...Intercontinental University Unit 3 Individual Project Social Inequalities SSCI210-1704A-04 – Sociology October 24, 2017 The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that hate crime that was reported to the police stating that the targeted individuals were people of disabilities, different sexual orientation, different in religion and different ethnicity. Sixty percent was that of blacks and thirty percent was targeted towards white in racially motivated offenses (nij.gov, 2017). Hate crime is defined by the U.S. Department of Justice “the violence of intolerance and bigotry, intended to hurt and intimidate someone because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability...
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...to Good Ends: Draft Why Income Equality is Important Arthur MacEwan[1] March 2009 “The social system is not an unchangeable order beyond human control but a pattern of human action.”—John Rawls (1971, p. 102) In recent years “poverty reduction” has become the watchword in development agencies, in international lending institutions, and among development economists generally. The focus on poverty reduction reached a high point perhaps with the articulation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and with the extensive analytic work that has accompanied the MDGs.[2] Yet, much of the discussion of poverty reduction and economic development in low and middle income countries has either ignored the issue of income distribution or has tended to view income distribution only in terms of its impact on economic growth. Poverty and inequality, however, are intimately bound up with one another.[3] Both as an analytic issue and as a policy issue, there are severe limitations in attempting to deal with poverty – or, more broadly, with economic well-being – without also examining income inequality. Indeed, it is questionable that we can even define poverty independently of income distribution. In this essay, I want to develop the argument that economists and economic policy-makers should focus much greater attention on inequality as measured by the distribution of income (and wealth). The traditional focus simply on absolute levels of income...
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...Eugene Harmon Poverty in Latin America Inequality: The Most Political and Economic Problem in Latin America Throughout the years, Latin America has experienced dramatic political, social, and economic changes amongst its numerous countries. As time went on, various leaders brought grand ideas to the table in hopes of bettering the region. However, in most cases, the outcome was far from grand, failing to address social conflicts that derived from deep inequality and high levels of poverty. Without successfully conquering the underlying causes of conflict within the region, change in a positive direction for Latin America does not exist. This paper will define inequality as the most political and economic problem that Latin American countries continue to face, and how inequality, discrimination, poverty, and crime violence stem from the underlying problem of inequality. As a result, social programs currently in place fail to properly address the issues of inequality and poverty within Latin America, thus being unsuccessful. In their literature review of the Southern Commands, Jorge Castaneda and Patricio Navia remind the reader that, “be it in the Caribbean heat or in the Andes-mountain cold, the uniform and lasting defining characteristic of Latin America is inequality” (82). They continue to explain that, “Latin America brings together – often within the same countries, same cities and occasionally even the same neighborhoods...
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...Inequality: The Most Pressing Problem in Latin America Throughout the years, Latin America has experienced dramatic political, social, and economic changes amongst it’s numerous countries. As time went on, various leaders brought grand ideas to the table in hopes of bettering the region. However, in most cases, the outcome was far from grand, failing to address social conflicts that derived from deep inequality and high levels of poverty. Without successfully conquering the underlying causes of conflict within the region, change in a positive direction for Latin America does not exist. This paper will define inequality as the most pressing problem that Latin American countries continue to face, and how inequality, discrimination, poverty, and crime violence stem from the underlying problem of inequality. As a result, social programs currently in place fail to properly address the issues of inequality and poverty within Latin America, thus being unsuccessful. In their literature review of the Southern Commands, Jorge Castaneda and Patricio Navia remind the reader that, “be it in the Caribbean heat or in the Andes-mountain cold, the uniform and lasting defining characteristic of Latin America is inequality” (82). They continue to explain that, “Latin America brings together – often within the same countries, same cities and occasionally even the same neighborhoods – the wealth and prosperity of the most-industrialized nations in the world and the dispossession, despair and hopelessness...
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...Evaluate Marxist explanations of Crime and Deviance Labelling theory paved the way in understanding how deviance was something defined by social processes. In this way social agencies such as the police defined what was deviant. Marxists took this view even further by examining the power of certain social groups to define deviance and create the laws which secured social conformity. Marxists see crime and deviance as not coming from moral or biological defects but defects within social order. Crime is an inevitable part of capitalism as it stems from social inequalities. Working-class crime is caused by labour exploitation and material misery. Therefore theft is an expression of that exploitation and is a political act of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. As anything the ruling class defines as being criminal because it’s in their interests to do so. The ruling class will violate laws with impunity while members of the subject classes will be punished. Crime is a reaction to the life conditions of a person’s social class. Crime diverts the working-class’s attention from the exploitation they experience; it contains their resistance. Crime changes from society to society depending on the political and economic structures of society. Crime will persist in capitalist societies because they promote inequality and class conflict, and penal law will expand relative to that inequality and exploitation. Chambliss argues that acts are defined as criminal only when it’s in the...
