Evidence of Social Inequalities

Working class disadvantage - in workplace/income/wealth

Working class disadvantage - in workplace/income/wealth

• The Equality Trust - The top 0.1% average income is £1,000,970 compared to 90% which is £12,969.

• Mac an Ghail - States that deindustrialisation has led to a ‘Crisis of masculinity’ amongst working class males (they face unemployment).

• Willis - Working class males see their futures as working in basic manual labour jobs like their fathers therefore they do not aspire for more.

Working class disadvantage - in education

• Bourdieu - Education system is biased towards the culture of the dominant classes and it devalues the knowledge and skills of the working class through the ‘hidden curriculum’. Furthermore, he argues that the main function if education is social reproduction and education discriminates against the working class because they lack the cultural capital to succeed.

• Jackson - Working class ladettes are generally working class and adopt anti-school attitudes - they adopt an assertive femininity around smoking and arguing with teachers - as a result they are negatively labelled by their teachers.

• The Department for Education - Attainment 8 measures a student’s average grade across eight subjects based on anything above a grade 5: Those eligible for free school meals - 34.4% - those not eligible for free school meals - 48.3%.

Working class disadvantage - in the media

• Price - Developed the concept of ‘poverty porn’ to describe programmes such as Channel 4’s Benefit Street. Price found this led to the underclass being exploited by the media to shock and entertain audiences. This encourages the underclass to be condemned by the hard working middle and upper classes. Despite using a discourse analysis to find that the shows were produced and designed for viewers to be empathetic to the underclass, many found their own personal experiences of this group to override the meanings behind the documentary.

• Jones - Discusses the use of the word chav and explains this has become a way of describing working class culture and people. He developed the concept of ‘chavtainment’ to describe shows that portray a negative view of the working class as ‘bigoted, slothful and aggressive’, This has changed the views from the working class being described as ‘salt of the earth’ to ‘scum of the earth’.

• Milliband - States that the media is the new ‘opium of the people’ in that it distracts us as the working class masses from real social issues faced in a capitalist society. States that in a capitalist society inequality is inevitable, justifiable and effective for the ruling class to control the masses - The media is just another way we are controlled.

Working class disadvantage - in relation to crime

• Walmsley et al - 41% of prisoners are from the lowest social classes. But only 19% of the overall population.

• Coles - Found that if you are poor you are more likely to commit crime.

• Harding - Refers to ‘street casinos’ as gangs meaning they are playing a game that is addictive and risky. Pierre Bourdieu influenced his work and he did his study in Lambeth. A person could lose street capital if they are disrespected by another gang but they can gain street capital quickly by getting a weapon dog, using a gun, or moving to another gangs postcode. New gang members are immigrants from across seas and people are staying in gangs for longer and becoming embedded.

Female disadvantage - in workplace/income/wealth

• Adkins - Found evidence of horizontal and vertical segregation in the workplace disadvantaging the roles of women. In theme parks makes worked as ride operators whilst women worked in catering. In these roles women faced regular sexual harassment from other staff and customers.

• Laura Bates Everyday Sexism Project - In the UK parliament men outnumber women by 4 to 1. Also only 18/108 High Court Judges are female.

• The Financial Times - The current gender pay gap suggests that if both a man and a woman in the same level job worked for one calendar year, a woman would effectively work a free month. Also the biggest pay gap is in the financia and insurance sector.

Female disadvantage - in education

• Skelton - Suggests that the hidden curriculum (such as attitudes of teachers) negatively influences subject choices.

• Kelly - Suggests that Science is packaged as a boys subject - Boys are allowed to dominate science classrooms and examples in textbooks are make related. This leads to girls being disengaged from the subject.

• Colley - Argues that subject choices are negatively influenced by: perception of gender roles, subject preferences and learning environment.

Female disadvantage - in the media

• Ferguson - Conducted a content analysis of women’s magazines and counted up the number of times a certain topic was covered. She concluded women’s magazines were based around a ‘cult of femininity’ which promotes the idea that excellence is achieved through caring for others, the family, marriage and appearance.

• Tuchman - Argued that the narrow range of roles for women lead to their ‘symbolic annihilation’ in the media. This concept refers to the phenomenon where the mass media omit, trivialise, or condemn certain groups that are not socially valued - such as women.

• Mulvey - Notes that typical examples of the male gaze include medium close-up shots of women from over a man’s shoulder, shots that pan and fixate on a woman’s body, and scenes that frequently occur which show a man actively observing a passive woman. Women in the media are viewed through the eyes of heterosexual men (male gaze). Women are therefore presented as passive objects for male desire.

Female disadvantage - in relation to crime

• Harding - Studied girls in gangs in South London - He found that girls took the role as “fixers” and were used by males to hide weapons and drugs. He also found that they were subjected to sexual abuse and harassment from male gang members.

