Social Inequalities - Essay Example

? Social Inequalities Number Question There are differences between the now defunct Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) programs. On the one hand, AFDC was a federal assistance program which was in effect between 1935 and 1996, having been administered by the US Department of Health and Human Services and created by the Social Security Act of 1935. AFDC was therefore basically aimed at providing financial assistance to children belonging to single parents and children hailing from low or no income earning families. The federal government carried out this mandate by authorizing its case workers, administrators and supervisors discretionary powers to determine eligibility of applicants for this kind of help, and the extent to which the assistance may be issued. One of the weaknesses of the system is that it inadvertently provided women with incentives to sire children and accorded disincentives for women to obtain jobs. On the other hand, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) as an improvement of AFDC placed a lifetime limit of 5 years for the receipt of benefits. Former President Bill Clinton in 1996 through the provision of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act instituted TANF. Unlike AFDC, TANF seeks to offer temporary financial assistance. In this case, the state that accords TANF assistance for the longest duration does so for a maximum of 60 months. Again, unlike AFDC, TANF aims at getting dependents off from this assistance, through employment. In this light, TANF requires that its benefactors obtain jobs, 24 months into receiving this aid. The welfare programs being used in the American Dream cannot adequately help women like Angie, Jewell and Opal move their families out of poverty because of the failure to address underlying issues that underpin socioeconomic inequality. Particularly, neither could AFDC be of help to these women since AFDC was aimed at merely sustaining, in lieu of empowering, nor can TANF help Angie, Jewell and Opal efficiently because it assumes beneficiaries of its programs have enough credentials to obtain jobs. On the contrary, the ability to obtain jobs is dependent upon education, yet there are sharp socio-cultural and economic inequalities which determine accessibility to quality education. In respect to the foregoing, the barriers to mobility and/or work these women experienced are premised upon merit. Merit in turn is underpinned by the extent of education candidates may possess and professional skills these women may have acquired in the long run. Because of racial and gender inequalities that accosted the African American woman, Angie, Jewell and Opal could not attain these prerequisites. Secondly, the welfare reform is depicted by DeParle (2005) of assuming a blanket application of a solution to Angie, Jewell and Opal’s problems, yet these women are different in temperance and degree of predicament. Thirdly, the runaway corruption in the welfare program offices is another factor that DeParle points out as a stumbling block to improving the status of these three resilient and diligent women. Question 2 As is widely known, as statutes enacted by the US state governments, the Three Strikes Laws mandated courts to impose sentences between 25 years and life imprisonment on individuals who have been convicted of not less than three serious criminal offences. Some of these serious offences include murder, robbery and burglary with a dangerous or deadly weapon, rape and other sex-related offences. To an extent, the Western’s account for why incarceration rates have increased so much since the 1970s may be relatable with the ratification of the Three Strikes Laws. Specifically, given that punishments for felony and homicide are severe (possibly taking on the longer sentences, the death penalty or life sentences without any prospects of a parole), criminals have recently become more desperate to escape police dragnets, to the point of having higher predisposition to attack the police. This is despite the fact that usually, criminals at first are not intent on killing. Secondly, it is notable that Western’s account on why incarceration rates have increased so much since the 1970s is consistent with the controversial results that have emanated from the Three Strikes Laws. In California for instance, up until 2011, the state had been treating shoplifting and for crimes involving theft of under 400 US dollars as felony petty theft and as being the same. This is if the defendant had committed crime leading to one previous conviction of any kind of thievery such as burglary and robbery. Again, this was especially the case if the defendant had served time in prison or jail for the same offence. Resultantly, there are many defendants who have served 25 year sentences or life imprisonment for relatively petty offences such as shoplifting golf clubs. At the same time, in California, the first two strikes are factored for individual charges instead of individual cases. This is to the effect that an individual may be charged and convicted of the first two strikes. This means that a future single case may lead to a sentence ranging from 25 years of imprisonment to life imprisonment may be passed; the fact that previous cases had been disposed off by the court of law, notwithstanding. Another factor that underscores Western’s account on why incarceration rates have increased so much since the 1970s in respect to the Three Strikes Laws is well seen in the way the Three Strikes Laws applied ambivalent and amorphous approaches to a key factor which is age. The law requires that once a juvenile record has been sealed, it can neither be unsealed, nor exist to be used in future and as a form of record to settle prior or future conviction. This is regardless of the date of the offence, the date of the conviction, or whether or not the conviction resulted from a guilty plea. However, this is not the case with the Three Strikes Laws. According to the Three Strikes Laws, defendants who have been convicted of not less than two strikes can be charged and then convicted with a third strike for any offence chargeable as felony (such as felony petty theft), felony or the crime of being in possession of a controlled substance. The import of this precedence is harsher, given that this does not factor whether or not the first two crimes had been committed by an individual as a juvenile or an individual. The gravity behind the foregoing is that resultantly; the Three Strikes Laws have not only led to nationwide mass imprisonment, but also to the incarceration of younger people to 25 years prison sentences or life imprisonment. Question 3 The Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) project is a nonprofit organization which was formed in 1970 and serves Harlem’s poverty-stricken children and families by providing free support for families and children through parenting workshops, three public charter schools, pre-school programs and child-centered healthcare