Contemporary sociology in a
global age
G.M. Hawkins
SC1179
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
www.londoninternational.ac.uk
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
Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Introduction to sociology.......................................................................................... 1
1.2 ‘Route map’ to this subject guide.............................................................................. 2
1.3 Introduction to the subject guide.............................................................................. 3
1.4 Syllabus.................................................................................................................... 3
1.5 Aims of the course.................................................................................................... 4
1.6 Learning outcomes for the course............................................................................. 4
1.7 Overview of learning resources................................................................................. 5
1.8 Examination advice.................................................................................................. 7
Unit 1: Global inequalities: class, race, ethnicity and gender.................................. 9
Chapter 2: Class..................................................................................................... 11
2.1 Introduction........................................................................................................... 11
2.2 Four types of social stratification in history.............................................................. 13
2.3 Overview of the chapter.......................................................................................... 22
2.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes....................................................................... 22
2.5 Test your knowledge and understanding................................................................. 22
Chapter 3: Race..................................................................................................... 23
3.1 Introduction........................................................................................................... 23
3.2 Race in a global world............................................................................................ 25
3.3 Overview of the chapter.......................................................................................... 34
3.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes....................................................................... 35
3.5 Test your knowledge and understanding................................................................. 35
Chapter 4: Ethnicity............................................................................................... 37
4.1 Introduction........................................................................................................... 37
4.2 Ethnicity in a global world...................................................................................... 39
4.3 Overview of the chapter.......................................................................................... 48
4.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes....................................................................... 48
4.5 Test your knowledge and understanding................................................................. 48
Chapter 5: Gender................................................................................................. 49
5.1 Introduction........................................................................................................... 49
5.2 Sex vs. gender........................................................................................................ 51
5.3 Overview of the chapter.......................................................................................... 59
5.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes....................................................................... 60
5.5 Test your knowledge and understanding................................................................. 60
Unit 2: Other identities: Family, religion and the life course ................................ 61
Chapter 6: Family................................................................................................... 63
6.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 63
6.2 Family, kinship and marriage................................................................................... 64
6.3 Overview of the chapter ......................................................................................... 72
6.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes....................................................................... 72
6.5 Test your knowledge and understanding................................................................. 73
i
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
Chapter 7: Religion................................................................................................ 75
7.1 Introduction........................................................................................................... 75
7.2 Religion in a global world....................................................................................... 77
7.3 Overview of the chapter.......................................................................................... 86
7.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes....................................................................... 86
7.5 Test your knowledge and understanding................................................................. 86
Chapter 8: The life course...................................................................................... 87
8.1 Introduction........................................................................................................... 87
8.2 The life course as a social process........................................................................... 90
8.3 Overview of the chapter.......................................................................................... 99
8.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes....................................................................... 99
8.5 Test your knowledge and understanding................................................................. 99
Unit 3: Nation-states, nationalism, war and conflict........................................... 101
Chapter 9: Nations and nationalism.................................................................... 103
9.1 Introduction......................................................................................................... 103
9.2 Understanding nations and nationalisms in the era of global society...................... 105
9.3 Overview of the chapter........................................................................................ 114
9.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes..................................................................... 114
9.5 Test your knowledge and understanding............................................................... 114
Chapter 10: Conflict and warfare........................................................................ 115
10.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 115
10.2 War in global context.......................................................................................... 117
10.3 Overview of the chapter...................................................................................... 125
10.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes................................................................... 125
10.5 Test your knowledge and understanding............................................................. 125
Unit 4: Money and markets, consumption and work.......................................... 127
Chapter 11: Markets and money......................................................................... 129
11.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 129
11.2 Economic sociology............................................................................................ 132
11. 3 Overview of the chapter..................................................................................... 138
11.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes................................................................... 138
11.5 Test your knowledge and understanding ............................................................ 139
Chapter 12: Consumption and work.................................................................... 141
12.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 141
12.2 Capitalism changed............................................................................................ 143
12. 3 Overview of the chapter..................................................................................... 149
12.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes................................................................... 149
12.5 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....................................................................................................... 153
13.2 Deviance and crime defined................................................................................ 155
13.3 Overview of the chapter...................................................................................... 163
13.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes................................................................... 163
13.5 Test your knowledge and understanding............................................................. 163
ii
Contents
Chapter 14: Global health and medicine............................................................. 165
14.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 165
14.2 Health, illness and the sociology of health........................................................... 167
14.3 Overview of the chapter...................................................................................... 174
14.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes................................................................... 174
14.5 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....................................................................................................... 179
15.2 Media in global world......................................................................................... 181
15.3 Overview of the chapter...................................................................................... 186
15.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes................................................................... 186
15.5 Test your knowledge and understanding............................................................. 186
Chapter 16: New forms of sociation................................................................... 187
16.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 187
16.2 Sociation in the global world.............................................................................. 189
16.3 Overview of the chapter ..................................................................................... 196
16.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes .................................................................. 196
16.5 Test your knowledge and understanding............................................................. 196
Appendix 1: Sample examination paper............................................................. 197
Appendix 2: Examiners’ commentary.................................................................. 199
iii
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
Notes
iv
Introduction
Introduction
1.1 Introduction to sociology
Sociologists 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
1
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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 longterm 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 guide
This 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 subtopics. These readings are, in some cases, original passages of groundbreaking 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
2
Introduction
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 guide
If 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 Syllabus
This 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 gender
This 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
3
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
(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 conflict
This 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 work
The 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 age
Here 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 course
The 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 course
At 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
4
Introduction
• 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 resources
This 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
5
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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.
