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Contemporary sociology in a global ageG.M. HawkinsSC1179

2014

Undergraduate study in Economics, Management, Finance and the Social Sciences

This is an extract from a subject guide for an undergraduate course offered as part of the University of London International Programmes in Economics, Management, Finance and the Social Sciences. Materials for these programmes are developed by academics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

For more information, see: www.londoninternational.ac.uk

This guide was prepared for the University of London International Programmes by:

G.M. Hawkins, PhD, London School of Economics and Political Science.

This is one of a series of subject guides published by the University. We regret that due to pressure of work the author is unable to enter into any correspondence relating to, or arising from, the guide. If you have any comments on this subject guide, favourable or unfavourable, please use the form at the back of this guide.

University of London International Programmes Publications Office Stewart House 32 Russell Square London WC1B 5DN United Kingdom

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Published by: University of London

© University of London 2014

The University of London asserts copyright over all material in this subject guide except where otherwise indicated. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher. We make every effort to respect copyright. If you think we have inadvertently used your copyright material, please let us know.

Contents

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Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1

1.1 Introduction to sociology ......................................................................................... 11.2 ‘Route map’ to this subject guide ............................................................................. 21.3 Introduction to the subject guide ............................................................................. 31.4 Syllabus ................................................................................................................... 31.5 Aims of the course ................................................................................................... 41.6 Learning outcomes for the course ............................................................................ 41.7 Overview of learning resources ................................................................................ 51.8 Examination advice.................................................................................................. 7

Unit 1: Global inequalities: class, race, ethnicity and gender ................................. 9

Chapter 2: Class .................................................................................................... 11

2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 112.2 Four types of social stratification in history ............................................................. 132.3 Overview of the chapter ......................................................................................... 222.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes ...................................................................... 222.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ................................................................ 22

Chapter 3: Race .................................................................................................... 23

3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 233.2 Race in a global world ........................................................................................... 253.3 Overview of the chapter ......................................................................................... 343.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes ...................................................................... 353.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ................................................................ 35

Chapter 4: Ethnicity .............................................................................................. 37

4.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 374.2 Ethnicity in a global world ..................................................................................... 394.3 Overview of the chapter ......................................................................................... 484.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes ...................................................................... 484.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ................................................................ 48

Chapter 5: Gender ................................................................................................ 49

5.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 495.2 Sex vs. gender ....................................................................................................... 515.3 Overview of the chapter ......................................................................................... 595.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes ...................................................................... 605.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ................................................................ 60

Unit 2: Other identities: Family, religion and the life course ............................... 61

Chapter 6: Family .................................................................................................. 63

6.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 636.2 Family, kinship and marriage .................................................................................. 646.3 Overview of the chapter ........................................................................................ 726.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes ...................................................................... 726.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ................................................................ 73

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Chapter 7: Religion ............................................................................................... 75

7.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 757.2 Religion in a global world ...................................................................................... 777.3 Overview of the chapter ......................................................................................... 867.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes ...................................................................... 867.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ................................................................ 86

Chapter 8: The life course ..................................................................................... 87

8.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 878.2 The life course as a social process .......................................................................... 908.3 Overview of the chapter ......................................................................................... 998.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes ...................................................................... 998.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ................................................................ 99

Unit 3: Nation-states, nationalism, war and conflict .......................................... 101

Chapter 9: Nations and nationalism ................................................................... 103

9.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1039.2 Understanding nations and nationalisms in the era of global society ..................... 1059.3 Overview of the chapter ....................................................................................... 1149.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes .................................................................... 1149.5 Test your knowledge and understanding .............................................................. 114

Chapter 10: Conflict and warfare ....................................................................... 115

10.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 11510.2 War in global context ......................................................................................... 11710.3 Overview of the chapter ..................................................................................... 12510.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes .................................................................. 12510.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ............................................................ 125

Unit 4: Money and markets, consumption and work ......................................... 127

Chapter 11: Markets and money ........................................................................ 129

11.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 12911.2 Economic sociology ........................................................................................... 13211. 3 Overview of the chapter .................................................................................... 13811.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes .................................................................. 13811.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ........................................................... 139

Chapter 12: Consumption and work ................................................................... 141

12.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 14112.2 Capitalism changed ........................................................................................... 14312. 3 Overview of the chapter .................................................................................... 14912.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes .................................................................. 14912.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ............................................................ 149

Unit 5: Medical and legal life: Crime and health in the global age ................... 151

Chapter 13: Crime in a global context ............................................................... 153

13.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 15313.2 Deviance and crime defined ............................................................................... 15513.3 Overview of the chapter ..................................................................................... 16313.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes .................................................................. 16313.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ............................................................ 163

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Chapter 14: Global health and medicine ............................................................ 165

14.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 16514.2 Health, illness and the sociology of health .......................................................... 16714.3 Overview of the chapter ..................................................................................... 17414.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes .................................................................. 17414.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ........................................................... 174

Unit 6: New science and new sociation: Media and the new forms of social life ............................................................................................................ 177

Chapter 15: Digital media .................................................................................. 179

15.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 17915.2 Media in global world ........................................................................................ 18115.3 Overview of the chapter ..................................................................................... 18615.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes .................................................................. 18615.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ............................................................ 186

Chapter 16: New forms of sociation .................................................................. 187

16.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 18716.2 Sociation in the global world ............................................................................. 18916.3 Overview of the chapter .................................................................................... 19616.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes ................................................................. 19616.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ............................................................ 196

Appendix 1: Sample examination paper ............................................................ 197

Appendix 2: Examiners’ commentary ................................................................. 199

Notes


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Introduction

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Introduction

1.1 Introduction to sociologySociologists study a broad spectrum of phenomena. They may analyse moments as intangible and brief as the fleeting, anonymous interactions of strangers passing on a public footpath to global processes that are enduring and complex, such as the shift in economic production centres away from highly industrialised nations to newly industrialising ones. Sociology is the study of contemporary social life, and a number of sociologists argue that to grasp contemporary life, it is important to understand past processes. Sociology is a separate field from economics, history, psychology, political science and social work. Nevertheless, many of the areas that sociologists investigate overlap with these subjects.

Sociology has been a recognised social science for over a century. The first sociologists in Europe and the United States observed dramatic changes in the societies in which they lived, and they laboured to find ways to explain these new ways of life. They saw upheaval from technological changes that affected how people gained a livelihood, how they travelled and communicated, and where they lived. Cities swelled in size, and people were increasingly working in factories instead of in fields. A new conception of people as mass groups developed – demographics − along with the emergence of institutional forms, such as mass education, mass healthcare and mass justice in prisons. New forms of social interaction seemed to be arising with these changes. One of the earliest paradoxes that sparked the ‘sociological imagination’ was the observation that with the massive structural economic changes involved in the Industrial Revolution, people’s reliance on each other was increasing. At the same time, people’s lives were embedded in a new set of anonymous relationships. Durkheim, one of the main founders of sociology, studied this novel situation in his seminal work, The division of labour in society. Marx’s studies of the comprehensive transformation of social relations with the new economic system of capitalism have acted as an anchor by which many early sociologists laboured to account for the new social processes they observed. Weber, Durkheim, Simmel and other key founding sociologists developed their analyses in relation to Marx’s writings. However, sociology has always been characterised by a plurality of perspectives and cannot be described as having a single theory that is universally accepted. Similarly, sociologists do have not one scientific method, but a range of methods that are used to address research questions. There are several broad research approaches, but this does not mean that ‘anything goes’. Sociologists that follow a specific methodological approach work to ensure that their studies are rigorous and scientific within the terms of that approach.

Sociology is distinct from journalism and common sense explanations because it involves the attempt to step outside given explanations for routine life in order to see the processes involved from a broader perspective. Sociologists need to use something that C.W. Mills has described as the sociological imagination: ‘The sociological imagination… in considerable part consists of the capacity to shift from one perspective to another, and in the process to build up an adequate view of a total society and of its components. It is this imagination… that sets off the social scientist from the mere technician…’ (1970, p.8). Mills


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describes a playfulness of mind that is needed to lift the analysis out of overly precise technical analysis. Because the subject matter is at once so close − we are all daily involved in societal life − and so distant − we cannot have a Copernican view of the mass phenomena we are entangled in, the sociological imagination is needed to direct the sociologist’s analytical attention.

Sociology today continues the emphasis on trying to analyse the rapid changes of contemporary global life. It may be somewhat unexpected, then, to find out that a large proportion of sociologists carry out ‘micro-level’ studies. Microsociology is opposed to macrosociology. Microsociologists study the level of face-to-face interaction (although there are now microscoiologists looking at the mediated environment of new technologies), whereas macrosociologists investigate extensive and long-term processes. Although these appear to be exclusive levels of analysis, they are intertwined and sociology relies on them both. This subject guide presents the main set of specialist areas of study that sociology is made up of today. The chapters offer some backdrop to the study area, and also show key questions that drive research in these fields.

1.2 ‘Route map’ to this subject guideThis is a course that will introduce you to sociological ways of analysing the rapidly changing social world of the 21st century. You will be introduced to different areas that today’s sociologists focus their research on. The transformations of the global age have challenged sociologists to adapt their tools and their perspectives.

This subject guide is your first resource for the course. It is designed as a platform for you to critically interact with the course material. The chapters provide introductions to specific topics. In each chapter, you will find activities which are tailor-made to help you reflect upon the material that has been presented. Each activity is offered as a way to pause, reflect, and think through important implications of the topic. There are highly structured reading suggestions which connect with each chapter’s sub-topics. These readings are, in some cases, original passages of ground-breaking sociological research or suggestions from authoritative textbooks which help to give depth and clarity to the sub-topic. This subject guide is your companion for this course. It is both like a lecture series and a highly specific textbook. In it, you will get advice on how to tackle the Essential reading, and which additional readings best illustrate the topic. At the back of this subject guide, you will find a Sample examination paper. The rest of this Introduction offers guidance on the structure of the topics, the time you need to devote to studying for this course and how to prepare for the examination.

This course has six units, each comprising between two and four chapters. Each unit shows you a specific field of sociology. Another way to think of these areas is as sociological problems. In each unit, there are several chapters devoted to the main streams of research of that problem area.

The course relies on one textbook for Essential reading: Anthony Giddens and Philip Sutton’s Sociology, published in 2013. To get the most from this course, you are given several resources to stimulate your thinking. When you combine the materials of these resources − the subject guide, the Essential readings, the virtual learning environment (VLE) and the Online Library − and you work through the activities offered in this subject guide, you should have a robust understanding of the topic. This active process of learning will give you a solid foundation for critical understanding of how

Introduction

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to use sociological tools to grapple with the global age. In order to give a robust answer to the examination questions, you will need to prepare topics in depth. This requires looking at additional readings, as well as doing the activities, and absorbing material made available on the VLE. The course has been designed to be studied over eight months at seven hours a week. If you are studying it for a longer or shorter duration, adjust the average hours accordingly. You will need to use this subject guide as a basis for reading more deeply, thinking more critically and practising writing on the topics you are working on.

1.3 Introduction to the subject guideIf you have encountered sociology in a previous course, you will be familiar with the idea that it is the study of large-scale modern society. Classical sociology arose as intellectuals struggled to make sense of the rapid transformations occurring in European societies alongside the Industrial Revolution. These included the changes in how people travelled, produced, where they lived, how societies were governed, etc. Over the century and a quarter since sociology was first being recognised as an academic discipline, the social and physical world has undergone profound transformations. Industrialisation, world wars, changes in communications and transportation are just a few of the radical transformations of the world of mass society. The tempo of these changes has increased, and sociologists face an overwhelmingly complex and rapidly evolving set of topics. Contemporary sociology in a global age encompasses these topics and more. Sociologists are researching changes in social inequalities, nations and conflicts, consumption, identities, crime, health and medicine, and the global media. These are some, but not all, of the topics that this course will introduce to you.

1.4 SyllabusThis course is structured into six units each of which include several chapters on a related field. The field of a single unit overlaps with other units, for example the global inequalities unit investigates issues of class, gender, race and age which are entangled with all of the other units in the syllabus. Similarly, research techniques that are used for investigating economic life may also be used by sociologists who study digital media. For the purposes of gaining a basic knowledge of this field, it is useful to see how the chapters fall under the umbrella of the units. However, to gain a deeper understanding and to assess these topics critically, it is a good idea to keep noting the linkages that you find between chapters and units. These connections are helpful when you work up essay-style drafts for the topics you prepare for the examination.

Unit 1: Global inequalities; class, race, ethnicity and genderThis section investigates key theories of inequality in a global context. It offers the conceptual background of these research fields and presents specific cases as illustration. The major areas of inequality that are examined are social class (Chapter 2), race (Chapter 3), ethnicity (Chapter 4), and gender (Chapter 5).

Unit 2: Other identities: Family, religion, and the life course In this section, we explore a range of topics concerned with subjectivity and identity. The module will include topics such as the family, religion and ages and stages of life. It is composed of three chapters: the family


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(Chapter 6), religion (Chapter 7) and the life course (Chapter 8). The topics look at how the sociological studies of these areas have been reinvigorated in response to global changes.

Unit 3: Nation states, nationalism, war and conflictThis unit introduces you to [the] political sociology and the emergence of the modern nation-state and the sociology of violence and war. The main subject areas are contained in two chapters: nation states and nationalism (Chapter 9) and war and conflict (Chapter 10). Empirical case studies include terrorism and genocide. It also broaches the question of whether nation-states are disappearing as globalisation takes root.

Unit 4: Money and markets, consumption and workThe sociology of economic life is the focus of this unit and includes two chapters: money and markets (Chapter 11) and consumption and work (Chapter 12). We will look at sociological studies of the transnational corporation, global financial markets, as well as transnational dimensions of the study of the changing nature of work and employment, organisations and networks, and practices of consumerism.

Unit 5: Medical and legal life: Crime and health in the global ageHere the focus will be on the study of crime and deviance, on health and medicine in a global context, and cybercrime. The two fields of crime and health have important histories in light of the emerging image of publics as demographic groups. The unit is composed of two chapters: crime in a global context (Chapter 13) and global health (Chapter 14). Chapter 13 focuses on deviance studies, offering a backdrop of perspectives and discussion of the law and punishment. Case studies include piracy and organised crime. Chapter 14 examines global health and medicine. It describes the biomedical model of health and offers a detailed examination of the sociology of disability.

