Community and Social Policy - Essay Example

Community and Social Policy Community and Social Policy According to Penn and Wykes (2003), it is quite evident that various forms of discrimination in health care services. Opportunities at work as well as some individuals being side lined or ignored as far as social interactions are concerned. Discrimination comes by as a result of people having the difficulty to better understand and appreciate the mentally ill, also the aged. The opportunities presented to those who are mentally ill and elderly fail to exist anymore with the stereotype that these individuals are dangerous, of no help to the society and with no sense of responsibility, be it self or public. The two features, oppression and discrimination, have become very common in making it almost impossible for individuals to move up the professional ladder in the labor market. Giddens (1993) therefore provides a definition of discrimination as the activity or action that grabs away the opportunities from a specific group, making them out of their reach. It is in this essay therefore that I will lay my focus on old age and mental illness or disability as core areas of discrimination and oppression in the society. I also will look at the similarities and differences between these core areas of discrimination I will study disability as an area of oppression in society. During my first part I will search the meaning of discrimination and oppression within our society. The significance of anti-discriminatory practice will be debated and tracked by an introduction and description of the PCS model of analyses. Thompson (1993) is used to highlight discrimination and oppression on three different levels. Oppression is a state in which a culture, group, society, state or individual have military, economic and political power that they use in such a wrong way which ends up disadvantaging the powerless in the society. Individuals carrying out the oppression are in control of those under them and therefore better placed when it comes to discriminating against other people. This heinous act comes by just as another group that feels more special gets the mere perception that the other group exists (Cohen, 1988). It is the various groups existing in the society that makes it easier for these forms of discrimination to take place; with the knowledge of the weaker group, therefore forming attitudes against one another. Mental health problem is a term that encompasses a great deal of problems that have an effect on the way an individual carries out with their day to day living. According to The World Health Organization (WHO, 1980) mental health is "A state of well-being in which the individual realizes their abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to his or her community". This subject is not a subject that is clear enough as mental health and illness has a connection with issues as oppression that are caused by differences in power levels (Cohen, 1989). This kind of oppression often has an effect on individuals with disabilities at the time when they are done with their education and venturing into the job market. This is for instance evident when some positions are denied to them with an excuse of their being unable to handle forms of work and therefore produce lower income for the particular organization. This oppression makes the lives of these people impossible s poverty becomes part of their lives (Ensel, 1991). There always is a difference between the disabled and non-disabled. In cases where members from the two groups make a job application, it is more than obvious that the non-disabled will get considered for the job. All this is due to the negative attitudes we hold as far as our social well-being is concerned. This is, therefore, the manner in which discrimination and oppression are expressed in our society. The medical model of disability is regarded as one that sees disability in the dimension of individual tragedy, therefore the perpetrating discrimination. Thompson (2006), on the other hand, considers this particular model as countering discrimination among the disabled that is to transform the notion of how we view the disabled in our society. Their being segregated as far as education is concerned as well as being kept aside in the labor market, has had a great negative impact on the lives of this group of people (Greenwood & Johnson, 1987). The disabled have faced lots of challenges based on their condition that is obviously not their wish. It is this state that has had them left out in the various aspects of social life; something that takes us back to the times when the biblical notions were a basis of the society. Throughout this religious model, it was made clear to everyone of what is unacceptable and acceptable in our society, without any mention of disability or any other forms of bodily imperfections (Gatz & Finkel, 1995). Those disabled, in biblical ideas, were said to have sinned against God and therefore serving a punishment for their evil deeds and those with bodily imperfections considered immoral. The population of the older people is meant to increase as per the three PCS levels of analysis. Despite this gradual increase in population however, it is clear that the society has insufficient funds to take good care of these group of people and therefore have to live in poverty, or with inadequate care (Goldstein & Perkins, 1993). Those that stand a chance to be sent to the homes secured for the elderly still have to face various challenges, as the personnel meant to take care of their needs are inadequately trained in their areas of jurisdiction and therefore fail in delivering the quality care needed by these elderly people (Wood, 2000). They show little or no respect to these group of people and fail to rise to the occasion whenever they are desperately needed, and instead keep blaming them for being useless as well as contributing nothing to the social and economic resources. The blacks have for a long time been sidelined in regards to social relations as compared to whites. This is because black skin gets considered as a bodily imperfection and therefore not worthy. It is this form of discrimination as far as skin color concerns that get referred to as racism (Sanchez, 1992). Racism, therefore, forms a group in the society that is known to discriminate against other group, especially those considered less superior. Racism gets always triggered by various beliefs