January 2017 – Rebecca Smith UWS ITE ePDP

Inclusion and Equality

What is inclusion? Is it laws and policies which state that all types of people must have a voice? Or is it more than that? Are these laws and policies really any more than a steeping stone towards true fairness of treatment and opportunity?

I believe not. I would agree with Nelson and Prilleltensky (2010) that in order to achieve true inclusion, we need to connect and to legitimise. That is, as a society we must respect each others differences and we must act against those who say or do discriminatory things. Inclusion can be discussed in many different levels, namely personal, relational and societal. At each of these levels inclusion has different concerns. At a personal level, inclusion is concerned with giving people control over their own lives and allowing them to have a say. At a relational level, inclusion is concerned with providing people with comfortable and supportive relationships, while at a societal level, inclusion looks to provide people with the material help that they may require and is related to creating a more equal society.

Inclusion within politics and education are both extremely significant when discussing the affects and importance of inclusion. Lani Florian looked into inclusive pedagogy and found that in order for teachers to become more inclusive, they must focus on the learning of all pupils, not just that of those who require more support. Reading about this, I was able to relate as during my years spent at school, I did not often require as much support as some of my peers. However, despite the fact that I did not have additional needs, I sometimes felt as though my work and ideas were sidelined. Upon reflection I can see that this was clearly because my teachers required to spend more time with those who needed extra help, but for pupils who were of a similar ability to myself, it must be considered that some of them may not have reached their full potential as they were not included or challenged enough by the teacher. I found myself looking at this finding of Florian’s and wondering: sometimes, in an educational setting, is it those who do not have additional needs that are in the minority? And so is it this group that we must make sure not to forget?

Lack of inclusion can lead to negative relationships between minorities and large communities and this can very easily lead to tensions between them as all different groups begin to build up negative perspectives of those they have poor relationships with. Tensions and disagreement of beliefs, as well as poor treatment can lead to the formation of radical groups and a lack of peace in the world. It can also cause poor mental and emotional health of those who are not being included as they may be made to feel as though their characteristic of minority makes them less valuable. With poor mental and emotional health, the loved ones of these people will also be negatively affected as they are worrying about and consoling this person who they wish to see happy. Inclusion is therefore extremely important and must always be considered in society.

Peggy McIntosh discusses “privilege” as an advantage which all people who do not fall into the category of every single minority has. She believes that this means that those of us who do not have a certain characteristic which would make us a part of a minority, are privileged as we have the required belongings which allow us to be included and to be free in all walks of life. To McIntosh, this means that those of us who fall in to this category, can never truly understand the feelings of the disadvantaged.

Closely related to inclusion is equality. There are various different approaches towards the meaning of equality, including equality of opportunity. This refers to providing all people with the same opportunities and the same starting point. I would not consider this as always being equal. Clearly, providing different people with the same chances in the beginning, it not going to provde them with equal chances of success. Another approach when looking at equality is that of outcome. This approach demonstrates the need for more than the same opportunities as it goes further. It looks at rewards and praise, often encouraging the view that no matter what happens throughout, different people’s outcomes should always be the same. However, as both of these approaches are clearly flawed, equality as fairness and equality of condition ensure that different types of people are provided with the require support and are never prevented from reaching their full potential due to their differences.

These conditions are discussed by Lynch and Baker (2005) as equality of resources such as health care, education, income and family; equality of respect and recognition such as opportunities to make a contribution and to be accepted; equality of love, care and solidarity, meaning that all people should have equal access to these through organisations like care facilities and transportation; equal access to power which refers to the ability to hold control over your life and to help make decisions and; equal access to working and learning.

However, it is clear that not all of these conditions of equality are understood and practiced by all people. Therefore, sadly, discrimination remains as a widespread problem. People can display prejudice in various different ways and I found it interesting to see that Allport (1954) wrote a book called ‘The Nature of Prejudice’ and discussed this in terms of its least to most extreme forms. He began with Antilocution, which refers to discrimination in the form of words. Often, those who say offensive things about people who belong to a minority group are not being intentionally hurtful to them, but their preconceptions and assumptions about that specific type of person makes their words uneducated and unkind. Verbal abuse can range across a huge scale and can become equally as offensive as physical abuse. The next on the list discusses avoidance, whereby a person may avoid, exclude and isolate another due to their differences. After this is discrimination, this refers to preventing certain types of people from using services or getting to do something because of their differences. Then there is physical attack, followed by extermination.