6
Introduction
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 advice
Important: 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.
7
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
Notes
8
Unit 1: Global inequalities: class, race, ethnicity and gender
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.
9
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
Notes
10
Chapter 2: Class
Chapter 2: Class
2.1 Introduction
The 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 chapter
The 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).
11
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
2.1.3 Essential reading
Giddens, A. and P. W. Sutton Sociology. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013)
[ISBN 9780745652931] Chapter 12.
2.1.4 Further reading
Bourdieu, 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 cited
Andrews, 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 content
This 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
12
Chapter 2: Class
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 history
Human 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
13
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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 longlasting 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
14
Chapter 2: Class
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. Wright
One 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
15
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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 occupation
Sociologists 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.
►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) pp. 492−93.
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
16
Chapter 2: Class
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 class
Sociologists 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.
17
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
2.2.5 Objective and subjective class determinants
In 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.
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).
►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) pp.496–501
18
Chapter 2: Class
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.
►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) pp. 547−51.
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
19
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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 inequality
Although 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 stayat-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 rigidity
At 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.
20
Chapter 2: Class
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.
►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) pp. 594−602.
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?
21
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
2.2.9 Social class now
Based 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 chapter
This 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 outcomes
Having 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 understanding
1. 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?
22
Chapter 3: Race
Chapter 3: Race
3.1 Introduction
This 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 chapter
The 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 outcomes
By 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 reading
Giddens, A. and P.W. Sutton Sociology. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013)
[ISBN 9780745652931] Chapter 16.
23
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
3.1.4 Further reading
Appiah, 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 cited
Back, 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
24
Chapter 3: Race
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 content
This 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 world
The 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
25
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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 nationstate 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 science
Social 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
26
Chapter 3: Race
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?
27
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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.
28
Chapter 3: Race
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.
►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) p.679.
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’
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.
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).
29
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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
30
Chapter 3: Race
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 class
While 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.
31
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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.
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
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.
32
Chapter 3: Race
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-racialsociety%E2%80%9D/
Activity 3.4
What is the difference between the ‘post-racial society’ that Obama refers to and a
‘raceless society’ according to Hicks?
►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) p.684.
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
33
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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 semiskilled 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.
34
Chapter 3: Race
3.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter as well as 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.
3.5 Test your knowledge and understanding
1. 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?
35
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
Notes
36
Chapter 4: Ethnicity
Chapter 4: Ethnicity
4.1 Introduction
Ethnicity 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 chapter
The 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 outcomes
By 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
37
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
4.1.3 Essential reading
Giddens, A. and P.W. Sutton Sociology. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013)
[ISBN 9780745652931] Chapter 16.
4.1.4 Further reading
Bauman, 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.
38
Chapter 4: Ethnicity
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 content
This 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 world
In 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,
39
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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 situation
Social 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,
40
Chapter 4: Ethnicity
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?
41
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
4.2.3 Ethnic diversity: the United Kingdom
Migration 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.
►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) p.693.
42
Chapter 4: Ethnicity
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 world
Ethnicity 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.
►Stop and read: Giddens and Sutton (2013) p.462.
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 societies
Globally, 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.
43
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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.
44
Chapter 4: Ethnicity
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 conflict
Multi-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 nationstates 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
45
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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 migration
Social 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
46
Chapter 4: Ethnicity
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 research
Today, 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 nongovernmental 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
47
SC1179 Contemporary sociology in a global age
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 chapter
This 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.
4.4 Reminder of your learning outcomes
Having completed this chapter as well as 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 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 understanding
1. 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?
48