Unit 6: New science and new sociation: Media and the new forms of social life

This final section of the course takes account of some of the profound changes that have been occurring in social life as a result of the rapid recent transformations in technology and communication. The first chapter looks at media in the global age, including the digital revolution and the emergence of the global media corporation (Chapter 15). The final chapter focuses on changes in social life with the emergence and spread of the internet and the growing importance of social media (Chapter 16).

1.5 Aims of the courseThe aims of the course are to:

• give an overview of key issues in contemporary sociology

• enable you to apply core substantive and theoretical debates in sociology to a diverse range of empirical societies, including your own.

1.6 Learning outcomes for the courseAt the end of this course, and having completed the Essential readings and activities, you should be able to:

• describe the nature of sociological perspectives and the major theories of contemporary society

Introduction

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• offer a critical and creative reading of the set texts and be able to select relevant material cited by the authors selectively in your examination answers

• evaluate the sociological debates surrounding the processes of globalisation and be able to compare and criticise them.

1.7 Overview of learning resourcesThis course relies on a number of different combined resources. Below is a description of these and the best way to utilise them.

1.7.1 Subject guide This subject guide is your main companion for the course. In it you will find introductions to the subjects that act as a springboard for deeper engagement. After short passages, you will find learning activities that are designed to help you reflect critically on the ideas that have been presented. You will also find very specific reading instructions that will enrich your grasp of the topic. It is helpful to write questions that occur to you as you read the subject guide introductions, and proceed through the activities and guided readings. These questions and reflections can later serve as a good foundation as you prepare essay topics with a view to the final examination.

1.7.2 Essential reading The guided readings are primarily drawn from the essential text of this course, which is:

Giddens, A. and P. W. Sutton Sociology. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013) [ISBN 9780745652931].

This text is required reading for the course and you should buy a copy. There are also occasional passages drawn from texts or journals that are available on the VLE or in the Online Library.

Detailed reading references in this subject guide refer to the edition of the set textbook listed above. A new edition of this textbook may have been published by the time you study this course. You can use a more recent edition of this book; use the detailed chapter and section headings and the index to identify relevant readings. Also check the VLE regularly for updated guidance on readings.

1.7.3 Further reading Please note that as long as you read the Essential reading you are then free to read around the subject area in any text, paper or online resource. You will need to support your learning by reading as widely as possible and by thinking about how these principles apply in the real world. To help you read extensively, you have free access to the VLE and University of London Online Library (see below).

A list of Further readings relevant to the subject matter covered in each chapter is given at the beginning of the chapters. You can find a complete list of all the Further reading and references cited on the VLE.

1.7.4 Online study resources In addition to the subject guide and the Essential reading, it is crucial that you take advantage of the study resources that are available online for this course, including the VLE and the Online Library.

You can access the VLE, the Online Library and your University of London email account via the Student Portal at: http://my.londoninternational.ac.uk

http://my.londoninternational.ac.uk


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You should have received your login details for the Student Portal with your official offer, which was emailed to the address that you gave on your application form. You have probably already logged in to the Student Portal in order to register. As soon as you registered, you will automatically have been granted access to the VLE, Online Library and your fully functional University of London email account.

If you have forgotten these login details, please click on the ‘Forgotten your password’ link on the login page.

The VLE

The VLE, which complements this subject guide, has been designed to enhance your learning experience, providing additional support and a sense of community. It forms an important part of your study experience with the University of London and you should access it regularly.

The VLE provides a range of resources for EMFSS courses:

• Self-testing activities: doing these allows you to test your own understanding of subject material.

• Electronic study materials: the printed materials that you receive from the University of London are available to download, including updated reading lists and references.

• Past examination papers and Examiners’ commentaries: these provide advice on how each examination question might best be answered.

• A student discussion forum: this is an open space for you to discuss interests and experiences, seek support from your peers, work collaboratively to solve problems and discuss subject material.

• Videos: there are recorded academic introductions to the subject, interviews and debates and, for some courses, audio-visual tutorials and conclusions.

• Recorded lectures: for some courses, where appropriate, the sessions from previous years’ Study Weekends have been recorded and made available.

• Study skills: expert advice on preparing for examinations and developing your digital literacy skills.

• Feedback forms.

Some of these resources are available for certain courses only, but we are expanding our provision all the time and you should check the VLE regularly for updates.

Making use of the Online Library

The Online Library contains a huge array of journal articles and other resources to help you read widely and extensively.

To access the majority of resources via the Online Library you will either need to use your University of London Student Portal login details, or you will be required to register and use an Athens login: http://tinyurl.com/ollathens

The easiest way to locate relevant content and journal articles in the Online Library is to use the Summon search engine.

http://tinyurl.com/ollathens

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If you are having trouble finding an article listed in a reading list, try removing any punctuation from the title, such as single quotation marks, question marks and colons.

For further advice, please see the online help pages: www.external.shl.lon.ac.uk/summon/about.php

1.8 Examination adviceImportant: the information and advice given here are based on the examination structure used at the time this subject guide was written. Please note that subject guides may be used for several years. Because of this we strongly advise you to always check both the current Regulations for relevant information about the examination, and the VLE where you should be advised of any forthcoming changes. You should also carefully check the rubric/instructions on the paper you actually sit and follow those instructions.

Final examinations can be unnerving experiences. The best way to take the edge off of examination nerves is preparation. If you follow the suggestions offered throughout this subject guide, including in this section, you should be well prepared for the final examination.

The examination is split into two major sections. One section is made up of short answer questions. You are required to answer a number of these (see the Sample examination paper at the end of this subject guide). These questions are especially designed to test your knowledge of the subject. By ‘knowledge’, we mean the core ideas and debates that have been carried out on the topic. You will be asked straightforward questions about each of the six units. The questions are really carefully designed prompts to unlock what you have been working hard to study. However, please try to answer the question and avoid ‘spilling’ whatever you may know about the topic even it is irrelevant!

The second part of the examination is made up of long answer, essay questions. It is vital that you prepare some topics in detail in order to answer the long questions well. The best strategy tends to be to select those topics you feel most interested in, passionate about or even perplexed by. Practise writing short answers that you find in the Sample examination papers to get a good sense of how much time you need to explain a point. Then you should attempt the essay length questions as practice so you really know how much (or little) you can write in order to provide a convincing and critical response to a question on the topic you have prepared.

Remember, it is important to check the VLE for:

• up-to-date information on examination and assessment arrangements for this course

• where available, past examination papers and Examiners’ commentaries for the course which give advice on how each question might best be answered.

http://www.external.shl.lon.ac.uk/summon/about.php

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Unit 1: Global inequalities: class, race, ethnicity and gender

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Unit 1: Global inequalities: class, race, ethnicity and gender

This unit is composed of chapters that explore different sides of social identity. Social identities are deeply embedded within forms of social inequality. The chapters that follow are on class, race, ethnicity and gender. In each chapter, discussion is offered as to how that identity has been studied by sociologists, in light of the idea that our identities are influenced at an institutional level. The chapters recount some of the social movements that have challenged the inequalities involved with social identities, specifically movements for race equality and feminisms.

Notes


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Chapter 2: Class

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Chapter 2: Class

2.1 IntroductionThe aim of this chapter is to enable you to grasp the ways in which societies, historically and globally, are composed of groups of people with more or less advantages. That people have more or less, in terms of opportunity, material rewards, social honour and other aspects of life, is described as ‘social stratification’. The image of a rock cut vertically to show layers is used as a way to think of the richest, middle and poorest classes. Social stratification is much more complex than this, of course. Nevertheless, the image is still helpful in grasping how social differences are shared by groups and are not just characteristics of individuals.

Giddens and Sutton (2013) summarise three key features that define social stratification. First, the layers (social strata) consist of distinct groups of people who have a shared characteristic even though they might not interact or identify with each other. The strata stay, but individuals move in or out. Secondly, the ranking of this social category has more power to determine an individual’s opportunities in life than chance. Chance will play less of a role than will social class in what an individual’s experiences in life are. Finally, although one person may move from rank to rank, or there may be relatively greater mobility up or down the ranks, the general rankings themselves change very slowly.

Class is not the only type of social stratification that sociologists study. This unit is composed of four chapters which explore different types of stratification: class, race, gender and age. The final section of this chapter relates class stratification to gender inequality.

2.1.1 Aims of the chapterThe aims of this chapter are to:

• introduce you to the topic of social stratification and one of its main forms, class

• offer an overview of the key sociological debates over what class inequality is, and how it persists or changes

• present the global dimensions of class stratification.

2.1.2 Learning outcomes By the end of this chapter, and having completed the Essential reading and activities, you should be able to:

• explain what social stratification is, and relate it to class specifically

• critically evaluate ‘ascribed’ and ‘achieved’ characteristics and social status

• describe ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ dimensions of class

• outline the main attempts by UK sociologists to measure class since the mid-20th century, including the ‘Great British Class Survey’ published in 2013

• discuss the relationship between class inequality and race and gender

• offer an account of the global dimensions of class in relation to production and consumption, and transnational corporations (TNCs).


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2.1.3 Essential readingGiddens, A. and P. W. Sutton Sociology. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013)

[ISBN 9780745652931] Chapter 12.

2.1.4 Further readingBourdieu, P. Distinction: a social critique of taste. (London: Routledge & Kegan

Paul, 1968) [ISBN 9780415045469].Braverman, H. Labour and monopoly capital: the degradation of work

in the twentieth century. (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974) [ISBN 9780853453703].

Butler, T. and M. Savage Social change and the middle classes. (London: UCL Press, 1995) [ISBN 9781857282726].

Cohen, R. and P. Kennedy Global sociology. (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007) second edition [ISBN 9780230293748].

Goldthorpe, J. The affluent worker in the class structure. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968−69) [ISBN 9780521095334].

Goldthorpe, J. et al. Social mobility and class structure. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980) [ISBN 9780198272854 ].

Marcuse, H. One-dimensional man: studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964) [ISBN 9780415289771].

Sennett, R. The corrosion of character: the personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. (London: W.W. Norton, 1998) [ISBN 9780393319873].

Wright, E. O. Classes. (London: Verso, 1985) [ISBN 9781859841792].

2.1.5 Works citedAndrews, D. and A. Leigh ‘More inequality, less social mobility’, Applied

Economic Letters 19 2009, pp.1489–92.Blau, P. and O. Duncan. The American occupational structure. (New York: Wiley,

1967) [ISBN 9780029036709].Breen, R. and J. Goldthorpe ‘Class inequality and meritocracy: a critique of

Saunders and an alternative analysis’, British Journal of Sociology 50 1999, pp.1−27.

Butler, T. and M. Savage Social change and the middle classes. (London: UCL Press, 1995) [ISBN 9781857282726].

Marshall, G. and D. Firth ‘Social mobility and personal satisfaction: evidence from ten countries’, British Journal of Sociology 50(1) 1999, pp.28−48.

Pakulski, J. and M. Waters The death of class. (London: Sage, 1996) [ISBN 9780803978393].

Savage, M., et al Property, bureaucracy, and culture: middle class formation in contemporary Britain. (London: Routledge, 1992) [ISBN 9780415037730].

Savage, M. et al. ‘A new model of social class: findings from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey’,

Sociology, 2 April 2013. Saunders, P. Social class and stratification. (London: Routledge, 1990)

[ISBN 9780415041256].Saunders, P. Unequal but fair? A study of class barriers in Britain. (London: IEA

Health and Welfare Unit, 1996) [ISBN 9780255363662].Sklair, L. The transnational capitalist class. (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2000)

[ISBN 9780631224624]

2.1.6 Synopsis of chapter contentThis chapter opens with a historical description of the types of stratification into which human societies have been divided in order to show how the class system is distinct from other forms of stratification. The important distinction between ascribed and achieved social status surfaces in this brief account. Two of the pillars of sociological analysis of class − Marx and Weber − are compared. Their influence on current research is examined through one important sociologist – Wright − who

Chapter 2: Class

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pointed to the importance of occupation in understanding class. Following from this, we look at Goldthorpe’s research into how to differentiate between classes. The next section focuses on a recent study on class in the UK that was carried out using a conceptual framework borrowed from Bourdieu. This way of seeing class, as studied by Savage et al., takes account of more than simply occupational strata. It includes cultural aspects as well as symbolic and social ones. The chapter moves on to introduce the important ends of the class spectrum: the elites and the excluded. It offers a brief discussion on the interplay between gender and class. Finally we conclude by looking at how much movement there is between classes.

Activity 2.1

Many science fiction television programmes or films have portrayed imaginary societies which attempt to enforce class equality, but these are often shown in a negative light (Star Trek has many such examples). Do you think it would be possible or desirable to have a society without social classes? What would be lost or gained if your society today were to change?

2.2 Four types of social stratification in historyHuman societies have had many different systems of social stratification, and these can be grouped under several sociological ideal types. An ‘ideal type’ is a conceptual tool developed by the early sociologist Max Weber. It is a ‘pure type’ or mental construct emphasising certain elements of a social phenomenon. This analytical model does not have any actual historical existence, but is useful for understanding actual phenomena – in terms of whether they are closer or farther from the ‘ideal type’. The four main ideal types of social systems of large-scale societies that relate to economic life, property and production are: slave societies, caste societies, the estate system and, alongside industrialisation, class societies.

Slavery is a form of economic stratification in which people can be owned as property by other people. Slavery-based societies vary in terms of the rights slaves have or can gain. In some forms, slaves may be much closer to household servants. They are able to purchase their freedom and move out of the category of slave. In other systems, slaves have had no legal rights. Slavery is now illegal in all countries in the world. Yet illegal slavery is on the rise, for specific purposes: labour, sex and human trafficking.

Societies wherein an individual’s position is ascribed from birth because of specific characteristics (such as skin colour, parents’ religion or their social status) are called caste societies. Such social systems have been historically connected in agricultural societies without developed industrial capitalist economies. Two examples that were robust in the late 20th century are India and South Africa.

In pre-industrial Europe and in East Asia, estate systems existed for many centuries. The estate system also features social positions that are ascribed from birth, but in these societies there has been slightly more fluidity than is the case with caste societies. Historically, estate societies have been feudal and aristocratic.

In the current globalised world, the main social stratification system that is emerging is the class system. A class system involves large populations that are divided into layers according to the wealth, property, control over resources and lifestyle. Wealth and occupation have been seen as the main components of class differences. This definition identifies four


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important differences between class stratification and slavery, caste or estate systems. Class is fluid, not wholly based on ascribed characteristics or on economic position. Class is comprehensive and impersonal. When a person’s life chances can be changed according to what happens after they are born (through education, work experience or marriage, for example), sociologists call these achieved characteristics. In class societies, whether or not a person has a certain education or qualifications can have a great impact on their class position.

