three hours during a school day, eight hours during a school week, eight hours on a non-school day and forty hours on a non-school week. Moreover, they are not allowed to work before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m. (3). Whereas, concerning children working in the agricultural labour force, the FSLA is less protective. It is said, in the Child Labor Bulletin 102 that a child younger than twelve can work unlimited hours if he works on a small farm with his parent’s consent. It is the same thing for children between twelve and thirteen, except that they can work on any farm. Plus, children aged fourteen or more, can work unlimited hours without their parent’s consent required (3). This shows that there are no limits to the hours a child is allowed to work during a school day or a school week in the agricultural labour force. As an example, it is easy to say that a fourteen year old little girl could work from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m., then spend her day in school, and go back to work in the field from when the school finishes to 8 p.m.. That kind of situations faced by many children is known to increase the risk of physical injuries that occur because of the state of tiredness they are in. In addition, as reported in Protecting Children at Work a study has shown the relation between work stress and depression. Moreover, the increase “of problem behavior, such as alcohol and other drug use and minor delinquency among young people who work […] at high intensity[,] in comparison with their nonworking peers” (131-132).
Furthermore, there is health and safety risk norms to be taken into consideration and these norms are not often implemented by the employers. Children working on farms are exposed on a daily basis to really dangerous work conditions, such as exposure carcinogenic pesticides, unsanitary conditions, heat-related illnesses, and hazardous equipment (Tucker 16).
When it comes to pesticide exposure, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established the restricted entry intervals, which consist in the minimum time a field worker must be kept away when pesticides are applied, usually between 4 and 72 hours depending on the product used (Hock 2), with a 154-pound male in mind (GAO 19). Therefore, “children are at greater risk from pesticide exposure than most adults, because, pound for pound of body weight, children breathe more and eat more. They also have more hand-to-mouth contact than adults” (GAO 3). Moreover, when in contact with pesticides, employers are supposed to provide the field workers with personal protective equipment (Hock 3) (See appendix 2). On the contrary, according to the GAO, “[y]oung children may not wear clothing that protects them from [pesticide] exposure” (17), when in the field as would their parents. Moreover, among the thousands of pesticides used in US fields registered to the EPA, three hundred and fifty are registered to be used on food crops, and according to Gina M. Solomon and Lawrie Motts, authors of the report Trouble on the Farm “101 are probable or possible human carcinogen” (chap 1). In consequence, children are highly exposed to dangerous health problems when in contact in any way with pesticides, be it from drinking in irrigation canals, eating with dirty hands, or consuming contaminated fruits or vegetables. The immediate repercussions to acute pesticide poisoning often occurred when in contact with some common organophosphates (See appendix 3) include “blurred vision, salivation, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting wheezing, and sometimes seizures, coma, and death”. As for the long term exposure, the repercussions may include “lasting effects on attention span, intelligence, and behavior, […] increase risk for cancers of the lymphatics and blood, stomach, prostate, testes, brain, and soft tissues”, and may “interfere with hormonal function” (Solomon, and Motts chap 1).
Another problem, when it comes to agricultural work, is the sanitation conditions, which consists in providing drinking water and water for hand washing and toilet facilities. These conditions are imposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) (See appendix 4). Farm-workers are exposed to high temperatures, and working under those conditions can be extremely hard for the body, therefore, without adequate quantity of fluids and rest, the workers are exposed to dehydration and heat-illness that can result in death. Tucker (26) in his report states that “the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency recommend that workers labouring under hot weather conditions drink a minimum of eight once of water every half-hour. Moreover, this norm increases as the weather conditions change. As for the federal and state laws, they require the employers to provide two or three gallons of water per hot day per employee. But, even though, these conditions are stated by the OSHA, many farms do not provide their employees with the water they need. In fact, in Quebec, strawberry field workers do have access to water, but it is not brought to them in the field. Therefore, depending on how far workers will be from the water supply, they might not get enough drink. Most of the time, field workers bring their own water.
So, if workers do not get enough drinking water, what are the toilet facilities and hand washing conditions like? Most of the children interviewed for the report Fingers to the Bone say that they never had access to toilet facilities: “Portapotty? No. Every place I’ve ever been, you just take tissue paper and find a whole” says a child, and “They are too nasty to use” says another (Tucker 23). In fact the lack of “toilet facilities is unsanitary and contributes to the spread of parasitic infection among workers”, says Tucker (24). The same goes with hand washing facilities. The Worker Protection Standard, states that in order to protect the workers, and employer should provide “soap, single use towels, and water” (Hock 3). Furthermore, as, in most of the cases, they are unable to wash their hands with soap, the children farm workers are exposed to higher risks of pesticide poisoning (Tucker 25). Why children’s working conditions in an industrialised country are poorly respected, and why are authorities not doing much to get the farm owners to respect them?

