social structures

1
CHANGING SOCIAL STRUCTURES KEY CONCEPTS

• Social Divisions

Those substantial differences between people
that run throughout our society. Social division
has at least two categories each of which has
distinctive material and cultural features
social divisions are not natural Social
Divisions, Payne, G. 2nd edition, 2006, page 4
Social Stratification - CLASS
GENDER
RACE and ETHNICITY
2
STRUCTURAL INEQUALITIES

• In threes - Can you think of structural
  inequalities to do with
• Class
• Gender
• Race and Ethnicity
• Age
• Disability
• Sexual orientation
• any others?

3
Making Sense of Society

• In order to help us understand society and the
  impact of social structures, it is necessary to
  work within a sociological framework.
• What do you understand by the term Sociology?
• Can you write a definition of sociology?

4
Aims for this week Living with modernity, the
restructuring of Britain

• What does Modernity mean?
• How is the presence of modernity reflected in
  social structures.

5
Auguste Comte

• 1798 1857 French
• Recognised as having invented the term
  Sociology
• 'law of three phases society has gone through
  three phases
• Theological (Divine),
• Metaphysical (human rights not divine, but bigger
  than and beyond mankind), pre-French Revolution
  and
• Scientific (which he called Positivist mankind
  can find solutions a new social understanding
  based on science, post French Revolution) 

6
Emile Durkheim

• 1858 - 1917 French
• one of the first people to explain the existence
  and quality of different parts of a society by
  reference to what function they served in keeping
  the society healthy and balanced, a position that
  would come to be known as structural
  functionalism
• Durkheim also stated that society was more than
  the sum of its parts social facts termed to
  describe phenomena which have an existence of
  themselves and are not bound to the actions of
  individuals for example, a societys adaptation
  to a particular climate. Boundaries can break
  down- the interim time before new boundaries are
  created is called anomie- period of chaos,
  anarchy.
• Wrote The Division of Labour, examining how
  social order was maintained in different types of
  societies coined the distinction between
  traditional and modern societies.

7
Karl Marx

• 1818 1883 German
• All social inequalities can be explained in terms
  of class
• Studied Capitalism, the production of economic
  wealth
• He argued for a systemic understanding of
  socio-economic change
• Viewed classes as being in conflict. Upper class
  exploits lower classes- conflict theory
• Influenced by Hegel, Rousseau, Thomas Payne
  (consensus forms around thesis, from this an
  antithesis occurs, eventually a synthesis)- Just
  as capitalism had replaced feudalism, so
  socialist would replace capitalism
• He envisaged a stateless, classless, equal
  society which he called Communism
• Social Conflict Paradigm continued by C. Wright
  Mills- Gap between rich and Poor growing.

8
Max Weber

• 1864 1920 German
• Argued that all social action was meanful fror
  individuals.
• Profound influence on our understanding of
  society, organisations etc
• Three elements to class Power, prestige, status
• Concerned with the rationalisation, and
  disenchantment caused by Capitalism and the
  rise of modernity Bureaucracy
• Thought Marx was too focused on materialism,
• Wrote The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
  Capitalism the impact of Capitalism on the
  human spirit, religion etc.

9
Comes in a variety of shapes and sizes
Sociological Theory
High-Level Theories
Focus on trying to explain how and why society is
ordered
Functionalism
Mid-Range Theories
Marxism
Focus on trying to explain some general aspect of
social behaviour
Interactionism
Low-Level Theories
Feminism
Focus on trying to explain a specific aspect of
social behaviour.
Why do girls achieve higher educational
qualifications than boys?
Why do I always fall asleep in Psychology lessons?
10

• Functionalist explanation of why girls achieve-
  Education is only salient means for them to
  achieve mobility.
• Interactionist explanation of why working class
  kids do not do as well- teachers labelling of
  working class children produces low expectations.
• Marxist explanation- curriculum reflects the
  values of the ruling class, alienating children.
  They lack the cultural capital to do well

11
Social Structures

• Can be understood as organised mechanisms that
  exert control over individuals.
• Can take the form of social institutions and
  patterns of behaviour
• Address and often emphasise social divisions

12
Key Social Structures Within Modernity
Employment
Education
The State
13
Can you think of others
14
Modernity versus Post- Modernity