Activity 2.2

Write down 10 words to describe yourself:

1. 6.

2. 7.

3. 8.

4. 9.

5. 10.

Rank these characteristics into the ones that you think will have the most effect on your future economic hopes. For example, you might list the degree you are working on as the most important and your shoe size or movie preferences as less important.

Now sort this list into ascribed or achieved characteristics. For example, your natural hair colour is ascribed in that it is something fixed from birth. Your educational qualification is an achieved characteristic.

In your list, are the ascribed or achieved characteristics more likely to affect your economic future?

►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) p.485.

2.2.1 Marx and Weber Classical sociologists tried to grapple with the dramatic changes that marked the Industrial Revolution. One major aspect of this was in the changes from an earlier form of social stratification to the class system. Karl Marx offered a theory of social relations and the economic relations embedded in antagonistic social relations. Marx’s analysis has had a long-lasting impact on subsequent sociologists in measuring and analysing class. Max Weber took a somewhat different approach and sociologists have developed a more ‘rounded’ analysis of class based on the ideas he proposed.

Marx wrote a great deal on historical economic systems and the new economic system he saw replacing it: capitalism. Although social stratification is absolutely crucial to Marx’s analysis of capitalism, he wrote little on class directly. The basic feature that unites a group of people into one class, according to Marx, is how they ‘gain a livelihood’. He examined economic systems in terms of what he described ‘the mode of production’. In earlier ‘modes of production’, the social strata divided into those who owned land (aristocrats, gentry, slave-holders) in opposition to the people who produced from it (serfs, slaves, free peasantry). In the capitalist mode of production, society is divided into two main groups whose interests oppose each other. There are the capitalists (or industrialists) and the rest of society (the people who must sell their labour). The relationship between these two main classes is exploitative: capitalists need to produce a profit from the labour that workers need to sell. Capitalists need ever-cheaper labour to stay competitive, which creates ever-worsening conditions for workers. In this economic system – which many argue is

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still fundamentally the system in place now – the wealth that is created by workers selling their labour exceeds any created in previous economic systems. However, importantly, the workers creating this wealth have little or no access to it. Marx predicted that the polarisation created in capitalism – the increasing distance between the rich and the poor – would lead to an explosive situation, a ‘class revolution’ in which workers would seize power from the owners of the means of production. Many of Marx’s predictions have not come to pass. Some sociologists have argued Marx offered too simplistic an analysis, and others point to the radical ways in which capitalism has transformed with technological changes.

►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) pp. 487−88.

Activity 2.3

Try to connect three or four working people you know with different positions in the ‘relations of production’ as owners of the means to produce (i.e. factories) or those who sell their labour. Do Marx’s terms make sense? Are there straightforwardly ‘owners of the means of production’ and ‘labourers’ in your society? Or do most people seem to work in another realm, for example, offering services and not producing goods?

Weber developed his analysis of social stratification in relation to Marx, but he expanded on and transformed the Marxian image of class. Weber introduced the concepts of status and party into the analysis of social stratification. He argued that one’s class position was not only a function of where one stood in terms of the means of production. Another vital aspect was something Weber described as a person’s ‘market position’, which comes from their skills, qualifications and experience. Alongside class, Weber brought out more nuances in relation to social stratification by drawing attention to social honour or what he called status. Historically, people might have had status because of their relations over many years with other people. People understand the status of others through how they dress, speak, and what their homes and occupations are. As society has become urban, mobile and more complex, status markers come to mean more than direct knowledge of people. A status community is a group of people which has a shared identity based on similar levels of social honour accorded to them. In contrast to Marx, Weber thought that status and class could fluctuate independently. There is another way in which social groups are stratified, which Weber described using the term party. A party is similar to an interest group, but somewhat broader. It is a group that works together because of a shared characteristic, such as religion or nation, which binds its members through background or goals. Weber’s image of social inequality offers a much more nuanced and multi-dimensional view than tends to be gleaned from Marx’s writings. Class, status and party can all influence a person’s social position and this suggests a many-class model may be more appropriate to large-scale urban, post-industrial societies.

2.2.2 Marx and Weber combined: E.O. WrightOne sociologist who developed an influential synthesis of Marx and Weber is Eric Olin Wright. According to Wright, Marx was correct in that control over economic resources is a vital element of class. There are three key dimensions of control: over investments or capital, over the physical means of production and over labour power. The capitalist class has all three dimensions, whereas the working class has none. Between these two extremes are groups that have access to some control, such as white collar workers and managers. ‘White collar workers’ is a term used to describe office work, from secretarial to managerial. ‘Blue collar


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workers’ refers to manual labour of any sort, from factory line producers to local self-employed plumbers. Wright describes these in-between white collar groups as having ‘contradictory class locations’. Nevertheless, almost all of society has to sell their labour. This majority, which has no choice but to sell their labour, is differentiated in terms of authority and skills. White collar workers have closer relationships with authority than blue collar workers. Possessing skills or expertise allows workers greater ability to negotiate for rewards for their labour.

Activity 2.4

Compare a call centre worker who attempts to sell a new service (say, accident insurance) to overseas customers with an independent market trader who sells freshly caught fish from a stall they rent in a busy market.

• Which person has a higher social status?

• Who has more control over resources?

• Does each have the same level of skills?

• Are they likely to have the same lifestyle, and to consume the same sorts of products?

2.2.3 Studying class: preoccupation with occupationSociologists have tried not only to offer theories of class, but also to produce measurements of it. The most popular method for a long time was by looking at stratification in relation to a person’s occupation. The view is that occupations are usually linked to other inequalities, namely material and social ones. These links express the categories that make up social classes.

Since the Industrial Revolution, the division of labour in industrialised nations has increased. This new phenomenon was one that early sociologists were deeply interested in. Durkheim’s earliest works were an attempt to look at the difference between the pre- and post-industrial division of labour. Later sociologists took occupation as the marker of class because people in the same occupations, or even similar ones, tended to have similar experiences as well as advantages and disadvantages. Broadly, two forms of class images based on occupations have been used: relational and descriptive. Relational class schemes have arisen from Marxist perspectives and usually underscore the conflicts in society between different occupational groups. Descriptive schemes are offered as a mere record of what classes there are and how the system of class stratification may be changing.

One of the most notable examples of a relational class scheme was developed over several decades and throughout extensive survey research by Goldthorpe. Goldthorpe’s most recent version of his system relies on two variables – market and work situation – to analyse class. The results suggested up to 11 classes, but (except for the elite) these fit into three main categories described as the service, intermediate and working class. Sociologists criticised Goldthorpe’s relational image of class because there were either certain groups (elderly, out-of-work) or certain characteristics (property ownership, wealth) that were not operationalised. Goldthorpe’s relational system has been adopted by the UK governments and the EU, making it influential not only in sociology but more generally.


Pakulski and Waters (1996) published a work The death of class in which they questioned whether class is a useful way to conceive of economic

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stratification at all. Instead, they argue that social stratification is tied up with ‘status conventionalism’ which refers to differences in prestige, lifestyle and consumption patterns. Another significant difference that affects the older form of class stratification, according to Pakulski and Waters, relates to changes in property ownership. Ownership has become less restricted in that there is greater competition between firms and less chance for direct inheritance. Pakulski and Waters call the underprivileged of society the ‘ascriptively disprivileged underclass’. Instead of Marx’s image of those who are forced to sell their labour under increasingly inhumane conditions, the ‘ascriptively disprivileged underclass’ are those who cannot consume the status markers that symbolise the lower, middle or upper classes (cars, clothes, houses, holidays, for example). The view of many sociologists today is that stratification now is achieved through cultural consumption, not class position.

2.2.4 Internal changes of class system: the bloated middle classSociologists have debated about class in terms of what it is based in (occupation, consumption) and how to measure it (market position, property, control). Within these debates, new descriptions have emerged which offer more precision in terms of the changing form of class in the global world.

In the UK, and broadly in industrialised nations, the middle class has grown. Blue collar occupations have been replaced with white collar occupations. White collar jobs are considered middle class, in that the middle class can sell both mental and physical labour. This is distinct from the working class which sells only its physical labour. However, the ‘middle class’ is difficult to demarcate. It lacks cohesion as its membership is varied in background and interests (Butler and Savage, 1995).

White collar workers like those employed in professional, managerial and administrative occupations are growing for a number of reasons. Modern societies require large-scale organisations that rely on white collar occupations. In the ‘welfare states’, the government plays a major role in areas of economy that require professionals (social workers, teachers, health care staff). Finally, as economic and industrial development proceeded, there has been an increasing demand for the services of experts (in law, finance, accounting, technology and information systems). Marx predicted the working class would grow and become increasingly exploited. Their ‘pauperisation’ would be the grounds for revolution. However, the reverse appears to be the case. Industrialised countries still have significant numbers of poor people, but these groups are not blue collar workers. Blue collar workers no longer live in poverty, a development that has been described as ‘working class affluence’. To account for this, the ‘embourgeoisement thesis’ describes how more people have become middle class through the material resources that blue collar occupations can now afford. Goldthorpe tested this idea in his Affluent worker study (1968). His research question was whether the wealthier blue collar workers had become culturally the same as middle class white collar workers. The answer he found was that these groups remained distinct from each other. Although affluent blue collar workers had changed their consumption patterns to match those of the middle class, nevertheless, blue collar workers still faced unstable work (for example, poor benefits, low chances for advancement, little intrinsic job satisfaction). Blue collar and white collar workers did not mingle, and the former had little aspiration to shift into a different class.


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2.2.5 Objective and subjective class determinantsIn seeking to explain the changing nature of both the economic system that produces class and to explain class itself, a number of influential social thinkers have turned away from models based in market position or occupations. They look instead at ‘lifestyle choices’ and other symbols of class. Pierre Bourdieu (1974) worked with the notions of capital to identify different classes in France. He used the term ‘capital’ to describe the different sorts of resources a class group has. Four types of capital are important in determining and maintaining one’s class position: cultural, economic, symbolic and social.

• Cultural capital refers to education, appreciation of the arts, consumption and leisure pursuits.

• Social capital is the networks of friends and contacts that an individual has.

• Symbolic capital is simply a good reputation, social status.

• Economic capital is those properties and fiscal resources that individuals gain and use.

In Bourdieu’s analysis, having a good stock of one form of capital enables people to gain others.

Activity 2.5

Can you imagine an example where losing one type of capital might result in the loss of others?

Savage (1992) agreed with Bourdieu that class is connected to specific lifestyle and consumption patterns. He found three sectors based on cultural tastes and assets. Professionals in public service had high cultural capital marked by active lifestyles and high community participation. Managers and bureaucrats had ‘indistinctive’ consumption with little activity, community participation and traditional preferences. Finally, Savage found a postmodern group, which followed a lifestyle lacking any definitive principle, and which combined unusual elements of the arts, sport and community activity. In April 2013, Savage et al. published an updated and greatly expanded study of class in the UK. It is described in the box below.

►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) pp.496–501

Class in 21st century UK ‘The Great British Class Survey’ from Savage, et al.

The ‘largest ever survey of social class’ describes seven main social classes, and not merely three. They write that they ‘demonstrate the existence of an “elite”, whose wealth separates them from an established middle class, as well as a class of technical experts and a class of “new affluent” workers. We also show that at the lower levels of the class structure, alongside an ageing traditional working class, there is a “precariat” characterised by very low levels of capital, and a group of emergent service workers. We think that this new seven class model recognises both social polarisation in British society and class fragmentation in its middle layers…’

Source: Mike Savage, Fiona Devine, Niall Cunningham, Mark Taylor, Yaojun Li, Johs. Hjellbrekke, Brigitte Le Roux, Sam Friedman and Andrew Miles ‘A new model of social class: Findings from the BBC’s Great British Class’, Sociology 2 April 2013 (published online).

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2.2.6 Elites and social exclusion As mentioned at the start of this chapter, class is one system of social stratification that is connected to other systems in various ways. Race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and the life course interconnect with class. Some groups, based on shared ideas of race, have faced more disadvantages than other groups. This is also true for women in contrast to men, especially historically, although sociologists have found many changes to the ways that stratification is occurring recently and when viewed from a global perspective. The idea of underclass (or the marginalised or socially excluded) has been used for groups that are subjected to forms of inequality such as long-term unemployment, homelessness and welfare dependencies. Many sociologists now use the term ‘social exclusion’ because it describes processes, rather than people.


Sociologists in the USA have long asked a ‘chicken and egg’ question about whether the impoverishment amongst African-Americans is caused by stratification due to race or class. It appears as impossible to answer as whether the chicken (class) or the egg (race) came first. The debates raised by this issue have drawn attention to the geography of exclusion which, in the USA, features in the persistence of socially segregated areas in cities. The groups in these urban settings (African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans) are deprived of social capital in many ways: education, healthcare, security (from crime) and good transportation. The combination of these disadvantages has created a culture of exclusion, and people in the ‘hoods’ have little in common socially, politically or economically with groups outside them. By contrast, researchers in the UK found no distinctive culture of the socially excluded. Housing estates and other geographic areas that are comparable in terms of similarly disadvantaged groups do not have the same ‘sealed off’ cultures. In short, social exclusion does not ‘map’ as neatly in the UK, in the way it seems to in the USA.

Still, in Western Europe, social researchers have recorded a change in social exclusion which is beginning to resemble that in the USA. This is closely linked to immigration. Although most of the poorer class in Europe have not migrated in, there are nevertheless increasing numbers of poor who are immigrants who live in worsening urban areas. There are a number of causes for this trend, including poor job prospects (qualifications may not be internationally recognised), remittances (money sent home by relatives working abroad) and family members entering the country illegally and adding dependencies to already small incomes. Remittances to Africa, for example, now total more than the annual aid given to the continent globally.

Activity 2.6

Consider the Giddens and Sutton (2013) reading (pp.547–51) and the paragraphs above. Use these two texts to draft a short essay answer to this question:

What are the main differences between focusing on an ‘underclass’ in contrast to focusing on ‘social exclusion’?

Elite is a term used by sociologists to describe the richest members of society, either within one national society or globally. While Marx’s predictions about the pauperisation of the working class seem to have failed to come about, and the 20th century saw a burgeoning middle class, there has also been a shift in the constitution of elites. Elites, measured by


20

wealth only, have become increasingly rich and form an increasing small proportion of society. This pulling away at the top from the mainstream of society in terms of wealth, and especially from the poorest members of society, is described as polarisation. When looked at in global terms, there appears to be a new division of labour. The wealthiest nations (by GDP) have become ‘post-industrial’ where production seems to have shifted nationally to the newly industrialising nations. It appears that there are now greater differences between nations than within nations.

