The meaning of this should be fairly obvious by now. You are already familiar with the Weberian concept of life-chances: the chance that a member of a particular social group has to receive socially desirable outcomes during the course of their life. (The term is extremely important in this module, so you would do well to sprinkle it round your answers.) These life chances would include things such as

• Life expectancy: how long someone is predicted to live
• Morbidity: sickness
• Infant Mortality: the chances of babies under 1 yr. of age dying
• Unemployment
• Promotion
• Education
• Housing: its type, and tenure.

• Lower socio-economic groups (classes)
• Someethnic minorities (racial groups). Be very careful here: I say some ethnic minorities because different groups have different life chances. So you can use this as a source of evaluation!

  In this section we will be using terms such as racism, institutional racism, assimilation, disadvantage, and underclass, so you will need to be able to define these.

• Women, but again you will need to be careful, as not all women are disadvantaged, and not in the same ways.
• Age groups such as elderly people and youth.

First, you should know some simple facts about the numbers of ethnic minorities, and what types of disadvantages they might experience. The handout

"In Focus: Diversity and Disdavantage"

is excellent here. It gives some good measurements/operationalisations of disadvantage (housing, class, unemployment, harassment, etc), and a very useful reminder that mixed-race marriages are increasing: how can we use this fact in answering questions? It also gives you a good study to use: The P.S.I. (Policy Studies Institute).

The other handout is from the Commission for Racial Equality (C.R.E.). Again, it gives lots of examples of the ways in which ethnic minorites are disadvantaged and marginalised in our society. You should be able to remember a few examples (don't worry about the exact statistics!!); remember that the data is from the C.R.E., so you can pick up AO1 marks in your answer; and make those important synoptic links to other areas of the course (Families; Work & Leisure; Wealth, Poverty, & Welfare; Religion; etc.) Some of you have already met the P.S.I study in the section on religion. We saw how ethnic minorites, particularly Asians, were more likely to define themselves in terms of their religion.

Another very fruitful synoptic link here is to Methodology. How do we get this secondary data on ethnic minorities? Is it valid? Is it reliable? Very importantly, how do the collectors of this data define or operationalise different ethnic groups? Example: the PSI study tells us that there are increasingly large numbers of mixed race relationships. So are their offspring counted as black, white, mixed race, or what? Obviously, the categories that researchers put individuals into will have an enormous impact upon their results.

This leads us into the post-modernist position that traditional sociological concepts such as race are now decreasing in importance.

Explaining disadvantages suffered by (some!) ethnic minorities

You will need to know four basic theories/explanations.

1)Functionalist

The "Immigrant-Host Model" argues that racism & disadvantage are caused when immigrants have different norms and values to the culturally homogeneous "host" society.

Evaluation: this is now very dated, as most e.m. s are British-born, not immigrants.

2) Marxist

Disadvantage is caused by capitalism. Ethnicity/race are not important in themselves; e.m. s are proletarians who are exploited more than others.

• Ethnic minorities are part of the Reserve Army of Labour. Castles & Kosack show how most European countries use the labour of ex-colonies in order to provide a cheap workforce.
• Miles argues that e.m. s constitute a "Racialised Fraction" of the proletariat. Due to racism and the U.K.'s colonial history, Blacks & Asians are especially disadvantaged proletarians. (But not a separate group!)
• Racism is an ideology which maintains capitalism and existing class relations. It came about when capitalism needed slave labour; it justifies treating some proletarians worse than others; and helps to "divide & rule" the workers.

3) Weberian. E.m. s occupy a lower market situation than the indigenous white population; they have a lower status, due to racism and ease of identification; and they lack power due to lack of political organisation. So Weberians tend to see e.m. s as a distinct group, structurally separate from other classes and groups.

Rex & Tomlinson studied Handsworth, in inner-city Birmingham. Using a Weberian approach, they found that e.m. s were a distinct group as they had worse-paid jobs, and poorer life-chances such as worse housing. They were looked down upon. And they did not get involved in the politics of the Labour Party and Trade Unions.

4) Underclass. Very controversial. This develops the Weberian idea of structural separation, claiming that some e.m. s have such poor life chances that they are beneath the other classes, and have a distinct, pathological "underclass culture". This is a New Right idea. See handouts/reading on Murray and Saunders.

All 3 explanations should be evaluated, by seeing the extent to which they fit the facts. For example, are e.m. s suffering from low status when Afro-Caribbean music and fashion dominate youth culture? Does Murray's picture of the typical underclass family fit the facts? Your handout on Pilkington shows how fairly large numbers of e.m. s have made it into the middle classes, as does the material from the P.S.I. You should also use the PSI material on mixed marriages to criticise all of these theories.

