Social Discrimination

Capitalism originates a society in which there exist 3 classes: Top, half and bottom.

The division of people would be the greater percentatge of people in middle class and the lowest in highest class, but with the crisis lot of people is descending from half to low.

In every's day life we can see this discrimination from the upper classes to the lower classes in different things, places and opininios such as in the underground you see lots of racist faces.

But my point of view is that even middle-classes peoplediscriminate a upper clas person because the values and roles they have been told saying estereotypes so this ``discrimination´´ I don't think is really big in terms of social classes.

Arrested a woman in London by racist insults at the tram

"You're not British, you're Black!". A 34-year-old woman was arrested Sunday in London after utter racist insults in the tram ride from the capital of United Kingdom and that they transcend after being posted on the internet. The detainee, who holds her child while he sermonizes to a black woman on the London Tram, begins his insults with the following sentence. "What it has turned into this country...? In a lot of blacks and poles. You are not English, none of you are British. do you know what? Again where pussy you have left".

And continues: "Go back to your country. Not come to mine. "Great Britain is nothing now, Britain is fucked". Then, one of the passengers asked to moderate his language because there are children. "I have a child here," says the woman.

The incident took place between Croydon and Wimbledon's London urban transport service stations. Security of the London underground officials said: "we will not tolerate any form of racism in the metro network and do our utmost to track down the person responsible"

Racism is understood as the defence of the racial sense of an ethnic group. Many times we hear statements about persons immigrants that are not true and that serve to justify attitudes of racial discrimination.

Regarding the previous post, I think that to start people immigrants, like the rest of the citizenship, pay their taxes and therefore have the same right to enjoy public services (health, social assistance, school...), so to be clear, they have the same rights as white people have. Some people don’t have the same vision and so, they normally discriminate them. Race discrimination is part of racism, and it can be said of racism that it uses race or ethnicity as criterion for judging inferiority or superiority of other people; this may happen all over the places, such as in the Street, in the metro and even in a very common place, in the workplace. Considering that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set out therein, without distinction of any kind, in particular as to race, colour or national origin. Considering that the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of 20 November 1963 (General Assembly resolution 1904 (XVIII)) solemnly affirms the necessity of speedily eliminating racial discrimination throughout the world in all its forms and manifestations and of securing understanding of and respect for the dignity of the human person. In actual fact, Racism can be stopped in many ways but there are those who will live up to the stereotypes of their own police, which perpetuates more hatred.

In the news, the woman has a child on top of he rand she starts discriminating in a violent way in front of him and other children in the train. It is actually really difficult to teach children to have a non-judgmental viewpoint when it comes to race because of the people who live up to the stereotypes. If children are educated in the best way, the racial discrimination will decrease and so there will be less racists and more Peace in the world.

To end, the following phrase will add up all the previous information:

“When someone speaks to me I notice not skin colour

but the colour of their feelings.”

Discrimination against women

We can see how in modern societies women are still discriminated, we can see this in countries as Saudi Arabia were women are seen as being inferior to men and are treated in that way. This in other countries has changed a lot and there is a gender equality. In the news lately there has been a case of a women who has been pored on top acid by a man, and the mens judge veredict has been that he had to be pored on also acid on his face but less than the half she has been pored on. We can see how in this county which is Saudi Arabia women are seen inferior to men which is for the times we are at very unmodern and seen badly by the rest of society.

In this countries we can see this inequalities due to society and religion, which have a very strong repercution in this countries, are controlled mainly by men who have considerable power within politics and the workplace. In this countries men are which have the power in their houses, if they are very rich they usually have more than one wife and they are the breadwiners. In the other hand women can note ven drive and they have to stay at home, they can not go alone without another men to the street o even leave the country without the permision of the men they are with. This are serious inequalities which lead to this judge veredict in this case. In this countries all women depend of a men and this does not occur in more developed countries as are the ones in Europe.

