Agents of socialization ethnicity

Ethnic identities and the role the socialising agents have, studies included

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  • Created by: Kathryn
  • Created on: 16-05-12 09:41

Family

·         Names can portray a sense of ethnic identity (Gareth Jones – welsh)

·         The language spoken at home, the food eaten, the clothes worn by the Children.

·         Value held by the family may be related to ethnicity Francis & Archer (2006) – education achievement is valued by british and Chinese families. The family plays a crucial role in the educational success of their children. Often going without consumer goods to pay for private school.

·         Modood et al (1997) young south Asians are less likely than their elders to speak to other family members in a south Asian language.. This could suggest a generational shift where the young Asians associate themselves with British identities

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Education

·         Individual’s ethnic identity is formed by the formal and informal curriculum

·         Mason (2005) schools are ethnocentric, they evaluate other cultures, this can lead to children wearing a metaphorical white mask – Johal and bains (1998)

·         Derrington &kendall 2004 – interviewed children and parents from traveler communities, some travelers were proud of their traveler roots whilst others tried to hide it because they had experienced racism and wanted social approval.

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Religion

·         Clear links between ethnicity and religion

·         For some religion plays a dominant factor to ethnicity

·         The bluring of religion and ethnicity is because of the cultural aspects of many groups

·         Food, dress code, language and beliefs can all be based on religion but are also important features of creating an ethnic identity

·         Modood 2005 – observed that 100 years ago Du Bois predicted that the twentieth

Century would be the century of a colour line (divide between black and white communities)

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Peer groups

·         Some peer groups are made up from people of the same ethnicity, others are multi-ethnic.

·         The make-up of peer groups is influenced by the schools they attend

·         Some schools have more than one ethnic groups whilst others only have one dominant one

·         Multi ethnic peer groups may strengthen ethnic identities when they see of the differences between themselves

·         Cultural comfort zones – comfort in socialisting with people from the same ethnic back ground

·         Alexander – studied formation of black culture and identity within black british youths. The importance of the peer group was crucial in what she described as the “art of being black” males ldisplayed a strong cultural attachment to being “one of the boys” 

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Mass Media

·         In locations where there are a few minority ethnic groups others often rely on the media to understand the different ethnic groups

·         Research suggests that the media represents ethnic groups in a stereotypical way or ignored completely.

·         Examples, in soap opera asian families often revolves around arranged marriages or afro-caribbean communities are seen as violent and aggressive.

·         Jhally (1992) maintains that being ignored and unrepresented or being stereotyped was the feature of ethnic representation in the british media.

·         Media’s played a huge role in the creation of hybridity, thisc an be seen by the language used.

·         Ali G and programmes sucha as goodness gracious me have played a large prt in the create and  of what can be described as a new dialect. Example, hinglish a combination of hindu and English

·         Parker and Song (2006)looked at the way Websites were influencing ethnic identities in the Uk. They found that south asian and Chinese ethnic identities were strengthened by the use of websires targeting their ethnic groups, this happened ugh the oganising of social events and forums for discussions.

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Workplace

·         Modood et al (1997) found some workforces are ethnically diverse wherseas others are dominated by one ethnic group

·         Some ethnic groups are more likely to experience unemployment

·         Song 2001 chinese people are more likely to be employed in the food and catering sector. This also shows how the family has an impact on employment

·         Doctors working in the UK are over a third Asian

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