• Modernity
• A term coined to encapsulate the distinctiveness
  and dynamism of the social processes unleashed
  during the 18th and 19th centuries, which marked
  a distinct break from traditional ways of life.
  Introductory Sociology, Bilton et al (2002)
  Macmillan, p545

Post- Modernity Characterised by a pastiche of
cultural styles and elements but implies a deep
scepticism about order and progress. Instead
diversity and fragmentation are celebrated.
Introductory Sociology, Bilton et al (2002)
Macmillan, p.546
What does this mean for social structures?
15
Modernity

• Marx modernity is capitalism and he felt that
  the ideal of true democracy is one of the great
  lies of capitalism.
• Key words Alienation, class conflict, false
  consciousness.
• Weber modernity as rationalization,
  bureaucratization, and the "Iron Cage."
• Durkheim saw modernity as moral order, anomie
  and the decline of social solidarity..

16
PostModernity

• Modernity has failed to provide the solution to
  the problems of life.
• "Progress" is not an onward and upward march
• Science (positivism) does not have all the
  answers
• Social Institutions are changing at a rapid rate
  Family, Religion, Education, etc.
• Everyday life expressions of these themes
• Hi-Tech lifestyles
• Preoccupied with consumer goods and media images
• The Mass
• International, "demise of the nation-state"
• Irrationality of rationality
• McDonaldization- Ritzer

17
Modernity/ Post modernity
What does this mean for social structures?









18
Necessity (natural and social laws) Contingency or chance
Universality (across time and space ) Locality and the particular (can only know own experience)
Certainty and predictability Uncertainty and provisionality
Truth and reality Critique of tradition-bound analysis
Transparency or understandability Undecidability
Order of nature and structures Ambivalence of human design
Fordist modernity economies of scale hierarchy Homogeneity, detail division of labour, public housing, monopoly capital Purpose, design, mastery, determinacy, production capital, universalism, state power, trade unions, state welfarism, metropolis, ethics, blue collar, centralization , narrative, mass production, class politics, technical-scientific rationality, utopia, concentration, specialized work cFunction, Representation, signified industry, protestant work ethic, mechanical reproduction, becoming, epistemology, regulation, urban renewal, relative space, state interventionism, industrialization, internationalism, permanence, Time flexible postmodernity economies of scope, diversity, social division of labour, decentering, desire, homelessness, entrepreneurialism, indeterminacy, localism, individualism, neo-conservatism Immateriality, reproduction, pastiche, eclecticism white collar, commercialism, charismatic politics, rhetoric, decentralization, deconstruction, local contracts, small-batch production, spectacle, flexible worker, symbolic capital, temporary contract, electronic reproduction, deregulation, urban revitalization, place, laissez-faire, deindustrialization, geopolitics Ephemerality
19
Fordism
20
Social Structures in Post- War Britain

• The Beveridge report written in 1942 prompted the
  eventual creation of what we now know as the
  welfare state.
• Beveridge argued that there was a need to rid
  society of the five giants

Disease
Ignorance
Idleness
Want
Squalor
21
Beveridge Report 1942
Each giant was countered by The 1944 Butler Act
which reformed schooling, the commitment to full
employment in the same year. The Family Allowance
Act of 1945. The 1946 National Insurance Act The
1948 National Health Act, aimed at achieving that
very objective, and established for the first
time a national minimum.
The National Health Service (NHS) Act instituted
a universal state health service. The Act
provided free diagnosis and treatment of
illnesses at home or in hospital, including
dental and ophthalmic treatment.
22
Opinions at the time

• 'It's the goods! All the yearnings, hopes, dreams
  and theories of socialists for the past half
  century have been crystallised into a practical
  economic formula. Equity for the "lowest common
  denominator" I was staggered by its
  comprehension'. (Insurance clerk, male, 39,
  Newport)
• 'It gave me a feeling there was something to work
  for and fight for after all and that our efforts
  might be rewarded by some real social
  improvement, giving means to the phrase "winning
  the peace". (Royal Artillery, male, 29)
• 'I am aware of a new feeling of confidence in
  myself as a member of a democratic society when I
  see those social reforms which I have considered
  necessary for such long time actually taking
  shape'. (Accountant, male, 40, Prestwick)
• But there were negative comments too
• 'My friends seem to think it's a clever piece of
  eyewash to retain the capitalist system by
  getting the people on its side'. (Student, male,
  22, Enfield)
• "A lot of blah" is the most frequent remark from
  the women in the factory. "Don't believe a word
  of it we're 'eard these promises before".
  (Stores Keeper, female, 57, Winchcombe)
• 'I think it is direct encouragement to the lower
  type of humanity to breed like rabbits'
  (Temporary civil servant, female, 38)

