social structures-2802345
TRANSCRIPT
CHANGING SOCIAL STRUCTURES – KEY CONCEPTS• Social Divisions
‘ Those substantial differences between people that run throughout our society. Social division has at least two categories each of which has distinctive material and cultural features … social divisions are not natural’ – Social Divisions, Payne, G. 2nd edition, 2006, page 4
Social Stratification - CLASS
GENDER
RACE and ETHNICITY
STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES• In threes - Can you think of structural
inequalities to do with:ClassGenderRace and EthnicityAgeDisabilitySexual orientation…any others?
Making Sense of Society• In order to help us understand society
and the impact of social structures, it is necessary to work within a sociological framework.
What do you understand by the term Sociology?
Can you write a definition of sociology?
Aims for this week: Living with modernity, the restructuring of
Britain• What does Modernity
mean?• How is the presence
of modernity reflected in social structures.
Auguste Comte
• 1798 – 1857 French• Recognised as having invented the term ‘Sociology’• 'law of three phases‘: society has gone through three
phases: Theological (Divine), Metaphysical (human rights not divine, but bigger than and
beyond mankind), pre-French Revolution; and Scientific (which he called Positivist – mankind can find
solutions – a new social understanding based on science, post French Revolution)
Emile Durkheim1858 - 1917 Frenchone of the first people to explain the existence and quality of different parts of a society by reference to what function they served in keeping the society healthy and balanced, a position that would come to be known as structural functionalism
Durkheim also stated that society was ‘more than the sum of its parts’ – ‘social facts’ termed to describe phenomena which have an existence of themselves and are not bound to the actions of individuals – for example, a society’s adaptation to a particular climate. Boundaries can break down- the interim time before new boundaries are created is called ‘anomie’- period of chaos, anarchy.
Wrote ‘The Division of Labour’, examining how social order was maintained in different types of societies – coined the distinction between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ societies.
Karl Marx
1818 – 1883 German• All social inequalities can be explained in terms of class• Studied Capitalism, the production of economic wealth• He argued for a systemic understanding of socio-economic
change• Viewed classes as being in conflict. Upper class exploits lower
classes- conflict theory• Influenced by Hegel, Rousseau, Thomas Payne (consensus
forms around thesis, from this an antithesis occurs, eventually a synthesis)- Just as capitalism had replaced feudalism, so socialist would replace capitalism
• He envisaged a ‘stateless, classless, equal society’ which he called Communism
• Social Conflict Paradigm continued by C. Wright Mills- Gap between rich and Poor growing.
Max Weber
1864 – 1920 German• Argued that all social action was meanful fror
individuals.• Profound influence on our understanding of society,
organisations etc• Three elements to class: Power, prestige, status• Concerned with the rationalisation, and
‘disenchantment’ caused by Capitalism and the rise of modernity – ‘Bureaucracy’
• Thought Marx was too focused on materialism, • Wrote ‘The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism’ – the impact of Capitalism on the human spirit, religion etc.
Sociological TheoryComes in a variety of shapes
and sizes…
High-Level Theories
Mid-Range Theories
Low-Level Theories
Focus on trying to explain how and why society is ordered
Focus on trying to explain some general aspect of
social behaviour
Focus on trying to explain a specific aspect of social
behaviour.
Why do I always fall asleep in
Psychology lessons?
Why do girls achieve higher
educational qualifications than boys?
Functionalism…
Marxism…
Interactionism…
Feminism…
• Functionalist explanation of why girls achieve- Education is only salient means for them to achieve mobility.
• Interactionist explanation of why working class kids do not do as well- teachers labelling of working class children produces low expectations.
• Marxist explanation- curriculum reflects the values of the ruling class, alienating children. They lack the cultural capital to do well
Social Structures
• Can be understood as organised mechanisms that exert control over individuals.