Even historically, elites have lived beyond national boundaries. They have moved wealth, assets and production across nations. The emergence of transnational companies (TNCs) has created what some sociologists describe as a ‘transnational capitalist class’ (Sklair, 2000). This class has a number of features. Transnational capitalists have international and prestigious qualifications. They have important roles in government and central banks, in globalising organisations (such as the World Trade Organization), on boards of major foundations and they have key positions in the world commerce organisations. This global class of elites holds control, but they are not necessarily members of the global rich or super-rich. Their positions and accreditation mean that they share common ground with each other, but so too do their globalised forms of consumption.

2.2.7 Interplay of gender and economic inequalityAlthough sociological research has tended to overlook gender, it remains one of most entrenched fields of inequality. Gender inequality has – arguably – a much longer history than class inequality, but what exactly is the overlap between the two in modern society? How far can we understand gender inequality of modern times in terms of class divisions? Until recently, many sociologists assumed that class inequalities ‘governed’ gender inequalities. Women’s class position was thought to be dependent on that of their father or husband. Feminist critiques challenge this view. Goldthorpe held a conventional view in that he saw that, since women’s wages were so much less than their husbands (and they were therefore dependent on their husband’s earnings), women must be seen as same class as their husbands. He argued that this was not a sexist view because it takes account of intermittent, flexible nature of women’s labour. However, there have been a number of criticisms of this idea. First, a wife’s income is often required to maintain the household level of income and consumption and must be seen as determinant of the household’s class position. In addition, the status that a woman’s occupation has may determine her class (she may have a white collar job, while her husband is blue collar). Finally, households are changing and there has been an increase in single mothers, childless unmarried working women and stay-at-home fathers, all of which demand a change in how class and gender are seen to relate. The changing nature of households raises questions as to whether they are a useful unit for comparison or whether individuals should be evaluated instead.

2.2.8 Class mobility and rigidityAt the beginning of this chapter, we noted that social strata change slowly over time. Although the class as a unit may be fairly rigid in shape, there can be a great deal of internal movement of individuals. This is called social mobility: in other words, when individuals move up or down between different socio-economic levels. Vertical mobility, or moving up to a higher class, is often considered a measure of a society’s openness.

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Blau and Duncan (1967) studied 20,000 men in the USA and concluded that there was high mobility between occupations that were close together. This horizontal mobility contrasted with what they called ‘long-range’ mobility, which was much less frequent. They also noted that upward mobility was more common than downward mobility, as the white collar and professional sectors were expanding more rapidly than blue collar sector. This, argue Blau and Duncan, was happening in industrial societies as a whole. The sort of study carried out by Blau and Duncan is described as a study of the ‘objective’ dimensions of mobility. Researchers ask how much mobility exists, in which directions there is movement and what parts of the population are shifting.

In contrast, Marshall and Firth (1999) looked at ‘subjective’ feelings about changing class positions. They found little connection between a heightened sense of satisfaction or dissatisfaction and an individual’s class position in relation to upward or downward movement. Downward mobility tended to be less prevalent than upward, but it was not uncommon. Slipping down the class strata seems to cause substantial upset to individuals because they could no longer have the same lifestyle. There has not been a great deal of research on downward mobility, but it is probably increasing in the USA and the UK. The late 20th century saw the first reduction in white collar positions since the 1940s. There has been a global shift in post-industrial countries where white and blue collar occupations were being replaced by part-time flexible labour (Sennett, 1998).

Over the course of several decades, researchers in the UK have tested the level of class mobility. Although earlier studies recorded a certain amount of mobility, trends suggest that the prior rates of increasing mobility have stabilised and are perhaps starting to recede.

Saunders (1990, 1996) criticised UK mobility studies, arguing that Britain is a meritocracy. This means that those individuals who are most able and do the most in society are rewarded the most. He uses information from the National Child Development Study to support this claim. In his view, the UK may be an unequal society, but it is a fair one. However, Breen and Goldthorpe (1999) criticise Saunders in theory and method. The meritocratic thesis is a politically charged one, for it seems to support inequality. Breen and Goldthorpe used the same data as Saunders to arrive at radically different conclusions. Stated simply, they found that a child from a disadvantaged background had to show a great deal more merit to get the same rewards as a child from a privileged background. This research was supported by a cross-national study carried out by Andrews and Leigh. Social stratification seems to impede ‘fair’ outcomes (i.e. rewards that are equal only to ability and achievement). These researchers suggest that there needs to be a level playing field at the start in order for a real meritocracy to happen.


Activity 2.8

How much mobility is there in your society? Are ‘rags-to-riches’ stories − where someone born into poverty manages to build up undreamed-of wealth over the course of their life − fantasy or reality? Are people frightened of slipping down the class scale because it happens all too easily to those around them? Or can you think of people who are realising their dream to move up into a different class?


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2.2.9 Social class nowBased on the research in the USA, UK and by European sociologists, it seems that some of the older elements of class are starting to disappear. Importantly − and this is borne out by the Great Social Class Survey − the conscious identification of groups with a specific class appears to be disappearing. Nevertheless, class stratification still holds a powerful determining force over the lives of many, whether measured by occupation, wealth or consumption. It is connected to a range of inequalities such as educational access, health and life expectancy. Class polarisation both within and between nations is increasing and garnering the attention of new generations of sociologists.

2.3 Overview of the chapterThis chapter explained the different kinds of stratification that occurred historically in order to show how the modern class system is distinct from these. Marx and Weber were compared, and one version of a combined perspective based in their writings was discussed: Wright’s account of class through occupation. Goldthorpe’s many-class picture was compared with the ‘Great British Class Survey’ published in 2013 by Savage et al. This survey was drafted with reference to Bourdieu’s notion of how different forms of capital play a role in determining class as a backdrop, and offers a more textured conception of class than looking at occupation only. The topics of elites and the socially excluded were raised, and the chapter concluded with an account of the interrelations between class and gender.

2.4 Reminder of your learning outcomesHaving completed this chapter as well as the Essential reading and activities, you should be able to:

• explain what social stratification is, and relate it to class specifically

• critically evaluate ‘ascribed’ and ‘achieved’ characteristics and social status

• describe ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ dimensions of class

• outline the main attempts by UK sociologists to measure class since the mid-20th century, including the ‘Great British Class Survey’ published in 2013

• discuss the relationship between class inequality and race and gender

• offer an account of the global dimensions of class in relation to production and consumption, and transnational corporations (TNCs).

2.5 Test your knowledge and understanding1. What does stratification mean?

2. What does a ‘meritocracy’ refer to?

3. Is occupation the only determinant of a person’s class?

4. What do the concepts ‘symbolic capital’, ‘social capital’ and ‘cultural capital’ mean?

5. Describe one way in which class and gender intersect?

6. What is an ‘elite’?

7. Why is consumption relevant to class?

Chapter 3: Race

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Chapter 3: Race

3.1 IntroductionThis chapter offers a picture of the complexities of the specific forms of social inequality based on ‘race’. The social stratification explored in Chapter 2 – class − intersects with that of race, ethnicity and gender. Some sociologists argue that, in a global world, racial inequality is being eclipsed or transformed by new forms that are better described as ethnic inequality. Other race theorists reject this claim and have contributed to a vibrant area of study called ‘post-colonial studies’. This field focuses on racial inequality as it has been shaped historically and as it continues to be entrenched now.

This chapter first examines some of the difficulties of studying ‘race’. It then turns to the process and continuing force of racialisation. Some examples of the current public debate on post-racial societies are offered. The chapter concludes with a discussion of ‘critical race theory’.

3.1.1. Aims of the chapterThe aims of this chapter are to:

• introduce the difficulties of distinguishing between race and ethnicity

• offer an account of the contours of racial discrimination historically and in the contemporary global world

• present a discussion of old (biological) racism in contrast to new (cultural) racism and to explain the ideas of multiple racisms and institutional racism

• help you understand the specific issues of racialisation; group closure; allocation of resources; conflict theory, social constructionism; differential racialisation; and ‘critical race theory’.

3.1.2 Learning outcomesBy the end of this chapter, and having completed the Essential reading and activities, you should be able to:

• describe earlier and current forms of racism, and sociological definitions of race and ethnicity

• explain what the similarities, differences and crossover is between racial inequality and one other form of social inequality

• provide brief accounts of a number of specific ideas that are core to social scientific studies of ‘race’, including racialisation, group closure, institutional racism, new and old racisms, and social construction of identity

• introduce and discuss contemporary sociological perspectives for studying ‘race’ in the global world.

3.1.3. Essential readingGiddens, A. and P.W. Sutton Sociology. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013)

[ISBN 9780745652931] Chapter 16.


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3.1.4 Further readingAppiah, A. Color conscious: the political morality of race. (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 1996) [ISBN 9780691059099].Back, L. and J. Solomos (eds) Theories of race and racism. (London: Routledge,

2009) [ISBN 9780415412544].Banton, M. Racial theories. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998)

[ISBN 9780521629454].Bulmer, M. and J. Solomos (eds) Racism. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1999) [ISBN 9780192893000].Collins, P.H. and J. Solomos (eds) Sage handbook of race and ethnic studies.

(London: Sage, 2010) [ISBN 9780761942207].Donald, J. and A. Rattansi (eds) Race, culture and difference. (London: Sage,

1992) [ISBN 9780803985803].Eze, E.C. Achieving our humanity: the idea of the postracial future. (London:

Routledge, 2001) [ISBN 9780415929417].Finney, N. and L. Simpson ‘Sleepwalking to segregation’? Challenging

myths about race and migration. (Bristol: Policy Press, 2009) [ISBN 9781847420077].

Fredrickson, G. Racism: a short history. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002) [ISBN 9780691116525].

Gilroy, P. There ain’t no black in the Union Jack. (London: Routledge, 2002) second edition [ISBN 9780415289818].

Goldberg, D.T. Racist culture. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 1993) [ISBN 9780631180784].

Hesse, B. (ed.) Un/settled multiculturalisms: diasporas, entanglements, transruptions. (London: Zed, 2000) [ISBN 9781856495608].

McGhee, D. The end of multiculturalism? Terrorism, integration and human rights. (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2008) [ISBN 9780335223916].

Miles, R. Racism after race relations. (London: Routledge, 1993) [ISBN 9780415100342].

Solomos, J. Race and racism in Britain. (London: Palgrave, 2003) third edition [ISBN 9780333764091].

3.1.5. Works citedBack, L. New ethnicities, multiple racisms: young people and transcultural

dialogue. (London: UCL Press, 1995) [ISBN 9781135368117].Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies The empire strikes back: race and

racism in 70s Britain. (London: Hutchison, 1982) [ISBN 9780415079099].Cohen, R. and P. Kennedy Global sociology. (London: Palgrave, 2007) second

edition [ISBN 978140394844].Cox, O.C. Class, caste and race: a study in social dynamics. (New York: Monthly

Review Press, 1959) [ISBN 9780853451167].Delgado, R. and J. Stefancic Critical race theory: an introduction. (New York:

New York University Press, 2001) [ISBN 9780814719312].Denzin, N.K. et al. Handbook of critical and indigenous methodologies. (New

York: Sage, 2008) [ISBN 9781412918039].Hicks, R. ‘From “classless society” to “post-racial society”: how the Left

exchanged a noble ideal for an ignoble one’, The Telegraph, 19 February 2011. Available at: http://my.telegraph.co.uk/philosopherkin/rogerhicks/466/from-%E2%80%9Cclassless-society%E2%80%9D-to-%E2%80%9Cpost-racial-society%E2%80%9D/

Macpherson, S.W. The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. Cm 4262-I (London: HMSO, 1999) [ISBN 978 0101426220].

Muir, H. ‘Post-racial Britain and what lies beneath the surface’, The Guardian, 13 October 2013. Available at: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/13/post-racial-britain-beneath-the-surface-bbc-inside-out

http://my.telegraph.co.uk/philosopherkin/rogerhicks/466/from-%E2%80%9Cclassless-society%E2%80%9D-to-%E2%80%9Cpost-racial-society%E2%80%9D/



http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/13/post-racial-britain-beneath-the-surface-bbc-inside-out

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/13/post-racial-britain-beneath-the-surface-bbc-inside-out

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Obama, B. ‘America is not a post-racial society: In the wake of the Trayvon Martin tragedy, we should ask: am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can?’, The Guardian, 19 July 2013. Available at: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/19/america-not-post-racial-society-barack-obama

UNESCO Declaration on race and racial prejudice. (Paris: UNESCO, 1979) [ISBN 9789231017230].

Zamudio, M. et al (eds) Critical race theory matters: education and ideology. (New York: Routledge, 2010) [ISBN 9780415996747].

3.1.6 Synopsis of chapter contentThis chapter is about the very politically charged and contentious idea of ‘race’. It starts with a reminder that the term used to be an inclusive and liberal one, but it became a concept freighted with bias as attempts were made to establish a physically based hierarchy of humans into racial groups. The early projects to prove this scientifically with ‘race science’ have failed, but the issue of racialisation remains powerful in many of today’s societies. The issue of discrimination, or stereotyping based on prejudice, is real. Thus race may not be ‘real’ in any biologically meaningful sense, but it is ‘real’ in the lived consequences of people’s beliefs about it. The specific processes of group closure, resource allocation and scapegoating that play significant roles in how racialised situations are perpetuated are discussed. As a form of social stratification, race interacts with class, ethnicity and gender. Here, we look at the crossover between race and class. We examine the ideas of a ‘post-racial’ society and a ‘raceless’ society in order to understand some of the latest public interventions in this field of social life. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the current perspective that sociologists are working within to study the legacy of race: ‘critical race theory’.

3.2 Race in a global worldThe word ‘race’ carries with it a weight of meanings that derive from different historical uses of it and its association with the connected idea ‘racism’. Today there are a host of problematic and often provocative terms associated with the word such as ‘racial profiling’, ‘racial inequality’, ‘racial segregation’, ‘racially charged’, ‘racial discrimination’ and ‘racial justice’. Many of these terms have come into use over the past few decades, as the core idea of biologically distinct human groupings has been scientifically discredited and – paradoxically − the prejudice that this core idea supported has continued and, in many instances, deepened.

