In this essay I will analyse Neil Thompson’s theory of Anti-Discriminatory Practice, and I will explore oppression and discrimination at the societal and personal levels based on his PCS model . I will also outline how Black and Minority ethnicities are discriminated against in society. Thompson (1997) states oppression is divided into three categories, for example personal, cultural and structure, knowing as the PCS model, will address how groups are oppressed and discriminated in the society ( Thompson 2001). Thompson expresses that are two types of discrimination, positive and negative. Discrimination happens when treating a person in a negative way because of their characteristics. Furthermore, there are nine different important characteristics of a person ,in particular Age, sex, gender, disability, religion, marriage partnership, civil partnership. The Equality Act was brought out in 2010. The Legislation supports individuals in their workplace. The act outlines a more detailed description about discrimination in the workplace. For example, negative Discrimination may take the form of not employing people from a certain minority group because of prejudice. Example of interview because of their names and colours and preadjusting.
In Thompson (1997) Theory the discrimination and oppression shows how inter-related and lead to internalised oppression. The relations between discrimination and oppression can be seen throughout such things as the economy, the difference distribution of financial resources and the allocation of society’s rewards is a key factor underpinning global poverty and social deprivation. Other social reasons include the extent to which an individual is integrated into society and receives the benefits of its opportunities; this usually depends on their social status in terms of social divisions such as class, ethnicity and gender. Political access to power is not evenly distributed throughout society and once again relates to social divisions, the variable component when it comes to social organisation. These existing inequalities are maintained through processes of discrimination that allocate an individual’s life chances and power resources in such a way as in to reinforce existing power relations.
The personal level of the PCS Model refers to the way that an individual’s thought, emotion and the ensuing movements can have a important effect on inequality and oppression. Discrimination on a personal stage is often mentioned to as prejudice. This include a person forming a judgement and refusing to think about or change their judgement, even as ignoring any significant evidence that would contradict and undermine it. Often such judgments are based totally on a perceived stereotype of a precise individual’s social position such as class, ethnicity and gender. However, descriptions of internalised gender oppression on individual level need to be understood in its broader context as it ignores any other causal factors such as culture and the surrounding environment. The individual level only reflects the individual’s significant role towards gender oppression, which can often be refused if they feel as though it was unintentional rather than understanding how their boldness has helped it become internalised. The personal level also fails to identify the effects of discrimination on the individual, as the differences of impact can fluctuate, whilst others may correspond.
Furthermore, the cultural level classifies that a person’s beliefs, values and actions are simply social patterns that are common across particular groups. ‘Culture refers to the ways of life of the members of a society, or of groups within a society. It includes how they dress, their marriage customs and family life, their patterns of work, religious ceremonies and leisure pursuits’ (Giddens, 1993). Language can be seen as an essential part of cultural behaviour as it reflects the social norms, assumptions and patterns whilst causal to its distribution through the generations. This mixture of language and culture can show the way for persons to take things for granted which Berger and Luckman (1967) refer to as, the ‘taken-for-grandness’ of everyday life. These actions that persons feel they do not need any extra confirmation about other than its simple being, so it becomes routine often without the individual’s awareness. The individual is capable of engaging in doubt about their existence, but feels obliged to suspend such doubt as they regularly exist in everyday life. This can lead to an individual’s psychological addition in order to pursue their everyday activities without questioning their motivation, therefore preventing an overload of information. On the other hand, an individual may have the propensity to see their being confined to one culture as they accept a set of social norms and values failing to know significant cultural differences based on an individual apparent judgement that one culture is more superior than another. The cultural level of Neil Thompson’s PCS Model is significant in helping understand internalise gender oppression as ‘culture is, in itself, a site of discrimination.’ (Thompson, 1998). For instance, just as racism is the belief of one culture having advantage over another, sexism is the belief of one gender having superiority over another. The consequential oppression is simply therefore a socially constructed and supported abuse of a gender. The cultural level recognises the significance of difference and diversity rather than failing to go beyond an individual’s own viewpoint. ‘Thus, for men to appreciate the meaning of sexism and to come up with anti-sexism, they must begin to see what the world looks like through women’s eyes.’ (Thompson, 1998). So, living life from a masculine viewpoint and ignoring to understand another can lead to a thin view and knowledge of internalised gender oppression. Besides, the individual actions on a cultural level have restrictions as it is underpinned by the structure.
The Structural level repeats the effects of various social, political and economic factors as they are continually relating. The political factors comprise the unequal distribution of power among those and groups leading to economic changes such as wealth and poverty increasing social divisions. In theory the cultural patterns of internalised gender oppression are a result of men maintaining social order and positions of power through structured inequalities involving ‘a process in which individuals or groups with particular qualities are better able than those who non-existence or are denied these attributes to control or shape rights and chances for their own ends’ (Thompson, 1995). This allows advantaged groups to profit from greater opportunities and resulting privileges that are available within society. Anthony Giddens (1991) known that are four official dimensions of modernism with capitalism, for its control over the system of production and industrialism from the application of power through production. Thirdly, Giddens classifies coordinated administrative power absorbed through the monitoring of surveillance and fourthly, its military power each playing a pivotal role in modernity. The PCS Model also reflects capitalism to be difficult in the exploitation of an separate or group by another for economic control connecting to other forms of exploitation and internalised gender oppression. The consequential administrative power is distributed those groups who have a substantial role within society such as social work as they have the power to effect the more weak members of society.
