Stereotyping Poverty

Chav Hate Owen Jones is a Guardian journalist. He wrote the book Chavs in 2011. His aim was to show how the media demonise poverty, and people who live in poverty People living in poverty are stereotyped as “Chavs” and looked down upon

Why? The purpose of this demonization is to socialise us into the belief that the current political and economic system is best. We should keep working as we don’t want to become poor. Poor means lazy, poor is bad, poor is a moral judgement about the kind of person that you are

Social Mobility We are all encouraged from a young age to think of success as being about the amount of wealth we have, the kind of house we have, where we live etc. People want to move up through the classes (be socially mobile) People are encouraged to look at “working class” as being a bad thing, and if anyone gets a better paid job they immediately try to leave working class areas – this has the effect of “ghettoising” class

Classism The language used about poor people is not dissimilar to the way that people of different ethnic groups have been treated throughout history, and yet it seems that it is still acceptable. We are all taught to feel this way Classism is perpetuated by programmes like Jeremy Kyle, Benefits Street, The Scheme, Skint, Shameless

Dehumanisation People in poverty are dehumanised (treated like they are not even human). This is what the Nazis did to Jewish people. When Ian Duncan Smith (former Work and Pension Secretary) spoke about “Shettleston Man” he uses particularly pejorative language in order to build a picture of a person who is actively choosing poverty as a lifestyle. This helps to promote Conservative policy of being tough on people who are poor

Lack of Sympathy This allowed the Conservative Party to bring in policies which have destroyed the lives of many people living in very difficult circumstances. Because we are encouraged to be suspicious of anyone on benefits, we imagine all people on benefits to be cheating the system. We lack sympathy for people who are living in chaotic circumstances None of this will ever help to solve the problem of poverty or inequality

Children’s Chances Children from Middle Class backgrounds get better chances than children from working classes, and this is not to do with how hard they work in school – it is because better off children get more opportunities to develop cultural and social capital Children from poorer backgrounds can be labelled before they even get a chance, and this stigma affects the expectations that teachers have.

Education Gap A 2005 study shows that a 5 year old child with parents who earn more than £67,500 has reading skills which are 4 months more advanced than children who have parents who earn between £15,000 and £30,000. 20% of boys who get free school meals do not obtain 5 or more GCSEs, compared to around 8% for everyone else.

Media Representation – Group Work Make some kind of presentation where you show how the media stereotypes and dehumanises people living in poverty What effect does this have on society? How does this help to justify harsh treatment by the government