Cohen and Kennedy (2007, p.158) open an account of the notion of ‘race’ by taking the unusually long step of going beyond modern biological associations. They point out that several centuries ago, ‘race’ described the entire human community. People invoked it in order to show the sameness of all humanity. ‘Race’ was not used as a description of one element in a set, but rather showed the homogeneity of the whole group: the ‘human race’.

However, this universal idea of ‘race’ changed and it began to take on the opposite idea. Since the late 1700s there have been innumerable attempts by scientists and policy makers to set up a racial classification system. The first three-group system has been attributed to Count Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816−82). His system separated humanity into three groups based on what he wrote were outwardly observable physical characteristics: white (Caucasian), black (Negroid) and yellow (Mongoloid). The system went much further than categorising just physical appearances, however, it also attributed non-observable

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/19/america-not-post-racial-society-barack-obama



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characteristics involving morality and competences to different racial groups. According to de Gobineau, the ‘Caucasian’ race was more intelligent, had superior moral being and greater resolve. The proof of these qualities could be seen in the successes of the colonial projects around the world. The starkest contrast lay with the ‘Negroid’ race, which had the opposing qualities of immorality, instinctiveness and emotionalism. These seem like extraordinary conclusions to draw from hair, skin and eye colour and yet such generalisations have had massive and lasting effects. The most notable case of how the ideology of racial superiority influenced the organisation and workings of a modern nation-state is the doctrine of racial supremacy underpinning National Socialism in Germany under Adolf Hitler. A very similar ideology underscores the Klu Klux Klan in the USA and supported the apartheid government of South Africa for many years. Each variant of the ideology of ‘white supremacy’ has been used as justification for the social exclusion and murder of those who are not of the superior ‘Caucasian race’.

Over the past two centuries, scientists (often supported by governments) have tried to establish racial classification systems by which to group the human community into separate categories. These systems have not mapped onto one another easily, and have varying numbers of groups or sub-groups – ranging from a few to over 50. Physical characteristics such as hair colour, skin colour and eye colour lie on a continuum rather than in clustered groups, making it impossible to biologically delineate between discrete ‘races’. Thus, in the mainstream of natural and social science the idea of ‘race’ having a biological or genetic basis has been discarded. In many societies, among non-scientists however, the idea that there are specific races is taken for granted and has real effects on how people live their lives.

While scientists have shown that there are not ‘real, physical’ races, the project of ‘race science’ was dropped after the Second World War when the extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazis under the ideology of ‘racial purity’ became publicly known. At the conclusion of the war, in 1945, UNESCO stated that ‘the great and terrible war which has now ended was a war made possible by the denial of the democratic principles of the dignity, equality and mutual respect of men, and by the propagation, in their place, through ignorance and prejudice, of the doctrine of the inequality of men and races’ in the opening to its new constitution. Politically and scientifically, the idea that such a thing as distinct races existed, became untenable. Some 35 years on, UNESCO published a Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice, claiming that ‘[a]ll human beings belong to a single species and are descended from a common stock. They are born equal in dignity and rights and form an integral part of humanity’ (1982, p.3). In the arenas of natural science and international politics, there is now seen to be no such thing as race.

3.2.1 Race in everyday life and social scienceSocial scientists agree that there is no biological basis to support the idea of race. They also agree that it has been the ideological basis for political inequality and, in the worst cases, of murder on an unprecedented scale. However, there is disagreement as to how to handle the concept of race now. Some sociologists argue that since race is an ideological concept, and yet it is still used by scholars, it entrenches the everyday belief that there is such a thing as race. For this reason, they assert, it should be dropped altogether. On the other side, there is a widespread belief in everyday life that there are such things as different races, and this belief affects how social life is created and re-created. As a result, we can say ‘race’ exists as a belief and social scientists need to use the term as recognition of the power

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it has as a socially shared idea in shaping social life. This is why the word ‘race’ is often placed in inverted commas. Moreover, in the global era, the idea of ‘race’ cannot be taken apart from its derivative term ‘racism’ and the host of other terms listed at the start of this section.

Historically and across various civilisations, differences between groups have been important in everyday life. Unlike the race science ideology, however, groups were differentiated along tribal or kinship lines, though the differences might be marked by variations in physical characteristics, such as skin or hair colour. These ways of assigning identity to people provided systems for access to different social goods (marriage partners, occupations and so on). This has some faint crossover with contemporary everyday understandings of race.

Giddens and Sutton define race, in sociological terms, as follows:Race can therefore be understood as a set of relationships, which allow individuals and groups to be located, and various attributes or competencies assigned, on the basis of biologically grounded features. Racial distinctions are more than ways of describing human differences – they are also important factors in the reproduction of patterns of power and inequality within society’ (2013, p.677).

By looking at race as a ‘set of relationships’, it becomes possible to shift attention to the processes involved in classifying groups, which is described as racialisation. For example, non-European peoples were racialised as non-white because of their difference from the white race, in ways that were specific to each context. The racialisation of African groups through the slave trade led to distinct understandings of a category of ‘Negroid’ or ‘black’ with different characteristics from the ‘Red Indians’ of North America. This racialisation became the basis of the political structure in some African instances (especially South Africa) or the basis of political separation (especially in North America with reservations and residential schools). However, on a more widespread basis, everyday life has become racialised even in the absence of political structures or legislation supporting racially exclusionary policies.

Racialisation marked the colonial experience beyond Europe, but it has also been a feature of European societies internally. Roma groups, for example, continue to be socially excluded in every aspect of everyday life in most European nations. It is unlikely that there are any nation-states in the global world now that do not bear the hallmarks of racialisation in some form. The severity of these elements depends in part on the extent to which they impact on daily practices. Is a person’s life affected on all levels – education, employment, personal relations, health, and so on – by racialised phenomena?

Giddens and Sutton point out that:

Race may be a thoroughly discredited scientific concept but the material consequences of people’s belief in distinct races are a telling illustration of W.I. Thomas’s (1928) famous theorem that, ‘when men [sic] define situations as real, then they are real in their consequences’. (2013, p. 677)

Activity 3.1

According to the national census (or if there is no census in your country, another form such as your college entry form), what ‘race’ are you? Was it easy to select a category or did you hesitate when you were choosing?


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3.2.2 Social construction does not mean unreal Imagine a society where people were comfortably assigned to different groups, and each group was considered equal in its rights, abilities and obligations. It is difficult to envision such a society because, historically, racial categorising has been inextricably entangled with systems that are unequal. The unequal systems of racialisation emerge from two different processes: prejudice and discrimination. These terms do not mean the same thing and in grasping the significance of race in contemporary life, it is useful to understand the difference between them. Prejudice means to ‘pre-judge’, that is, to hold a set of ideas about something – in this case a group of people that are of the same ‘race’ – in advance of encountering it. For example, you may believe that Innu people are a race of quiet, patient people. Usually, prejudice is based on second-hand information, and someone who holds prejudiced views does not wish them to be challenged. Prejudices can be positive or negative; however, a person with prejudices is unlikely to treat people assumed to be members of the group about which they hold these ideas objectively. Often preconceived ideas about racial groups are based on stereotypes. These are rigid characterisations of a certain type of person which are seen as true of all members of the group. Stereotypes blot out the nuanced and variable nature of social life. Frequently, ethnic minorities are on the receiving end of these inflexible ideas. There may be slivers of truth to some stereotypes, deriving from cultural elements (for example, the diligence attributed to East Asian people towards their studies comes not from biological characteristics but cultural ones, and is still a generalisation which misses the fine-grained differences across local cultures and individuals). Other stereotypes are what some scholars describe as ‘mechanism of displacement, in which feelings of hostility or anger are directed against objects that are not the real origin of those feelings’ (Giddens and Sutton, 2013, p.681). Stereotyping is not individual in the sense that often there are broadly held images of groups, most significantly of minorities, that individuals ‘tap into’ or absorb as personally held views. These broadly held images are difficult to dislodge once they have gained currency and those which remain, regardless of the gulf between the belief and the empirical reality, are called ‘persistent stereotypes’. The idea, in Britain, that the majority of people who claim political asylum – ‘asylum seekers’ – are taking British state benefits illegitimately and do not face political repression in their home countries, is an example of such a persistent stereotype.

When attitudes or views about specific groups shift into action, it is called discrimination. Discrimination occurs when groups are excluded or treated differently, on the basis of prejudice or stereotyping. A recent example of discrimination was published in the BBC regarding landlords and the rental market in London. Reporters posed as landlords who wished to exclude Africans and Caribbeans as tenants. They found estate agents willing to comply, although this is in breach of the law. Agents went so far as to enact this wish by agreeing to show a property to a white reporter, but telling the black reporter that the property was not available (Muir, 2013). In this case, the door was quite literally closed on the basis of ‘race’. Discrimination is not always coupled with prejudice. The fact that neighbourhoods have remained racially segregated in much of the USA is cited as an example. Affluent white house-buyers will not buy in predominantly Hispanic or black areas due to assumptions about property values declining rather than due to actual prejudices about Hispanic or black people. This indirect form of prejudice creates discrimination in an equally indirect fashion.

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The main prejudice that is significant for this chapter is, of course, racism. As alluded to earlier, in terms of white supremacist ideologies specifically, racism is the belief that one group is better than another, based on racialised differences. Often, racism is associated with the notable cases such as those involving white supremacists. However, sociologists point out that racist ideas are much more widespread and do not simply prevail amongst members of such groups.


Activity 3.2

Try to identify a racialised situation that has been reported in a media source. How could you identify it as racialised?

3.2.3 Racism, racialisation and ‘race relations situations’

If natural scientists and politicians no longer give credence to the theory that there are biological races, why does race still provide a basis for social stratification in so much of today’s globalised word? Scholars argue that new forms of inequality that involve race are becoming prevalent, especially forms relating to majority and minority groups, and migration.

Describing this as an era of multiple racisms does not give clues as to why racism continues, even though ‘race science’ has been discredited. Sociologists have suggested several explanations that might account for it. First, the idea of ‘race’ is relatively new and continues to underpin contemporary cultural racisms. There were proto-racist orientations, as can be seen in earlier literature and historical writings. These were different from the modern idea where race is linked to unchangeable traits. Scholars argue that the more brute biological conception of race that marked apartheid and other extreme ideologies has been replaced with a less obvious, but more complex form that they call ‘the new racism’. Some describe this as cultural racism because it is uses the notion of cultural differences as a means of exclusion. Classifications of superiority and inferiority derive from the culture that is in the majority, and groups that are distinct from this are excluded and may be disparaged for not assimilating. The new racism is argued to have a political basis, as can be seen in policies of exclusion in various governments. Since biological racism has waned and cultural racism has replaced it, it would be better to describe the current era as one of ‘multiple racisms’. Scholars point out that this term is useful because it helps illuminate how we live in an era of differently experienced discriminations across a society (Back, 1995).

Racial discrimination, from the UK Race Relations Act 1976

A person discriminates against another in any circumstances relevant for the purposes of any provision of this Act if, on racial grounds he treats that other less favourably than he treats or would treat other persons…

A person also discriminates against another if… he applies to that other a provision, criterion or practice which he applies or would apply equally to persons not of the same race or ethnic or national origins as that other, but which puts or would put persons of the same race or ethnic or national origins as that other at a particular disadvantage when compared with other persons…

It is hereby declared that, for the purposes of this Act, segregating a person from other persons on racial grounds is treating him less favourably than they are treated.


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Colonial relations between Europeans and non-Europeans relied upon and further entrenched the idea of a racial hierarchy. Colonial relations, especially the slave trade, were exploitative. This trade was founded upon the core idea that blacks were a lesser, almost subhuman, race. Their political subordination and exclusion were justified by racist ideologies. Current scholars argue that political exclusion – specifically, citizenship – is the main joist in current racism.

Finally, the economic recessions of the 1970s in the northern nations (North America and Europe) created conditions for the demonisation of immigrant groups who had been welcomed in the post-war rebuilding several decades earlier. Economies changed from having labour shortages (and policies designed to attract migrant labour) to labour surpluses. Alongside this shift came the targeting of foreign labour as being the cause of widespread joblessness and as fraudulently claiming benefits. Empirically, these fears have little basis in fact as migrant labourers take the least favoured jobs and often add skills, and use their earnings for consumption as well as paying taxes.

►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) pp.683−84.

These arguments have been filled out conceptually by the notions of ethnocentrism, group closure and resource allocation. Giddens and Sutton define ethnocentrism as ‘a suspicion of outsiders combined with a tendency to evaluate the culture of others in terms of one’s own culture’ (2013, p.685). Ethnocentrism goes further than xenophobia, a related phenomenon wherein people are frightened of strangers. If one is xenophobic, one might respond with anxiety to the arrival in one’s neighbourhood of newcomers who dress differently, speak a different language and even look different from the local people in some distinctive ways. This anxiety does not need to be specific, or even judgemental − it is the fact of difference itself that is unsettling. Ethnocentrism involves the judgement of that difference by the standards of what is familiar: the standards of one’s own culture. Anthropologists find that nearly all cultures seem to have an element of ethnocentrism. In many historical cases, this way of seeing outsiders through the lens and standards of one’s own culture ossified and created stereotyping forms of thought. People who are not members of one’s group are seen as lesser, in moral or other ways. This is a first step towards ethnic violence.

Alongside ethnocentrism is a process called group closure, whereby one social group will set up boundaries around themselves and non-members. These boundaries can be prohibitions against intermarriage, trade between groups, and other ways of reducing contact between groups. Extreme examples are actual walls that separate an ethnic ghetto from the area and people outside it. Roma groups in Europe have experienced all of these forms of exclusion and continue to experience some forms of group closure now. They are ghettoised in that they are excluded from mainstream institutions (such as schools and health clinics) and intermarriage is strictly curtailed. Usually, group closures occur in situations of inequality: one group has power over the other. Occasionally, there can be two groups which keep apart from each other, but neither can be said to dominate the other. When one group is superordinate and another subordinate in terms of power, group closure is often caught up with resource allocation. Differential resource allocation refers to the entrenchment of the unequal distribution of material goods and wealth. The idea of ethnic group closure has been useful to social scientists in trying to grasp the institutionalised ways in which ethnic groups can live in superior positions to other groups. Social status, power and wealth are unevenly distributed

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in many societies, and the ways in which these are distributed can be difficult to trace without the concept of ethnic group closure. The more dramatic forms of closure include where members of the excluded group will have their homes destroyed, be attacked physically or verbally, harassed or murdered. The less dramatic forms are those where the excluded group cannot gain access to good positions in the labour market, in education and in public life more broadly. Members of the group with the most at stake – either because they are enjoying the most benefits or the worst exclusions – resort to violence either to maintain the boundaries or destroy them.

