Social class affects upbringing in many ways. If you are from a lower class background, you are brought up differently to someone from a middle or upper class background. If you are from a lower class background you tend to have a lack of ambition and aspirations. This was proved from the results in my questionnaire. It showed that people from a lower class background would just like to raise a family and buy a house and car whereas somebody from a middle or upper class background has higher aims and wants to go on to further education and get a highly paid job.
Your upbringing affects the type of education you have. If you come from a lower class background you are likely to go to a comprehensive school and then go on to a secondary modern but people from a middle or upper class background are more likely to go to a public school and then go on to university. The contrast between the two societies was illustrated by the 7up video we were shown. The children who went to the public schools spoke in “Proper” English. They had perfect pronunciation and liked to read the Financial Times whereas the children, who lived and went to school in London’s east end like to run about in about, have fun and fight. The difference between the two groups’ aspirations was big. The upper classes aspirations were at the moment to go on to a prep school then a public school and on to a university, most probably Oxford or Cambridge. The lower classes aspirations were to leave school and get a job. A job like an astronaut, a jockey and to “learn about the moon and all that”
Social Class has a big influence on your type of employment and your type of employment also has a big influence on your social class. Your social class restricts what job you can have and what type of job you have restricts you to a certain social class. I don’t think this should exist in our society today. People who are doctors, managers and administrators are from a higher class and people who are road sweepers and coal miners are from lower classes.
Gender
What is gender? Gender is referring to the cultural socially constructed differences between the two sexes. It refers to the way a society encourages and teaches the two sexes to behave in different ways through socialisation. Whereas sex refers to the natural or biological differences between men and women, such as differences in genitals, internal reproductive organs and body hair. A gender role is the pattern of behaviour and activity which society expects from individuals of either sex-how a boy/man or girl/woman should behave in society. Gender roles may sometimes be referred to as sex roles. 1
We gender stereotype in many different ways. We gender stereotype young children from the moment that they are born. We dress all little boys in blues and reds and we dress all little girls in pinks and yellows and this carries on for the rest of our life. Most people would say that this occurs because it would not look right if baby boys wore pink and baby girls wore blue. But would it? Many people do not actually know because you do not see baby boys dressed in pink because of gender stereotyping.
Gender stereotyping carries on into pre-school age when most children’s are gender stereotyped. If you were to flick through a children’s toy catalogue you would find that the back ground colour for the boy’s toys would be blue or red or orange and the background colour for the girls toys would be pink or purple. This goes to show how much people gender stereotype in advertising. Children’s toys themselves are also stereotyped because in the advertising of a particular product, like a car or doll’s pram, there will be a child of that sex shown to playing with that toy. You would see a girl playing with the pram and a boy playing with the car. This is stereotyping because you get boys who play with prams and girls who play with cars.
This continues into early education as I can recall form my days in reception at my primary school, we were given toys to play with the boys played with cars and the girls played with dolls. Stereotyping also took place outside in the playground where the boys used to play armies and the girls would play with skipping ropes and flowers. Most children have been taught these things by their parents or school teachers so this means that their parents or teachers are stereotyping.
With employment several factors affect what sort of job you get. Whether you are male or female unfortunately has a big effect on what job you do. Males tend to go for managerial careers or work as a doctor, artist, engineer, or a politician for example. Females on the other hand are usually associated with household work, nursing, secretary and other office work, or a primary school teacher. Most of these jobs are generally lower paid jobs, and women are on average earning £5000 less than their male counterparts, even if it is the same job title. Females are also generally denied upper managerial jobs, due to the stereotypical views that male employers have over their female employees. As you can see from table 4 (see Appendix) females tend to work in administrative and secretarial occupations, which are typical stereotypical female occupations
There are two main roles that women play in the media. They are as a housewife, when advertising products that are to do with cleaning, Hoovers, ironing and other household chores. This role reinforces the stereotype that we all use for women. The other role for women in the media is as a sex symbol, they advertise anything from cars to magazines. They often do this to tempt you to buy the product they are trying to sell.
