Sociology: Class, Gender, Ethnicity & Youth in Modern Society
Module 2. Approach to Micro-Macro Sociology
1. Sociology, Class, Gender, and Ethnicity
Unequal egalitarian policies regarding education have shown clear results concerning ethnicity, class, and gender.
1.1. Class, Gender, Ethnicity: A History of Social Inequalities and Exclusions
While the educational system, especially for schoolchildren, has made significant strides, the culture surrounding the functional role of gender in society still lags considerably. Explicit distinctions are often virtually nonexistent in schools, except in areas related to the body, such as sports. The media, particularly advertising, perpetuates traditional gender roles, hindering progress towards overcoming these differences. Women are often portrayed in roles like pharmacists, telephone operators, laborers, maids, nuns, or prostitutes, reinforcing societal expectations and justifying male-dominated occupations. The widespread recognition of teaching as a feminized profession further exemplifies this issue.
Despite official propaganda highlighting progress towards equality, discrimination based on class, gender, and ethnicity persists. These factors contribute to social stratification, resulting in educational inequalities. While schools are often presented as non-discriminatory institutions, sociology reveals them as mechanisms that reproduce existing social divisions. The current school model caters to the most favored social classes and groups, although it has made some progress in promoting non-discrimination against women.
Patriarchal society, built upon the sexual division of labor, confines women to household chores and childcare while men engage in productive work. This division reinforces the notion that a woman’s fulfillment lies in serving others. Consequently, women face discrimination, lower wages, limited opportunities, and confinement to roles often considered complementary to their domestic responsibilities, including part-time work.
2. Sociology of Childhood, Adolescence, and Youth
Childhood, adolescence, and youth experiences vary based on factors like class, gender, and ethnicity. In the welfare society, socialization has become institutionalized outside the family due to the demands of modern life. Children, adolescents, and young people undergo social maturation while simultaneously being perceived as immature. Their values are often exploited for commercial purposes, capitalizing on childhood innocence, adolescent dissatisfaction, and youthful dynamism.
Conflict has shifted from universities to schools, potentially due to the deterioration of public education and adolescent discontent stemming from a less optimistic outlook, increased competitiveness, and changing family dynamics, including greater instability.
2.1. Characteristics of the Protection of Children and Adolescents in the Welfare Society
Modern society witnesses abuses of authority, highlighting the vulnerability of certain groups of children. Despite hypocritical morality, developed countries often benefit from the exploitation of children and women in the South. Children, adolescents, and young people are the primary consumers in the welfare state, justifying investments in human capital and the culture of modern capitalism, including entertainment. However, this raises concerns about their development as individuals.
Children require social and psychological tools for emancipation and to avoid selfish individualism. Progress necessitates reliance on experts and technicians for physical and mental health and education. Children inhabit a deteriorating urban environment, artificial and unmotivating for a natural and human life. Socialization involves a mix of aggression and protection, even in play, highlighting the need for informal education alongside formal schooling. Extracurricular activities, often differentiated by sex, reveal a sexist aspect of modern socialization.
Childhood needs and interests evolve, including the need to form groups for self-affirmation and attention-seeking. Children now access information previously unavailable, such as sexuality, influenced by television, leading to anxiety and a need for guidance. The extended adolescence and the prospect of working from home have reshaped the perception of adolescents.
2.2. Youth, Education, and Modernity: Problems of Social Integration of Young People. Elements to Understand their Sociocultural Characteristics
Youth is often treated as a social problem, prone to social deviation, criminality, and maladjustment. This perspective considers youth an imperfect stage requiring adjustment and adaptation to societal norms. However, there isn’t a single youth; diverse groups, social classes, and subcultures exhibit varying behaviors based on their interests, relationships, and societal dynamics. Society attempts to standardize methods and behaviors according to market demands and cultural norms.
The study-work-leisure balance explains the most debated issues related to adolescence. Universities increasingly function as tools of social selection in a credential-driven society. Job market demands influence educational policies, and educational technocracy prioritizes aligning socialization and schooling with the demands of the working world.
3. Sociology of the Transition to Life and Active Labor Market. The Role of Education.
The disqualification of work and qualification of workers (Fernandez Enguita) highlights significant regional disparities, with the developed world benefiting. The role of education in the transition to the working world doesn’t align with human capital theory or the ability of the school system to meet market demands.
3.1. The Imbalance in the Labor Market and Supply School Work and Socializing After School Awareness of the Capitalist.
Education is increasingly viewed through a mercantilist lens, justifying specialization and echoing the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century mentality of utilitarianism. While education prepares individuals for life and contributes to societal well-being, the question remains: what kind and quality of life are we striving for? Promoting a competitive, individualistic, deculturated, and servile education aligned with economic and political power may produce conformist individuals accepting developmentalism, inequality, and a lack of solidarity.
The division of labor and the concentration of ownership create inequalities and conflicts over control of production. Union strategies offer alternatives to exploitation, although with limitations in Spain, favoring consensus-based proposals. While education may be subservient to technocratic developmentalism, it doesn’t necessarily enhance collective welfare.