• Can take the form of social institutions and patterns of behaviour
• Address and often emphasise social divisions
Key Social Structures Within Modernity
The State
Employment
Education
Can you think of others
• Modernity:• “A term coined to
encapsulate the distinctiveness and dynamism of the social processes unleashed during the 18th and 19th centuries, which marked a distinct break from traditional ways of life.” – Introductory Sociology, Bilton et al (2002) Macmillan, p545 Post- Modernity:
“Characterised by a pastiche of cultural styles and elements but implies a deep scepticism about order and progress. Instead diversity and fragmentation are celebrated.” – Introductory Sociology, Bilton et al (2002) Macmillan, p.546
Modernity versus Post- Modernity
What does this mean for social structures?
Modernity• Marx: modernity is capitalism and he felt that the ideal of
true democracy is one of the great lies of capitalism.
• Key words: Alienation, class conflict, false consciousness.
• Weber: modernity as rationalization, bureaucratization, and the "Iron Cage."
• Durkheim: saw modernity as moral order, anomie and the decline of social solidarity..
PostModernity
• Modernity has failed to provide the solution to the problems of life. • "Progress" is not an onward and upward march • Science (positivism) does not have all the answers • Social Institutions are changing at a rapid rate: Family, Religion, Education,
etc.
• Everyday life expressions of these themes: • Hi-Tech lifestyles • Preoccupied with consumer goods and media images • The Mass • International, "demise of the nation-state" • Irrationality of rationality• McDonaldization- Ritzer
Modernity/ Post modernityWhat does this mean for social structures?
Necessity (natural and social laws) Contingency or chance
Universality (across time and space ) Locality and the particular (can only know own experience)
Certainty and predictability Uncertainty and provisionality
Truth and reality Critique of tradition-bound analysis
Transparency or understandability Undecidability
Order of nature and structures Ambivalence of human design
Fordist modernity economies of scalehierarchyHomogeneity, detail division of labour, public housing, monopoly capitalPurpose, design, mastery, determinacy, production capital, universalism, state power, trade unions, state welfarism, metropolis, ethics, blue collar, centralization, narrative, mass production, class politics, technical-scientific rationality, utopia, concentration, specialized workcFunction, Representation, signified industry, protestant work ethic, mechanical reproduction, becoming, epistemology, regulation, urban renewal, relative space, state interventionism, industrialization, internationalism, permanence, Time
flexible postmodernity economies of scope, diversity, social division of labour, decentering, desire, homelessness, entrepreneurialism, indeterminacy, localism, individualism, neo-conservatismImmateriality, reproduction, pastiche, eclecticismwhite collar, commercialism, charismatic politics, rhetoric, decentralization, deconstruction, local contracts, small-batch production, spectacle, flexible worker, symbolic capital, temporary contract, electronic reproduction, deregulation, urban revitalization, place, laissez-faire, deindustrialization, geopoliticsEphemerality
Fordism
• The Beveridge report written in 1942 prompted the eventual creation of what we now know as the welfare state.
• Beveridge argued that there was a need to rid society of the ‘five giants’
Social Structures in Post- War Britain
Disease Ignorance
WantIdleness
Squalor
Each giant was countered by: The 1944 Butler Act which reformed schooling, the commitment to full employment in the same year.The Family Allowance Act of 1945.The 1946 National Insurance ActThe 1948 National Health Act, aimed at achieving that very objective, and established for the first time a national minimum.
Beveridge Report 1942
The National Health Service (NHS) Act instituted a universal state health service. The Act provided free diagnosis and treatment of illnesses at home or in hospital, including dental and ophthalmic treatment.