services programs for thousands of families and children. The need for additional social services and enrichment programs for reducing additional disparities for poor children is underscored by the fact that in dispensing educational services as a public good to the public, the government assumes the presence of parity, yet disparity abounds in the provision of educational services in the entire educational services. This disparity is nonetheless subtle, so that it is impossible to try to ascertain its presence by merely looking at distribution of public schools within the American states. On the contrary, inequality in this case is underpinned, manifested and evidenced by the fact that race, class and color play pivotal roles in the distribution of quality educational services. In turn, race, class and color are underpinned by the fact that the White population is the most economically endowed or empowered and can therefore access the best educational services. It is also obvious that children hailing from high income earning class can access quality educational services and programs easier than their counterparts who come from middle and low income earning families. In a closely related wavelength, it is important to note that the merit-based system of conducting absorption of pupils into schools is not in itself, egalitarian. This is seen in the fact that leading high schools and tertiary institutions of learning rarely factor the element of hardship when determining the cutoff marks or points for admission. This also exemplifies the inaccessibility of quality educational services to low income families and the underprivileged, and the need for additional social services and enrichment programs for reducing additional disparities for poor children. Above all, the need for additional social services and enrichment programs for reducing additional disparities for poor children is further propounded by the fact that education plays a sacrosanct role in shaping the dynamics in the job market. Given that America is highly democratic and democratic societies use meritocracy in the allocation of goods and services, it is most obvious that job recruitment exercises factor merit. The gravity behind this development is that children hailing from high income earning families have a competitive edge over children of the people of color, in the job market. This is simply because, with access to the best educational services, it becomes easier for children from high income earning families to produce testimonials of higher standards than their counterparts. It is against this backdrop that over 40% of white collar jobs are still concentrated in the hands of the white American population. Another consequence of this state of affair is that to fail to introduce and support additional social services and enrichment programs for reducing additional disparities for poor children is to support the status quo for posterity and by extension, to condemn low income earning families to abject poverty for posterity. The foregoing clearly shows that there is a serious need for additional social services and enrichment programs for reducing additional disparities for poor children that are class-specific or/ and race-specific. The need for this is necessitated by the importance of creating socio-economic and cultural egalitarianism across people of all divides in the US. Question 4 There are several theories that and perspectives on the role of education in social mobility in the United States. As a matter of fact, even the meritocratic and social production perspectives on education are somewhat different. Both meritocracy and social production see education as serving disadvantaged children with another chance to access higher education, and the socio-cultural and economic benefits that come thereafter. While meritocracy looks at how to empower the population to have the credentials necessary to be productive and empowered in the society, social production concentrates on education as a factor that helps the population become more productive by supporting upward socio-cultural and economic mobility. There are other perspectives that describe the role of education. Some of these are: the political arithmetic perspective, structure and agency, and structural functionalism. Structural functionalism has it that a society is naturally geared towards social order and equilibrium. The society is likened to human body and an institution such as education keeps the body or the society healthy. Education in this case is also seen as a strong factor in helping socialize the population and thereby making the population more productive and more docile citizens. This view also sees education as playing the role of sorting and ranking individuals for absorption in the job market. Conversely, political arithmetic perspective has it that education plays a pivotal role in dealing with social inequalities and bringing about a fair balance in social stratification. Recently, political arithmetic has come to incorporate gender politics, race and class difference, to see education as playing a pivotal role in entrenching balance and fairness in gender, class and inter-racial and cross-cultural relations. This same theory sees education as a factor that helps the society remain governable, politically conscious, equitable and equal. Also known as Bourdieu and Cultural Capital, the Structure and Agency theory, and as propounded by Pierre Bourdieu maintains that education plays a dual role that is subjective and objective, structural and agent or habitus and cultural capital. Bourdieu bases his concept on the rationale that objective structures shape the chances for an individual, through mechanisms of the habitus, where individuals are able to internalize these structures. Bourdieu continued that nevertheless, the habitus is shaped by the position of an individual in an array of fields such as everyday experiences and family life. Two of the most moving treatises on education are those by Bourdieu (1984), titled, Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste and Kao and Thompson (2003), titled, Racial and ethnic stratification in educational achievement and attainment. Bourdieu observes that cultural capital is assumed by school systems to be natural and allows students to legitimately possess it and access educational capital. The import of Bourdieu’s standpoint is that American educational system cannot meet dispensation of meritocratic and social reproduction since lower class learners are disadvantaged since they cannot access educational capital virtually because of being unable to own this cultural capital. Likewise, Kao and Thompson see American educational system as being unable to dispense the meritocratic and social reproduction views on education since economic values are not equitably distributed meaning that people from underprivileged classes are not able to access quality education. Thus, the dispensation of meritocratic and social reproduction remains lopsided and