Another reason for this massive inequality in gender is that men generally have a bigger share of rewards such as status and wealth. In the case of this countries it is not only generally it is in nearly all cases and this reward in wealth is due to that women can not work and for this a man has to take care of them and by this men gain status and women decrease in status. Due to all of this occurring what finishes happening is that men have a bigger repercusión in judgments and by this happening when there is a court of a women against a men they usually finish winning or getting less damaged as in my example.

AV

Why are families changing? Victor de Santos

Why are families changing?
In American society, 20 years ago there was a type of family seen as the only valid one. This type of family was called the nuclear or conjugal family; this consisted in a family formed by a married men and women with their dependent and not married children. However things have changed and other types of families have gained power and influence making the stereotype of ideal family less popular and also making families change.

Family can be defined as a group of people joined by consanguinity (birth), marriage or because of co- residence or shared consumptions. Families are changing for various reasons that include:

Lone parental families have increased; this has been especially caused because divorces have risen, divorces are not longer seen as before because religion and other factors have lost the influence they had before. Also women no longer depend in men so they can become independent. This type of family is formed by a mother (more frequent) or father and their dependent children. This normally occurs because parents with children get divorced and children prefer to stay with the mother, also the death of one of the parents can lead to a lone parental family or the loss of the custody of their children of one of the parents.

Step families have also increased because divorces have increased. This type of family consists in mixed parents: one or both parents remarried, bringing children of the previous family into the new family. Nowadays this type of family is gaining influence in our society because before this type of family was very reduced in number.

Also couples decide not to marry so much. Cohabitation families consist in a couple that lives together with their children but without being married. This is happening because of financial reason that don’t allow the couple to marry, same sex couples are increasing, personal reason, couples think marring is not necessary, etc.

Finally gay and lesbian families are beginning to rise and to act like a normal family. This consists in a family formed by a couple of the same sex. At the beginning homosexual couples were very unpopular and gay couples had to maintain secret their relationship but this has changed and this type of family is seen as a normal and adopting children by this same sex couples is seen as normal.
In conclusion families are changing because the stereotype of a family is changing and new types of families are being created. Also most women don’t depend any more in their husband and can live independently.

WEBBIOGRAPHY: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/health/families.html?_r=0

Domestic violence, Carlos Ferrer

A new case of domestic violence occured in Medina del Campo, Spain. A women of 35 years old has finished injured after being shooted with a gun by his ex boyfriend while she was in a park. The police didn't have news about other incidents between this couple.
Although many reforms have been made to help women beaten by man, domestic violence continues to happen frequently. Some reasons that makes this happens are:

-economic inequality after marriage and parenthood -different expectations of the roles of men and women and the different pressures they place on families especially during recessions -insufficient housing for single parents and their children -the difficulties of policing domestic violence  -the privacy of the family home -difficulties of public funding of social services to help these situations -higher expectations about married life 
- excessive masculinisation/feminisation of media presentations of sporting heroes/celebrities 

Normally we can relate this domestic violence to inadequate socialization, learning the wrong rules, norms and roles(negative influence of family background and home environmental). People with a low status are normally the kind of persons that will commit criminal behavior. The gap between expectations and reality make them feel relatively depravity and this discontent made lead them to act that way. A man beating a women is a way of feeling powerful because they think that at home everything must be done as they say. They don´t accept that a women have the rights to decide or do what she thinks. And if a women decides to leave him he can´t accept this decision because this kind of men have the idea that women belongs to them and also there is the influence of his peer group, because he can lose status between his friends if his women divorces him. 
Domestic violence many times is not reported to the police because:
-the victim may believe that the police will handle it insensitively.
-they feel ashamed 
-they are frightened because the think that if they tell someone the situation at home can become worse.
-the law normally don´t do nothing in this type of situation.
-victims of violent crime consider the issue to be private, prefer to deal with it themselves. 

In our country there are more women asking for help to associations and probably in a short time there will be strict laws against domestic violence. Something that we can´t not see in other countries were religion and ethnicity permit men treat women as they want and that makes that men lose respect towards women, and young girls, that in many countries are rapped, and nobody do anything to help them. 

