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Effects of educational inequality
Social inequality and its effects
Social inequality and its effects
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Social inequality can be easily defined as, “an unequal distribution of resources” (Symbaluk & Bereska, 2013, p. 93). Although it is easy to define, being aware of it in everyday life is a more difficult task. Social inequality can take many forms based on race, ethnicity, and gender and can be seen everywhere in society from school, the workplace, to government. It can be difficult to notice social inequality because stereotypes are ingrained into society and often affect the subconscious. Class stratification also enables people to scapegoat minorities by saying they have no merit to society rather than society has put up barriers to stop them from achieving merit. One easily observable effect of social inequality is the income gap between …show more content…
In Canada the greatest inequality can be found among Aboriginal groups. “In 2006, one-third (33%) of Aboriginal adults aged 25 to 54 had less than a high school education compared to nearly 13% of the non-Aboriginal population, a difference of 20 percentage points (Statistics Canada,2010,para.2).” Alarming inequalities can be found in nearly every aspect of Canadian society. Data found by Correctional Service Canada shows that in 2007, Aboriginal people comprised 17.0% of federally sentenced offenders although the general Aboriginal population is only 2.7% of the Canadian adult population (Correctional Service Canada, 2013, para.1). As Symbaluk and Bereska explain, education is a factor in future employment and therefore education and poverty and crime are significantly related. One potential answer to eliminating social inequality between Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal groups could be increasing education levels among Aboriginal groups to match the levels of Non-Aboriginal groups. Doing this would reduce poverty and crime, and give future Aboriginal generations a chance at a good
Economic inequality and injustice come in the same hand. Poor people are more likely to experience inequality and injustice. The negative assumptions of poor people are created by the media and politicians. Promoting economic justice by offering people living in poverty some form of social support. Barbara Ehrenreich found in her experiment the workforce for low-wage was difficult. Conley talks about the different types of social inequalities and how they have been unsuccessful.
LaPrairie, C. (1995). Community justice or just communities? Aboriginal communities in search of justice. Canadian Journal of Criminology. 37 (4), 521-535.
The system in place is completely unsuitable and unhelpful for Native people and it shows just how indifferent Canada is to First Nations peoples’ well-being. Zimmerman explains in his article “Outcomes” that it is a well-known fact that Aboriginal people are overrepresented in the prison system (1992). There are so many reasons why this is so, and the majority of those reasons are because of the terrible way that Canada has interacted with them. They are isolated in their reserves, they are haunted by their residential school experiences, leading to alcoholism, domestic violence and neglect, and they face discrimination and a lack of social support from the government. Once an Aboriginal person finds themselves in the clutches of the prison system, the indifference begins. Canada’s criminal justice system is indifferent to an Aboriginal person’s cultural, spiritual, and individual needs that separate them from the average convicted person (Zimmerman, 1992). The criminal justice system ignores the unique idea of justice and restoration that First Nations peoples have, making it extremely irrelevant and unhelpful for them. First Nations peoples have linguistic and cultural barriers and a lack of counsel and understanding of the criminal processes and, therefore, have misguided rulings and inaccurate proceedings. Canada has not provided the cultural training and
There is a high degree of social inequality within the United States. Of most modern industrial countries, the United Stated has some of the richest and some of the poorest people to be found. That fact is very disturbing, however, explains why much of the inequality exists in the US. In the following essay I will explain to you about the inequality in our country and why it occurs, based on the theoretical perspectives of a functionalist, conflict theorist, and social interationist.
Aboriginal women account for 24.9% of the general population and 32.5% of the incarcerated female population (Amey Bell, Shelly Trevethan & Nicole Allegri, 2004). Aboriginal female offenders are also responsible for violent crimes (Bell et al., 2004). Aboriginal female offenders have an adverse childhood; the childhood for Aboriginal women are centred around family violence, instability and substance abuse (Colleen Dell & Jennifer Kitty, 2012). The Canadian government is attempting to solve the over representation by implementing bills such as 718.2(e) (Gillian Balflour, 2012). This becomes a challenge to the correctional system since Aboriginal female inmates account for a great number of the prison population despite the bill 718.2(e).
Rowlingson, K. ( 2011). Does inequality cause Health and Social Problems? Birmingham: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
No community in Canada comes into conflict with criminal justice system officials more disproportionately than Aboriginals (Dickson-Gilmore, 2011, p.77). Indeed, Aboriginal Canadians are often subject to both overt and unintended discrimination from Canadian law enforcement due in large part to institutionalized reputations as chronic substance abusers who are incapable of reform (Dickson-Gilmore, 2011, p.77-78). One of the more startling contemporary examples of this is the case of Frank Paul; a Mi’kmaq Canadian who was left to die in a Vancouver alley by officers of the Vancouver Police Department after being denied refuge in a police “drunk tank”. Not surprisingly, this event garnered significant controversy and public outcry amongst Canada’s Aboriginal population who have long been subject to over-policing and persistent overrepresentation as offenders in the Canadian criminal justice system (Jiwani & Dickson-Gilmore, 2011, p.43 & 81).