Opinions at the time
• 'It's the goods! All the yearnings, hopes, dreams and theories of socialists for the past half century have been crystallised into a practical economic formula. Equity for the "lowest common denominator" I was staggered by its comprehension'. (Insurance clerk, male, 39, Newport)
• 'It gave me a feeling there was something to work for and fight for after all and that our efforts might be rewarded by some real social improvement, giving means to the phrase "winning the peace". (Royal Artillery, male, 29)
• 'I am aware of a new feeling of confidence in myself as a member of a democratic society when I see those social reforms which I have considered necessary for such long time actually taking shape'. (Accountant, male, 40, Prestwick)
• But there were negative comments too:• 'My friends seem to think it's a clever piece of eyewash to retain the capitalist system by getting the people on its
side'. (Student, male, 22, Enfield)
• "A lot of blah" is the most frequent remark from the women in the factory. "Don't believe a word of it; we're 'eard these promises before". (Stores Keeper, female, 57, Winchcombe)
• 'I think it is direct encouragement to the lower type of humanity to breed like rabbits' (Temporary civil servant, female, 38)
Post-WW2 Development of British Welfare State
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lurGssKn7PA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PBvCvIFrgI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaa_RIEuZ9s&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OQVxwdxOe0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81ErNLAupGE&feature=related
• Adopting the slogan 'Prevention is better than cure', this Ministry of Health poster attempts to persuade people to adopt a healthier lifestyle. It was hoped that by improving the general health of the nation, the cost of running the NHS would eventually be reduced.
Black Report
Unskilled.Cleaner, labourer.
Semi-skilled manual.Assembly line worker, builder, lorry driver.
Skilled manual: Clerical and minor supervisory.Electrician, mechanic, plumber.
Non-manual: Clerical and minor supervisory.Clerk, police officer, shop assistant
Lower managerial, administrative, professional.Farmer, librarian, sales manager, teacher.
Higher managerial, administrative, professional.Accountant, bank manager, dentist, doctor, solicitor.
Categories
V
IV
IIIb
IIIa
II
I
Class
Registrar General’s Classificationof Social Class
Key causes of inequalities in health were:
Low income
Unemployment
Sub standard housing
Poorenvironment
Poor education
The Black Report (1980)Findings
Took theindividualistapproach –
people should eat, drink
and smoke less
Argued that individual behaviour within socialclasses shaped health
Regarded the Report
as old-fashioned, socialist
explanationsof ill-health
They wanted to reducepublic expenditure
Government disagreed
Problem was:
The Black Report (1980)
The Acheson Report (1998)
• This was an independent study into health inequality.
• It was commissioned by the new Labour government in 1997, under the chairmanship of a former Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales, Sir Donald Acheson.
• Remit – to investigate health inequalities in the UK.
Coronary heart diseaseStrokes
Lung cancer
Accidents & suicidesRespiratory diseases
Risk increases
Social class I
Social class V
The Acheson Report (1998)Findings
• Poor men are 68% more likely to die in middle age than richer men.
• Poor women are 55% more likely to die young.
• Health inequalities start before birth – A key factor in low weight
babies is the mother’s birth weight and her pre-pregnant weight.
The Acheson Report (1998)Findings
• Children from poor families weighed on average 1.30gms less than those from wealthy families
• Infant mortality rates:– 7/1000 – lower social classes– 5/1000 – upper social classes
• Long term illness– 17% of profession men aged 45-64 – 48% of lower class men aged 45-64
• Income levels– 2.2 million children live on income levels 50%
below the national average • Health campaigns
– Higher uptake of screening amongst upper social classes – widened health gap
The McDonalization Thesis: Social Life as a Fast food Restaurant
Although this perspective may appear to be rather unusual when applied to society, the claims made by George Ritzer (2002) certainly provide food for thought.
McDonaldization: “The process by which the principles of the fast food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world.” Ritzer, G. (ed) McDonaldization, The Reader, Pine Forge Press, 2002, p.7
Control through non- human technology
Calculability
EfficiencyPredictability
Can we find parallels between Ritzer and the Welfare state today?
MEDICINE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
• Sociologists are interested in the impact and role of medicine and the medical profession in
society. The general health of the population has clearly improved (eg during the 20th century, life expectancy almost doubled), but is this due to medicine and doctors?
• Studies show that medical care and medical discoveries have often had relatively little influence
on health compared with social factors.• • McKeown’s historical evidence suggests that medical care had relatively little effect on death
rates before the 20th century. Most deaths were from infectious diseases (TB, cholera, measles, etc), and the biggest improvements in health were brought about by public health measures such as improved sanitation, clean drinking water, and better housing, diet and a higher standard of living.