We will start to look at GENDER by considering ways in which women are disadvantaged in the workplace. There are many other approaches (media; violence; family; etc) but this is a good one, as it relates closely to the issue of class, and you can make some excellent synoptic links to topics such as Work & Leisure; Wealth, Poverty, & Welfare; and Families & Households.

You will need to know the ways in which women are disadvantaged: the AO1 material. These are:

1. Lower Pay. F/t female workers earn, on average, 80% of what male workers earn. This is despite the Equal Pay Act (1970).
2. Vertical Segregation. This is where women are concentrated (segregated) in the lower ranges of the career ladder: the so-called "glass ceiling", which shows lack of female promotion. This despite the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act.
3. Horizontal Segregation. Women are concentrated in certain occupations such as cleaning, caring, catering, secretarial, etc. Some feminists claim that this reflects a stereotypical view of women's capabilities.
4. Part-time work. Despite the rise of the tertiary/service sector of the economy and the increased recruitment of females, much of this work is part-time, temporary, and low status. Marxist Shirley Dex calls this gendered part-time employment".
5. Sexual Harassment. Radical feminists such as Stanko point out the wide range of behaviours which men use in order to oppress women at work. This is seen not as a problem of individual men, but as part of a patriarchal attack upon women as an entire gender.

• Families and Households. (Domestic violence; working women; conjugal roles; the "pure relationship"; divorce; domestic patriarchy; family size; etc.)
• Work & Leisure. (Feminisation of work; growth of tertiary sector; exploitation & alienation; leisure patterns; etc)
• Wealth, Poverty, & Welfare. (Dual income families; relative poverty; childcare provision; benefits; feminisation of poverty; etc.)
• Religion. (Patriarchal institutions and ideology; etc)
• Methods. (Validity and Reliability of statistics on female disadvantage; bias & objectivity; etc.)
• Theory (Marxist, Radical Feminist, and Functionalist explanations of these patterns of disadvantage, etc.)

This last link leads us into the REASONS for female disadvantage. Again, this will mean using theories and concepts that you are familiar with, so it is more a matter of intelligently applying old material, rather than learning new material.

• Patriarchy. Radical feminists point out that work is a "site of patriarchy". Patriarchy is seen as a political system in which men use their social, economic, political, and personal power to oppress women for their own advantage. According to radical feminists, men exclude women from highly paid jobs, and prefer to keep them as obedient and economically-dependent domestic slaves.
• Reserve Army of Labour. Marxists (such as Beechey argue that women are part of the R.A.O.L.: an expendable labour force called in to work the means of production in times of economic "boom", and made redundant during recessions.
• Ideology of Domesticity. Another Marxist argument. Women are indoctrinated (via the media, government policy, etc.) into wanting to be wives, mothers, and home-makers. This serves the interests of capitalism.
• Dual Labour Market Theory (Barron & Norris) or Core & Periphery (Lash & Urry). Both white-collar and blue-collar jobs are divided by a "vertical cleavage" into secure, f/t., permanent, unionised work ("Primary labour market" or "core"); and insecure, short-term, p/t jobs without unions ("Secondary labour market" or "periphery"). Women, lacking relevant skills, and needing to take time out of their careers for giving birth and raising families, tend to be concentrated in the latter.
• Functional fit. Functionalists (Parsons) and more recently the New Right, argue that these types of jobs for women are in fact to everyone's advantage, and therefore promotew social solidarity. The economy benefits from flexible, low-paid workers who can fit shifts in around their children. Families benefit from not being deprived too much of the mother. And females benefit from work that fits around family commitments, and which utilises "domestic skills" learned as wives and mothers.

Also note that you should be able to evaluate each of these theories; the examiner will not ask you to "outline" or "sketch" these arguments!

An extremely useful area of AO1 in this area is The Hakim Debate. You should learn what this is about (in a very tiny nutshell, most feminists argue that women don't break the glass ceiling, or even find paid work, because they are hindered by structural factors: Patriarchy; lack of childcare facilities; sexual harassment; etc. But Catherine Hakim controversially argues that her empirical research shows women are less career-oriented than men. About half of the female workforce, she claims, are more committed to their home and family, and put their job in second place. They choose this, rather than having it imposed on them.....)

Having learnt this (easy!) you should think about how to use it to answer questions. You can use it to criticise Marxist and Radical Feminist arguments that Capitalism and Patriarchy, respectively, cause women to be disadvantaged. Women have real choices, and are not structurally constrained by social factors. You can bring it into virtually every question you could be asked!