In the matrix of group closure and resource allocation is the process that occurs when two groups are disadvantaged and competing for resources, usually economic resources. Scapegoating happens when ethnic groups compete for limited resources. The racism against ethnic minority groups that has been on the rise in European countries over the past decade is emerging largely from the least advantaged of the majority population. Minority groups present an easier focus than other groups because they have less institutional presence and less social power in most respects.

Activity 3.3

Try to identify the scarce resource that people are compete most for in your city or region. Is it jobs, plots of land, educational certifications? Which group is most likely to be scapegoated in this competition? What reasons have you heard given for why they are responsible for collective problems?

3.2.4 Race and classWhile scapegoating gives us images of people being heckled on the street and being held as the cause of inequalities that they have little real impact upon, the converse of this is the anonymous form of discrimination known as institutional racism. This process was identified in the USA as part of the civil rights movement. Civil rights activists recognised that racism was at the root of American society broadly, not just in the ideas of a minority of people in the southern states. Institutional racism occurs when racism permeates the institutions – education, law, economy, health services and so on – of a large area. Racism is seen in how policies promote one ‘racial’ group over another. This concept has been powerful in raising awareness of systematic bias, in other words, individuals with racist ideas are no longer seen as the problem. Instead, the focus moves to looking at how policies and practices at a collective level fail one (or more) group(s) in support of another group.

The British government has been grappling with the charge of institutional racism in its policing and justice system in relation to a high-profile murder of a teenager, Stephen Lawrence, in 1993. The process of investigating the murder, including the handling of the case at all levels was subject to an inquiry, The Macpherson Inquiry relied on the definition of institutional racism by Stokely Carmichael, a civil rights activist in the 1960s, who described it as the ‘collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin which can be seen or detected in processes; attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantages minority ethnic people’ (Macpherson 1999, p.634). The inquiry found that the London police force and the criminal justice system were institutionally racist. This form of discrimination is also present in the media, government, the arts and other areas of public life.


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3.2.5 Post-racial societies?In public discussion, more than among scholars, a gripping question has been raised: are we moving towards ‘post-racial’ societies? The question has been particularly pressing in the context of the USA where five decades have elapsed since a major social movement brought the profoundly racialised character of American society into broad awareness. One recent event that inflamed tense relations about race was when a black teenager was shot by George Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch coordinator in Florida. The first president who identifies himself as, and is identified by the broader community as, black, Barack Obama, was under great public pressure to speak about the event. He gave a special speech to the press in the days after Zimmerman was found innocent of murder for shooting Trayvon Martin.

In the main part of his speech, Obama describes how he has tackled institutionalised racism through changing state legislation to enforce greater transparency within the justice system (in Illinois, before he became the national leader). However, it is worth noting how he shifts focus from the institutional legal, political level to the less formal groupings of family, church and ‘workplaces’. In his speech, he is clear that the USA is not beyond structural racism, but he argues that the response to this should not be in structural measures (transparency policies, etc.) but in non-structural one (the conversations at church, etc.).

3.2.6 A raceless society?Below is an extract from an article on the topic of a ‘raceless’ society from a very different perspective.

A post-racial society?

…I think it’s going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching. You know, there has been talk about ‘should we convene a conversation on race’. I haven’t seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organise conversations. They end up being stilted and politicised, and folks are locked into the positions they already have.

On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there’s a possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about: am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can; am I judging people, as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.

…as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting better. Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race.

It doesn’t mean that we’re in a post-racial society. It doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated. But you know, when I talk to Malia and Sasha and I listen to their friends and I see them interact, they’re better than we are. They’re better than we were on these issues. And that’s true in every community that I’ve visited all across the country.’

Source: Barack Obama, ‘America is not a post-racial society: In the wake of the Trayvon Martin tragedy, we should ask: am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can’, The Guardian, 20 July 2013. Available at: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/19/america-not-post-racial-society-barack-obama

A ‘raceless society’?

… ‘One-Human-Racism’ is the ideology of ‘colourblindness’, of ‘race doesn’t matter’ (or even exist), of ethnic origins being of no social or political importance (especially in respect to group, e.g. national, identity), except to evil ‘racists’ – like the Nazis, whose abhorrent racial ideology, not coincidentally, it is the exact, but equally extreme, opposite of.

In contrast to the ‘classless society’, the ideal of a ‘raceless society’ is much more acceptable to those in power, wealth and privilege, since it doesn’t challenge their status…

Why is the ideal of a ‘raceless’ or ‘post-racial’, and, by implication, ‘post-European’ society’ ignoble? Because it denies (and in respect to white people, demonises, as ‘racist’) the central importance of race and ethnic origins for an individual’s sense personal and group, e.g. national, identity, on the one hand, and creates an uninhibited ‘melting pot’, on the other, in which human ethnic and cultural diversity will dissolve and disappear, or at least, be greatly reduced.

… Humans have a tendency … to swing from one extreme to the other. My hope is that by understanding what is going on, we can avoid doing that. No one in their right mind wants a return to Jim Crow, Apartheid or, least of all, Nazism, although the surest way of doing so is for the state to persist in imposing the ideologically opposite extreme. We need to find a humane and civilised way between these extremes.

How? We could make a start by talking about it.

Source: Roger Hicks ‘From “Classless Society” to “Post-Racial Society”: how the Left exchanged a noble ideal for an ignoble one’, The Telegraph,19 February 2011 Available at: http://my.telegraph.co.uk/philosopherkin/rogerhicks/466/from-%E2%80%9Cclassless-society%E2%80%9D-to-%E2%80%9Cpost-racial-society%E2%80%9D/






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Activity 3.4

What is the difference between the ‘post-racial society’ that Obama refers to and a ‘raceless society’ according to Hicks?


3.2.7 Studying race: critical race theory Sociologists who study race derive a lot of theoretical use from conflict theory. Conflict theory is a way of viewing the social world with the idea that social groups have opposing interests, and it derives from a Marxist image of one group as having the power through control over the means and mode of production against the interests of another group that is forced to sell its own labour to survive. In terms of race, conflict theorists look to how racism and prejudice map onto relationships of superordination and subordination more broadly. The first conflict theorists to look at race were focused on the economic dimension of life almost to the exclusion of other areas. Scholars argued that racism was part of the ideological apparatus that supported capitalist enterprise, namely, that slavery and colonisation were supported by an ideology of racism (Cox, 1959). Subsequent sociologists reacted against this picture as too simplistic and explored a variety of ways in which racisms differ in specific times and places. The authors of The empire strikes back (1982) look at the elements involved in the racism that marked the 1970s and 1980s and point out that it is not the same as earlier forms. Racism is

3.2.5 Post-racial societies?In public discussion, more than among scholars, a gripping question has been raised: are we moving towards ‘post-racial’ societies? The question has been particularly pressing in the context of the USA where five decades have elapsed since a major social movement brought the profoundly racialised character of American society into broad awareness. One recent event that inflamed tense relations about race was when a black teenager was shot by George Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch coordinator in Florida. The first president who identifies himself as, and is identified by the broader community as, black, Barack Obama, was under great public pressure to speak about the event. He gave a special speech to the press in the days after Zimmerman was found innocent of murder for shooting Trayvon Martin.

In the main part of his speech, Obama describes how he has tackled institutionalised racism through changing state legislation to enforce greater transparency within the justice system (in Illinois, before he became the national leader). However, it is worth noting how he shifts focus from the institutional legal, political level to the less formal groupings of family, church and ‘workplaces’. In his speech, he is clear that the USA is not beyond structural racism, but he argues that the response to this should not be in structural measures (transparency policies, etc.) but in non-structural one (the conversations at church, etc.).

3.2.6 A raceless society?Below is an extract from an article on the topic of a ‘raceless’ society from a very different perspective.

A post-racial society?

…I think it’s going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching. You know, there has been talk about ‘should we convene a conversation on race’. I haven’t seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organise conversations. They end up being stilted and politicised, and folks are locked into the positions they already have.

On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there’s a possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about: am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can; am I judging people, as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.

…as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting better. Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race.

It doesn’t mean that we’re in a post-racial society. It doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated. But you know, when I talk to Malia and Sasha and I listen to their friends and I see them interact, they’re better than we are. They’re better than we were on these issues. And that’s true in every community that I’ve visited all across the country.’

Source: Barack Obama, ‘America is not a post-racial society: In the wake of the Trayvon Martin tragedy, we should ask: am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can’, The Guardian, 20 July 2013. Available at: www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/19/america-not-post-racial-society-barack-obama

A ‘raceless society’?

… ‘One-Human-Racism’ is the ideology of ‘colourblindness’, of ‘race doesn’t matter’ (or even exist), of ethnic origins being of no social or political importance (especially in respect to group, e.g. national, identity), except to evil ‘racists’ – like the Nazis, whose abhorrent racial ideology, not coincidentally, it is the exact, but equally extreme, opposite of.

In contrast to the ‘classless society’, the ideal of a ‘raceless society’ is much more acceptable to those in power, wealth and privilege, since it doesn’t challenge their status…

Why is the ideal of a ‘raceless’ or ‘post-racial’, and, by implication, ‘post-European’ society’ ignoble? Because it denies (and in respect to white people, demonises, as ‘racist’) the central importance of race and ethnic origins for an individual’s sense personal and group, e.g. national, identity, on the one hand, and creates an uninhibited ‘melting pot’, on the other, in which human ethnic and cultural diversity will dissolve and disappear, or at least, be greatly reduced.

… Humans have a tendency … to swing from one extreme to the other. My hope is that by understanding what is going on, we can avoid doing that. No one in their right mind wants a return to Jim Crow, Apartheid or, least of all, Nazism, although the surest way of doing so is for the state to persist in imposing the ideologically opposite extreme. We need to find a humane and civilised way between these extremes.

How? We could make a start by talking about it.

Source: Roger Hicks ‘From “Classless Society” to “Post-Racial Society”: how the Left exchanged a noble ideal for an ignoble one’, The Telegraph,19 February 2011 Available at: http://my.telegraph.co.uk/philosopherkin/rogerhicks/466/from-%E2%80%9Cclassless-society%E2%80%9D-to-%E2%80%9Cpost-racial-society%E2%80%9D/







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not a singular ideology, according to them, but involves the combination of minority ethnic and economically subjugated identities (for example, working class in the UK) and ideas. As Giddens and Sutton explain: ‘Racism is much more than simply a set of oppressive ideas enacted against the non-white population by powerful elites’ (2013, p.686).

Coming from legal studies in the USA, a new perspective on how to study race emerged in the 1980s called critical race theory. It was applied to numerous areas, specifically education, political science and sport. Critical race theory was different from earlier views of race in some important ways. Critical race theorists are activists as well as being social scientists. They aim to equalise unfair relations between ethnic groups. They reject the liberal idea that there will be slow, steady gains towards social equality, and point out that the freedoms and rights won through the civil liberties movement were not followed through. This school argues that racism is not an aberration, but rather it is the norm for people of colour in the USA and elsewhere. It is deeply entrenched in legal systems and other social institutions, which is why it is so difficult to transform. Ideas about equal legal treatment only handle very blunt forms of racism, and do not address the minutiae of racist forms of behaviour that make up everyday life. White elites and the white working class benefit from the racist norm, meaning they have no stake in changing it. This inhibits change (Delgado and Stefancic, 2001, pp.7−10).

In stark contrast to the biological racism that ‘race science’ was trying to establish a basis for, critical race theory is wholly social constructionist. Instead of seeing races as if they are fixed, rigid natural categories, races are seen as socially created group identities that buttress and further inequality. Sociologists research the images of different races that arise during different social climates. During shortages of unskilled or semi-skilled labour, black people may be stereotyped as hard-working and reliable, but when the labour market shifts towards high unemployment, new stereotypes replace these. Instead, black people may be described as lazy and criminal. This differential racialisation shows that ethnic relations are influenced by other inequalities and social pressures. Critical race theorists give priority to minority ethnic groups as better able to express the effects and forms that racism takes. This group of theorists uses narrative and biographical methods to investigate what racism means for its victims. This is done in order to help critical race theorists in the practical goal of pushing for greater equality in all arenas. (Zamudio et al., 2011, p.5; see Denzin et al., 2008, and Giddens and Sutton, 2013, p.686).

3.3 Overview of the chapter‘Race’ is a concept with a difficult history and a divisive present. This chapter shows how sociologists try to study the explosive and significant idea of ‘race’. They agree that race is a socially constructed idea that has powerful effects in everyday life. The chapter describes the important issues of racialisation, stereotyping, discrimination, prejudice and scapegoating. Building on these ideas of the processes involved in differentiating people based on ideas of race, the chapter also takes up the significant collective practices of group closure and differential resource allocation. Both the micro and macro scale of race stratification is examined. Two ideas that have been floated in public debate involving the future of race in social life were presented and the chapter finished by discussing the perspective that now informs most sociologists tackling race.

Chapter 3: Race

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• describe earlier and current forms of racism, and sociological definitions of race and ethnicity

• explain what the similarities, differences and crossover is between racial inequality and one other form of social inequality

• provide brief accounts of a number of specific ideas that are core to social scientific studies of ‘race’, including racialisation, group closure, institutional racism, new and old racisms, and social construction of identity

• introduce and discuss contemporary sociological perspectives for studying ‘race’ in the global world.

3.5 Test your knowledge and understanding1. How do sociologists think that race is different from ethnicity?

2. Could you define a ‘race relations situation’?

3. What is ethnocentrism?

4. How does critical race theory differ from race science?

5. Why are some people critical of the idea of a ‘raceless’ society?

6. What is institutional racism?

Notes


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Chapter 4: Ethnicity

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4.1 IntroductionEthnicity is related to, but importantly distinct from, race. It is another way in which people are assigned to groups, and treated differently based on the assumption that they are members of these groups. In short, perceptions of ethnic identity form the basis of social stratification systems. Many sociologists argue that ethnicity is replacing race as the form of social stratification based on attributions of group identity (i.e. whereas class, gender appear to have cores that stay the same even if forms of stratification transform). In the global world, it is essential to grasp the changing contours of ethnicity because the scale of migration is unprecedented and also because of the explosiveness of ethnic conflicts. There are a number of different models for multi-ethnic societies, each of which is under scrutiny at present as the legacies of colonialism and labour migration are diverse societies across the industrialised world. Ethnic conflicts have been on the rise for the last three decades, and the number of groups that live in diasporas is increasing with the rapid rise in migration. Sociologists study the new processes involved with ethnicity from the framework of migration in the mobile global world.

