Critically evaluate studies relating to social class and schizophrenia

Authors Avatar

Rakesh Kumar   SO 532

Critically evaluate studies relating to social class and schizophrenia

Introduction

There have been various studies relating to social class and schizophrenia, a good place to start would be to narrow the question down and begin on a more general level making clear our understanding of social class to do this I will describe how in the UK the present class system is formed and then go onto schizophrenia. Then further going into detail of studies relating to social class and schizophrenia by listing some of the main studies then critically evaluating them, these will include Phelan who has put together forty years of work in medical sociology, Nettleton and Burrows show how “mortgage debt and insecure home ownership, Faris and Dunham where they studied the patients that came into a Chicago hospital, Lapouse et al. and Hollingshead and Redlitch concerning social drift, Phillips reporting of negative experiences with no positive experiences to buffer against, Wiggins et al the link between common psychiatric symptoms and work, Macintyre, Ellaway and Cummins show that in many cities there is a social difference, Ross and the effects peoples mental health in poor cities, and also take into consideration tying in with the previous studies mentioned like social class, there are studies of social class that clearly establish a link between social class and schizophrenia with aspects like socio economic status, inequalities in the work place, social capital in neighbourhood, poverty and mental health with a focus on schizophrenia and social class and mental health professionalism. And then finally I will make a informed conclusion.

Social class is a term which differs from society to society and it is also recognized that there are some societies that do not have a class stratification but most nation states do have some kind of class system, in the UK we have a very distinctive class system which is typically defined by the registrar general scheme, renamed by government in 1990 as social class based on occupation, every 10 years there is a nationwide census taken by the government a count of the population and then the population are split into eight groups of occupation the first being that of employers and managers in larger organisations like company directors, senior company managers, senior civil servants, senior officers in police and armed forces, then higher professionals like doctors, lawyers, clergy, teachers and social workers. Secondly lower managerial and professional occupations like nurses and midwives, journalists, actors, musicians, prison officers, lower ranks of police and armed forces. Thirdly intermediate occupations like clerks, secretaries, driving instructors, telephone fitters. The fourth are small employers and own account workers like publicans, farmers, taxi drivers, window cleaners, painters and decorators. The fifth are lower supervisory, craft and related occupations like  printers, plumbers, television engineers, train drivers, butchers. The sixth are semi-routine occupations like shop assistants, hairdressers, bus drivers, cooks. The seventh are routine occupations like couriers, labourers, waiters and refuse collectors. And finally an eighth category was added recently to cover those who have never had paid work and the long term unemployed.

But to most people we use the system of upper, middle, lower class and now the underclass. The reason we are discussing social class is to elaborate on its effects on mental health especially that of schizophrenia in a later part of this essay.

Join now!

Now moving on to schizophrenia, schizophrenia still to this day is a very contested idea and an enigma which has puzzled many of the top scholars whether they are involved in psychiatry, neurosciences, or sociology for at least a hundred years. The importance of schizophrenia research is that it could help us to understand the mechanisms by which the brain filters, prioritizes and processes the relentless current of information available from the richness of its internal, social and natural environments.

There is evidence of schizophrenia throughout history we can see this in the Egyptian times but they considered ...

This is a preview of the whole essay