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Social Class Inequality (Poverty (Absolute poverty: a lack of basic…
Social Class Inequality
Social class: sociologists do not agree on a fixed definition of social class. However, it is accepted that members of a social class share similar levels of income, wealth and occupations.
Some sociologists would also link similarities about attitudes towards education, leisure and health.
Marx argued that capitalist societies (Britain) were divided into two social classes:
- bourgeoisie, ruling class
- proletariat, subject class
- Upper-class: owners
- Middle-class: non-manual workers, educated (uni)
- Working-class: relies on physical strength and skills
Poverty
Absolute poverty: a lack of basic essentials needed to survive physically. These include food, clothing, housing and fuel.
Relative poverty: involves judging whether a person's income is so far below that expected by the majority of people in society that they are excluded from a normal lifestyle
"Poor Kids" (Channel 4) - chronic illnesses such as asthma and eczema are more likely to affect children who live in poverty. For example, 47% of children with asthma are from the poorest 10% of families.
Bottero (2005) supports the idea that negative labelling leads to a problematic stigma around poverty. So people are reluctant to accept they are living in poverty and don't get help.
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Harder to receive a good education, fees at £9,000 a year
Functionalist
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Income inequality is motivational, competitive and promotes economic growth
Way of ensuring people are matched to jobs for their particular talents and ensuring everyone is working hard to rise up
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'Consensus theory' - thinks all of society benefits from stratification - criticised by 'conflict theory' sociologists
New Right
Believe society works when there's a form of capitalism with minimal government intervention. Businesses run themselves.
'The State that does least is best!'
E.g. privatisation of the British rail created competition between rail owners, therefore a better service was provided, etc.
Think inequalities are beneficial for society and believe equality would only work if people were forced to work hard through threats etc.