23
Post-WW2 Development of British Welfare State
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vlurGssKn7PA
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v6PBvCvIFrgIfeature
related
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vzaa_RIEuZ9sfeature
related
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v2OQVxwdxOe0feature
related
http//www.youtube.com/watch?v81ErNLAupGEfeature
related
24

• Adopting the slogan 'Prevention is better than
  cure', this Ministry of Health poster attempts to
  persuade people to adopt a healthier lifestyle.
  It was hoped that by improving the general health
  of the nation, the cost of running the NHS would
  eventually be reduced.

25
Black Report
26
Registrar Generals Classificationof Social Class
Categories
Class
Higher managerial, administrative,
professional. Accountant, bank manager, dentist,
doctor, solicitor.
I
Lower managerial, administrative,
professional. Farmer, librarian, sales manager,
teacher.
II
Non-manual Clerical and minor supervisory. Clerk,
police officer, shop assistant
IIIa
Skilled manual Clerical and minor
supervisory. Electrician, mechanic, plumber.
IIIb
Semi-skilled manual. Assembly line worker,
builder, lorry driver.
IV
Unskilled. Cleaner, labourer.
V
27
The Black Report (1980)Findings
Key causes of inequalities in health were
Low income
Sub standard housing
Unemployment
Poor education
Poor environment
28
The Black Report (1980)
Problem was
They wanted to reduce public expenditure
Regarded the Report as old-fashioned,
socialist explanations of ill-health
Took the individualist approach people should
eat, drink and smoke less
Government disagreed
Argued that individual behaviour within
social classes shaped health
29
The Acheson Report (1998)

• This was an independent study into health
  inequality.
• It was commissioned by the new Labour government
  in 1997, under the chairmanship of a former Chief
  Medical Officer for England and Wales, Sir Donald
  Acheson.
• Remit to investigate health inequalities in the
  UK.

30
The Acheson Report (1998)Findings

• Poor men are 68 more likely to die in middle age
  than richer men.
• Poor women are 55 more likely to die young.
• Health inequalities start before birth
• A key factor in low weight babies is the mothers
  birth weight and her pre-pregnant weight.

Social class I
Risk increases
Coronary heart disease
Strokes
Lung cancer
Accidents suicides
Respiratory diseases
Social class V
31
The Acheson Report (1998)Findings

• Children from poor families weighed on average
  1.30gms less than those from wealthy families
• Infant mortality rates
• 7/1000 lower social classes
• 5/1000 upper social classes
• Long term illness
• 17 of profession men aged 45-64
• 48 of lower class men aged 45-64
• Income levels
• 2.2 million children live on income levels 50
  below the national average
• Health campaigns
• Higher uptake of screening amongst upper social
  classes widened health gap

32

• The McDonalization Thesis Social Life as a Fast
  food Restaurant

Although this perspective may appear to be rather
unusual when applied to society, the claims made
by George Ritzer (2002) certainly provide food
for thought.
McDonaldization The process by which the
principles of the fast food restaurant are coming
to dominate more and more sectors of American
society as well as the rest of the world.
Ritzer, G. (ed) McDonaldization, The Reader, Pine
Forge Press, 2002, p.7
33
Control through non- human technology
Predictability
Efficiency
Calculability
34
Can we find parallels between Ritzer and the
Welfare state today?
35
MEDICINE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

•  
• Sociologists are interested in the impact and
  role of medicine and the medical profession in
  society.  The general health of the population
  has clearly improved (eg during the 20th century,
  life expectancy almost doubled), but is this due
  to medicine and doctors?
•  
• Studies show that medical care and medical
  discoveries have often had relatively little
  influence on health compared with social factors.
•  
• McKeowns historical evidence suggests that
  medical care had relatively little effect on
  death rates before the 20th century.  Most deaths
  were from infectious diseases (TB, cholera,
  measles, etc), and the biggest improvements in
  health were brought about by public health
  measures such as improved sanitation, clean
  drinking water, and better housing, diet and a
  higher standard of living.
•  
• Illich goes further, arguing that modern
  high-tech curative medicine and the medical
  profession are a danger to our physical, mental
  and spiritual health.  He uses the term
  iatrongenic illness those caused by medical
  intervention to describe this danger, such as
  the side effects of drugs, errors by doctors,
  etc.  There has been a medicalisation of life
  and we have lost control over own bodies, lives,
  suffering and death and become dependent on the
  medical profession, the new priesthood.