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...dominance among competing social groups (classes, genders, races, religions, etc.). When conflict theorists look at society, they see the social domination of subordinate groups through the power, authority, and coercion of dominant groups. In the conflict view, the most powerful members of dominant groups create the rules for success and opportunity in society, often denying subordinate groups such success and opportunities; this ensures that the powerful continue to monopolize power, privilege, and authority. You should note that most conflict theorists oppose this sort of coercion and favor a more equal social order. Some support a complete socioeconomic revolution to socialism (Marx), while others are more reformist, or perhaps do not see all social inequalities stemming from the capitalist system (they believe we could solve racial, gender, and class inequality without turning to socialism). However, many conflict theorists focus on capitalism as the source of social inequalities. The primary cause of social problems, according to the conflict perspective, is the exploitation and oppression of subordinate groups by dominants. Conflict theorists generally view oppression and inequality as wrong, whereas Structural-Functionalists may see it as necessary for the smooth running and integration of society. Structural-Functionalism and Conflict Theory therefore have different VALUE-ORIENTATIONS but can lead to similar insights about inequality (e.g., they both believe...
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...The social problem of economic, class and racial inequality has been a great issue of concern for many in the United States because inequality goes against America’s cores values of upward mobility economic wise and in social class (Korgan, 2012). These social problems of inequality have been linked to disparities in quality of life and psychological and social well-being. The problem of social inequality has been found to be linked with other social problems such as crime and victimization. The problem of social inequality can even be seen in the criminal justice system in how it treats people of various races, ethnic groups and socioeconomic classes who are processed through the system (Wheelock, 2006). In essence, there exists a disparity amongst race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class in criminal victimization and how people are processed through the criminal justice system that exacerbates the social problem of inequality in numerous social institutions and complicates many individual’s efforts to escape from poverty and achieve upward mobility (Wheelock, 2006). The disparity in criminal punishment is due to various factors such as laws that were implemented to reduce crime, race, and low economic status (Wheelock, 2006). The factors that have a tremendous impact on victimization are demography and socioeconomic status (Raphael, 2006). While violent crimes are not exclusive to poor metropolitan areas, consistent patterns have been observed which reveal lower rates of crime...
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...INEQUALITY IN KENYA INTRODUCTION After independence, the few educated Kenyans easily acquired wealth, without competition, and major changes since then has spawned few rich people because this group perfected ways of ensuring that wealth does not leak out, including marrying among themselves. Distribution of benefits of economic growth has been one of Kenya’s biggest challenges in its quest for long term prosperity and stability putting the suitability of the trickle-down economics that Presidents use after coming to power under intense scrutiny. Recent events in Kenya have cast a disturbing light on the depth and complexity of social distress in the country. The conflict arising from the disputed presidential elections has roots in inequality, poverty, poor governance and a host of other issues. However the major underlying issue is clearly the perception of deliberate unfairness and inequality in the distribution of national resources. However it can also be argued that beyond the real biases in resource allocation is the widespread failure of the State due to deliberate policies of retreat compounded by unchecked corruption. Poverty has progressively deepened as the state has reduced its provisioning of social services. This retreat of the state has been coincident with the slow and persistent decline that characterized the country’s economic performance from the 1980’s until the turn of the century. Thus narrowing economic perspectives due to declining economic growth...
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...Abstract This term paper delineates 1) gender, race and inequality, 2) its antediluvian (historic) attachment, 3) sociological perspectives, 4) modernization paradigms (examples), 5) the synopsis (summary), 6) a glossary of vocabulary words, and 7) references (works cited). Gender is Race and inequality produces such a predominate upshot on our daily lives. When we say gender, we often think that gender is sex. In reality gender is not sex. Imagine you are born into a society in which you never knew your factual identity. That is, you don’t know who you are, except for that fact that you are alive. Moreover, suppose you were applying for a job and you encounter a query (question) saying, “What is your gender?” or “Are you a Male or...
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...Robinson Culture and Society May 13, 2012 Wendell Johnson The social situation that I would like to address in this essay is the problem of crime in our society. We all know that crime is on the rise, most likely due to inequalities in race, education, social class, skills, financial status, and religious beliefs and values. Of course, both functionalists and conflict theorists are marco-level, but have differing views on the reasons for, and reactions to, crime in our society today. Interactionist on the other had is micro-level, meaning it is not that useful to the world. Functionalists believe that crime is important for a society. Crime shows other member of the society what is right and wrong. Social agreement decides how right and wrong is determined. Crime can lead to social change, say functionalists, because the existence of crime proves to the people in the society that the government does not overly control the citizens. Crime can also help the economy of a society by creating jobs for law enforcement officers, psychiatrists, and probation officers. However, even in a functionalist society, too much crime can be bad for the group, causing it to lose the standard harmony and ultimately causing the society to failure. Also it is suggested that the existence of crime is functional in its ability to gather families and communities together for a common purpose. Conflict theorists feel that crime is products of a struggle for power and control. According to a conflict...