• • Illich goes further, arguing that modern high-tech curative medicine and the medical profession
are a danger to our physical, mental and spiritual health. He uses the term iatrongenic illness – those caused by medical intervention – to describe this danger, such as the side effects of drugs, errors by doctors, etc. There has been a ‘medicalisation of life’ and we have lost control over own bodies, lives, suffering and death and become dependent on the medical profession, the ‘new priesthood’.
Functionalist account of health inequalities
• Functionalists would look at social inequalities in health care from the perspective that regards the health care systems feasibility to cope with society and all of the requirements society places upon health care systems to prevent illness, and generate well-being
• The functionalist is curious about the relation between the health care (HC) system itself and the rest of society.
Symbolic interactionism• is concerned with
examining the interaction between the different role players in the health and illness drama. The focus is on how illness and the subjective experience of being sick are constructed through the doctor–patient exchange. The argument here is that illness is a social accomplishment among actors rather than just a matter of physiological malfunction.
Marxist theory• is concerned with the
relationship between health and illness and capitalist social organisation. The main focus is on how the definition and treatment of health and illness are influenced by the nature of economic activity in a capitalist society.
Feminist theory• explores the
gendered nature of the definition of illness and treatment of patients. Its main concern is the way in which medical treatment involves male control over women’s bodies and identities.
Foucault• Foucauldian theory concentrates on
the dominant medical discourse, which has constructed definitions of normality (health) and deviance (sickness). This discourse provides subjects in modern societies with the vocabulary through which their medical needs and remedies are defined. The source and beneficiary of this discourse is the medical profession. Foucauldian theorists also argue that medical discourse plays an important role in the management of individual bodies (what Foucault called ‘anatomopolitics’) and bodies en masse (bio-politics), Medicine is not just about medicine as it is conventionally understood, but also about wider structures of power and control.
Parsonian Functionalism• The model of the sick role
• The model of the sick role, which Talcott Parsons designed in the 1950s, was the first theoretical concept that explicitly concerned medical sociology.
• In contrast to the biomedical model, which pictures illness as a mechanical malfunction or a microbiological invasion, Parsons described the sick role as a temporary, medically sanctioned form of deviant behaviour.
• The functionalist perspective was used by Parsons to explain the social role of sickness by examining the use of the sick role mechanism. In order to be excused their usual duties and to be considered not to be responsible for their condition, the sick person is expected to seek professional advice and to adhere to treatments in order to get well. Medical practitioners are empowered to sanction their temporary absence from the workforce and family duties as well as to absolve them of blame.
Parsons: being sick has potentially disruptive effects on society. Sickness is a form of deviance that needs to be controlled. Otherwise, the behaviour associated with it, such as dependency, apathy and incapacity, could become widespread and threaten the smooth functioning of society.
• It is therefore important to restrict access to the sick role to those who are genuinely sick. This is the function of the doctor, whose authority is maintained by his or her objective scientific knowledge and high status.
• The sick role involves both rights and obligations: the right to be exempted from normal role obligations (such as work) and to be looked after, and the obligation to want to get better, to seek help and to obey doctor’s orders.
• Access to the sick role has to be legitimised by the medical profession. His explanation fits short-term, curable illnesses better than long-term, chronic
illnesses
Functionalists
Feminist• Feminists see society as
patriarchal and doctors as perpetuating this. Medicine has a social control function, ensuring that women are kept in a subordinate role, for example by controlling women’s fertility (eg through the medicalisation of pregnancy and childbirth, and control over access to abortion and contraception). Doyal describes how doctors often stereotype women as emotional, neurotic, less objective and more excitable than men. Even when there is clear evidence that a woman’s problem is physical, doctors often see it as having a psychological cause.
Marxist• For Marxists, medicine and the
medical profession perform important functions for capitalism, but not for society as a whole. Doctors act as agents of social control, ensuring that an alienated workforce cannot escape to the sick role but remains at work to produce profits. They reproduce the workforce by ‘patching up’ sick workers. Ideologically, they mask the exploitation of capitalist society, making it appear more caring. Medicine and health care also enormous sources of profit for giant multinational drugs companies.