Natural or not?

Since the beginning of humanity social orientation has determined your status on society. Society has always repressed these people making that even now people don't have the courage to express their feelings out loud. Nevertheless there have been radical changes due to their willingness to change society's approval. But did they really make a change? 

After decades of demonstrations and displays of the right of freedom and expression, homosexuals unfortunately haven't been able to win society's and government's heart. With their motto "Everyone has the right to decide!" They have been willing to finally get the right they are fighting for. Homosexual marriage is playing an essential role in most of the discussions nowadays. Dozens of courts battle against gay marriage. But, why? Some people argue that having parents of the same sex is bad for children. Nevertheless other people highlight the idea that marriage is irrelevant to parenthood. Gay marriage is part of gay rights, which are at the same time part of civil rights.

People argue that the government is using sexual orientation as an excuse to deny gay marriage. The truth is that the state has acquired to win the battle as it has convinced society of frowning at homosexual relationships, meaning that now, as a consequence, gay partners are being repressed by their own society as they can't do the same thing everybody does. In addition society has created stereotypes that attribute a more aggressive and masculine view of homosexual women and more feminine and fragile views of homosexual men.

Finally, homophobia has extended through the whole world even young children grow up being forced to think that loving someone of your same sex is bad and without having an opportunity to develop their own opinion about this. Homophobia has even reached the point of extreme violence. How far can we let homophobia control the thoughts and actions of our society?

Dedocracia - Salvados

The main purpose of this video is to make people aware of how many Government Consultants haven’t been chosen via democracy. The program explains how the politicians have elected their consultants by pointing with their finger instead of using democratic methods. 

Consultants are professionals hired by the Government to give politicians expert advice on particular matters. In Spain there are between 15000 and 17000 consultants. We might question whether many of them have been elected because of their friendships or because of their technical skills.

When a person relies on someone, they trust and believe that the person of confidence will be capable of carrying out many of the specific tasks required in the job. In many cases this person ends up expecting something in return, as there might be a family link or friendship involved. This is what happens to many politicians as they trust family members or friends without having previously checked their technical skills.

This video also shows another problem. Politicians are able to access to an exaggerated number of consultants, as there is supposed to be no limit. This is important, as the government could end up having more consultants than councillors. To what point could the number of consultants increase?

Fortunately, nowadays this practice has stopped as the state realised that there were too many consultants for a reduced group of councillors.

All in all, it is clear tht in this particular case democracy is not being fully applied, as sometimes, consultants are chosen based on personal interests rather than based on professional criteria.

                                                                                                                        Laura Arias

WOMEN LIVE MORE BUT WORSE

They found out that women live for a longer period of time than men but women suffer from discapacity more than men. This occurs on all mammals.
In Madrid lives Purificación Martínez, the oldest women in Spain. There are many like her that arrive to that age but with a poor physical form whereas a little amount of men arrive to that age but with a better physical form.
A doctor said that it wasn't who lived more but who lived the best.
Sociologists used to say that it was due to the little stress women suffered as working at home. Nowadays they say it is caused by the "protective effect of estrogen". They also say that a 30% of the people that live more is because of their parents. If their parents live more it is more probable for them to live more.

Does divorce influence on educational achievement?

A blog entry on “The guardian” explained the situation of a sixteen year old girl whose parents were splitting up just before she took her A-level exams. The story goes the following way.

A few weeks ago, her parents told her they were getting a divorce. They had asked her sister to fly back home from London, so she could be the one who knew it first and kept it away from the girl as she had mock exams which she was preparing for. The situation at home had been lately full of “serious arguments and inevitable awkwardness”, although she describes that she was already mentally prepared for the idea of her parents divorcing. She really tried to distance herself from the family issues and kept her mind focused on the studying, but nevertheless that resulted as a difficult task. She states that “just because you're over the age of 16 it doesn't mean you're unaffected when your parents get divorced.” After the announcement, she went through a stressful and difficult time because she was having her exams while dealing with the family problems and it was difficult because she needed the grades that would help her for university. She tried to convince herself that she was okay, but turned on the other way and searched for help to her school nurse, who handled this kind of situations. The idea of sharing her thoughts to a ‘stranger’ gave her the strength to keep going and her emotional situation started to improve. When her father left, the house became quieter and her family time had been reduced, which made it easier for her to concentrate on her studies. She also had an everyday support from her mother, which she could afford as the only one that she had at home was her daughter.