However, there are limitations to PCS model. For example, - discussion about differences between discrimination and oppression…… Anti-oppressive practice is a associative approach primarily rooted within the practice of social work that set on ending socioeconomic oppression. In social services its regulate any possible way of oppressive practice and helping in delivering welfare services in an major manner, reaching the way of people being marginalized and create a system to guidance people. Moreover, Anti-Discrimination practises the goal to find the issue where people are discriminated against. For instance, in every job we have some important policies that will give important guidance on anti-discrimination practice, work organisation could attend training course to gain knowledge an anti-discriminatory practice in work places (Royal College of Nursing, 2019).
Iris Young (1990) addresses oppression which she divides into five categories. The first category is Exploitation. For example, people who work for a very small wage is against the law because it breaks the National minimum wage in the UK. it is abusive making a person work long hours, to not pay them enough for the work. Young’s (1990) second category of oppression is marginalization. The third category is powerlessness. This refers to people with power giving out demands and rules to people not in power and powerless people having to obey the rules being given to them. The fourth category l of oppression is Cultural imperialism. this category refers to how people are discriminated against because of their sexuality. For instance, most people who are homosexual are experience discrimination because of the sexuality. The Fifth level of oppression is violence. Domestic Abuse can be coercive control, for example a pattern of intimidation, degradation, isolation and control with the use or threat physical or sexual violence. Emotional abuse is being made to feel guilty or economic abuse, such as telling you what you can and can’t do. (Philipson 1992) addresses Anti-oppression focusing attention on discrimination oppression approach on social work that aims to ends oppression.
McPherson report, found that police were institutionally racism because they argued that canteen starting making jokes and using racism language. The structure of Police became racism. Black minority in Britain were approximately 10 times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than white people were, and three times more than likely Asians (Olayinka Sule, 2019) Black minority were permanently excluded at three times the rate of the white British pupils, while black people are more likely to be unemployed and homeless than all other racial minority groups. Majority of black people say they have been discriminated against because their race, but all that happened in education. Roughly eight- in ten blacks with at least some college experiences (81%) say that experienced racial discrimination, at least from time to time, 17% says that happens regularly. Among blacks with high school education or less, these shares are 69% and 9% respectively. Half of the black people with at least High school or college they have feared of their personal safety because of their race. Black people when they compared with white people in health, it appears that black people have lower levels of health insurance coverage. Moreover, black people are less likely to have insurance coverage from employer, whether directly or through and more likely to have public health insurance coverage than white. For instance, black people are more also likely than whites to receive care in nonoptimal organizational settings, for example (emergency rooms) and lack of continuity in health care. Analyses of racial and ethnic differences in access to and the use of health services between 1997 and 1996 shows that the black-white gap has not narrowed over time. Black people and certain ethnic minority groups perform worse in the education system and have less GCSE results than other groups. There are more Black males proportionally in the Criminal Justice system – in jail etc and they receive longer prison sentences. More people from ethnic minority groups are in poverty, poor housing, low paid jobs etc. Health outcomes are also worse. In 1993, an 18 years old man called Stephen Lawrence was murdered by a racist gang. The subsequent police inquiry was hugely unsuccessful (nobody was successful prosecuted until nearly 19 years later despite lots of evidence including video, footage of the gang bragging and planning how they would kill a black man) and crucially didn’t acknowledge the racist motives of the killers. A subsequent inquiry into the investigation reported in 1999.
REFERENCE LIST
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Baines, D., ed. 2011. Doing anti-oppressive practice: Social justice social work. 2d ed. Halifax, NS: Fernwood.
Olayinka Sule, A. (2019) Racism harms black people most. It’s time to recognize ‘anti-blackness. The Guardian [online], 9 August. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/09/black-people-racism-anti-blackness-discrimination-minorities [accessed 10 December 2019]
Thompson, N. (1997) Anti-discriminatory Practice (2nd Ed), Basingstoke: Macmillan Chapter 2 deals particularly with the theory base of oppression and explores the PCS in some length. There is now a third edition of this book.
Monica, A. (2019) Black People experiences of racial discrimination vary by education level, gender. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/02/for-black-americans-experiences-of-racial-discrimination-vary-by-education-level-gender/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK24693/
Essays, UK. (November 2018). The pcs model in understanding internalised gender oppression. Retrieved from https://www.ukessays.com/essays/sociology/the-pcs-model-in-understanding-internalised-gender-oppression-sociology-essay.php?vref=1
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