Institutions and society.

Institutions and Society

In today society, our lives are influenced by a lot of external factors, that some our out of our control. But anyway, we are all part of the same society, so we influence over each other lives. Some of those external factors, called institutions, have an active part in our daily lives. Socialization plays an important part in shaping people and their roles in society, through institutions like the family, the education and consequently the workplace. I will try to explain how these institutions in some way construct and promote images that lead to discrimination, prejudice, homophobia, and the social construction of identities.

We can say that the education system is one of these institutions that influence our lives, and “socialize us”. Schools serve to reinforce social class divisions. It is important to say that educational success generally rises with family income, many sociologists see material deprivation as the major cause of inequality in educational success. All those students with higher social backgrounds were much more likely to stay in education past the minimum leaving age than those from working class backgrounds.

Schools take over from the family as the primary source of socialization, transmitting society’s norms and values and preparing children for their role in adult life. School provides the future workforce with the basic skills they will need to for their jobs and responsibilities.

It is important to mention the concept of labeling theory and self-fulfilling prophecy. This means that if someone is labeled in a particular way, others will respond to their behavior in terms of that label, and the person will act in terms of that label, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Teachers are more likely to perceive middle class children as being more capable than working class children. The children classified as being of higher ability performed better throughout their time in education. This suggests that because of labeling by teachers, working class children may be placed at a distinct disadvantage

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It is undoubtedly that class division exists within the education system that schools serve to reinforce such inequalities.

It is also true, the fact that the discrimination factor shows nowadays in the education system, and this can be shown with the SAT scores (Video). Many Universities and colleges base their acceptance decisions based on SAT scores, which are usually unfair, not only because the exam is bias in some of the questions, but it doesn’t reflect the reality of what a student as a person is. There is a good example of discrimination of students concerning their social class, and ...

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It is undoubtedly that class division exists within the education system that schools serve to reinforce such inequalities.

On the other hand, one of the institutions that are present in our lives, after leaving the education part, is the workforce. Every person, or at least the big majority, will become part of the workforce at a point in time. There are some factors that can be considered of importance in the workforce, that lead to ideas of discrimination, exclusion, and domination.

There is a problem that has been present during the last 50 years, and that is the sex discrimination in the payment of wages to women. Several laws were passed, but it seems none of them had much effect. “At a May 11 press conference marking National Equal Pay Day, President Clinton reported that, even decades after the adoption of the Equal Pay Act, women are still negatively affected by pay discrimination” (Paycheck Fairness Act). It seems it is difficult to make the gaps between women's and men's earnings, and try to keep the most logical reasoning of 'equal pay for equal work.' It is true that women have been earning more in the last years, but they are still discriminated in this subject. Although, it is true that some jobs are done better by men than women, but almost everything can be done by both genders. We have to understand that as Judith Lorber says, “Gender roles change”(107). The question is, if a man gets a job done in a certain amount of time, and the woman does the same job in the same time, aren’t they supposed to be treated the same. That is unfair, and that shows that shows that we are still living in a patriarchic society, where man has the power, where males dominate.

It is true that most of the observed difference in the pay of men and women can be because economic factors -including many that involve choices made by workers. It would be wrong sometimes to attribute the measured gender pay gap solely, to workplace discrimination.

It is not enough with sex discrimination, but there is also the fact of age discrimination affecting both younger and older people. Because we all age over time, age discrimination is perhaps the only form of discrimination that can affect everyone. A common stereotype of older workers is that they are less productive in the workplace. Employers believe that an older worker may bring attributes such as maturity and experience to a job. But these attributes are offset by older workers perceived lack of enthusiasm. The productivity of older workers has shown it to compare quite favorably with that of other workers from other age groups because of their years at the workforce and experience. In my opinion, age discrimination should be eliminated, and as a consequence, should be unlawful in many places that it is still done.

There is another subject, with is homophobia, which it seems a matter that nowadays has been seen a lot. “Homophobia is the effort to suppress that desire, to purify all relationships with other women, with children of its taint, and to ensure that no one could possible ever mistake one for a homosexual.”(Kimmel 127). During the last years, the appearance of homosexuals has been increasing, and it was more normal for people the idea, but still it is not that way for everybody. An institution that can be related with homophobia is the Army, where it seems they harass gay and lesbians. It seems that the army is not a place for homosexuals, as they are harassed and sometimes after a time, they have to abandon the service because they are afraid an treated as “Fag’s”. “Six years after President Clinton implemented "don't ask, don't tell,” and even after the more recent "don't harass," the Army remains an uncomfortable--indeed, dangerous--place to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual” (Wildman 28).

It seems that the army is not the only institution where homophobia is present, but also in the Catholic Church. The church since it’s beginning has been completely against lesbianism, homosexuality, or even bisexuality, but maybe they don’t express it in public or in the media, but it is of general knowledge that they are not in favor of any of them. The problem is that there have been many cases where priests or cardinals, members of the church, have sexually abused children. The church is trying to combat this kind of problems, “remove from the path to the priesthood young men who are homosexuals" (Cardinal Sins)

It is clear that in the world we are living, society is going thorough many changes, and as days go by, we are trying to adjust our lives to this changes. But it seems some aspects of our lives are hard to modify, and some of our attitudes will be the same. It is difficult for a person to change their way of thinking, but it can be done. I think that the process starts with the education we receive at our homes, with our family, and then the education we are given. It doesn’t matter if we belong to a higher class or not, but the education system must be good enough to provide everyone with the same opportunities, and allow everybody to have a good development in their future, at their workplace, at their homes, and most of all, as a person.