and structural systems that regard the black people as quite problematic, which is therefore translated in stereotyping; that leads to having them oppressed and highly discriminated (Wright, 1983). The idea of, therefore, placing people in various groups of different social classes is what brings about the behavior that is discriminatory. It is therefore the duty of the Equality Act (2010) in relation to Race and Ethnicity is to take care of acts of discrimination that occurs labor market in relation to age and disability, as for this case. In handling of this matter, the act carries out this by making sure that all citizens have equal rights, their condition and characteristics notwithstanding. Besides, it gives a promise to the people that victimizing of those likely to get affected ceases and that chances of equality among citizens gets maximized. It is in the year 2000 that the Race Relations Act got amended to ensure that the public received good and quality treatment by ensuring that citizens receive proper health, housing and other welfare activities. Discrimination does exist in areas like education, civil force and matters housing, as in the 1999 report of Macpherson. Discrimination in institutions got evidenced in the year 1991 when a black teenager, Stephen Lawrence got killed in a supposedly racial attack. Besides the murder of a teenager, the case was not adequately handled because the family of the deceased was of black skin color. To better understand oppression, various levels of theoretical approaches can get analyzed; Personal level, cultural level and structural level. According to Personal (P) level, what gets dealt with here is the ideas held by an individual of discrimination against some groups of people (Young, 1990). It is in most cases concerned with an individuals views and therefore in relation to actions of man (Robinson, 1997). The P is central, and this is because the other two levels support this particular one. Cultural (C) Level, on the other hand, refers to those values that are common among citizens or members of the community, as well as deeds (Roff & Atherton, 1989). It is known to in most cases cause living by the social norms for having accepted and learnt a particular culture. As for the structural level, it is portrayed how the habit of oppression is embedded in our society through various institutions in support of beliefs of an individual and norms of a given culture. Although we shun stereotyping and rebuke it in whatever terms possible, it is a painful truth that it sometimes contains an aspect of truth. It is important to the mind that one stereotypes as it plays a vital role in the operating of the cognitive (Sally, 2001). According to Brislin (1993), stereotypes are natural and a reflection of an individuals wish to remember, organize and come up with information that is useful in achieving goals and objectives. Those in our groups appear to us as having some differences among them as compared to the ones out of our social groups (Yuker, et al., 1960). This is because we get to interact and learn much about those in our group than those far away or in other groups. One institution that can be useful in dealing with oppression in the society is the media, as it influences the way we view disability and ageing (Berkman, 1995). Its power in impacting on the attitudes we possess as well as how we perceive things is what can actually shape us. If they decide to show us pictures of the disabled begging for assistance since they are helpless, as the society we will have no choice but feel they are different from us and therefore discriminate against them (Zimbardo, 1985). If excluded from what takes place in our societies such as locking them up in homes where they are taken care of as the elderly, the disabled feel marginalized from the society; which is not right. Women are sadly those that form a great percentage of the oppressed in the society. Despite covering much of the UK population, they do not stand a chance to have the same rights as those of men in the society or even gain access to the various resources available to men (Zimbardo & Ebbessen, 1969). There also are certain jobs or power positions that are stereotyped as belonging to men, and this makes it impossible therefore having women in such positions. The place of women is said to be at home, where they are expected to take care of the domestic chores and make sure they play their role of a mother and home maker, leaving the breadwinner part for the men. It is through this that the concept of sexism comes in, where men are the ones to occupy various positions of power and dominate females in the employment market (Yuker, 1988). Women are, therefore, left with nothing but the less powerful jobs that are less paying and males with the creamy positions. This theory has however been criticized a lot due to the idea it possesses of discrimination being as a result of individual differences, with the question of how it can be shown in a large population (Yuker, 1994). For instance, cases of racism are reported to get perpetrated by large groups of people and not an individual as this theory puts it. It is quite evident from the essay that old age, and disability that could be in terms of mental illness and bodily imperfection in the case of skin color are areas of oppression and discrimination in our society. This discrimination occurs mostly in sectors of employment, education systems, and social life of individuals as well as policing. This occurs due to some groups feeling more superior to the others and therefore have to show them that they rule. I have also looked at manifestation of discrimination in the society by comparing the experiences of the two groups of oppression discussed. It is through a critical study of the entire or wider society that it can be made possible for the concept of discrimination to get better understood; which might be of use in an attempt to come up with an anti-oppressive practice. Works Cited Berkman, L. F., 1995. The role of social relations in health promotion. Journal of psychosomatic medicine, 10(57), pp. 245-54. Cohen, G. D., 1988. 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New York: Human Resources Foundation . Zimbardo, P. & Ebbessen, E. B., 1969. Influencing Attitudes and Changing Behaviour. 2nd ed. Macmillan: Addison-Wesley. Zimbardo, P. G., 1985. Psychology and Life. 6th ed. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Read More