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Standards can be classified into ways.
- Quantitative standards
- Qualitative standards
Quantitative standards are objective and can be measured through linear, value and marks measurements. Quantitative standard is uppermost when it is descried in terms of amount command ties services.
The most recognized quantitative standard of a household resource, after money, is that of food. Food needs of individuals are expressed in number of calories furnished by different foodstuffs and in weights of different components of the diet, such as grams of protein.
Scientific standards are based on fact or research data. Walker stated that scientific standards involve specific quantities- such as the quantities of specific nutrients included in nutritional standards relating to health. Research has also been applied to safety in housing; standards regarding wiring, air conditioning, or strength needed in materials for construction are examples of some of these safety standards.
Quality refers to the character or essence of something evaluated subjectively and is usually expressed in terms of degree or range.The qualitative standards are subjective and can be described only in words. Qualitative standards are uppermost when it is defined interims of the satisfactions related to the values that are to be attained from the commodities services. Qualitative standards are intangible, descriptive, and subjective and can not be accurately divided in to subgroups.
To indicate relative desirability and importance of a descriptive standard, comparative words are used such as “much” “some what,” “little,” or “high” and “low.” Standards may be set with a range of acceptability on a continuum with both ends unacceptable. Acceptability means that there is satisfaction in reaching the standard.
Example: We might say that a person who stands to greet others entering a room and who exhibits exceptionally refined manners holds high standards in comparison to others. This distinction in quality between high and low or between good and bad is relative, unless the contrast is quite sharp, as in the distinction between beauty and ugliness.
II. Conventional and Non conventional standards:
Conventional standards are those that are traditional and are accepted by the society at large or in the social group. These are established and relatively fired in any given society it particularly point of time. Conventional standards are fixed at a given time through liable to change when conditions change.
Ex: respecting elders – bowing head to elders.
-Behavior of daughter in-law towards her in-laws.
Non-conventional standards tend to be flexible. They are adopted to suit a given situation. These are not widely accepted by the community. But for convenience or due to resource restriction. One might adopt flexible standards. Flexible standards allow people to adjust procedures or conduct to existing situations. Acceptance of flexible standards gives greater freedom of choice and life is likely to be more relaxed, relations less strained, and anxieties less apparent. Adjusting housekeeping standards to changing conditions in family life illustrates the worth of flexible standards.
People may have conventional /rigid standards in some aspects of their lives and homes and flexible standards in others because of value and the situations people encounter. For instance, a woman or man who is style conscious and must dress impressabally and in high fashion in public, maintains rigid standard in public life. But if the same person is satisfied to dress less well, even carelessly, at home, he or she maintains a flexible standard in private. Flexibility is relatively common but not always recognized. The characteristics of the situational is linked with flexibility these standards are dynamic in nature.
Ex: night dressing pattern, serving food to family members etc.
Choosing either a conventional or a non conventional standard is based on their convenience and availability of resources. It is also dependent on its relation to fundamental values and goals held, its effects on the individual and group, the cost in the use of available resources like money, time, energy the knowledge etc. and the amount of satisfaction it brings.
III. Degree of Flexibility (Flexible and Rigid):
Fixedness or flexibility shows a degree, varying from rigid, through less rigid, to flexible. Fixedness of standards varies and depends upon place and time. They are consciously adopted to suit a given situation. The difference in the standards of a wife's behaviour towards her husband in India or in the United States and the behaviour of the children in the pioneer days or the modern urban days are the examples of variation of fixedness in their behaviour pattern in place and time.
Rigid standards are often associated with social or religious customs and rites, and are therefore imposed on the family by a social or a religious group to which they belong, while flexible standards are those that allow us to adjust our procedure or content according to the demands of the existing conditions. Acceptance of flexible standards gives greater freedom of choice, and life is likely to be more relaxed, relations less strained and anxieties less apparent.
IV. Quality (High and Low):
Quality is more easily understood than other classes of standards, as it IS usually what we mean when we speak of the standards of another person, or of ourselves, or of \.I. a community. Quality can be defined as mental pictures of what is considered necessary to make life tolerable. Quality refers to the character or essence of something evaluated subjectively and is usually expressed in terms of degree or range.
Standards may be considered high or ow, good or bad, correct or incorrect, objective or subjective. For example, we may say that a homemaker who wears well laundered and ironed clothes all lfie time, maintains a high standard, whereas the one who wears the same dress two or three times without laundering or ironing maintains a low one. Therefore, we consider or rate the standards followed by these homemakers as high or low in terms of their quality.
V. Person Who Holds them (Individual and Family):
Standards can be classified according to the person who holds them i.e. an Individual or personal standards and family standards. Personal standard is held by an individual i.e. they are important to a particular person, whereas, family standards are reflective of standards of an entire family as a unit. In a family, standards act as demand on the group by all or a part of it, or from outside by some segment of the social group. They are dynamic because they direct the move or make the individual and the group to take action.
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