- •Introduction
- •Unit 1. Family: Father, Mother and Me?
- •Learning outcomes:
- •Interracial and interethnic families
- •Interethnic family futures
- •Of the interviewee's point of view
- •Unit 2. Sociology of Religion: Spirited Away?
- •Learning outcomes:
- •God and shopping by Steve Bruce
- •The New Age religion
- •The global cafeteria
- •How New Age beliefs fit the wider society
- •Increasing rationalisation
- •Your successful survey report includes:
- •Learning outcomes:
- •The functionalist perspective on education
- •Changing education, changing times by christopher pole
- • Task 4. While reading part “Inside the school: The curriculum” put the following points of the plan in the correct order:
- •Inside the school (I) The curriculum
- •Comparing coeducation and single-sex schooling by Richard q'Leary
- •Conclusion
- •Prefixes
- •Suffixes
- •Faith schools by Joan Garrod
- •Criticisms of the expansion of faith schools
- •A shining example
- •Your successful “for and against” essay includes:
- •Learning outcomes:
- • Task 8. Replace the words in italics with words from the box above:
- •Nobody loves the middle class
- •The cultural characteristics of the middle class
- •Middle-class suburban culture
- •Socialisation and the middle class
- •Your successful opinion essay includes:
- •Useful language: Giving Your Opinion
- •The link between employment and social class
- •The upper class
- •Concentration of wealth
- •The upper-class family
- •Upper-class education
- •The influence of the upper-class peer group
- •Conclusion
- •Explaining why you are including things:
- •Imagining how they will react:
- •Learning outcomes:
- •Title b:________________________________
- •Title c:________________________________
- •Title f:________________________________
- •Your successful essay suggesting solutions to problems includes:
- •Family life and poverty by John Williams
- •Unit 6. Have the right to be healthy?
- •Learning outcomes:
Task 8. Replace the words in italics with words from the box above:
1. Members of the lower classes were thought to be inferior, oppressed by higher class members in spite of their possible benefits to the society’s development.
2. The status of some people in closed systems did not allow them to move in or out of a particular strata.
3. Belorussian sociologists managed to get relevant findings of their survey conducted in 2004.
4. There are no difficulties in discerning differences between open and closed systems.
5. Volunteers helped to get significant results in the research of social mobility in our country.
6. Some classes are given certain functions and roles in the life of the society.
Task 9. Can you continue these associations lines? Work in pairs: compare your lines with those of your group-mates. How do they differ?
1) Arrangement, stereotypes, … , … , … .
2) To assign a status, to determine someone’s behaviour, …. , …. , …. .
3) Distribute unevenly, separation, close pattern, low social mobility, … , … , …. .
4) Open system, to permit to climb the social ladder, … , … , …. .
SUB-UNIT 4.2. Nobody loves the middle class
WARMING-UP:
Task 1. In the course of everyday conversation sociologists talk about the “upper class”, “middle class” and “lower class”, referring to these social classes as distinct groups possessing their own cultural, political, economical and even psychological characteristics.
Before starting to read the text describing these traits in terms of the middle class in Great Britain, let’s try to outline general ideas that we have about each of them.
Look through the following characteristics and discuss in pairs which of them correspond to the “upper class”, “middle class” or “lower class”. Be ready to give examples that would back your choice.
politically and economically powerful;
poorer health;
conspicuous [kon'spikjuos] (smth that people can see or notice very easily) consumption;
higher crime level;
social anxiety [æn'zaieti] (a feeling of nervousness or worry);
shorter life-expectancy;
domesticity ["doumes'tisiti] (the habit of spending a lot of time at home with the family);
educational under-achievement;
conservatism;
social comparability (from the verb “to compare”).
Ideas for discussion: discuss your conclusions with the group-mates, in what points have you agreed unanimously? Where was it difficult for you to agree with others entirely? What examples given by your group-mates determined your final opinion? (to express the group’s point of view use prompts from “Useful language” from Sub-Unit 4.1.)
Task 2. Read the introductory passage of the article “Nobody Loves the Middle Class” and find explanations of this title. Give the synonyms of the words given in italics in the following statements, translate them into Russian/Belarussian.
a) The proles hate the middle class because they stand for all suburban values.
b) The toffs hate them because they see them as money-grabbing hooligans who have bought their own furniture, as opposed to inheriting it.
c) Some argue that white-collar workers have more in common with the working class.