4.1.1 Aims of the chapterThe main aims of this chapter are to:

• explain the difference between ethnicity and race

• describe the ‘new ethnicities’ and situational identity

• give an account of the recent globalisation of ethnicity and the various models of multi-ethnic societies that characterise different industrial nations

• offer a critical portrait of ethnic conflict, assimilation and integration

• examine some of the linkages between ethnicity and health, and global differences in health

4.1.2 Learning outcomesBy the end of this chapter, and having completed the Essential reading and activities, you should be able to:

• explain how sociologists distinguish between race and ethnicity

• describe why it can be difficult to separate these two parts of social identity, and refer to several things upon which people’s ethnic identity is based

• offer examples of ethnic inequality in your society

• discuss how ethnicity interrelates with other forms of social stratification

• describe the key issues of ethnic conflict, multi-ethnic societies and migration

• present an account of the new ‘mobilities research’ and why it is relevant to ethnicity


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4.1.3 Essential readingGiddens, A. and P.W. Sutton Sociology. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013)

[ISBN 9780745652931] Chapter 16.

4.1.4 Further readingBauman, Z. Wasted lives: modernity and its outcasts. (Cambridge: Polity, 2003)

[ISBN 9780745631657].Bulmer, J. and J. Solomos (eds) Racial and ethnic studies today. (London:

Routledge, 1999) [ISBN 9780415181730].Brass, P. Riots and pogroms. (New York: New York University Press, 1996)

[ISBN 9780333669761].Brass, P. Theft of an idol: text and context in the representation of

collective violence. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997) [ISBN 9780691026510].

Brass, P. The production of Hindu-Muslim violence in contemporary India. (Washington, DC: University of Washington Press, 2004) [ISBN 9780295985060].

Buck-Morss, S. Thinking past terror: Islamism and critical theory on the left. (London: Verso, 2003) [ISBN 9781844675629].

Cole, D. Double standards and constitutional freedoms in the war on terrorism. (New York: New Press, 2003) [ISBN 9781565849389].

Girard, R. Violence and the sacred. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979) [ISBN 9780801822186].

Hansen, T.B. Wages of violence: naming and identity in postcolonial Bombay. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001) [ISBN 9780691088402].

Horowitz, D. The deadly ethnic riot. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) [ISBN 9780520236424].

Jalal, A. Partisans of Allah: jihad in South Asia. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010) [ISBN 9780674047365].

Hyndman, J. and W. Giles (eds) Sites of violence: gender and conflict zones. (Berkeley: University of California Press) [ISBN 978 0520237919].

Juergensmeyer, M. Terror in the mind of God: the global rise of religious violence. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000) [ISBN 9780520240117].

Malkki, L. Purity and exile: violence, memory, and national cosmology among Hutu refugees in Tanzania. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) [ISBN 9780226502724].

Mamdani, M. When victims become killers: colonialism, nativism, and the genocide in Africa. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001) [ISBN 9780852558591].

Mamdani, M. Good Muslim, bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the roots of terror. (New York: Pantheon Books, 2004) [ISBN 978 0375422850].

Mann, M. The dark side of democracy: explaining ethnic cleansing. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) [ISBN 9780521538541].

Tilly, C. The politics of collective violence. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) [ISBN 978 0521531450].

Varshney, A. Ethnic conflict and civic life: Hindus and Muslims in India. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) [ISBN 9780300100136].

4.1.5 Works cited Brubaker, R. Ethnicity without groups. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 2006) [ISBN 9780674022317].Cohen, R. Global diasporas: an introduction. (London: UCL Press, 1997)

[ISBN 9780415435512].Hall, S. ‘New ethnicities’ in B. Ashcroft et al. The post-colonial studies reader.

(London: Routledge, 2005) second edition [ISBN 9780415345651].Heller, M. ‘Language, ethnicity and politics in Quebec’. PhD thesis, University of

California, Berkeley, 1982.


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Office of National Statistics Population estimates by ethnic group 2002–2009. (Newport: ONS, 2011).

Sampson, E. Celebrating the other: a dialogic account of human nature. (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993) [ISBN 9780981907604].

Urry, J. Mobilities. (Cambridge: Polity, 2007) [ISBN 9780745634197].

4.1.6 Synopsis of chapter contentThis chapter tackles a third sort of social stratification: ethnicity. The idea of ethnicity is defined as sociologists understand it, and it is distinguished from race. The sense of group belonging that occurs with ethnicity is not overtly biological, unlike race and gender. It refers to a shared identity that can refer to history, culture, language, religion and dress. Here the important ideas of ethnic minorities, ethnic conflict, multi-ethnic societies and models of integration are discussed in detail. Following this, the new research paradigm of ‘mobilities’ research that has been taken up by ethnicity researchers is sketched out.

4.2 Ethnicity in a global worldIn the last chapter, the focus was on the idea of race and its history in connection with rigid biological characteristics. This chapter looks at ethnicity which is wholly social and refers to an identity that derives from ‘descent and cultural differences’ that become active in specific social contexts. Ethnicity ties in closely with ideas of national identity and also race, as each refers to a distinct group of people in a clannish sense. People belonging to an ethnic group may regard themselves as distinct from other groups, especially in a cultural way. In turn, they are also seen as different by members of other groups. Ethnic groups may be marked out by a range of features: language, dress, religion, history or ancestry are common. ‘Ethnos’, the basis of the word ‘ethnicity’, is a Greek word, which refers to ‘nation’, ‘tribe’ or ‘a people’ and stands in contrast to the more political group of ‘demos’. The term has shades of meaning that point to the idea that belonging is based of common heritage or ancestry.

Ethnicity is a completely social category. This seems obvious; however, a shift is often made between acsriptive and achieved characteristics. Ascriptive characteristics are those which are fixed at birth, such as eye colour, birthplace and sanguinity (kin relationships by blood). Achieved characteristics are those that come about after birth. Ethnic qualities are often blurred into appearing ascribed, when they are socially given. Ethnicity is produced and reproduced over time by social processes. Groups are separated by exclusionary devices such as marriage rules, which reinforce the boundaries between them.

Ethnicity has varying degrees of meaningfulness for individuals’ identities. For some, it is the social identity that eclipses all others in importance. For others, it has little significance. During times of social stress or conflict, ethnic identities may become centrally important to people who otherwise had little stake in them.

Where ethnicity is a preferred term to race for sociologists, because it seems to avoid fixed biological connotations, it is not without problems. One issue that the term ‘ethnicity’ raises is that it tends to refer to ‘others’ and not the ethnically invisible majority. In the British media, for example, the term will only be used as a reference to minority groups, and not in relation to the ‘non-ethnic’ majority population of English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish people. The term is applied to food, dress, arts and public festivals as a way to make obvious that they are not indigenous (i.e. English,


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Scottish Welsh or Irish). This sort of labelling creates boundaries between an in (non-marked) group as against outsiders (the marked ethnic) group. However, ethnicity is a social identity that all people have, although it is most clearly demarcated among minority groups.

Although sociologists prefer the category of ethnicity to race, there is a problem that both lay people and social scientists reifying the category. This means that ethnic groups are seen and studied as actual definable groups. Brubaker has described how this ‘groupism’ represents ‘the tendency to take discrete, bounded groups as basic constituents of social life, chief protagonists of social conflicts, and fundamental units of social analysis’ (2006, p.8). Social scientists and others see ethnic differences as the cause of conflicts. Thus, the rise of inter-group conflict has led to a new awareness of something important that is not ‘race’ by which groups distinguish themselves, while at the same time, it has led to the new notion of ‘ethnicity’ being taken as an equally essential characteristic. It is useful to keep reminding ourselves that both race and ethnicity are socially constructed, the former on physical differences and the latter on markers such as culture, language, religion and dress.

Understanding ethnicity as strictly socially created means social scientists need to be careful to avoid essentialising, or seeing ethnic identities as outside of social context and history. People involved in ‘ethnic conflicts’ defend what they understand to be essential ethnic identities or groups. Social scientists are interested in finding out how identities can harden into the essentialised versions which lie at the centre of ‘ethnic conflicts’.

Activity 4.1

What is your ethnic identity? What are your parents’ ethnic identities?

Did you find it straightforward answering this? Did you emphasise one ethnic characteristic over others – for example, if the preferred ethnicity is ‘white English’ someone may select that of their lineage and ignore other ‘white European’ or ‘non-white English’ in their lineage.

4.2.1 Mapping ethnic categories: the importance of situationSocial scientists treat ethnicity as a more complex and nuanced social phenomenon than race. Some authors describe a ‘new ethnicity’ (Hall, 1989) as the study of how ‘otherness’ or ‘difference’ between groups emerges through language, imagery and other forms of representation as well as actions. Although this area of study can appear like literary studies to non-specialists, it has a greater complexity than earlier studies of race tended to have. This area offers more critical space for freeing groups from the burdens that come with essentialised identities. Sampson (1993) suggests that appeals to common humanity, conscience or even self-interest can be used to reduce apparent differences. This more fluid sense of social identity and its formation comes from a view of the social world as fragmented in the contemporary era. Social identities are seen as multiple, overlapping and mutable. In this understanding, people can attach and detach from one identity in a more or less adaptable way depending on the context in which they find themselves. This process of adaptation is described as situational identity.

Even the most optimistic of scholars does not see situational identity as a field completely free of constraints. One may change clothes or even religion with reasonable ease. It is impossible to change one’s mother tongue although it can be possible to learn another, or multiple other,


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languages with some effort. Elements of one’s physical appearance are the most resistant to change, although there are many new ways to modify eye colour, skin and hair colour, the size of body parts and so on, now. The concept of ‘new ethnicities’ has been a fertile area for social scientists, even with a recognition that social identities are produced and reproduced within certain restrictions. Difference need not signify something to be feared, and those that have been seen as ‘enduring victims’ can be viewed in a new positive light as bringing forward one social identity among a range of possibilities (Cohen, 1997, p.163).

Activity 4.2

Write down several examples of social categorisation based on ethnicity and on race, for example, in daily conversations, in the organisation of public life, or in the media. Which was it easiest for you to recall?

4.2.2 Minority ethnic groups The term ethnic minority has become significant in sociology as a term that describes those groups outside the majority ethnic group. It is not a term that is meant to capture the numerically smaller groups, but rather it describes the groups that do not hold the majority of social, political or economic power in a society. In addition to having less wealth, power and prestige, the members of a minority ethnic group self-identify as members of that group. In other words, it is significant that they have a sense of social solidarity. This sense of group identity is intensified by the shared experiences of discrimination.

When social scientists are describing minority ethnic groups, they are referring to the group’s subordinate position in society, not the relative number of people that make up its population. There can be cases where the ‘minority’ is in fact the numerical majority. For example, when sociologists refer to women as a minority even though women make up a greater number in the population, because the reference is to their social position.

A society may include a number of minority groups that experience discrimination. By describing multiple minorities, sociologists draw attention to how widespread prejudice is by showing how different groups have similar experiences. The oppression that minorities such as homosexuals, Jews, women and the disabled can face may be strikingly similar, to the extent that describing all of these as minorities is helpful. However, there may be important differences to the kinds of discriminatory experiences different groups experience.

Specifically with respect to ethnicity, the term ‘ethnic’ tends to be used unevenly. African-Americans and black British people appear to be clear examples of ‘ethnic minorities’. However, Australians in the UK will not be described as ethnic minority, whereas recent immigrants from Poland are forming a new minority identity. Often physical differences play into the identification of a minority group; however, other factors are also important. Most importantly, the definition of a group as an ethnic minority arises from hostility and is associated with economic and political inequalities.

Activity 4.3

What markers matter most in your society for ethnic identity: language, religion, physical appearance or another factor?


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4.2.3 Ethnic diversity: the United KingdomMigration has been a factor in the declining proportion of ethnic minority populations in the UK. This is because there has been a shift from an ‘immigrant population’ to a non-‘white British’ population who are British citizens. The UK Census in 1991 set a question as to whether the ethnic categories represented the respondents’ identity accurately or whether they believed they belonged in a category not listed. A large proportion of people did not fit the categories because of ‘ethnic mixing’, rather than increasing birth rates.

The UK has recorded some interesting trends regarding ethnicity, namely the movement of immigrant populations away from London, the city which still houses the highest population diversity of the nation. There are concentrations of specific minority groups across the country, for example, Asian Indians comprise 19 per cent of Leicester’s population and 13 per cent of Bradford’s population is constituted of Pakistanis. The British African Caribbean community is concentrated around particular London boroughs. Many ethnic minority groups have moved to urban areas because of circumstance, rather than choice. The inner city urban areas were less favoured by white British populations.

In 2009, the Office for National Statistics estimated the non-‘white British’ population of England and Wales was 16.7 per cent (ONS, 2011, p.4). The total ‘white British’ population remained roughly stable over the eight years leading to 2009. In contrast, however the non-‘white British’ population grew by 37.4 per cent during the same time. The greatest growth was from ‘other white’ people, migrating from Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. Behind this was an expansion of the Chinese, and then Filipino, populations.

Ethnic categories like those used in the UK Census and many other national surveys, present an uneven mixture. Some categories seem to refer to national or linguistic labels (e.g. Chinese), whereas others refer to race and nation (such as white British, black African). No system appears to be free of these mixtures, suggesting that ethnicity and race remain as intertwined in policy and governance as they are in everyday situations. These schemes do not simply represent the classifications that are in common useage. Policy is based on the categories that governments use and on which they collect data. The sorts of policy that are meaningful in the UK now relate to housing, benefits, employment and decisions on awarding permanent citizenship. These mixed ethnic categories contribute to the politically sensitive public atmosphere surrounding immigration.

Discussions around the variety of people in the social world can easily lead from making distinctions to creating categories. Social scientists and policy makers cannot avoid this. ‘Race’ and ethnicity need to be seen as limited (and often discriminatory) categories, where it is all too easy to essentialise based on the identities which people use to categorise themselves and others in everyday life. This is the problem of what Brubaker (2006) describes as ‘groupism’. More and more, lately, social scientists acknowledge that ‘ethnic minorities’ have such varied experiences in relation to their perceived ethnic identities that generalisations about these identities fail. Similarly to ‘race’, where it is impossible to draw lines between groups biologically since the variation within any group is greater than that which exists supposedly between groups, the categorisation of ethnic minorities is far too broad to reflect accurately the shared experiences of any one group.



