The Nature of Disadvantage and How This Is Experienced by Ethnic Minorities and Disabled People - Coursework Example

Discuss the nature of one aspect of disadvantage and show how this is experienced by ethnic minorities and disabled people An understanding of the ways in which society has been constructed will help people realize that however systems and social contracts were conceived, maintained and implemented in order to achieve equality in societies, the reality is that certain sectors and groups will be continually marginalized or at least disadvantaged. This is especially true for democratic societies, particularly the Anglo-European and the American, which have espoused tolerance and embraced multi-culturalism as a part of their social foundation. The upshot is due to the teeming number of groups within the communities they have been incessantly plagued by issues regarding disadvantaged social groupings. This paper will discuss the nature of one aspect of disadvantage, namely under-representation and in the process illustrate how this is experienced by ethnic minorities and people with disabilities. Disadvantage Jorge Gracia and Pablo De Greiff, wrote that “social structures do not exist as reified entities or as states, but rather as processes in the rules and expectations according to which we act, and in the way in which the results of previous actions have intentionally and unintentionally shaped the physical and the social environment in which we now live.” (p. 11) They argued that these structures create social positions that condition the opportunities and lives of people. To quote: Each of the differentiating factors by which a group is constituted might on its own be inconsequential or neutral with respect to the distribution of opportunities for the members of the group. But together they can form a structure, a web of constraints that puts the members at a significant disadvantage with respect to non-members. (p. 11) Sociology defines a group as one constituted not only when all members share the same characteristics with one another, but also when members stand in a particular relationship to nonmembers. (American Journal of Sociology, p. 453) And so, a relational account of group identity leaves open questions about the status of the claims raised by particular groups. The freedom granted to the constituents of American society empowers certain group to assert its supremacy which in the long-run become detrimental to minorities as policies are created according to the perspective of the dominant groupings. Under-representation One of the most significant aspects of disadvantage is the underrepresentation. It holds true for all of the minority groups across all societies as well as the people with bodily impairment. Most sociologists agree that the lack of opportunity becomes the dominant reason behind its incidence. John Edwards (1995), in his book, When Race Counts, observed that this disadvantage is consisted of “discriminatory barriers (either direct or indirect, intentional or unintentional), greater relative disadvantage (interpreted as higher proportions of minority group members suffering from disadvantage, or minority groups on the whole suffering higher levels of disadvantage, or both), different forms of disadvantage – and hence special need – or a compounding of disadvantages that would enable us to speak of racial disadvantage as a specific type of a more generic concept.” (p. 9) There are two manifestations of this underrepresentation wrote Edwards. The first is that members of affected groups do not have equality of opportunity to compete for and obtain desired positions and statuses while the second is comprised of the relatively greater, or different, social and economic disadvantages from which minorities suffer. (p. 8) Ethnic Minority The US Voting Rights Act and a series of its amendments has been the proof to the disadvantage and underrepresentation of Blacks and Hispanics in the US. For instance, the 1982 amendments to the statute kept the basic provisions intact but made some significant changes. Citro, Cork and Norwood (2004) provided us with the details: The amendments extended the preclearance requirements of the act until 2007 but provided that Congress reexamine them in 1997. Another provision stated that the standard of proof for judging an election law to be discriminatory was no longer discriminatory intent, but rather discriminatory result… Still another provision stated that minorities had no right to proportional representation as part of the totality of circumstances in cases brought under the Voting Rights Act. (p. 51-52) Citro, Cork and Norwood also explained how the redistricting plans and municipal annexations diluted the voting power of the minorities. One of the examples is the scheme of dividing concentrations of minority voters into adjoining majority-white areas, minimizing the number of minority districts by placing minority voters in as few districts as possible. Another example of disadvantage and underrepresentation of minorities is underscored by the controversial case of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. In April 1993, he was repeatedly stabbed to death in southwest London by a gang of white youths. No one was convicted of the racially motivated murder to date. A commission called to investigate the case reported that there was a gross miscarriage of justice, starting from the way the police handled the investigation and the entire criminal justice system for its “collective failure to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their color, culture or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people” (MacPherson 1999, p. 28) The lack of representation from among the minorities in the criminal justice system in Britain as stipulated above is seen as one of the reasons why the minorities are discriminated upon due to ignorance about their existence which translates into the lack of policies which could have sought to protect their rights and ensure respect for their beliefs. This is the same in other aspects of the British society. The “unfamiliarity” with regards to cultural differences, community mores and family expectations affect the ability of the dominant groups to understand. Hence, there is a tremendous impact on the ability of the minority group members, say, to compete in the merit system, on the range of choices open to them as well as the extent to which pursuit of a career can be a priority seems evident. Disability Anthony Giddens (2006) explained that “bodily ‘abnormality’ is seen as causing some degree of ‘disability’ or functional limitation – an individual ‘suffering’ from quadriplegia is incapable of walking, for example. (p. 281) This functional limitation is seen as the basis for a wider classification of an individual as an ‘invalid’. In his social model of disability, Giddens argued that disability could further be defined in social terms, that is, disabilities is understood as no longer a problem of an individual, but in terms of the social barriers