• Everyday Sexism Project (Laura Bates) - Over 2 women a week in the UK are killed by a current or former partner.

• Leonard - Claims that judges label females as ‘doubly deviant’ and judge that they have not only broken laws but also gender roles meaning that they should be punished more harshly.

Male disadvantage - in workplace/income/wealth

• Dermott - Argues men work longer hours than women regardless of their status as fathers.

• Farrell - The ‘glass cellar’ - of the 25 professions ranked lowest, 24 of them are 85-100% male dominated e.g. roofer, welder, rubbish collector and sewer maintenance.

• Benatar - In his book ‘The Second Sexism’ states that the least desirable and most dangerous jobs, and those with least pay and security remain largely the domain of men.

Male disadvantage - in education

• Willis - States that working class ‘Lads’ are fatalistic about their futures due to following in their father’s footsteps - leading them into low status, low paid, basic manual labour jobs. This means that they developed anti-school attitudes in the workplace as they did not see the value in achievement (they did not need qualifications to get these jobs).

• Mitsos and Browne - States that teachers treat males and females differently and that this can cause inequality for boys - they state that teachers are too lenient on ‘laddish’ behaviour of boys and that this can do them a disservice leading to their lack of achievement. Whereas they are hard on girls who are seen as breaking both the school rules and gender norms - ‘doubly deviant’ - this ensures that they achieve.

• Department for Education - Statistics show that in 2019, 71.9% of female students achieved a C/4 grade or higher in comparison to 62.9% of male students who achieved a C/4 grade or higher in the UK. Females also outperform males in the 7/A boundary - (21.1% vs. 17.6%).

Male disadvantage: in the media

• Sewell - Found that black Caribbean boys turned to rapper role models in the media due to a lack of father figure within the home, when they were from matriarchal backgrounds. These hypermasculine negative role models then lead these boys into deviant anti-school subcultures which lead to their lack of achievement.

• Easthorpe - Argues that a variety of media, especially Hollywood films and computer games, transmit the view that masculinity based on strength, aggression, competition and violence is biologically determined and, therefore, a natural goal for boys to achieve.

• REACH Media Monitoring Project - Found that coverage of black young males in the news often links them with violent crime, and particularly murders involving knives and/or gangs. This negative image of black males can therefore provide negative role models.

Male disadvantage - in relation to crime

• Messerschmidt - The gang acts as a location for ‘doing masculinity’ which has to be ‘accomplished’ and proved.

• Campbell - By the abandonment of certain communities, the state has unleashed the most extreme forms of masculinity, denying men access to legitimate masculine status through academic success and employment. Violence and anti-social behaviour have become the key means by which men can express their feelings.

• Faludi - Young males are committing criminal behaviour is an expression of the qualities we admire in males as a society: toughness, bravery and strength.

Ethnic minority disadvantage - in workplace/income/wealth

• Gov.uk (2017) - Pakistani and Bangladeshi have the lowest employment rate of 55%. White other have the highest employment rate of 81%.

• Wood et al - Did a field experiment to examine job applications. They found that people with names associated with an ethnic minority background would have to make 16 applications before they got a positive response, compared with 9 applications for ‘white-sounding’ applicants.

• Parkin - Ethnic minorities are a negatively privileged status group. Ethnic majority use social closure to prevent ethnic minorities from reaching positions of authority and status. As a result they face a concrete ceiling in the workplace.

Ethnic minority disadvantage - in education

• Department for Education - GCSE results with an “average attainment 8 score” were as follows: Black Caribbean - 39.6%.

• Mirza - Studied black Caribbean girls and found that they faced institutional racism and negative labelling from teachers. Although they did resist this and achieve in education they still faced these negative attitudes and potentially did not achieve as well as they could due to lack of support from teachers.

• Gillborn - Argues that black Caribbean boys face institutional racism at school and that they are put into lower sets and entered for lower tier exams limiting their chances of success. This can again narrow their future opportunities.

Ethnic minority disadvantage - in the media

• Alexander - Asian youths in east London were unfairly targeted by police and the media. The ‘myth’ of the Asian Gang was created whereby the media reported violent clashes between black and Asian gangs. Alexander argues that the Asian boys were criminalised as a result of Islamophobia.

• Van Dijk - Used content analysis to study representations of ethnic groups in the UK over a 10 year period and found that the media stereotype black people in 5 ways. These were criminal, abnormal, a threat, unimportant and dependent. This included presenting cultural practises as abnormal and using blanket terminology such as ‘Asian culture’.

• Children Now - Fair Play - Ethnic minorities are stereotyped in video games. They discovered that 86% of heroes were white, 8/10 competitors in sports games were black, Latinos only appeared in sports games and 86% of black female characters were presented as victims of violence.