in favor of the high income earner who is majorly white. Question 5 It is a fact that in 2009, a Mayor’s Task Force Report on African Americans in San Francisco reported “black flight” among middle class blacks from the city into the suburbs, growing poverty, dropouts, incarceration rates and lower incomes among the city’s remaining Blacks. It is most likely that these developments would proceed to affect the remaining African American populations in states in which this migrations took place such as San Francisco, Washington DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York and Boston. Particularly, it is a fact that public services such as education are going to favor majority groups, at the expense of minority groups. This is going to happen inadvertently, given that the departure of African Americans will usher in lower attendance and less participation of African Americans in education. Because of this, policy makers and educationalists will inadvertently not see the need to introduce policies that would be all-inclusive. Against the backdrop of the development above, it is also likely that accession of quality education will be nearly impossible for the African American. This is because, diminished presence of African Americans will readily invite less pressure to introduce fair systems for converting grades and entrance exam points. This means that accessibility of quality education will also remain biased against the African American even in high schools, colleges and universities. It is also most plausible that these states San Francisco, Washington DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York and Boston are likely to ironically experience a gradual and persistent rise in black crime. This crime is likely to be anteceded by structural social reasons such as the inability of the African Americans to access economic values such as jobs and capital. The foregoing also means that with time, the African American population in San Francisco, Washington DC, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New York and Boston is likely to experience a gradual and persistent rise in racial profiling by law enforcement officers. Because of the aforementioned rise in black crime, law enforcement officers will have imperceptibly developed an operational culture based on the attitude that a specific ethnic group features dominantly in crime. Trends in crime as is depicted by the database being used by law enforcement officers will have also reinforced racial profiling with time. Apathy towards law enforcement institutions and America’s criminal justice system may also become gradually and incorrigibly inculcated in the minds of the remaining African American minorities who choose to remain in these states. Eventually and with time, the African Americans in these states are also going to become less involved in American politics and leadership. This development will come about as a culmination of having been: severed from mainstream educational system; denied jobs and avenues for economic empowerment; subjected to racial profiling; and kept out of the nation’s political life, for a long time. Question 6 Residential segregation affects the life chances of people who live in segregated neighborhoods, just as Massey and Denton claim in American Apartheid. In itself, residential segregation refers to the physical separation of groups into different neighborhood. This can also refer to a form of segregation or separation which sorts groups in a population, into different neighborhood contexts, and thereby shaping the living environment and standards into different neighborhood levels. At most instances, ethnicity, income and race are the criteria that underpin this racial segregation. Life chances of people living in segregated neighborhoods is likely to be very low because such people are likely to live in squalid conditions, in the event that the population concerned is an income or income-and-racial segregation. These squalid conditions are always amenable to unfortunate cases such as poor drainage systems and unmanaged dumping cites. Such conditions are always vulnerable to outbreaks of communicable diseases. This situation comes against the backdrop of poor municipal council services, if at all there are any. It is also given that people living in segregated neighborhoods have relatively shorter longevity. This is especially when communicable diseases co-occur with rampant crime. In the event that the segregation is income motivated (as in the case of income segregation and racial and income segregation), it is most likely that poverty will make it hard to handle crime. Homicide, looting and felony petty theft are likely to take spiraling effect on the population concerned. In a separate vein, it is likely that those living in income segregated neighborhoods are bound to experience limited access to amenities, social or public services such as education, due to financial constraints. The gravity behind this development is that if correctional institutional measures are not crafted and ratified, income segregated neighborhoods may be condemned to perpetual poverty, criminality and misery. At the same time, this poverty, criminality and misery may be exported to and shared with high income earning neighborhoods. A myriad of reasons exist as to why residential segregation persists today despite fair housing and civil rights laws. One of the reasons for this is the prevailing market dynamics in the surrounding neighborhoods. It is interesting to note that fair housing and civil rights laws made laudable efforts to make housing available to different classes, races and ethnicities, but left market forces in the same neighborhoods untouched. In this case, even with decent housing low income earners could not afford the high cost of living that surrounded the newly acquired houses’ neighborhood. This left low income earners preferring to remain in their previous neighborhoods to their newly acquired houses. Secondly, fair housing and civil rights laws did not fully take care of land-use zoning. This would still make it nearly impossible for low income earners to buy property or investments in the newly acquired neighborhoods. Again, this left low income earners preferring their previous neighborhoods to their newly acquired houses. Again, there are disparities in cultural way of living and lifestyles among the whites, blacks, Hispanics and other people of color. It is these differences that even after the passage of fair housing and civil rights laws, neighborhoods perceived as dominated by whites were left as whites’, neighborhoods perceived as dominated by blacks were left as blacks’ and Hispanic, Hispanics’. References Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DeParle, J. (2005). American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare. New York: Penguin Books. Kao, G. & Thompson, J. (2003). Racial and Ethnic Stratification in Educational Achievement and Attainment. Annual Review of Sociology, 29, pg. 417. Read More