Allport (1954) said “Although most barking foes not lead to biting […] there is never a bite without previos barking.” (p. 57). I would interpret this to mean that although most talk does not lead to physical action, there is never physical action without previous talk. Therefore, although verbal abuse of the smallest form may seem harmless to some, it may eventually lead to physical action, may that be from the person who is being discriminated against or the person who is discriminating. No matter who begins the physical action, there is potential for conflict within spoken words, so we must always be aware of the words we use and the way in which we express our opinions, making sure they are not offensive. We must also ensure that we are well educated about different types of people because with a clearer understanding we can develop a fuller acceptance, meaning that our words are less likely to be based on preconceptions and assumptions.

The Equality Act 2010 named nine characteristics which are not to be discriminated against and made it clear that people in positions of authority within communitues must work to get rid of discrimination and to encourage equality and inclusion for all.

From learning about this topic today I have become intrigued to discover more and to look further into the idea of advantage and at the different theorists of Mel Ainscow, Nancy Fraser and John Rawis. As a teacher I believe that inclusion and equality are two vastly important and influential aspects of classroom life that I will require to be conscious of and to understand how best to encourage these throughout my career.

References

Allport, G.W. (1954) The Nature of Prejudice. Reading (Mass): Addison-Wesley.

Lynch, K. and Baker, J. (2005) Equality in education: An equality of condition perspective. Theory and Research in Education. 3(2), pp. 131-164.

Religion, Culture, Unchurched Spirituality and Social Issues

Before this weeks lecture and tutorial, I was unaware of the vast impact that religion has on culture and I was especially interested to discover some specific cases of this controversial relationship. Max Weber’s belief that Christian Protestantism was a large contributing factor towards the rise of Capitalism in the West, suggested religion to encourage hard work as people wanted to earn their place in Heaven. This work ethic was implied by Weber to have built up our developed western world society of today.

However, Carl Marx believed the opposite to this. He believed that religion was used by the rich to control the poor. He believed that hard work did not earn ones place in Heaven as religion itself was an illusion which deluded people into blindness from the unfairness of their situations and made them accept their fate as a poor state of life while the rich and powerful remained so without being challenged.

Bruce Lincoln supports many of Marx’s views such as the idea that religion impacts control within society as it has a power within it, similar to the pwoers within all areas of society, although he believes that people must not accept all religious claims as the truth but they should be cautious of it. In contrast to this, Matt Waggoner believes that religion is not simply a myth which controls power in society, but it is just as powerful as culture itself. He argues to those who oppose the power of religion that our world was developed by a culture which was based on religion.

Therefore, despite these views being very different from each other, they all have one thing in common and that is the undeniable belief that religion has, even in today’s more secular world, a very large impact on culture and therefore society. I have came to the conclusion that although these beliefs are different, they all provide examples of religion as a factor of social change. Weber’s belief that religion provided a work ethic which allowed for our well developed society of today and Marx’s ideas that religion acted as a means of social control – keeping a hierarchy without challenge, may be completely different beliefs, however they both represent ways in which religion has an impact on culture.

Furthermore, by learning about Unchurched Spirituality, I learned that people search for spiritual guidance even if they do not belong to a particular religious group. This type of spirituality may struggle to provide moral order and it often goes against any beliefs of science or politics. It can also be very dangerous if it goes wrong as it can lead to brainwashing and mind control of people who are searching for more extreme spiritual guidance than that which they are finding in a church. As part of the tutorial, my group and I concluded that the main reason for the rise of this type of spirituality has been secularisation. Therefore in looking to find the main reasons for secularisation we suggested that modern education teaches science, for example Darwin’s Theory of Evolution as truth and teaches about different religions as beliefs. It also may be connected to the fact that todays society is generally richer than it once was, with material objects becoming more readily available to most, meaning that, as Ronald Inglehart (2004) said “When material conditions improve, need for religious solace depreciates.” However, those who are poor are looking to super natural powers rather than religion.