Ethnic minority disadvantage - in relation to crime

• The Lammy Report - Over 40% of young people in custody are from BAME backgrounds. BAME men and women make up 25% of prisoners. The number of BAME young people reoffending increased from 11% in 2006 to 19% in 2016. The number of BAME prisoners also increased from 25% in 2006 to 41% in 2016.

• Hood - Black men were more likely than white men to receive custodial sentences for offences which have fines or community services as punishments. This shows evidence of ‘institutional racism’ in the police force.

• Social Trends Survey (2017) - Black people are almost 7x more likely to be stopped and searched than white people.

Youth disadvantage - in workplace/income/wealth

• Ritzer - Young people are often on zero hour contracts and in what Ritzer calls ‘McJobs’ (unstimulating, low-wage jobs with few benefits, especially in service industry').

• BBC Three (2020) - Under 25s are treated much more harshly in the benefits system. They don’t get the same level of support as people over 25. Younger people are also more likely to be renting and renters have not had the same level of support from the government as people with mortgages.

• The Equality Trust - Young people have been in a bad situation for the past decade with increasing rental, housing and accommodation costs.

Youth disadvantage - in relation to health

• Youngpeopleshealth.or.uk - In 2014, 41,921 people aged 10-24 were admitted to hospital for self-harm. 0.7% of NHS funding is spent on young mental health. 75% of mental health problems start before the age of 24.

• The Guardian (2019) - By 2037 it is anticipated we will go from 6.5 million family carer to 9 million due to our ageing generation. Young people may soon find themselves being asked to care for their parents unpaid when cash-strapped councils can’t help.

Youth disadvantage - in the media

• Cohen - Discussed negative labelling of youths in the media E.g. the Mods and Rockers. He stated that they are labelled as ‘folk devils’ who threaten the basic morals of society. This can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where youths ‘live down to their label’.

• Griffin - Youths are labelled by the media in three ways: dysfunctional, deviant and suffering a deficit. This can create a self-fulfilling prophecy and also negative treatment from the general public/ by those in power.

• Women in Journalism - Carried out a study titled ‘Hoodies or Altar Boys’. This study examined how teenage boys were presented in national and local newspapers. They found the following: negative language to describe them, more stories about teens and crime, few stories showed teen boys in a good light and 85% of teen boys said newspapers portray them in a bad light but reality TV was seen to portray them the most fairly and teenagers were weary of other teenagers.

Youth disadvantage - in relation to crime

• Jacobson - Found that children and young people in custody - ¾ have absent fathers, ½ live in a deprived household, ½ had run away and others were from care homes - “Complex backgrounds”.

• Harding - Working class youths in London face deprivation and turn to crime for income. Calls this ‘Street Casino’ as they turn to crime and gamble with their lives. Street capital is gained through committing deviance/criminal activities.

Elderly disadvantage - in workplace/income/wealth

• Johnson - Suggested that ageism occurs in the workplace in the UK. Suggests that ageism is institutionalised and embedded in practices and society. Ageism in the workplace is expressed through the stereotypical assumptions about a person’s competency to do a job in relation to their age. Older people find it much more difficult to get a job as they get older and face stereotypes in the workplace.

• The National Pensioners Convention - 1 in 5 older people live below the poverty line. The majority of these are females living alone.

• Barron and Norris - Suggests that the elderly are more likely to be found in the secondary labour market which is defined by low pay, low status, a lack of chance of promotion and few fringe benefits.

Elderly disadvantage - in relation to health

• Greengross - Argues that the NHS is guilty of institutional ageism because older patients are treated differently from the young.

• The Royal College of Surgeons and Age UK - In some areas of the UK no one over the age of 75 is being offered crucial surgery for breast cancer and very few undergo bowel cancer surgery or have knee and hip replacements - despite legislation making this illegal from 2012.

• Human Rights Watch - Denied crucial services and assessors don’t appear to understand disabilities.

Elderly disadvantage - in the media

• Landis - Identified a number of stereotypes in representations of older people. They were depicted as ‘one-dimensional’ and described in a number of ways such as: having wisdom and busybody.

• Carrigan and Szmigin - State that older people are ignored in media advertising and when they are included they are stereotyped and presented as a caricature of an elderly person. They are presented as ‘smelly and incontinent’ and in need of support meaning they are seen as dependent on others.

• Digital generation gap - Causes problems for employment, as older people may be less comfortable using technology than the young who have grown up with it. Also feel unable to cope with changes such as paperless banking and a lack of understanding of popular conversations and activities because they may not be able to access social media.

Elderly disadvantage - in relation to crime

• Financial Times (2015) - The number of over-60s in jail topped 4,000 for the first time on record, more than double the figure 10 years ago. The number of inmates with dementia has risen, while cases of diabetes and hypertension have also soared.

• Age UK (2015) - Of those targeted by fraud scams, the financial loss of older victims was likely to be nearly twice as much per scam as that for younger age groups.