36
Functionalist account of health inequalities

• Functionalists would look at social inequalities
  in health care from the perspective that regards
  the health care systems feasibility to cope with
  society and all of the requirements society
  places upon health care systems to prevent
  illness, and generate well-being
• The functionalist is curious about the relation
  between the health care (HC) system itself and
  the rest of society.

37
Symbolic interactionism

• is concerned with examining the interaction
  between the different role players in the health
  and illness drama. The focus is on how illness
  and the subjective experience of being sick are
  constructed through the doctorpatient exchange.
  The argument here is that illness is a social
  accomplishment among actors rather than just a
  matter of physiological malfunction.

38
Marxist theory

• is concerned with the relationship between health
  and illness and capitalist social organisation.
  The main focus is on how the definition and
  treatment of health and illness are influenced by
  the nature of economic activity in a capitalist
  society.

39
Feminist theory

• explores the gendered nature of the definition of
  illness and treatment of patients. Its main
  concern is the way in which medical treatment
  involves male control over womens bodies and
  identities.

40
Foucault

• Foucauldian theory concentrates on the dominant
  medical discourse, which has constructed
  definitions of normality (health) and deviance
  (sickness). This discourse provides subjects in
  modern societies with the vocabulary through
  which their medical needs and remedies are
  defined. The source and beneficiary of this
  discourse is the medical profession. Foucauldian
  theorists also argue that medical discourse plays
  an important role in the management of individual
  bodies (what Foucault called anatomopolitics)
  and bodies en masse (bio-politics), Medicine is
  not just about medicine as it is conventionally
  understood, but also about wider structures of
  power and control.

41
Parsonian Functionalism

• The model of the sick role
• The model of the sick role, which Talcott Parsons
  designed in the 1950s, was the first theoretical
  concept that explicitly concerned medical
  sociology.
• In contrast to the biomedical model, which
  pictures illness as a mechanical malfunction or a
  microbiological invasion, Parsons described the
  sick role as a temporary, medically sanctioned
  form of deviant behaviour.
• The functionalist perspective was used by Parsons
  to explain the social role of sickness by
  examining the use of the sick role mechanism. In
  order to be excused their usual duties and to be
  considered not to be responsible for their
  condition, the sick person is expected to seek
  professional advice and to adhere to treatments
  in order to get well. Medical practitioners are
  empowered to sanction their temporary absence
  from the workforce and family duties as well as
  to absolve them of blame.

42
Functionalists

• Parsons being sick has potentially
  disruptive effects on society.  Sickness is a
  form of deviance that needs to be controlled. 
  Otherwise, the behaviour associated with it, such
  as dependency, apathy and incapacity, could
  become widespread and threaten the smooth
  functioning of society. 
• It is therefore important to restrict access to
  the sick role to those who are genuinely sick. 
  This is the function of the doctor, whose
  authority is maintained by his or her objective
  scientific knowledge and high status.
• The sick role involves both rights and
  obligations the right to be exempted from normal
  role obligations (such as work) and to be looked
  after, and the obligation to want to get better,
  to seek help and to obey doctors orders.
• Access to the sick role has to be legitimised by
  the medical profession.   
• His explanation fits short-term, curable
  illnesses better than long-term, chronic illnesses

43
Feminist

• Feminists see society as patriarchal and doctors
  as perpetuating this.  Medicine has a social
  control function, ensuring that women are kept in
  a subordinate role, for example by controlling
  womens fertility (eg through the medicalisation
  of pregnancy and childbirth, and control over
  access to abortion and contraception).  Doyal
  describes how doctors often stereotype women as
  emotional, neurotic, less objective and more
  excitable than men.  Even when there is clear
  evidence that a womans problem is physical,
  doctors often see it as having a psychological
  cause.

