Social Analysis
Does our social background influence our life opportunities and chances? Or does it all depend on the individual? A large body of research evidence indicates that the circumstances in which a child grows up can have an enormous effect on later outcomes, in areas including education, income, employment and self-esteem. (Iacovou, 2003). What's more, despite the opportunities presented by educational, economic and social change, family origins continue to exert a strong influence on adult outcomes. Concepts such as a persons class, gender and ethnicity can have a great influence on the decsions people make in life and the oppprotunities that are presented to them. In order to help argue the case the discussion will refer to a documentary series, it started in 1964 as Seven Up, a memorable edition of Granada's World in Action, when a group of seven-year-olds were quizzed about their views on life and thoughts about the future. That original group was revisited every seven years, by director Michael Apted, to see how their lives and views had evolved.A class exists when a number of people have in common a specific casual component of their life chances in the following sense: this component is represented exclusively by ec
The concept on ethnicity refers to specific social and cultural attributes (such as language, religion, dress, food, music and beliefs and so on)and to the social and cultural boundary between two or more self-identifying collectives who claim a historical existance by reference to such attributes. For example, several societies have existed where social stratification has, to a greater or lesser extent, been based upon racism and the institutionalisation of racialism. The gendered educational experience which girls have received has also been likned to the gendered nature of their future positions in the labour market. Men and women are employed in different occupations and industries, women are concentrated to a much smaller group of jobs than men are and this therefore limits the ambitions from an early age and decreases their opportunities in the work place. Men continue to dominate in management, so even when women increase their presence in a particular occupation they may still fail to achieve their full potential. Generally, Marxists have encountered several theoretical problems when looking at the relationship between ethnicity and stratification, for the following reasons, in a stratified society, people are encouraged (through their experience in the world) to both look for and, in some circumstances create, status differences, since differences in status can be used as a social resource (it can "buy" income differences, etc). For example from the Seven Up series, take John, a boy who attended an exclusive school in London for boys who at a very young age was aware of the opportunities in education that were available to him for example attending Oxford and wanting to be a lawyer are very high ambitions and then take Susan who attended a coeducational public school and lived in a housing estate and mentioned that she would work in woolworths, this is not generally a very high ambition. More women are working in paid jobs yet they still appear to fare less well than men in terms of hours worked, pay received and the kinds of jobs that they undertake. In relation to our understanding of social stratification based on or around the concept of ethnicity, there are two main areas that we need to discuss: Firstly, those forms where biological characteristics (such as skin colour) are a determining characteristic of an individual's position in a stratification system.
Common topics in this essay:
Holborn Haralambos,
Twenty Eight,
Estate Tumin,
,
Jews Germany,
Van Krieken,
Michael Apted,
Private School,
Social Prestige,
Life-Style Particularly,
status differences,
maynard 1999,
grow poor,
miles 1999,
life chances,
class gender ethnicity,
gender ethnicity,
societies racism,
racialism practised,
societies racism racialism,
forms ethnic,
create status differences,
class gender,
racism racialism practised,
racialism practised legally,
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Acceptance Essays