Finally, religion clearly has a huge impact on society as a whole, whether that be on people personally, on diversity or on culture. Religion can provide solutions to social problems but it has also been said to cause social problems. As a solution to social problems, religion has been known to provide material resources to people in need as it can be said to encourage kindness and generosity. It also provides people with a spiritual community, influencing how meaningfully people live their lives and providing a community in which people discuss their problems with others who may be experiencing similar issues. Furthermore, many religions provide charitable organisations which step in when the state fails to help certain types of people. In addition, religion can encourage high self-esteem and can lower how stressed people feel as it provides them with support when they are dealing with various social and emotional problems.

However, religion can be argued to cause social problems as many people who claim to be religious and to be following the wishes of their God are really people who are misusing the name of a religion to create conflict. Also, many religious groups will use their acts of generosity and kindness to promote their religion and to discourage belief in anything else. Furthermore, religion can impact on health in a negative way as certain people believe that to accept some medical treatments would be to go against their religion.

From what I have learned throughout the lecture, tutorial and individual task, I have found many ways in which religion impacts on society and vice versa. This has been the case since religion came about and despite the continuing secularisation of the world around us, religion will always have an impact on society as it can be said to have been the base of the development of modern society.

In reflection of my learning of these topics I am looking to read more widely on them and to develop a true and deep understanding of the ways in which religion impacts on culture and societies problems, as well as the impacts of unchurched spirituality.

Religion, Society and Diversity

As a result of today’s lecture, independent task and tutorial, I have learned that religion can be sectioned in to three types – established religion, sects and cults. Each of these share certain characteristics, allowing them to fall into the same category, although they also display differing levels of extremity and different ways of organisation. I have also learned that there are many different definitions of religion, depending on which angle one looks at it from. However, there are commonalities between all religions and Bourdillion believes that they are composed of the way people see things and symbols. As I am viewing religion from a sociologists point of view, it would have been recommended by Ninian Smart that I should adopt the scholary approach.

Furthermore, I have learned that religion has many purposes and through discussion of the opportunities and challenges of religious diversity in the tutorial, I have found that this is a very powerful part of today’s society. Potentially creating a more accepting and peaceful culture as by allowing our children to grow up in a religiously diverse society, we are allowing them exposure to, and possibly experience of, different religious practices and lifestyles, therefore helping to eradicate the fear of the unkown. In addition, in many cases it may lead to people finding their own sense of identity within a different religion to that which they were originally brought up to be. As well as this, I learned that religion provides order within society. This provides a clear example of how lifestyle impacts on society as it is ultimately our beliefs which guide us towards the decisions we make. Meaning that those who follow a religion, should follow the teachings of that religion and this will impact their actions. It can also be said that through these teachings there are requirements, sometimes in the form of rituals. These rituals can have an impact on our society as those who go through with them, or do not go through with them, will either fit in to the society within their religion or not and this will affect them phsycologically.

I mostly understand the main concepts and issues of the topics and areas I have learnt today as I am now able to see the vast complexity of the definition of religion and its purposes within society. I can also see that religion and society have been connected since the creation of whichever one came first, and affect each other in both positive and negative ways. Many Marxists could be argued to believe that religion has always been used to control people and to deceive them into a false sense of contentment and safety as all will be solved by God, hiding them from political unfairness.

However, I am struggling to understand Bruce Lincoln’s belief about culture and religion providing a site for negotiations for power and privilege in society and the ‘hegemonic struggle’. To develop my understanding of this, I will find his book ‘Discourse and the Construction of Society’ and I will read more about this particular term and topic and will hopefully find further explaination. I also need to read more on the theorists that we looked at today, I have began to read about Bourdillion. I will continue to do this before next weeks class as well as reading about Bronislaw Malinowski and Emile Durkheim.