Category Archives: Societies and Lifestyles

Societies and Lifestyles, Uncategorized

Focus on Disability.

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  • According to the Equality Act 2010, a person has a disability if s/he has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on that person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

(EHRC, 2011)

Disability is a very broad topic especially in relation to inclusion and equality. Many years ago, people with disabilities would have been treated horribly like they were freaks or weird. However, nowadays disabilities are so common, whether small or large, than people are treated more fairly and are  huge part of society. Although, I’m not saying there is no bias or discrimination to people with disabilities in 2017, there definitely will be but the world is evolving and people are much more open minded than they used to be.

Even after our lecture, tutorial and independent study there are still some aspects of focussing on disability that I am unsure of. Such as different types of disabilities (especially small, not noticeable ones) and the impact they have on people and society other than just large disabilities. I hope to do some wider reading on these and help improve my knowledge.

Societies and Lifestyles

Inclusion and Equality.

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After today’s lecture on Inclusion and Equality, my eyes have been opened to the world we live in today.  Using the wider reading provided, I feel like that helped tie up any lose ends in my head that I had about this subject.

We live in a place where the Equality Act had to be produced and put into action but it wasn’t obvious enough to just be a decent human being and treat everyone equally.  However, this act helps tackle discrimination and avoid anyone being left out or treated unfairly in the workplace. Similar projects have also been put into practise in schools, like ‘the buddy system’. This allows children to have a ‘buddy’ to help and assist them so no one in excluded or treated differently.

The impact of inclusion and equality on our society, is that people can now go to work or school and not be afraid to be treated differently because they possess one of the nine characteristics that the Equality Act aims to protect [age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; sexual orientation]. This is a huge step to the way things used to be in the past where people could treat people who were ‘different’ however they wanted with no repercussions or consequences.

Societies and Lifestyles

Religion, Society and Diversity

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diversity

As a result of today’s lecture, tutorial and independent task – I feel like I have been thrown head first into a whole new world. Having not experienced any Religious Education since primary school, I feel today has helped me understand more aboutreligious diversity and the opportunities and challenges it presents to a society.

After today, I now understand that religion can be split into 3 types (as a social institution) – established religion, sects and cults. When exploring cults, I felt the Jim Jones video really helped me to understand the difference between a cult and established religion.

I am only beginning to understand the work done by anthropologists – such as Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917) and M.F.C Bourdillon (1990) – towards the functions of religion. I found this quite confusing to start with but after the independent task where I researched Bronislaw Malinowski in further detail. I am keen to carry out this task with Durkheim and Bourdillon to gain a greater understanding as well as doing some wider reading.

Although I don’t have many of my own opinions when it comes to religion, as I am not a religious person myself, I feel today’s lecture will help me as a teacher when relaying information to children about religion. It has given me more of a background and has allowed
me to expand my views on religion and diversity in society, which will help me when teaching children from different cultural backgrounds and who have different beliefs.