dinsdag 28 december 2010

Ascriptive inequalities

The race and ethnicity issue has long been under discussions in the past couple of years. This issue has been important also in The Netherlands with minority and muslin communities participating in the community.
Beside the chapters of the book I used others articles to put light on political, status and economic domains in that particular case.
First of all I will discuss the political domain of minorities who are never the less involved in the political sphere. These ethnic minorities are not equally represents in the political arena as we already discussed in our previous assignments. This underrepresentation can be seen as one of the great inequality in the countries representing them under the domination of the dominant group. For example their representation in the political and influential organizations and the specific roles they acquire in those political institutions. They should be influenced to be active politically and take activities under considerations of enjoying their well being and have a valuable life circumstances in the society (Robeyns, 2003). If we think this reflects their actual participation in the political process and at the same time their involvements in those activities by having the equal rights delivered to them by the dominant group. The author discuses five basic criteria’s and one is the criterion of sensitivity to context where he quotes on the sensitivity and the legitimacy of the legal rights and the socio-economic and political inequalities. To eradicate these problems it is necessary that they are given basic human rights, political participation, freedom and access to the resources which would make their lives better and stimulate their engagement in the participation. At the same time the opportunities to make the choices and the implementations of the strategies of their decisions by providing them the same leadership opportunities in the political atmosphere. It can be concluded that if minorities would be secluded then it will limit their participation in the process and will create mistrust within the ethnic minority societies against the present political system (Patel, 2008).
Secondly the status inequality can best be studied in the job sector and minorities isolation in these markets. As discussed by Bowls and Gintis educational departments train the higher class better than the lower and let them accept their status in the class formation. At the same time they let them accept the lower wage jobs and the acceptance of the distribution of those jobs opportunities between the existed. They are isolated from performing certain jobs in their life course and so they are either in the construction market and other lower paid jobs instead of their high incorporation in the process. If we see the other side of the coin we observe that integration of the minorities in the job market also creates problems for other inhabitant to get the required job opportunities (Brand, 2007). He quotes Colemann (1988) about the absorption of cultural, human and social capital by the dominant group and the resources available to the particular actors In this case the minority sector are less represented in the occupations as discussed in chapter 7 of the book. According to Shiffrin (2004)conditions and chances must be provided for talented and hard working people and shield the methods despite class classifications to occupy the status and power. By doing so we can also rule out the discrimination in those job markets (Rawls in Shiffrin, 2004). Now to consider their participation in the labor market in accordance to their political domain then the only way they can bring out their voice is the involvement of their labor unions and their membership in those institutions. They could defend their basic human rights.
Third and most important factor the economic domain of the minority group members is discussed in terms of their economic welfare, the distribution of wealth, property and the inequality it represents in the society among ethnic minorities and the dominant group
If we observe the data presented and the literatures in the book we can conclude that the institutions and particularly the political institutions are the cause of the inequality in the distribution of the wealth. It is because these institutions are responsible for neglecting the obligations in terms of helping the groups financially and provide the opportunities. In other words these groups are being discriminated in financial terms and they are not able to participate in the society. According to Rawls these dominant groups in institutions uses their abilities to use the capital for themselves and they are concerned for their wellbeing to tail material wealth. In this way they produce more inequality in the society and unequal opportunities (Rawls in Shiffrin, 2004). He suggests the fair equality of the opportunities in acquiring the wealth and the distribution hereafter. According to Mills and Gale equal opportunities must be provided in terms of education to minority children to eliminate the economic differences in the future arena. The culture of the dominant group in the educational sector must be eradicated as so to produce equal opportunities because these aspects (political, education, economic) are interconnected to each other (Mills and Gale, 2007).
Conclusion
According to the data, literature provided and specifically the Gini index we can conclude that there still exists inequality in economic terms for ethnic citizens and even for the native inhabitants in some of the western countries (sheet 7, lecture 7 social stratification and power). If we consider our own country (The Netherlands) minorities are active in the political process but I think that their representation is not that high as should be, especially for the minority groups. There is change in the process and if we consider the opinions provided in the literature the situation could be better in the future to provide equal opportunities to the ethnic and minorities to participate in the political process and eliminate the inequality issue.
References:
Brand, E. (2007) ‘Social reproduction and mobility on reproduction. Lecture 7 power point’.
Mills, C. and Gale, T. (2007) ‘Researching social inequalities in education: towards a Bourdieuian methodology’.
Patel, V. (2008) ‘Human Development and Gender
Robeyns, I. (2003) ‘Sen`s capability approach and gender inequality: selecting relevant capabilities’.
Shiffrin, S. V. (2004) ‘Equal citizenship: Race and ethnicity, race labor and the fair equality of opportunity principle’.

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