Sociologically, this situation can be explained in different views. First of all this girl has lived all her life with her parents and her sister as a ‘traditional’ or ‘cereal packet’ family and now her parents have had a divorce after years of marriage following the trends in Britain that say that in the past 30 years, there has been an increase in the lone-parent families and divorce rates.

A divorce can affect negatively the educational achievement of the child as the home environment influences the studies, as he or she can feel rejected, alone and its emotional state can keep it away from achieving good grades (for example the girl needs them for getting into the university she wants). On the other hand if the child isn’t able to concentrate at home because of arguing of the parents it can also make a decrease in its level of achievement and not be able to obtain her life plans.

Montse Gironès
4 ESO Red

Are the roles in a family changing?

Women dies in Cuenca by her husband

The “Guardia Civil” has arrested this Saturday morning a 48-year-old man who presumably, has killed his wife in the town of Villanueva de la Jara (Cuenca). The arrest has occurred around eight in the morning, according to the sources from the Government Office, who stated that there are no previous complaints about abuse by the mother; mother of two children, aged six and eleven years. The man has been taken to the Hospital of Albacete for a posible suicide attempt.

 It has been investigated, that the event has been taken at dawn. The family of Spanish nationality, had been living for a few years in the city of Cuenca. The autopsy on the body of the women, is being held this morning at the mortuary of Ronda de Alameda; the municipality of Villanueva de la Jara, on the other hand, has declared two days of official mourning and has suspended the festivities planned for today, when they were going to celebrate the  “Posada Massó” open doors; one of the most emblematic landmarks.

During the 1950’s, the role of women in society was not very important , as men were the ones which worked outside their homes and brought the money, whilst the women had to do the housework and care about their children. But since then, things have changes dramatically; nowadays the role of women in society has increased, as they can work in a good payed job and participate in many social activities, such as voting in political elections. Nevertheless, there are still some cases in which men feel superior than the women, which is the case of this terrifying news; the man is driven away from his anger and blames it on his wife, until he killes her, and then he feels so sorry because of his actions, and soon after,he attemps to comite suicide.

People in their village, thought that the were a good and tranquil family, as they had two children and the women never complained about any abuse. We could imagine that the abused women, didn’t do anything, as she would had felt submitted by his husbands threats.

Maria Mestres Dupla-4º ESO 

Censoring in Russia

In the last weeks, E.E.U.U. has been criticizing the quantity of censoring that there is in Russia.

Russia has been blocking the access to several Internet pages owned by their opposition, and other sources about the crisis in Ukraine.

Last year, in July 2012, Russia created a law that allowed censoring webpages in order to protect minors. However, this approval created some concerns about the law being used to limit the right to the freedom of expression.

The chief editor, Galina Timchenko, of the well-known Russian news website Lenta.ru was fired for publishing news of "extremist nature". She has been substituted by Alexei Goreslavsky, who was currently working in a pro-Kremlin website.
Moreover, editorial staff from Lenta.ru, has being complaining about a lot of pressure being placed on them and a large decline in free journalism in Russia.

Russian authorities have also blocked the access to the blog of the opponent Alexei Navalny and another three major sites of opposition to the Kremlin.

As we can see, media is influenced by a strong power being applied by Russian politics. Although the right to the freedom of expression was included in the Russian constitution it has been seriously affected by the censoring of the Russian government.

Sara Bardají - 4th E.S.O.

Is law in the way of changes in family structure?