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...economic inequality can adversely affect us as an individual and society. Economic inequality does and can affect an organizations performance through employee development which will affect its individual employees and their interactions at work. I will provide an overview of the relationship between economic inequality and management. Introduction Inequalities have been on the rise and on the public’s mind since the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests which have been noted by many government agencies (i.e. Congressional Budget Office, 2011), international economic organizations (i.e. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2011) and researchers (Piketty, 2014). Inequality debates still capture headlines and continue to stir debates, for example, Oxfam’s assertion that the 85 richest people in the world hold as much wealth as the poorest half of the world, but also occupied a central stage in the discussions at the annual meeting of World Economic Forum (Oxfam, 2015). This has been researched and studied for years. The earliest article accessible through Web of Science was published in 1930 and discussed the effect of rural migration on urban–rural economic inequality (Rutledge, 1930). Since 1930, research has been done in a range of to examine the relationships between economic inequality and socioeconomics, including economic growth (Kuznets, 1955), public health (Marmot et al., 1991), socio-political instability (Alesina and Perotti, 1996), crime (Kawachi...
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...more like Mexico or more like Japan in its degree of inequality? - We live in a world of staggering and unprecedented income inequality. Nothing could be further from the truth than the idea that poverty is increasing. However, America has a higher degree of income inequality than almost any other developed country. Most countries spend a bigger share of their national output on social programs, which tend to decrease income inequality. The U.S. is less effective at reducing inequality through taxes and benefits, making us higher than both Mexico and Japan. Trade is much higher than Mexico than Japan so our society would be similar in more aspects of Mexico. 6. Use Merton’s strain theory to explain why crime rates are so high in Mexico. Can you compare crime rates in your own society with crime rates in Mexico? Explain sociologically why crime rate are higher or lower in your society than in Mexico....
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...Jaclyn Glovasky EN 102 111 10/29/2015 Inequality in Criminal Court Sex refers to the biological and physiological characteristics, while gender refers to behaviors, roles, expectations, and activities in society. Social inequality plays a big part in who commits crime, who is victimized by crime, and how it is dealt with. Inequality can be based on gender, race, and social class. Being part of a family is central to the development of sex roles. Women’s role is learned to be nurturing, caring and keep the family unit running smoothly, whereas men connect the family to the larger world, through achievement, goal attainment and breadwinning in the instrumental role. However, problems arise with the assumption that because women...
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...characteristics may interact with the social environment to produce a violent event. However, rather than focus on the biological basis of crime, psychologists focus on how mental processes impact individual propensities for violence. Psychologists are often interested in the association between learning, intelligence, and personality and aggressive behaviour. In this section of the report, we briefly review some of the major psychological perspectives that have attempted to explain violent behaviour. These perspectives include the psychodynamic perspective, behavioural theory, cognitive theory and personality theory. We will also explore the possible relationship between mental illness and violence. Social learning theory Social learning theory is a theory that attempts to explain socialization and its effect of the development of the self. There are many different theories that explain how people become socialized, including psychoanalytic theory, functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interaction theory. Social learning theory, like these others, looks at the individual learning process, the formation of self, and the influence of society in socializing individuals. Social control theory gained prominence during the 1960s as sociologists sought differing conceptions of crime. It was during this period that Travis Hirschi put forth his innovative rendering of control theory, a theory built upon existing concepts of social control. Hirschi’s social control theory asserts that...
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...Social Inequality Unit 07 What is the relationship between ethnicity and inequality? Learning targets: • There are ethnic differences in life chances in the UK. • Some ethnic minorities appear to be the victims of racism and discrimination in the UK • There have been strict laws to prevent racism and ethnic inequality in the UK. • There are those who believe that the social changes that have come about because of legal controls are more cosmetic than deeply embedded into our social structure. Key questions (AO1) What evidence is there of ethnic inequality in UK? (AO1) How are ethnic inequalities being challenged by government policies? (AO2) To what extent is British culture racist and ethnically unequal? (AO2) What are social implications of racism in our society? Summary of Key Points 1 2 What is racism? Racism is the belief that some ethnic groups are superior and others inferior. This belief is often associated with notions of skin pigmentation or the minor physical differences that are sometimes apparent between different groups of people. However, racism is not always associated with skin colour, but also with culture, ethnicity, with religious belief or language differences. The notion of racism itself is also a very recent idea in our society. In the past, the idea that people from certain ethnic groups were superior to and different from others was so deeply...
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