Is Britain an unequal society?

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Lois Simpson

Applied Sociological Perspectives for Health and Social Care Level 3

Kay Atkinson

Is Britain an unequal society?

In this essay I will be looking at reasons into why I think Britain is an unequal society. Firstly I will look at 4 concepts and give examples of these. The four concepts I will be looking at are Prejudices, Stereotyping, Marginalisation and Social exclusion.

Prejudices – this term refers to people who have a fixed set of attitudes about a particular group of people in society that people are normally unwilling, unable or often uninterested in changing. An example of a prejudice act would be if someone is walking in a secluded area at night, and a group of senior citizens who are walking with walking sticks, come from the opposite side of the road, the person will not feel threatened. However, if instead of senior citizens, three teenagers dressed in jeans and t-shirts with lots of metal chains around their neck are approaching from the other side, then the person might feel threatened a bit, even without any kind of provocation from their end.

Stereotyping – this term refers to someone who places characteristics on a group of people involving gender, ages, race, colour, national origin and any other factors which are oversimplified generalisations.  An example of stereotyping would be if you met someone for the first time and they had blonde hair you may think that they are dumb because people stereotype blondes into being ditzy and not very smart.

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Marginalisation – this term refers to individuals who are pushed to the edge of society because of their age, gender, sexuality, colour, race etc and are unable to enjoy the way of life that others enjoy. An example of marginalisation could be if a man or women within a society decided that they wanted  to be a transsexual and dress up as the opposite sex, people who live alongside them in society may not be able to or want to cope with why a person would want to do that and instead of trying to understand that individuals ...

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