The last but far from being the less important, education is to be seriously taken into consideration when it comes to child development and is definitely injured, so to speak, when talking about children working on U. S. farms.
In the Unites States, children are required to attend school until age 16-18, and to start around age 5-7 (Education in the United States) depending on the state law (See appendix 5). However, children that work on farms do not, for most of them, attend school between those ages, because they work too many hours and are incapable of keeping up with the school work and the farm work. In fact, the national dropout rate for farm worker is 45 percent (Tucker 48). There are also many factors that contribute to the lack of educational attainment, as illustrated throughout this paper, when it comes to children farm workers, such as poverty, working too many hours and family’s frequent moves.
The fact that many farm worker families are poor and constantly mobile makes it hard for children to finish their education. In fact, “children who move often are two and a half more likely to need to repeat a grade than children who do not move” (4). Consequently, the repercussions are important. Those frequent moves interrupt their learning and also make it difficult for them to adapt socially to the school environment, and it makes it really hard for teachers to teach effectively. According to the National Center for Farmworker Health, changing schools is hard emotionally on children, who are more likely to drop out if they change schools four or more times (4).
Moreover, extreme poverty faced by some of those families, mean that school is not an option. They do not have money to pay for books, shoes or clothes, or simply, the children need to work because their family needs the little money they can earn. Amelia Lopez, outreach worker of the Department of Economic Security, said in an interview for Human Right Watch that “a lot of kids don’t go to school anymore, they [the parents not putting their kids to school] never get caught, because they more around” (49).
Furthermore, according to the web site stopchildlabor.com, a study had shown that it is a good experience for a child, which is allowed to work, to do so up to 15 hours per school week. However, the study also shows that, when a child work more than 15 hours per school week, behaviour such as “negative work attitude surface, autonomy from parents increases and family interaction decreases, and drug and alcohol abuse escalate”. In addition, they add that those negative effects increase as work hours exceed 20 hours per school week. In addition, children engage in that intensive work (20 hours or more) generally do not get enough sleep. In result, according to the report Protecting Youth at Work “students who work more than 20 hours per week report more symptoms of daytime sleepiness, including tendencies to arrive at school late because of oversleeping and to have difficulty staying awake in school” (97). Also, it is stated that “excessive sleepiness is associated with performance lapses and failures, which can interfere with learning” (97). They even associate tiredness of children to play a role in the injury rate of adolescents and in increasing their vulnerability (97).
Some would say that it is different in Quebec, but as a matter of fact, it really is not. In my background of farm labour, my parents dropped out of school around the age of 15 years old to help their parents on the farm, so did their neighbours’ children this year. They dropped out of school because they could not keep up with helping their parents, doing their homework and go to school. Moreover, they are born in the same generation than I am, and went to school with the exact same laws than I did, which states that children here should attend school from age 6 up to 16 or until they finish high school and get their DES (Diploma of high school studies) and it did not stop their parents from allowing them to drop out, and the reason is the same as in the United States, they need their help. However, why is it that money passes before the education, the safety and health of those children? Why is it that the government does not improve its regulations regarding child labour in the agricultural labour force to protect its future citizens?