The needs of Aboriginal youth are not being met in mainstream systems. Undoubtedly, with the high dropout rate of “7 out of 10 first nation youth drop out of school” (Donovan, 128), the school system is failing them. Across Canada only “23 percent of the Aboriginal population has their high school diploma” (Donovan, 129). Aboriginal people make up the youngest and fastest growing segment of our population, and yet many still have significantly less education than the general population.
There are many opportunities in America that can improve one’s wealth and power, thus leading to the mass amount of immigrants coming to American. Most immigrants that come to American usually are categorized as the lower class immigrants, but they take any opportunities to improve their economic status. In an article by Howard P. Chudacoff, it states “immigrants generally chose upward paths that led from manual labor into small proprietorships” (Chudacoff 1982: 104). This explains the reason why immigrants choose to come and stay in America. They start out small as laborers then over time they will work to own a small business. Even though immigrants gets to grow to move from the lower class to the middle class, the natives will be always
What is inequality? “Social inequality is the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society.” There is so much inequality in the world and so many different types of inequalities. Ignoring the fact that there is inequality in the world can be very dangerous. I feel like most people feel that they are being cheated and that there is some form of inequality going on. However, some people are either ignorant or uneducated and don’t understand how big the gap is between different groups in society.
There are many emerging and current issues which impact aboriginals. These issues impact all western and aboriginal people in their own way and often some much more than others. The Canadian criminal justice system has failed aboriginal people and all Canadians on an unacceptable scale. The faults in the criminal justice system has been inaccessible and insensitive, while have disproportionate numbers of imprisoned and arrested aboriginal people. First nations who are are arrested spend less time with their lawyers, are more commonly denied bail, and when convicted, run a higher risk of incarceration.
Being born into an economically disadvantaged family causes dilemmas before the kid is even born. According to Gulick, “Economically disadvantaged students have it tougher before they are born because they have less prenatal care if any at all” (1). Because the babies do not even have the care they need before they are born they end up being born with things that aren’t good. “Children born into poverty have lower birth weights, and many suffer from hunger and poor nutrition. When the youth suffer from poor nutrition and low birth rates it causes many complications for the hospital staff, the babies family, and causes stress on whoever pays the medical bill because the baby possible has to stay at the hospital longer. Once the kid is born the dilemmas go on and on. So how does being economically disadvantage affect people?
Kerbo, H. R. (2012). Social stratification and inequality: class conflict in historical, comparative, and global perspective (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
To understand the concept of social inequality, one needs to explore how it occurs or functions. According to Charles Walker, “Social inequality refers to the ways in which socially-defined categories of persons are differentially positioned with regard to access to a variety of social ‘goods”. Social inequality, therefore, is an umbrella term. It is expansive in nature, as social inequality encompasses a variety of different inequalities; for example, gender, race, and structural inequality are all social inequalities, but they can differ widely in manifestation. The definition of social inequality can also change based on the perception of the individual who is defining the term.
et. Al. (2006). pp. 527). Individuals engage in crime and deviant activities due to feelings of deprivation in relation to those more affluent than themselves. If individuals “[are] lacking the opportunities to increase their affluence… through paid employment and access to illegitimate opportunities” they partake in criminal activities to reduce this deprivation (Brown, F. H. (2014). pp. 1). According to Skinner (2011), some theorists argue that relative deprivation within racial or ethnic groups will increase crime whereas comparatively, others assert that inequality between these groups will increase crime. The theory of relative deprivation is effective when used to understand the overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice system. “Street crime, including burglary, shoplifting and street robbery are those which come most readily to mind when considering relative deprivation” (Brown, F. (2014). pp. 27). Relative deprivation is caused when Indigenous citizens are “socialised according to the culture of mainstream society, but are simultaneously denied to opportunities to obtain social equality” (Skinner, V. (2011). pp. 84) such as employment for instance. In 2010, the overall Indigenous unemployment rate was 18%, 3 times the non-Indigenous rate (Creative Spirits. (2015). pp. 1). Moreover, in 2011, the percentage of Indigenous related offenses involving theft comprised 81% of the total offenses (Australian Government. (2012). pp.139). As a result, these significantly high statistics provide insight into the clear correlation between the crimes associated with relative deprivation and the overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in the criminal justice