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Activity 4.4

If the human world cannot be grouped into neat categories, why do you think so many systems of classification exist? Why is classifying itself universal, even if the systems are hugely varied?

4.2.4 Ethnicity and health: examples in a global worldEthnicity is related to health outcomes in significant ways, although there is scope for much more research to be done on these connections. Although more studies have been carried out recently, the findings have not been definitive. It appears that some illnesses have higher incidences among specific ethnic groups. There is a risk of reifying the category of an ethnic group if these findings are not carefully assessed. African-Caribbean and Asian populations have higher rates of mortality from liver cancer, tuberculosis and diabetes. Hypertension and sickle-cell anaemia appear higher among African-Caribbean people and people from the Indian subcontinent have higher mortality from heart disease.

Cultural reasons are sought by scholars to explain the causes of ethnic health patterns − not unlike how scholars try to account for differences in health that occur across different classes. The lifestyles of groups are seen to contribute to poorer health, lifestyles that are connected to religious beliefs or cultural beliefs that affect diet, marriage choices (intermarriage) and physical exercise. Sociologists argue that lifestyle is less likely to be a causal factor than the structural discrimination that occurs through the healthcare system. Scholars who take this view look at the context within which ethnic minorities live and point to a spectrum of things that can affect their health, including housing conditions, lack of employment or employment in hazardous occupations. These material factors, in association with other structural and social discrimination, combine to create the health differences that are seen in ethnic groups. Stated simply, take the effects of class away from the equation and ethnicity becomes a very weak causal variable in the differences seen between groups.

There have been studies that found that in the UK institutionalised racism was present throughout the healthcare system. Ethnic groups may be unable to get access to services or encounter language barriers. Culturally sensitive issues that involve the interplay of gender or religious elements also affect access to services.


Activity 4.5

Have you heard of or experienced preferential medical treatments on account of your ethnicity? Or vice versa, have you heard of or been denied access to treatments because of your ethnicity?

4.2.5 Multi-ethnic societiesGlobally, more nation-states are multi-ethnic than are not. In most cases, this is a situation that has evolved over a long period of time. The emergence of a multi-ethnic population within a nation-state can be the result of conquests, migration, trade, moving borders, colonialism or imperialism. International migration is a feature of the global age and is accelerating. Simultaneously, conflict surrounding ethnicity and the splintering of multi-ethnic states has also been increasing.


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The urgency of the need to curb ethnic conflict has led to discussion of the various ways in which multi-ethnic societies handle having heterogeneous populations. There are three main models that have been implemented: assimilation, the melting pot and multiculturalism. Each model is an ideal type that is more or less closely approximated in actual social circumstances.

Assimilation is when newcomers relinquish features of the culture of their place of origin. In place of the values and behaviours of their country of origin, immigrants take on the lifestyle, dress, norms and mores of the majority culture they moved into. Integration is seen as possible only on the basis of all members of the society becoming like the majority culture. The case where this has been most clearly implemented is France. Although immigration was encouraged in the past, immigrants were and are pressured to become French and relinquish the national identity of the place they had come from. The children of people who have immigrated are raised as French, although this is made more complex if the children are racialised. At present, religious elements have become significant in public discourse and law in France. These elements show the faultlines of religious and national identities

The next model for multi-ethnic societies is called the melting pot. This image is said to describe contemporary conditions in the USA. It has replaced the old version of assimilation. Instead of blotting out the traditions and mores of immigrants’ first culture, these are instead absorbed and woven into a new set of cultural patterns. The USA has a wide range of ethnic minority groups, into which different cultural norms are imported. The prevalence of Taco fast food chains in the USA is an example of how what was once a new hybrid ethnic cuisine has become a mainstream dimension of the US food industry. There is widespread support for the melting pot model for multi-ethnic societies. The backgrounds of people who have moved need not be wiped clean or forgotten, but rather can be a contributing factor to a constantly transforming society. New forms arise that are generated from the mixture of minority and majority cultures, spawning variants of cuisine, arts, architecture and other elements of culture. The melting pot does describe aspects of the historical emergence of the culture of the USA today. Although ‘Anglo’ culture remains the majority culture, parts of it reflect the many new cultures that have been mixed into US society.

The final description of the character of multi-ethnic societies is cultural pluralism. This situation is where each culture is seen as equally valid and offered a protected status, within a larger cultural ‘mosaic’. This is also called multiculturalism, which is a term used to describe policies that encourage multiple ethnic groups to coexist in one nation-state. Many Western nation-states have a multi-ethnic population that is coupled with inequality rather than equality. In practice as well as principle, it seems possible to have distinct but equal groups. The long-standing relationship of English and French Canadians who coexist within a national framework offers a case for analysis.


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State level multiculturalism: ‘distinct society’

The idea that Quebec exhibited certain distinct characteristics that needed to be specified in law first emerged in the period following the British conquest in 1760. The British chose to govern the former French colony with as little change to existing arrangements as possible. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 established English common law for new settlers but French civil law remained in force for the French-speaking inhabitants. In 1764, the colony reverted to civil rule and the first two British governors… interpreted the Royal Proclamation in ways that preserved the French character of the colony. The seigneurial land system was permitted to operate while British settlers were given land under a freehold arrangement. The Catholic Church was not interfered with and continued to collect tithes. Thus, from its earliest days, two societies co-existed in the British colony of Quebec. One was French-speaking and was governed by civil law, a seigneurial land system, and the Catholic Church; the other was English-speaking and Protestant and was governed by a different set of laws.

In 1774, these arrangements were codified in law by an Act of the British Parliament. The Quebec Act of 1774 granted the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, including the right of the Church to collect tithes; recognised the seigneurial system; and established that civil suits would be tried under French civil law and criminal cases would be tried under British common law.

From: www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/researchpublications/bp408-e.htm

The case of the Francophones and Anglophones in Canada demonstrates the complex exchange of different elements that play into ethnicity, involving religion, law and economy as well as language, history and culture.

4.2.6 Ethnic conflictMulti-ethnic societies, while the norm in the global world, are not always harmonious. The multicultural nature of a society can greatly enhance it, bringing a depth, vibrancy and complexity that is not found in homogeneous societies. The diverse nature of cultural elements can be strengthened by the range of contributions made by the inhabitants. However, multi-ethnic societies can lack robust connections and, in the face of internal or external pressures, they can often prove fragile. Antagonisms may emerge over differences between ethnic groups, whether linguistic, religious or cultural. In the case of the former Yugoslavia, for example, after a long period as a multi-ethnic society resulting from centuries of migration and intermixing, hostilities exploded to genocidal levels in the 1990s. A nation that had once been a mixture of coexisting communities—Slavs (such as Eastern Orthodox Serbs), Croats (Catholic), Muslims and Jews—became infamous for programmes of ethnic cleansing and the creation of ethnically homogenous areas by forced eviction of other groups.

Sociologists are aware that many of the violent conflicts now plaguing the globe are focused on ethnic differences. The form of war between nation-states appears to have subsided and been replaced with a new form of civil war based in some way on ethnic elements. In the globalised world, where interdependence and competition are growing, supranational factors are becoming more important to ethnic identities and relations. Ethnic cohesion was once seen as a problem within nation-states, but it is becoming apparent how much the effects of ethnicity rebound across the globalised world. With the digital revolution, ethnic conflicts are instantaneously played out over national boundaries, attracting international attention on all levels. After the ethnic cleansing that took

http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/researchpublications/bp408-e.htm


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place in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the International Criminal Court was founded in an effort to bring perpetrators of genocide to justice. Trying to prevent ethnic violence from erupting has become a major objective of multi-ethnic societies and the international community. What appears to be a local issue no longer has local causes or local preventions.

►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) pp.698−99.

4.2.7 Studying ethnicity in a global world: focus on migrationSocial scientists try to make sense of ethnicity by focusing on migration, the large-scale shifting of groups of people from one place to another. Some scholars who have been carrying on a debate about whether or not the world is globalised point out that mass movement of peoples has occurred throughout the eras of colonialism and imperialism over a period of several hundreds of years. These initial migrations created the first multi-ethnic societies; however, migration has deepened in its complexity and intensified in its volume over the centuries.

Social scientists look for causal explanations of why people move en masse from one place to another. Early theorists analysed push and pull factors. Push factors involve internal reasons such as political or economic pressures, violent conflict, political repression, drought or famine. Conversely, pull factors relate to the draw from the destinations, such as the promise of better labour opportunities, more prosperous overall economies, higher living standards or freedom from political repression. This perspective has been criticised as presenting too simplified a picture of complicated, layered processes. Migration scholars instead look at the broad picture of migration systems, which are patterns that emerge within the combination of small and large scale phenomena. Large-scale phenomena involve the national-level political situation, including laws that control where people settle, or the state of the economy. Small-scale phenomena involve the capacities, skills and knowledge of the people who are moving.

The interplay of these two levels can be seen in the UK’s Polish migrant community. This community makes up the third-largest foreign-born group in Britain (after those of Irish and Indian descent). The Polish community has been established in the UK for six decades, since the end of the Second World War. The EU’s enlargement in 2004 allowed Polish immigrants to move freely in to the UK in search of better work prospects, after which the entrenchment of the Polish community and its networks of knowledge and common support have intensified greatly. Scholars working in the field of migration studies try to avoid over-emphasis on one factor, preferring instead to look at the relationships between micro and macro factors.

Immigrant communities live in diasporas, or in places outside their shared place of origin. The term diaspora was first used to describe groups that were expelled forcefully through war or other events. Much of the literature refers to the Jewish diaspora created through many expulsions and the genocidal dispersion of the Holocaust, and also to the African diaspora that resulted from the slave trade. Members of a diaspora are spread across the globe, but they have a common sense of identity through the collective memory of the homeland, a common history of expulsion or a shared ethnicity. Diaspora does not always refer to the dispersion of peoples through force. Cohen (1997) recounts how there are five different types of diaspora: victim, labour, trade, imperial and cultural. Victim diasporas refer to the kinds mentioned earlier, where people have moved because of genocide or the slave trade. This is a forced exile which results in much suffering and a longing to return to the homeland. Labour


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diasporas are those where people move only for the purpose of work, and Cohen uses the example of indentured Indian labourers during the British Raj. Trade diasporas arise where people move without compulsion to engage in commerce. Imperial diasporas are where the empire expands into new areas, bringing its own population with it. And the last variant, cultural diasporas, describes those movements which have less to do with economic or political issues, and more to do with religious ideas, literature, music and lifestyle. These categories are ideal types.

Although there may be many forms of diasporas, they have in common a number of key features. For a diaspora to exist, there needs to be a shared memory of the homeland as well as a belief in the eventual return to it. It also requires an ethnic identity strong enough to be shared over time and across wide distances. There needs to be a sense of community within that ethnic group and friction with the society in which the group lives. Finally, there ought to be some basis for contributions of value to pluralistic societies. Cohen’s study illustrates how diasporas are not rigid, but rather are coalescences of shared identities that withstand multiple pressures within the context of contemporary globalisation. The term has come to be used for such a wide number of groups, some of which have little relation to an ethnic group in the mainstream sense. As a result calls have been made in social science to use the term with greater precision by applying it not to groups of people, but instead to their ‘projects’ or practices.

4.2.8 Mobilities researchToday, with globalisation, people, goods and ideas are moving around the world in higher numbers and more quickly than at any time in history. This is having massive effects on the societies in which we live. Many societies are experiencing greater diversity than ever before, and others are finding their multi-ethnic composition is being changed in new ways. Everywhere people are now coming into contact with others who differ from themselves and their own ethnic group. On a micro-level, there is a host of new types of interaction that are the result of global migration and the digital age.

Social scientists are developing a new research field called mobilities research, of which global migration is one highly significant element. Stated simply, mobilities scholars study movement. However, it is the specific movement of goods, peoples, information and money that is of particular interest to mobilities researchers.

Issues of movement, of too little movement for some or too much for others, or of the wrong sort or at the wrong time, are it seems central to many people’s lives and to the many operations of many small and large public, private and non-governmental organisations. From SARS to plane crashes, from airport expansion controversies to SMS texting, from slave trading to global terrorism, from obesity caused by the ‘school run’ to oil wars in the Middle East, from global warming to slave trading, issues of what I term ‘mobility’ are centre-stage on many policy and academic agendas. There is we might say a ‘mobility’ structure of feeling in the air… (Urry, 2007, p.6)

The mobilities research field is one important step in capturing some of the forces at work behind mass global migration. Migrants today need not form such strong diasporas because their homelands may not seem (or actually be) as out of reach as they once were. Travel is cheaper and technological innovations, such as social media and internet telephony make homelands less ‘distant’. Whereas in the past, moving to a


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geographically distant country may have been permanent, it is less likely to be so now.

Nevertheless, the ethnic conflicts that are erupting in many places, the rise in hostility towards immigration in much of Europe, and the resistance to multiculturalism as policy by many current governments suggest that the trends are towards less fluidity and mobility.

4.3 Overview of the chapterThis chapter began by making the key distinction between race and ethnicity, and discussed how ethnic identity is related to less seemingly fixed elements than visible biological difference. Ethnic identity as a ‘situational’ identity was explained through people’s idea of a common membership to a group based on one or more of a number of factors such as history, language, culture or religion. The chapter discussed ethnic integration and conflict, and offered some background as to why people have migrated from their home nations. It concluded with a description of mobilities research, the contemporary paradigm for studying ethnicity and migration.


• explain how sociologists distinguish between race and ethnicity

• describe why it can be difficult to separate these two parts of social identity, and refer to several things upon which people’s ethnic identity is based

• offer examples of ethnic inequality in your society

• discuss how ethnicity interrelates with another form of social stratification

• describe the key issues of ethnic conflict, multi-ethnic societies and migration

• present an account of the new ‘mobilities research’ and why it is relevant to ethnicity.

4.5 Test your knowledge and understanding1. How do race and ethnicity differ?

2. What is ‘situational identity’?

3. List some ‘push factors’ and some ‘pull factors’ that have contributed to migration.

4. How does ethnicity relate to health?

5. List three models of multi-ethnic integration and describe one in detail.

6. What is a ‘diaspora’ and why do sociologists find the term useful in research?

contemporary sociology in a global age - university of … sociology in a global age g.m. hawkins...

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