Interview
- Age: 31
- Gender: Male
- Salary: £25000
- Hours: 40-55 depending on paper work
- Job Title: Teacher of Humanities
- Aspirations at leaving school: To join the Navy
- Ethnicity: White European
- Social Class: Middle
- Qualifications: BA (Honours), Geography, Business Management and I.T.
- Full Time jobs: Prison Officer, National Training Officer.
- Part time jobs: Welder and Garlic Bread Packer
- Parents Jobs: Father Chef, Mother Import/Export Clerk
- Succeeded or Failed: Failed because he never achieved the job he wanted. He stayed in education too long and the job requirements changed.
Unhappy with current job because he is restricted by rules that he doesn’t believe in. Has experienced discrimination based on social class in the Navy. Never personally experienced discrimination based on gender or ethnicity but has seen it in the prison service.
Ethnicity
The difference between ethnicity and race is that ethnicity talks about culture, society, religion and beliefs whereas race is about colour and land of origin. We do not use race anymore because now we are a multicultural society and race is to crude. Ethnicity is a better way to describe someone’s background. 1
Ethnicity affects upbringing because different ethnicities have different beliefs and cultures. Different ethnicities have different religions these different religions have different beliefs. These beliefs dictate upon the child’s upbringing. For example if a young boy is born into a Jewish it is more than likely that child will be circumcised at a young age. This is a Jewish belief and tradition.
Pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C at GCSE/GNVQ: by sex and ethnic group, 2002, England
Ethnicity affects education a lot. This is because they like to teach them their own traditions. Also people of different ethnicities are discriminated against and bullied at school, more so at secondary school. I think this is because of the stereotypical views passed down through the generations. Many people have the view that asylum seekers are people who come over to England and get given a free house a job and lots of benefits when in fact this is not true. In education Black males do a lot worse in their GCSEs than any other ethnic group and Indian females have done the best in their GCSEs than any other ethnic group. (According to the Youth Cohort Study, Department for Education and Skills study of Examination achievements of pupils in schools: by gender and ethnic origin, 1998). As you can see from the graph all girls do better in their GCSE results but Chinese have the best results and black Caribbean’s have the worst results
Ethnicity has a big influence on employment, unfortunately. On average afro Caribbean and Pakistani male minorities earn six thousand five hundred pounds a year less than white males. This is quite frankly appalling. People are being paid less just because of the colour of their skin. This discrimination of people in the workplace has been going on for a while and is unacceptable. Many Ethnic minorities have a lower employment rate that whites this shows discrimination again. And it shows that some minorities are less qualified and unable to get jobs.
If a Black person and a white person are going for a promotion most of the time the employer will chose the white person just because that person is white. This is because of the stereotypical views of managers. The pay gap between whites and ethnic minorities has not increased despite a marginal increase in the number of Black and Asian people entering more professional, administrative and managerial jobs.
Conclusion
I have come to the conclusion that children are born to succeed or fail. I think this because you are either going to succeed or fail in life, but it all comes to your view of success. What is success? Is it achieving your childhood aspirations or raising a family and to buy a house and car? The answer to my hypothesis depends on a person’s perception of success. I think gender, ethnicity and social class all have an affect on a person’s success. Gender affects your success or failure because people will discriminate against you because you are female, this means you are less likely to get the higher paid or management job. Your ethnic background affects your success or failure because people discriminate against ethnic minorities and some ethnic minorities tend to do worse than white people at school. This stops them from getting a better job. Social class affects your schooling which in turn will affect your success or failure in life. But again your perception of success can determine whether you succeed or fail. All of these things can restrict you in the workplace which can affect your success. But if you think success is raising a family these aspects will not affect you.
Metacognition
I think I have carried out this report to the best of my ability. I think that my primary research is reliable and I have collected a range of good evidence. If I were to carry out my primary research again I would ask some more people from different ethnic backgrounds. I would also ask people from a wider age range and more people from different social classes. I have stuck to action plan well I have only missed a few deadlines. If I were to do this report again I would use my time rather than leaving it to the last minute.
Bibliography
This is a list of all the secondary sources of evidence that I have used in my report
- An introduction to Sociology Ken Brown
- National Statistics website
- GCSE Social Science Coursework Assignment Statistics Booklet
- Index website
Appendix
