Class Inequality (20) Flashcards
What is the first area of life where there is class inequality?
Education
1)what does Kynaston argue about the education system?
Most studies of meritocracy recognise that education is the prime engine of social mobility. However, meritocracy in the UK is undermined by the existence of private schools e.g Howells in Wales which reproduce privileged if the economic elite through generations.
2) Give statistic surrounding private education.
Approximately 7% if all children are educated at private schools costing around £14,000 in Cathedral, a private school in wales. But these take up 45% if Oxbridge places.
3) What does Neil Kinnock say?
Public schools are the ‘very cement in the walls that divide British society’
4) what did the Sutton Trust find?
Ranked the success of schools at getting their student into oxbridge. The top was Westminister public school which got 50% of its students into oxbridge charging an annual boarding fee of £36,000 for the privilege.
There were 27 private schools amoungst the top 30 schools with the best Oxbridge record, 43 in the top 50, and 78 in the top 100.
They concluded that the 70th brightest sixth form student at Westminister or Elton is as likely to get a place at oxbridge than a student at a top public school.
5) what did Kyanston conclude about private education?
Concludes that private education is a roadblock on the road to meritocracy
6) What does Furlong and Cartmel find?
Found that children from disadvantaged backgrounds were more likely to be found in the ‘new’ universities e.g the university of South Wales; rather than elite institutions such as Cardiff uni and :: they are less likely to secure graduate jobs when leaving
7) what did Savage and Everton find?
They found that ability does not wipe out class advantage. For example. In their study they found that less than half of the high ability working class boys in their study made it to service class. 65% of their low ability service boys were able to avoid dropping down into manual work.
Name a second area of life where there is class inequality
Health
1) what does Battery conclude?
Claims that ‘social inequalities are written on the body and hierarchy makes you sick’.
She nots that If illness was a chance occurrence we could expect to see rates of morbidity e.g illness such as cancer and mortality distributed randomly across the population.
2) What did the department of health statistics find?
Found the working class had a disproportionate amount of illness. Although general health across the population has improved over the last 30 years, the rate of improvement for the working class has been much slower.
3) give the statistic about working class babies
3500 more working class babies would survive per year if the working class infant mortality was reduced to middle class levels. Babies born to profession fathers have levels of infant mortality half that of babies born to manual fathers.
4) what is relevant about Prince Charles hospital in Merthyr?
The Prince Charles hospital in Merthyr has the highest death rate for babies
5) statistic on death rates over time
Between 1972-1997 death rates for professionals fell by 44% but fell by only 10% for the unskilled
6) what does Bartley et al note?
Notes that men in social class 1 had only 2/3 the chance of dying between 1986-1989 compared with the male population. Unskilled manual workers were more than 1/3 more likely to die compared to the male population