44
Marxist

• For Marxists, medicine and the medical profession
  perform important functions for capitalism, but
  not for society as a whole.  Doctors act as
  agents of social control, ensuring that an
  alienated workforce cannot escape to the sick
  role but remains at work to produce profits. 
  They reproduce the workforce by patching up
  sick workers.  Ideologically, they mask the
  exploitation of capitalist society, making it
  appear more caring.  Medicine and health care
  also enormous sources of profit for giant
  multinational drugs companies.
•  

45
Mental Illness - Positivist Approach
Accepts medical definitions- mental illness is an
objective thing or disease.  This approach
examines the distribution of mental illness among
different groups in society and seeks to discover
its causes. E.g. Hollingshead and Redlich
show that members of class V were over six times
more likely than members of class 1 suffer from
mental illness.  This approach traces mental
illness to the way society is organised and the
position of the individual in the social
structure.

• Feminists argue that the higher rates of
  mental illness among women are caused by their
  position in the social structure, e.g. stress
  factors associated with their domestic roles. 
  Similarly, racial discrimination and disadvantage
  faced by ethnic minorities create stress and may
  result in higher rates of mental illness.

46
Mental Illness- Interactionists
Interactionists are interested in how doctors and
patients negotiate a diagnosis (ie a sickness
label).  Byrne and Long found that there is a
conflict between doctors and patients views of
the ideal consultation (not surprisingly, doctors
prefer short, doctor-centred consultations). Docto
rs generally have more power in these
interactions An example might be illness and
disability

• Interactionists are interested in how individuals
  come to acquire illness labels, and the effects
  these labels have on them and those around them. 
  They are interested in how doctor-patient
  interactions create such labels.

47
The Third Way

• New Deal gives opportunities to work which
  people have a responsibility to take up, and they
  will suffer penalties if they do not. The main
  conditions are connected with work obligations,
  but there are also suggestions that tenancies in
  council housing should be conditional on behaviour

48
Next Week Formative Assessment

• Can you work in twos for next week and please
  think about whether or not you agree with the
  idea of the Welfare state. You should consider
  its aims in relation to what is achieves.
• Think about the provision of welfare through
  health care from functionalist, interactionist,
  feminist, marxist perspectives.
• One person in the pair will argue for the
  existence of the welfare state, one person will
  argue against.
• Think about labelling
• The sick role
• Structural inequalities
• Disabling society
• Classes, gender, ethnic groups, ages
• The welfare state of Beveridge compared to
  todays welfare state (Thatcherism to New Labour
  to the Coalition).
• Consider the responsibility of the individual for
  their own health (should our taxes pay for those
  who are reckless with their own health).
• Each person will speak for roughly 5 minutes

49
Food for thought

• The government can decide if people break their
  side of the contract, but
• the only option open to people who believe that
  the government has not kept its side of the deal
  is to vote against it in the next general
  election.
• For example, Blackman and Palmer (1999 119)
  point out the governments limited
  responsibilities in job creation and varying
  local unemployment rates mean that unemployed
  people have very different chances of finding
  work.
• Despite governments vital role in addressing
  the big issues that affect our health like
  housing, jobs and education, individuals
  responsibility for their own health appears to
  involve carrying out the rather patronizing ten
  tips for better health from the Chief Medical
  Officer (DH, 1999). Finally, critics such as Will
  Hutton point out that most of the obligations are
  shouldered by the bottom of society (in Lister,
  1999 see also Marquand, 1998), but this tough
  approach seems not to apply to the powerful and
  assorted cronies and fat cat executives.
• Geoff Mulgan, of the Blairs Office was
  comfortable with the language of dependency and
  parasitism, including parasites who abuse their
  own health when health care is socialised, safe
  in the knowledge that others will pick up the
  bill and the form of parasitism in which people
  take advantage of the community to do the work
  needed to pass on their own genes (in Levitas,
  1998 155).

50
Welfare Review

• The social settlement of the Beveridge welfare
  state was based on particular assumptions
  regarding the ideological triangle of nation,
  family and work. We saw that it was imposed
  during a period where there was plenty of work.
• The Beveridgean citizen was the fully employed
  (and insured) married, white, able-bodied, male
  worker, with other categories of people
  including women, ethnic minorities, disabled
  people, children and elderly peopleexperiencing
  highly conditional forms of welfare outside the
  normal universalism.
• New Labours discourse of a modern British
  people was found in their Welfare Green Paper
  which introduced the idea of disability and
  discrimination and hinted at the idea of a
  disabling society. This was not resolved
  however.

51
Next session

• Key Institutions The State
• We will be looking at
• what the state is
• How it operates as a social structure
• How it responds to social development
• The role of sociologists in shaping social policy