There is a social progress that has to be made in order to fully protect the American children, and it is all linked together with education, working conditions, and the minimum age standard.
First, in regards with the minimum age standard, there is a serious improvement that could be made. As suggested by Tucker, the minimum age standard to work in agriculture should be changed to thirteen years old, except for children working on family farms. However, it should not be allowed on family farms either, because as proven by Kim, Zepeda, and Kantor, children on family farms are allowed at a younger age by their parents to do hazardous work. It is also suggested to raise the minimum age to hazardous work to eighteen years old, like in non agricultural labour force, since agriculture in this paper, has proven to be as, if not, more dangerous than working in a restaurant, for example.
In relation with the minimum age standard, it is also suggested that in education, children should be forbidden to work in the farms before school hours aged fifteen and younger, in order to ensure their presence of mind in class. This would be a way for children to enjoy school more, and hold on to it, which might by consequence lower the rate of dropout. Moreover, Tucker suggests that the hours a child of fourteen or fifteen years old is allowed to work during a school day or week should be put up to the same standards than in non-agricultural occupations, which could be even stricter, because physical work on a farm is tiring for a child in his growth period, which is the period in their life where they need more rest.
Moreover, there is clearly an improvement that can be made in the educational need of the rural community. There are ways to interest children to school, and there is a certain education that parents should be provided with, to show them the necessity for their children to get a decent education. Furthermore, teachers in the rural community, that are aware of the high dropout rate, should address the authorities, when a child does not come to school for more than two days in a row and that cannot provide the school with medical reasons. Also, if a child is leaving school or entering a new school when the harvest season finishes or begin, a follow up with both schools should be made, in order to make sure that it is less easy for families to bring their children from one place to another.
The part that is the most important to change, is the application of the working conditions. They already exist, but for some reason, agricultural employers do not follow them. This cannot be made without more inspectors. This is the first thing that should be improved. There is a serious need for more inspectors, or at least more unannounced inspections, because right now, there are not any, and this costs lives. Moreover, the responsibility of the conditions the workers live in should be on both, the farm contractors’ and the farms owners’. It is illogical that someone that owns a farm does not have any responsibility regarding the kind of conditions his employees are working with on a daily basis and that the law actually grants them from it. In the case of the work conditions, the key of it really are unannounced inspections. By implanting that king of visits to farms, the government would be able to catch every farm that does not respect the law. Children underage (under the minimum age standard) would have to return to school. By inspecting more often, if sanitation conditions are not respected authorities would know if farm workers are in the field too soon after pesticide appliance, and so on. In relation with those inspections, fines would be given, both to the owner, for not verifying the work of the farm labour contractor, and the farm labour contractor. Furthermore, models for the exposure to pesticides should be revised, in order to protect children from chemicals that can cause them serious illnesses, even though it would be illegal. Moreover, since certain pesticides are classified as being hazardous work conditions, the age to which children can handle these should be increased to eighteen years old, the same as the minimum age for hazardous work.

In conclusion, child labour in the United States is an important social problem. Things have to be changed and improved, and if the government does so, its future citizens will be healthy and educated. Putting money in the future, for certain countries, is really hard to see as beneficial, but the fact is that everything a civilization has passes through education, and by educating the rural area, the dropout rate will go lower, and the literacy rate will go higher, and the country will become more intelligent and productive.




Works cited

“Abusive Child Labor Found in U.S. Agriculture.” hrw.org. 21 February 2007 .

David, Shelley, and James B. Leonard. The Ones the Law Forgot: Children Working in Agriculture. Washington, D.C.: Farmworker Justice Fund, Inc, 2000. 12 April 2007 .

“Education in the United States.” Wikipedia.org. 18 April 2007. 10 March 2007 .

Hock, Winand K. EPA Worker Protection Standard for Agricultural Pesticides. The Pennsylvania State University: 1996. 12 April 2007 FreePubs/pdfs/uo204.pdf>.