Family's roles and structure has conveyed radical changes gradually throughout the past decades. Nuclear families are no longer the only main option. Lone-parent, same-sex, non-marrried couples... etc. now also take a noticeable percentage of the population's families. However, and although part of society has learned to accept this naturally, there are still social and constitutional barriers for these families to continue developing.

April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse are a same-sex lesbian couple who cohabit in Michigan, United States. The problem is that the state of Michigan has legal contraints to same-sex marriages and even more on them adopting children (which was the couple's intention). The issue created CONTROVERSY all around the globe. The Huffington Post comments that these women "could challenge state's gay marriage ban" and the New York Times suggested that the judge "might go further and overturn the state's nine-year-old contitutional amendment on marriage as early as Wednesday (date of the trial)". 

In fact, the case was considered immoral against the state's laws and April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, along with many other gay couples are starting wedding planning. 

Lone-Parents also have had their share. A recent study (2011) carried out through all America asked if being a single parent was negative. 99% of the population answered that it was. When asked why, many of the interviewees recurred to either describing a stereotypical lone mother without means to raise a child or said that custody law existed for a reason.

As perceptible, unnecessary beurocracy has stopped family's natural development, which has been conveyed by part of society, but stopped by law and so rejected by another part of society. These laws are the rope from which the conservatives hang to dismiss and ban family changes. Furthermore, these ideas that they mantain are transmitted through primary socialization onto the next generation, creating a barrier circle which has as a breaking point the estates of the world accepting them.

Raul Hernández Guardans ~ 4th E.S.O 

The feminist role within the family

Feminism is the result of several historical social movements attempting to gain equality politically, economically and socially in terms of rights for women. They wanted to gain power within a society ruled by men and equalize the gender roles. First-wave feminism focused mainly on education, employment, legal equality, such as voting, and the rights for intelligent, white, middle-class women. Second-wave feminism went a step further by demanding equality within the family, employment and sexuality. Although there were great improvements thanks to women that extended globally, the movement was not unified and so different forms of feminism appeared as a result.

In many cultures, a mother is the wife in a married couple and her role in the family is vital but weak in power. Generally, mother's duties are seen as raising and looking after their children every minute of the day. Recently both feminist and masclist authors have described such arrangements in the family as unequal. In the United States, 82.5 million women are mothers of all ages, while the national average age of first child births is 25.1 years. In 2008, 10% of births were to teenage girls and 14% were to women aged 35 and above.

So, as we can see nowadays, first mother's ages are quite varied, but it is no inconvenient to prove that the mother is an essential part of the family, and her role is as important as the father's even though it may not seem so at times. To sum up, today's society is much more like the one feminists fought for 50 years ago, although inequality within households still persists, but much more in the background.

social inequality

Social inequality
Social inequality and stratification are key concerns in sociology. Social inequality refers to the unequal distribution of recources and opportunities.
The studies of inequality explore:

• the nature of inequality
• How much inequality there is and who gets what.
• why some people get more than others.

Social class,gender,ethnicity and age are all sources of

Social stratification
Stratification describes the way society is structured in a herarchy of unequal layers.

Racism

                                              Racism

Racism refers to the belief that some individuals or even religions have that there are different races in the world, and some are above others. 

During the Spanish Inquisition, Jews, Arabs and Berbers, were targeted the most. Even if they converted to christianity, Spanish society during that time viewed these Conversos as a threat.

After the "Reconquista", many Mudéjars (Berbers permitted to remain in Spain for economic reasons), and the Jews, were expelled out of Spain, Spain was very racist at that times.

Points of view on education

Functionalists argue that schools and colleges teach the skills neccessary for keeping afloat in a modern, industrial, technical society, so education prepares young people for their future occupational roles. 
In the other hand, Marxists see education as a form of reinforcing the social class system. In other words, the children in working classes learn the skills neccessary for lower-status occupations, while the children middle and upper classes gain the qualifications needed for higher-status occupations.
To sum up, functionalists see the role of education as positive and of benefit to the whole society. Marxists see education as having a beneficial role for privileged groups in society and reinforcing existing inequalities.

Martina de Miquel