that people with impairments face in participating fully in the society. According to the Union of Physically Impaired Against Segmentation (UPIAS), disability becomes “the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organization which takes no or little account of people who have physical impairments and thus excludes them from participation in the mainstream of social activities.” (Finkelstein 1993, p. 9-16) A specific example of disadvantage among the disabled concerns that of education. The underrepresentation of disabled people is “shown and attributed, in part, to problems of access, teaching methods and attitudes.” (Stromstad, Booth and Nes 2003, p. 133) Schools across the US is still viewed as less “welcoming” to disabled students, calling for an increase in recognition and policymaking that would assure the disabled as an integral part of the academic community. Stromsad, Booth and Nes illustrated one specific case regarding inclusion by referring to the Quality Assurance Agency Code of Practice which was established in the UK. This Code is intended to identify a comprehensive series of system wide expectations and authoritative reference points for institutions in order to assure academic quality and standards of programs, awards and qualifications. The Code referred to the disabled students in 24 precepts, establishing the aims of the abovementioned academic quality assurance. Particularly Soremstad, Booth and Nes highlighted the following precept: Precept 4: information for applicants, students and staff The institution’s publicity, programme details and general information should be accessible to people with disabilities and describe the opportunities for disabled students to participate. (Stromsad, Booth and Nes, p. 134) Here, it was explained that disabled students are only supposed to participate where there are ‘opportunities’, and only when these are ‘described’ to them. According to Stromsad, Both and Nes, “institutions are asked, in this case, to ‘consider implementing arrangements that ensure that information is clear, accurate and accessible. The verb to ‘consider’ cancels out any requirement to ‘ensure’ and simultaneously cancels out inclusion” (p. 134) While it appears that the precepts on disabled students encourage inclusion certain provisions are glaringly opposing it such as the following: It may appear that the needs of the disabled students are not central to institutional survival and should therefore give way to issues of ‘higher’ priority. (p. 133) Inclusion, which was an important element in reducing the incidence of disadvantage among the disabled students, is discarded by the Code, first, by insisting on demonstrating measurable outcomes and then by the unspecified threat of a negative QAA report. The Logic of Affirmative Action Affirmative action has been viewed as the solution as underrepresentation of minorities and the disabled now receive more attention than before. In affirmative action, the idea is to reduce underrepresentation by means of outreach, encouragement, training and so on. Specifically, affirmative action came to encompass a form of discrimination in favor of underrepresented groups, as opposed to an effort to abolish all forms of discrimination. (Weiskopff, p. 4) Perhaps the stringent implementation of the public policy in this regard has brought about a paradigm shift on disadvantage, particularly among the Black populace. A study by William Bridges and Wayne Villemez (1994), for instance, found that: Black workers were slightly more likely to have access to structured mobility opportunities and a lot more likely to have access to due process, grievance arrangements, and bureaucratic work control… What this means is that conventional theories of ubiquitous minority disadvantage are in need of substantial revision. (p. 101) Critics argued that is a superficial way of addressing the disadvantage. Such approach, understandably ignores the underlying social and economic inequalities. To cite further example, it has been argued that in school people ought to be judged based on merit and not gender or race and that abolishing affirmative action in education will result to a far more decisive factor in admission decisions. Hence, for some, the approach is inadequate for a number of reasons. John Edwards, for instance, pointed to the lack of any precision about goals to be achieved and how progress towards them is to be measured or about how procedures of affirmative action will operate in practice to reach desired ends. (p. 22) However, we take note of the study mentioned elsewhere in this paper which showed the changing landscape of disadvantaged minorities. And so, we set stock on the assumption that positive action becomes a remedy for past disadvantage that is a complement to, rather than a substitute for a general program for ending discrimination. The idea, said Edwards, is to make up for the disadvantage rather than compensate for the harm done by the incidence of discrimination. (p. 24) This aspect of addressing disadvantage has been upheld by the Race Relation Act in Great Britain and the Title VII and the Fourteenth Amendment in the USA. Again, we are reminded of the significant strides the society has achieved several aspects of disadvantage. African Americans are now better represented in society while statistics showed the representation of Asian-Americans more than tripled between 1991-1992 and 2001-2002. (Brym and Lie, p. 506) This paper also underscores the fact that the portrayal of racial minorities, the poor, people with disabilities and women still reinforces the conventional, mainstream and negative stereotypes of the disadvantaged. In the media, for instance, non-whites tend to portray comical and criminals characters in films and media materials. As long as this system continues to feed our concepts of each other, disadvantage will be in our midst. References Bridges, W. and Villemez, W. (1994). The Employment Relationship: Causes and Consequences of Modern Personnel Administration. Springer. Brym, R. and Lie, J. (2004). Sociology: Your Compass for a New World. Thomas Wadsworth. Finkelstein, V. (1993). The commonality of Disability." In Swain, J., Finkelstein, V., French, S., Oliver, M., (Eds.) Disabling Barriers - Enabling Environments. London: Sage Forbes, C., Cork, D., and Norwood, J. (2004). The 2000 Census, Counting Under Adversity. National Academies Press Edwards, J. (1995). When Race Counts: The Morality of Racial Preference in Britain and America. UK: Routledge Giddens, A. (2006). Sociology. Polity Gracia, J. and De Greiff, P. (2000). Hispanics/Latinos in the United States: Ethnicity, Race and Rights. Routledge. MacPherson, W. (1999). The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. The Stationery Office. Somerstad, M., Booth, T., and Nes, K. (2003). Developing Inclusive Teacher Education. Routledge. "The American Journal of Sociology." (1963). University of Chicago Weisskopf, T. (2004). Affirmative Action in the United States and India: A Comparative Perspective. Routledge Read More