SOCIOLOGY Causes of Inequality (3)

Meritocracy  Meritocracy – the most hard-working and talented members of society are rewarded the most, the top jobs in society would go to the cleverest, most dedicated people.  Mainly achieved through education.  Sociologists disagree as to how far Britain is a meritocracy.

Causes of Inequality  A value in Britain is that everyone has the same chance of being successful.  Inequality of outcome – it is not expected that everyone will have the same amount of wealth or status.  It is generally felt that everyone should have a fair chance.  Inequality of opportunities – people in Britain don’t have equal opportunities.  The explanation of inequality are prejudice and discrimination.  Prejudice – We tend to decide what people are like based on age, gender, ethnicity etc, we form an opinion without actually knowing.  It may be positive or negative.  Based on stereotypes.  Discrimination – covered earlier, examples are;  Being unfriendly or ignoring  Abuse  Exclusion  Unfavourable treatment e.g. houses  Institutions like police treating them unfairly  Positive discrimination – treating certain groups better than others. Sometimes government does this.  Negative discrimination – treating certain groups worse than others. E.g. sexism, racism and ageism.

Causes of Inequality (2)  Prejudice and discrimination can have a number of causes;  Socialisation  Scapegoating  Ignorance and cultural misunderstanding  Poor reasoning ability  Fear  Experience and stereotyping

Causes of Poverty  Poverty – lack of material resources, particularly income.  It is an example of inequality.  Two explanations of poverty;  Individual explanations – highlight behaviour of individuals or groups which experience poverty. These are;  The culture of poverty – in the 50s and 60s the persistence of poverty among some groups was explained by their culture. Many people didn’t tae advantage of trying to live better because of the values;  There is little they can do, so they just accept it.  Living for the moment.  There is no point in saving or planning for the future.  The cycle of deprivation – ideas about the culture of poverty, 6 steps.  Structural explanations – focus on how economic, political and social things create and cause poverty. These are;  Marxism – argue poverty results from the capitalist economic system. The ruling class only cares about themselves and increasing their wealth. As they control most things they can ensure little is given to those suffering from poverty.  Unemployment – central issue in understanding poverty. Happening due to the economic depression and results in poverty. Even though there is benefits, many people feel the level is too low.

Social Perspectives and Inequality (1)  Functionalism – Emile Durkheim's ideas. Each part of society has a function/purpose. These institutions come together to form the social system.  If one part fails the society is weakened. Societies work because each part knows what is expected of them.  Organic analogy – a way to understand society by comparing it to an organism and the parts of society as organs.  New Right – developed from functionalist ideas. Popular with conservative politicians. Argues that some problems in society are caused by government taking responsibility from individuals. E.g. welfare benefits make people lazy.  Inequality – support idea that Britain is a meritocracy and therefore inequality will always be here. If we were all equal nobody would bother trying to make an effort and inequality is needed to encourage people.  New right – blame poor themselves for the inequality they suffer and it is up to them to fight against it.

Social Perspectives and Inequality (2)  Marxism – based on Karl Marx ideas. Ruling class control all of society for their benefit.  Capitalism – Marxists believe in this. The whole of society is organised to produce a profit.  Poor people put up with this because;  Ruling class control government – they fear prison.  They are controlled by ideology – a system of beliefs socialised into them by school etc.  Marx predicted that the poor will realise this and fight it, however this did happen but was not always successful.  Inequality – unfair and do not believe capitalist societies are meritocracies. Believe cause of inequality is capitalism because the goal of capitalism is profit and not care for members of society equally.

Social Perspectives and Inequality  Feminism – very popular in 60s and 70s. Belief that women are overlooked in society and need more rights.  Patriarchy – men having a dominant role in society.  Lives of women have changed because of feminism.  More changes need to be made even now.  Some men feel threatened by feminism leading to negative stereotypes but feminists also belie men are harmed by patriarchal ideas.  Inequality – believe the most damaging inequality is between man and woman.  Believe society is controlled by men and women are trapped in traditional roles.  Also concerned by how girls are socialised and the stereotypes about being sexy and pretty for men.

Social Perspectives and Inequality  Interactionism – became influential in 1920s. Argues every person has a view of the world and behaves accordingly to that view.  Not interested in whole of society or how they work but interested in the smaller scale how individuals behave in everyday situations.  When we meet people we make judgements of them by the way they look etc and these can be negative or positive. We think these judgements are right and base our actions on them.  People receiving the treatment may fight it or accept it.  We also try to control how others see us and this also influences our behaviour.  All social life revolves around an agreement trying to be reached by individuals.  Labelling – associated with internationalism and self fulfilling prophecies.  Inequality – treat other people differently because we think they are not the same as us.  We always make judgements about other people and stratify and other people do the same to us.  If we accept the judgement of society it becomes even larger.  There is inequality in society because of labelling, folk devils and scapegoating, e.g. police/ageism  The process of labelling may lead to unequal treatment or other groups such as class, ethnicity, gender and disability.