“Impact on education.” stopchildlabor.com. 2 April 2007 .

Infoplease.com. 2007. 10 March 2007 .

Kim, Jongsoog, Lydia Zepeda, and Paula Kantor. “Child Labor Supply on US Family Farms: An Interdisciplinary Conceptualization.” Journal of Family and Economic Issues. 26 (2005): 160-173. 31 January 2007 content/j0231870224550x3/>.

National Center for Farmworker Health, Inc. Overview of America’s Farmworkers. 2002. 29 March 2007 .

National Research Council. Protecting Youth at Work. 1998. 22 March 2007 ://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309064139>.

Quebec Government. Commission des Normes du Travail. 24 June 2004. 22 March 2007 .

Solomon, Gina M., and Lawrie Motts. “Trouble on the Farm.” 1998. Natural Resources Defence Council. 22 March 2007 farminx.asp>.

Tucker, Lee. Fingers to the Bone. Ed. Human Rights Watch. 2000. 21 February 2007 .

United States General Accounting Office. Improvements Needed to Ensure the Safety of Farmworkers and Their Children. March 2000. 22 March 2007 < http://www.
gao.gov/new.items/rc00040.pdf>.

United States Department of Labor. Field Sanitation. - 1928.110. 1 May 1987. 22 March 2007 < http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=
STANDARDS&p_id=10959>.

United States Department of Labor. The Child Labor Bulletin 101. February 2005. 22 March 2007 < http://www.osha.gov/pls/epub/wageindex.download?p
_file=F11420/wh1330.pdf>.

United States Department of Labor. The Child Labor Bulletin 102. May 2004. 22 March 2007 .

“What is Child Labor?” Continuetolearn.com. 2000. February 21 2007 history.html>.

Physical and Psychological Consequences of Using Children in the Rural American Labour Force

This research will examine and analyse the situation and conditions of working children in the agricultural labour force of the United States, to find what social progress has to be made in order to protect children against any form of exploitation or harmful labour, which may have negative physical or psychological consequences on them.

I. Minimum Age
A. Laws about minimum age
1. General labour force
2. Agricultural labour force
3. Hazardous work
B. Minimum age violation
1. Family farms
2. Other farms
3. Quebec example
C. Consequences
II. Work conditions
A. Hours of work on a school day
1. General labour force
2. Agricultural labour force
3. Consequences on children
B. The minimum wage
1. Agricultural labour force
2. Farms contractors and farm owners
3. Quebec example
C. Health and safety risks
1. Pesticides
2. Sanitation
III. Education
A. Attendance to school
B. Poverty
IV. Social progress
A. Regulations regarding education
B. Regulations regarding work conditions
C. Regulations regarding minimum age

Thesis Statement and Outline

This research will examine and analyse the situation and conditions of working children in the agricultural labour force of the United States, to find what social progress has to be made in order to protect children against any form of exploitation or harmful labour enhanced with examples from Quebec situations, which may have negative physical or psychological consequences on them.

I. Minimum Age Standard

A. Federal standard
1. Non-agricultural employment
2. Agricultural Employment
3. Hazardous work

B. Federal standard violation consequences
1. On family farms
2. On commercial farms

II. Work conditions

A. Hours of work on a school day
1. Non-agricultural employment
2. Agricultural employment
3. Consequences on children

B. Health and safety risks
1. Pesticides exposure and consequences
2. Sanitation requirements and violations

III. Education

A. Compulsory school attendance

B. Poverty, constant move and long hours of work consequences

IV. Social progress

A. Regulations and improvements regarding the minimum age standard

B. Regulations and improvements regarding education

C. Regulations and improvements regarding the work conditions

Appendix 1: Hazardous occupations
Appendix 2: Personal protective equipment requirements to handle pesticides
Appendix 3: Organophosphate pesticides
Appendix 4: Field sanitation requirements
Appendix 5: Compulsory school attendance