Sociology Paper 2 Section B

Weber - Weberian Views

Class Party and Status make up a person’s ‘market position’, differences = inequalities.

Parkin - Weberian views

Ethnic minorities face class and status inequality (ethnic and w/c inequality).

Barron and Norris - Weberian views

‘Dual-labour market theory’, High status sector = white males, Low status sector = Ethnic minorities and women. Linking to high/low status and class.

Harriet Bradley - Weberian views

Against Barron and Norris - They fail to explain inequality that exists within the same sector (i.e. men/women work in different spaces, i.e. teaching is majority female but men are more likely to gain senior positions).

Bourdieu - Weberian views

Capitalist culture values high culture above any other. W/c are priced out of accumulating cultural capital because its too expensive.

Marx - Class/Income inequality

Society is structured to create inequality between bourgeoisie and proletariat.

ONS - Class/Income inequality

Top ⅕ of society own 36% of disposable income in UK, while bottom ⅕ own 8%.

Wilkinson and Pickett - Class/Income inequality

11 problems linked to income inequality including: mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, social mobility.

New Right - Class/Income inequality

Against even distribution of wealth - it would mean high government involvement, dependency of people on the government, less motivation to innovate.

Laslett - Long-Term impacts of Childhood Poverty

Childhood is a stage of dependency - they have lack of control over their own situation, so victim of poverty cannot do anything about it

Greg J Duncan - Long-Term impacts of Childhood Poverty

Economist, findings: trends in completed schooling and non-married childbearing are directly related to parental income during childhood. Family economic positions have the greatest impact on achievement, especially on those with low incomes.

Charles Murray - Long-Term impacts of Childhood Poverty

Underclass - ‘criminal underclass’ is a product of lone-parent families due to lack of positive male role-models.

Chapman et al - Social class and Education

At all stages of education, students of w/c backgrounds achieve less than m/c children.

Bourdieu - Social Class and Education

Teachers favour middle/upper class students and give them more support, w/c children are more likely to be placed in lower sets.

Sutton trust - Social Class and Education

An education charity which is focused on improving social mobility in the UK - found: more ‘underprivileged but bright’ girls/boys underperform than boys/girls from better-off homes.

Conor et al - Social Class and Education

W/C students are less likely to attend university.

Sugarman - Social Class and Education

Blue collar work reaches its earning capacity sooner.

Marshall - Social Class and Education

W/C office employees are living middle-class lives, suggesting social mobility is happening.

‘Women on boards’ Review - Gender, education and unemployment

Almost half of FTSE 250 lacked a woman on their board of directors.

The Fawcett Society - Gender, education and unemployment

Argues the gender pay gap is caused by a combination of: motherhood penalty, vertical segregation and outright discrimination.

Mitsos and Brown - Gender, education and unemployment

‘Feminisation of education’ - Girls have more positive role models in schools, homework/coursework is suited to girls as they tend to be more organised and mature, boys lack motivation through a perceived lack of opportunities after school.

Mona Badie - Gender, education and unemployment

Parents are more influential on girls than boys in terms of what subjects or careers they pursue - Girls are encouraged into pursuing industries like health and beauty but discouraged from following STEM subjects.

Paul Willis - Gender, education and unemployment

‘Learning to labour’ - focused on ‘lads’ in school, found that education was something to get through and joking would pass the time, it was cool to fail, shows education as an unsuccessful agent of socialisation opposing Bowles and Gintis.

Do Mar Pereira - Gender, education and unemployment

Children internalise what is masculine and what is feminine by the age of 14, they police their own behaviour based on these standards. “Girls are less intelligent” and “Boys are dominant”.

Hillary Graham - Gender, education and unemployment

Women have higher rates of illness than men, in terms of chronic long-term sickness, disability and mental illness.

Jessie Bernard - Gender, education and unemployment

Evidence suggests married women experience worse health than married men and single women.

Duncombe and Marsden - Gender, education and unemployment

Triple Shift Theory

Mulvey - Gender in the Media

The male gaze - media is created for the male gaze, a key aspect of which is sexualisation of women. Women are the spectacle and depicted without autonomy.

Martha Nussbaum - Gender in the Media

Instrumentality - treating somebody as a tool/something to be used.

Oakley - Gender in the Media

Cereal box family - the media pressures women to fit into the conventional family.

Luckmann - Gender in the Media

Media is the new religion - It is how we understand the world around us and our place in it.

Foucault - Gender in the Media

Normalisation is a feature of oppression, i.e. mentally ill are locked away and we’re told surveillance is there for our safety.

Baudrillard - Gender in the Media

‘Prosumers’ - the divide between consumers and producers has been blurred, we are now both, created hyperreality.

Jan Van Dijk - Gender in the Media

Much of online life is based on images, we make our identities for others to consume.

Burger and Luckmann - Gender in the Media

Beauty standards are a social construct - they’re relative to time and location and are a learned behaviour.

Sandman - Gender in the Media

Female criminals are judged based on appearance more than male criminals, through the tone of their coverage i.e. attractive = ‘mystery woman’, unattractive = ‘vile’.

ONS Census - Ethnicity, Educationd and Employment

minority groups in the UK - ethnic minorities

Dyer - Ethnicity, Educationd and Employment

Matter of whiteness

Simone DBV - Ethnicity, Educationd and Employment

The othering of women from Religion

Parkin - Ethnicity, Educationd and Employment

Ethnic minorities face status and class inequality.