Mental Illness - Positivist Approach
Feminists argue that the higher rates of mental illness among women are caused by their position in the social structure, e.g. stress factors associated with their domestic roles. Similarly, racial discrimination and disadvantage faced by ethnic minorities create stress and may result in higher rates of mental illness.
Accepts medical definitions- mental illness is an objective ‘thing’ or disease.
This approach examines the distribution of mental illness among different groups in society and seeks to discover its causes.
E.g. Hollingshead and Redlich show that members of class V were over six times more likely than members of class 1 suffer from mental illness. This approach traces mental illness to the way society is organised and the position of the individual in the social structure.
Mental Illness- Interactionists
• Interactionists are interested in how individuals come to acquire illness labels, and the effects these labels have on them and those around them. They are interested in how doctor-patient interactions create such labels.
Interactionists are interested in how doctors and patients negotiate a diagnosis (ie a sickness label). Byrne and Long found that there is a conflict between doctors’ and patients’ views of the ideal consultation (not surprisingly, doctors prefer short, doctor-centred consultations).Doctors generally have more power in these interactions
An example might be ‘illness’ and ‘disability’
The Third Way
• ‘New Deal’ gives opportunities to work which people have a responsibility to take up, and they will suffer penalties if they do not. The main conditions are connected with work obligations, but there are also suggestions that tenancies in council housing should be conditional on behaviour
Next Week: Formative Assessment • Can you work in two’s for next week and please think about whether or not you agree with the
idea of the Welfare state. You should consider its aims in relation to what is achieves.
• Think about the provision of welfare through health care from functionalist, interactionist, feminist, marxist perspectives.
• One person in the pair will argue for the existence of the welfare state, one person will argue against.
• Think about labelling• The sick role• Structural inequalities• Disabling society• Classes, gender, ethnic groups, ages
• The welfare state of Beveridge compared to today’s welfare state (Thatcherism to New Labour to the Coalition).
• Consider the responsibility of the individual for their own health (should our taxes pay for those who are reckless with their own health).
• Each person will speak for roughly 5 minutes
Food for thought• The government can decide if people break their side of the contract, but• the only option open to people who believe that the government has not kept its side of the deal
is to vote against it in the next general election.
• For example, Blackman and Palmer (1999: 119) point out the government’s limited responsibilities in job creation and varying local unemployment rates mean that unemployed people have very different chances of finding work.
• Despite government’s ‘vital role’ in addressing the big issues that affect our health like housing, jobs and education, individuals’ responsibility for their own health appears to involve carrying out the rather patronizing ‘ten tips for better health’ from the Chief Medical Officer (DH, 1999). Finally, critics such as Will Hutton point out that most of the obligations are shouldered by the bottom of society (in Lister, 1999: see also Marquand, 1998), but this ‘tough approach’ seems not to apply to the powerful and assorted cronies and ‘fat cat’ executives.
• Geoff Mulgan, of the Blair’s Office was comfortable with the language of dependency and parasitism, including ‘parasites’ who abuse their own health when health care is socialised, safe in the knowledge that others will pick up the bill’ and ‘the form of parasitism in which people take advantage of the community to do the work needed to pass on their own genes’ (in Levitas, 1998: 155).
Welfare Review• The social settlement of the Beveridge welfare state was based on
particular assumptions regarding the ideological triangle of nation, family and work. We saw that it was imposed during a period where there was plenty of work.
• The Beveridgean citizen was the fully employed (and insured) married, white, able-bodied, male worker, with other categories of people— including women, ethnic minorities, disabled people, children and elderly people—experiencing highly conditional forms of welfare outside the ‘normal’ universalism.
• New Labour’s discourse of a ‘modern British people’ was found in their Welfare Green Paper which introduced the idea of disability and discrimination and hinted at the idea of a ‘disabling society’. This was not resolved however.
Next session
• Key Institutions: The StateWe will be looking at: • what the state is• How it operates as a social structure• How it responds to social development• The role of sociologists in shaping social
policy