The welfare state’s effectiveness in addressing inequalities and imbalances within the current capitalist society is questioned as neo-liberalism prevails. Despite improvements in living conditions for the Western population, there are more needs, overcrowding, competition, unsupportive individualism, new forms of social exclusion, and worker exploitation. The school, as an institution preparing individuals for life and the workforce, must consider its connection to the institutionalized labor market, especially within the technocratic framework of modern education.
Precarious employment often affects ethnic groups forced into undesirable jobs due to immigration. This situation is contradictory: the business world pressures the education system to meet workplace requirements while simultaneously criticizing its perceived failure to do so. The education system was established to train citizens who understand the modern economic system and contribute to the working class. In Mallorca, demand for education didn’t surge until after the 1960s. Education has become a consumer product and an investment in cultural, economic, social, and ideological terms.
NGOs play a crucial role in creating social capital, which can be politically sensitive if authorities attempt to exploit them for partisan interests. Education is often touted as a panacea for societal ills, but significant changes in educational strategies are needed, accompanied by a more humane and less mercantilist mentality. The division of labor, class structure, and cultural hierarchy influence the school’s role as a socializing agent, alongside mass media, which increasingly fulfills functions traditionally assigned to education.
Several circumstances and trends necessitate reforming the political landscape:
- Demographic factors: Growing populations will increase demand for jobs, particularly for youth and women across the EEC.
- Market saturation: Leading to job losses.
- Technological advancements: Displacing labor and contributing to unemployment.
- Increased competition from outside the EEC.
Consequently:
- Aspirations for full employment will be limited.
- Solutions will require international collaboration.
- Technological change must be balanced with scientific and technological advancements.
- Restructuring of the service sector and the education system will be necessary.
This aligns with Joseph M. Quintana’s concept of scientific humanism. Socialization, academic background, personal and social factors influence both educational journeys and market performance (human capital). Factors related to family background, access to networks and information, dependencies with young people, family, and environmental influences all play a role.
The highest unemployment rates in the European Community are likely linked to school failure, which disproportionately affects low-income households and contributes to social exclusion. Current formal training doesn’t adequately prepare individuals for future demands, potentially leading to the covert privatization of universities, partnerships with large corporations, and research driven by private interests. This could commercialize education, prioritizing market-driven courses over addressing broader social, human, scientific, and technical needs. Tourism and its related industries in Mallorca exemplify this trend, with a higher demand for jobs requiring lower levels of education.
4. The Specific Problem of the Education System in the Islands
The island’s education system mirrors the dynamics of the state system, grappling with the challenges of reforms implemented since the Enlightenment and nineteenth-century liberalism, including contemporary neoliberalism. With educational transfers, we can assess the legacy of nineteenth-century centralism and the progress of decentralization.
4.1. Education, Language, Culture, and Territory
Technology influences culture and can even be a deculturating force. The deterritorialization of culture poses challenges to identity formation. Socio-cultural and cultural policies should encourage citizen participation without promoting state-led cultural homogenization. Despite apparent diversity, society undergoes cultural standardization, albeit with diversifying elements within a hierarchical framework.
Progress towards”normalizatio” is evident in formal terms. Catalanophiles acknowledge cultural ties with Catalan culture, but without significant political, economic, or cultural consequences. School instruction primarily occurs in Spanish, with limited use of Catalan. The standardization of Catalan has been slow and has even regressed. Education, as a psychopedagogical element, favors dominant cultures. Despite efforts to standardize Catalan, societal progress, especially in urban areas, lags behind. However, there is growing awareness of the need for cultural and linguistic standardization. Standardizing Catalan alone is insufficient; its use must extend beyond academic settings.
4.2. Educational and Social Problems on the Islands
The Spanish government has decentralized power through the establishment of Autonomous Communities, but the central government retains control over general guidelines. Decision-making on fundamental issues remains with the state, and the development of an educational system depends on national conditions and available funding, guided by supranational European Community directives.
The effects on the islands are increasingly evident, not only in tourist and urban areas. Uncontrolled tourism-driven growth and speculation impact the region. The school system is affected by these pressures, including demands for increased consumption, welfare, training, education, and longevity, without addressing the sustainability of this growth and its impact on the environment and regional landscapes.
Occupational mobility, unemployment, leisure, seasonality, and ethnic minorities are among the challenges faced. The islands experience sustainable economic growth driven by tourism, but it is speculative and uncontrolled. Welfare doesn’t equate to quality of life in terms of cultural, social, and environmental balance. This impacts all sectors, including education, social culture, politics, and the economy. The trend towards technocratic industrialization is evident.
Educational tools and grassroots social participation should counteract this trend, but the potential for increased privatization and commercialization of education remains a concern. Private interests may exploit these new avenues for individualized information in the name of neoliberal modernization. Decisions affecting citizens’ welfare are often imposed from above, disguised as openness and localism. The current education system aims to reform the humanities curriculum, but it should prioritize developing individuals capable of understanding and shaping reality.
Pedagogically, we must move beyond demagogic universalism and closed localism, fostering education within the context of our culture. The consensus on the quality of education in Western society masks a reluctance to achieve genuine equal opportunities. The focus on the profitability of the education system and the concept of human capital overlooks the need to address inequalities based on class, ethnicity, gender, or culture.