Rex and Tomlinson - Ethnicity, Educationd and Employment

‘Black underclass’

Barron and Norris - Ethnicity, Educationd and Employment

Dual labour market theory

ONS Unemployment Stats - Ethnicity, Education and Employment

Ethnic minorities have consistently had higher unemployment rates and are especially impacted in times of crisis.

Jenkins - Ethnicity, Education and Employment

Racism and recruitment - black workers face several barriers in the labour market:

1. Straightforward discrimination

2. Organisational politics (workplace cultures)

3. Stereotypes about ethnic minorities

4. Informal ‘word of mouth’ recruitment shuts out black workers.

Granovetter - Ethnicity, Education and Employment

The strength of weak ties.

Aldridge - Ethnicity, Education and Employment

Ethnic minority groups are behind the white majority in terms of social mobility. First generation immigrants overwhelmingly face downward social mobility.

Modood - Ethnicity, Education and Employment

Chinese and Indian students have higher cultural capital than their white classmates.

ONS Ethnicity and Acceptance to University - Ethnicity, Education and Employment

Chinese students consistently most accepted to higher education, white students are lowest.

Parliament Statistics - Ethnicity’s impact on Wider Social Life

Disproportionate representation in prisons, overrepresentation of black or black british population and underrepresentation of white pop.

Graham and Bowling - Ethnicity’s impact on Wider Social Life

Self-report studies on 14-25 year-olds found that Black and White participants had similar crime rates: black 43% and white 44%.

The Lammy Review - Ethnicity’s impact on Wider Social Life

Review of the treatment of ethnic minorities in the criminal justice system, found:

1. Ineffective record keeping in the CJS.

2. Differences in charging and prosecuting.

3. Poorer conditions for BAME people in prisons.

     The prison population of muslims doubled in ten years, the prison system records religion but the CJS does not, making it hard to identify why the muslim prison population is increasing.

Institutional Racism - Ethnicity’s impact on Wider Social Life

Institutions like the police and CJS are organised in a way which harms ethnic minorities

Stephen Lawrence - Ethnicity’s impact on Wider Social Life

Case study, his murder brought the concept of institutional racism to mainstream attention.

Weber - Ethnicity’s impact on Wider Social Life

 Bureaucratic theory - A system based on roles and rules, without individual input. This could explain institutional racism as roles/rules create unfair treatment.

Baroness Casey Review - Ethnicity’s impact on Wider Social Life

Commissioned by the Met Police as an external review of their working culture, found: Racism, homophobia, sexism are commonplace in the culture of the metropolitan police force.

Vomfell and Stewart - Ethnicity’s impact on Wider Social Life

 Disproportionate stop and search is because of:

1. Ethnic composition of suspects that offers interact with.

2. The ethnic composition of the areas they patrol (40% of all stop and searches are done by the Met.

‘Adultification Bias’ - Ethnicity’s impact on Wider Social Life

 Psychological phenomenon - Adults perceive black children as being older than they are, it is a form of bias on children of minoritised ethnic communities as more ‘streetwise’, ‘grown up’, less innocent and vulnerable than other children.

Windrush Scandal - Ethnicity’s impact on Wider Social Life

Post-war Britain, more labourers were required so those from the Caribbean were called to come to Britain and work. The law for permanent settlement wasn’t passed until 1971, and 2010 Theresa May’s policy called the ‘hostile environment’ made the Windrush generation ineligible for work, housing and healthcare - many detained and deported.

Gramsci - Ethnicity’s impact on Wider Social Life

Governments allow peaceful protests because they are ineffective and prevent paths to actual change - To truly challenge power, there has to be disruption.

Hall - History of racism in the UK

Three reactions to globalisation: homogenisation, hybridity, defence

Modood - History of racism in the UK

British-Indians have higher cultural capital than White-Brits.

Enoch Powell - History of racism in the UK

 ‘Rivers of blood’ speech - compared Sikh immigration to the end of the Roman Empire - interpreted as immigration will destroy British way of life.

The National Front - History of racism in the UK

Held far-right views considered to be fascist: Ethnic nationalism, antisemitism, homophobia.

Gramsci - History of racism in the UK

Governments allow peaceful protests.

Aries - Age Inequality

Childhood is a social construct

Laslett - Age Inequality

Four stages of dependency (Children/Elderly are dependent)

Postman - Age Inequality

Disappearance of Childhood due to exposure to media.

Pilcher - Age Inequality

‘Separateness’ is key in childhood from adulthood - seen through separate status and places in society.

Cummings and Henry - Age Inequality

Disengagement theory - older people can withdraw from norms so young people can fill roles.

Phillipson - Age Inequality

Retirement has been reconstructed as a period of choice, but this is an illusion.

Marx - Age Inequality

Reserve army of labour - unemployment is necessary in capitalism

Cannon - Age Inequality

Older women are negatively impacted by the gender pay gap long term - They face harsher material deprivation in long term compared to husbands.

Alison Milne - Age Inequality (Elderly)

Grey Power - The retired have disposable income and are able to create an identity through buying and spending (Conspicuous consumption).

Moore and Conn - Age Inequality (Elderly)

Attitudes to the elderly - people would jump ahead in queues, assumes she was deaf and speak about her, assumed she was confused often.

Applewhite - Age Inequality (Elderly)

Unique type of discrimination - Ageism is unique as perpetrators will one day become victims.

Hockey and Hames - Age Inequality (Elderly)

Infantalisation of the elderly - Industrial revolution made it so only fathers had to work, infantalising children and the elderly by making them dependent.

Age concern - Age Inequality (Elderly)

Portrayal of older people in the media were based on three stereotypes:

1. They’re a burden

2. They’re mentally challenged.

3. They’re grumpy.