Social identity and how social institutions may affect life chances and identity
There are three common types of identity, the first being personal identity which are aspects of yourself that you have no control over, such as your name, passport or national insurance number. Social identity is who society and an individual recognises themselves to be, in accordance to groups in which they belong to. Many of these remain the same throughout a person’s life, but they do have the ability to change if they wish, for example moving between social classes. The final type of social identity is collective identity, these are all of the groups you consciously join to connect with people of similar interests as you. In terms of social identity, I will be focusing on the impact of life chances dependant on their social class and gender in terms of education and employment. I will also look at how our primary identities formed from infancy and childhood in education can be further developed throughout our lives through employment.
Social class is a group that society places people in based mainly on their wealth, employment and social status. It is commonly made up of three main tiers, upper, middle and lower, also known as working, class. The few upper class tend to be the wealthiest and with the highest paid jobs, working class people, traditional carry out more labouring work and live on a lower income. Middle class sit in between, working in non-manual jobs, with higher educational achievements. Whilst you may hope that these differences between social classes wouldn’t discriminate and segregate people, it does.
Gender is defined by the characteristics of a person and who they feel they identify as, gender however does not describe their biological differences. Sex refers to the biological differences between males and females. There are people who are transgender and non-binary, so whilst they may refer to themselves as a certain gender, it does not mean their sex matches that gender.
The government likes to impose the idea that opportunities within society are equal regardless of an individual’s social class or gender, but in reality, that’s not the case. Althusser (1977) argued that state education is a crucial prop to the ‘ideological state apparatus’, exploiting the working class members of society. Education aids this by performing two functions, reproducing class inequality, by teaching working class pupils to accept failure and inequality from one generation to the next. As well as legitimising class inequality, as members of the working class society accept these ideas, therefore meaning they are less likely to rebel against capitalist society. This is clearly having a detrimental effect on working class pupils as stated in an article from The Guardian, ‘children from the poorest families are half as likely to achieve good GCSEs’. Not only does this showcase how hard hitting the effects are on pupils, but also shows us how a capitalist society is able to shape a working class future. With poor grades, many of these individuals will end up in labourous jobs, ensuring an endless cycle of ‘working class slaves’. The education system is presented to the working class as fair and equal but in fact it is a recurring cycle to ensure the people in power, stay in power, also known as the hidden curriculum.
Similarly, in education, gender stereotypes of girls and boys have a direct impact on how teachers deliver education differently depending on their gender. In previous years, it’s been believed that girls have been excluded from education and boys have been the ones to continue into higher education, but Swann and Graddol (1994) has shown what teachers expect from girls and boys in education. Teachers often label boys as being unruly and disruptive, in turn lowering their expectations of them, leaving them less likely to receive help; girls on the other hand have been labelled as bright and well-behaved. Boys being excluded from the potential extra help that girls are receiving could massively impact their idea of the education system, and dissuade them from continuing on into higher education.
Individually, both of these issues can massively impact upon the chance of a child receiving a quality education, boys from a lower social class are particularly disadvantaged. Not only will their expectations be lower due to coming from a working class background, but then once in school, they may become subject to labelling from teachers, who then fail to provide the already crucial extra support required. These issues that have arisen during childhood education will have a direct impact on the future of that child including employment.
However, as we progress more as a society, gender inequality is slowly being eradicated, with boys and girls now studying the same subjects and taking the same exams. It is no longer unusual to find girls studying science and maths, as well as to find boys studying cooking and art. On the other hand, differences between the highest and lowest ends of social class is growing, with 0.7% of the world’s population controlling 46% of the total world wealth, The Guardian Newspaper (2017). Meaning the poorer are getting poorer and the richer are getting richer.
As I said previously, children from a working class background are educated to be employed in what people consider to be working class jobs. Paul Willis’s study (1977) supports this idea, in which he found that ‘lads’ thought that ‘school was a laff’ and didn’t value education. The consequences of these children believing qualifications were not important meant they ended up in low paying jobs. Whilst they can see through this ‘ideological state apparatus’ the capitalist society has created, the ‘lads’ are convinced that only a few working class pupils will succeed in education. Higher paid jobs could be within their reach if they achieved grades at school, but a high contributor to the issue is their belief that, because they are from a working class background they must enter a working class job. As these people end up in working class jobs, they also end up with a low income, this can often directly impact their lifestyle and living conditions. This in turn may lead to long term as well as short term illness, which, if they take too much time off work may result in job loss, ending in a spiral that can only go down.
In the work place, gender is currently a major issue regarding equal pay. Even with the equal pay act being brought into action in 1970, it is not uncommon to find companies paying men and women differently. A recent investigation found that the BBC paid the male presenters significantly more than the female presenters. So, whilst they are doing the same amount of work, they are not being paid the same for it, which could lead to women in the work place feeling undervalued and not performing their job roles to the best of their abilities. As well as this there is the ‘glass ceiling’ theory, where there is an invisible barrier that prevents women from rising up the ranks in the workplace. Both of these issues can cause women to be on a lower income, therefore struggling to provide for their families.
Working class pupils have the ability to control the situation themselves and succeed if they wish, however women who are being paid less in their jobs, whilst its illegal, it is a controversial topic that is difficult to make a change to. Many of the issues that arise in employment due to social class are often due to previous issues in childhood and education which haven’t been sorted, many of which are preventable. It just goes to show how a child’s education can greatly affect their future. Both of the issues with social class and gender regarding employment lead to them being on lower incomes and therefore living a lower quality of life. Women who come from a lower social class, may accept that they are to be paid less, due to being brought up with parents believing that.
A functionalist view of education firmly believes that pupils from all backgrounds are treated equally and fairly throughout their education and that it has a positive outcome for the majority of its pupils. It also suggests that schools encourage solidarity in a work focused learning environment, created to allow all pupils to work together. Marxists argue that the education system, however, is discriminative and purely benefits the upper class and middle class members of society, particularly those in private schooling. They believe the education system reproduces class inequality, with working class less likely to be able to fork out the costs to attend university. I believe that in today’s society, the Marxist view of education is the most accurate, as I said earlier with working class pupils being education for working class jobs. However, functionalists argue that education has become more inclusive regarding education for girls and boys, which I believe is true.
As well as believing education to be open equally for everyone, functionalist believing employment is open to everyone disregarding of your class and gender. However, as it is clear that working class pupils are less likely to be able to afford to continue on to university, in turn they end up with the lower paying jobs. Marxist, on the other hand, understand how the working class are targeted and exploited in a capitalist society in which they are the slaves to the upper class members.