Life Chances (AQA GCSE Sociology): Flashcards

Women are often locked out of informal networking opportunities, such as drinks after work with managers.

Discrimination against mothers can hold back women's careers, as employers may be reluctant to promote women of childbearing age because of the cost of covering maternity leave.

Childcare for under-5s is inadequate and expensive, which prevents some mothers from working full-time or developing their careers.

Functionalists argue that in a meritocracy, life chances are the product of an individual's hard work and talent.

The New Right argues life chances are related to individuals' lifestyle choices, such as an unwillingness to work.

An ethnic group is a social group whose members are united by a common identity, such as language, religion or cultural traditions.

An ethnic minority is a group of people belonging to an ethnic group different from the majority.

False.

Sociologists argue that racial differences are socially constructed rather than biologically based.

Prejudice occurs when people prejudge an individual or group.

Racism occurs when people are treated differently and less favourably based on their ethnicity.

Ethnic minorities are under-represented among MPs, senior civil servants, senior police officers and judges, although the number of minority ethnic MPs rose to 87 in 2024.

Inequality has been addressed through laws such as the Race Relations Act (1976) and the Equality Act (2010), and through equal opportunities policies.

Men and women of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage have significantly lower chances than their white British peers.

The New Right explains ethnic inequalities at work through Murray's (1984) argument that some members of minority ethnic groups belong to an underclass, encouraged by the welfare system.

According to Murray, the underclass is a core group of unemployed young people with no interest in finding jobs and working hard.

Marxists argue that ethnic minorities form part of a labour reserve that is hired during economic booms and fired during recessions.

False.

Some argue inequalities are less significant than 50 years ago, but others argue little has changed in employment, education and criminal justice.

Chronological age is how long someone has been alive, which determines rights such as learning to drive and voting.

Biological age is age in terms of the physical changes taking place in the body, such as puberty.

Seeing age as a social category means we have different expectations of people and treat them differently depending on their age.

False.

In medieval times, children over the age of 5 were seen as small adults with the same status as adults.

Power has shifted towards children, and relationships have become more equal and democratic, with children's rights recognised.

The transition from youth to adulthood usually involves growing independence from the family, moving out, finishing education and moving into full-time employment.

Young people are paid a lower minimum wage and are more likely to be on zero-hours contracts or underemployed.

Young adults who return home to live with their parents after university are sometimes called boomerang children.

Relationships have become more informal and democratic; corporal punishment is banned and schools must consider students' views.

Ageism is when a person is treated differently and less favourably on the basis of their age.

An example of ageism in the workplace is that people in their 50s and 60s may be denied promotion because employers believe they are too old to learn new skills.

Older people who rely on a state pension are more vulnerable to poverty than those with an occupational pension.

False.

Age and poverty are linked to other divisions; an elderly, working-class, widowed Black woman may have much worse life chances than a middle-class, married white man.

The Equality Act 2010 protects people from discrimination based on these characteristics.

A person's sexuality can affect their life chances because they may experience homophobia in education or the workplace.

A person's religion can affect their life chances because they may experience religious prejudice, such as Islamophobia.

Social barriers include prejudiced attitudes and stereotypes, discriminatory practices and stigma about whether they are capable of working.

People with disabilities are at greater risk of poverty because some disabilities create extra expenses, such as special equipment, and people with disabilities often have lower incomes.

A hate crime is a crime motivated by hostility or prejudice related to characteristics such as sexual orientation, disability or religion.

False.

Hate crimes are an example of how power is used to control certain groups, who may be scapegoated for social and economic problems.

The Marmot Review (2010) found that people in higher socio-economic positions have better life chances and better health; for example, people with degrees live longer.

The Marmot Review argued that health inequalities result from avoidable inequalities in society, such as in education and housing.

The embourgeoisement thesis claims that affluent working-class families were adopting middle-class norms and values.

Affluent workers came to support capitalism, focus on consumerism and adopt individualistic, privatised lifestyles.

Goldthorpe and Lockwood tested the thesis using structured interviews with affluent manual workers and their wives in Luton in the early 1960s.

False.

They rejected the thesis, but suggested affluent workers might be part of an emerging new working class.

Privatised instrumentalism is a home-centred lifestyle focused on the immediate family, as found among Goldthorpe and Lockwood's affluent workers.

Instrumental collectivism is joining collective action, such as trade unions, only to improve one's own pay rather than to change society.

An instrumental attitude to paid work means seeing work as just a means to a comfortable lifestyle.

Devine aimed to explore privatised instrumentalism by revisiting Luton and interviewing Vauxhall car workers and their wives.

Devine found that many workers moved to Luton to escape unemployment and job insecurity and to find affordable housing, often joining family and friends.

False.

Devine found evidence of solidarity, and many felt extreme class inequalities were unfair.

Devine concluded that working-class norms and values had not changed as much as Goldthorpe and Lockwood suggested, rejecting the idea of a new working class.

Social mobility is people's movement up or down society's strata, such as between social classes.

Social mobility is an important indicator of how open a society is.

Intra-generational mobility is when a person moves between social classes over their own lifetime, for example through promotion.

Inter-generational mobility is when a child moves to a different social class from their parents.

Routes include educational qualifications, marriage, windfalls such as a lottery win and changes in the occupational structure.

Barriers include limited access to higher education, discrimination based on ethnicity or gender and a lack of skills and qualifications.

False.

Social mobility declined; children born into manual working-class families in 1958 had a better chance of advancing than those born in the 1970s.

Proletarianisation is where members of the middle class experience downward mobility into the working class, as with some clerical workers.

People from wealthier backgrounds are over-represented in investment banking because banks recruit from prestigious universities and judge candidates on polish, such as confidence, dress and accent.

One problem with measuring social mobility is that some studies focus only on males, and asking people to recall work histories may produce unreliable data.

When working-class people tend to vote Labour and middle-class people tend to vote Conservative, this is known as class alignment.

Class dealignment is where voting behaviour is no longer strongly predicted by social class.

Evidence that social class is still a useful concept is that in 2016, 60% of people identified as working class, unchanged since 1983, and recessions have increased awareness of class differences.

Saunders emphasises a person's ability and motivation, arguing Britain is a meritocracy.