P1 Citizenship, Diversity and the Public Services
Key terminology for diversity issues.
Racism- Race is a separation of the human population that makes people different to others, there is lots of groups for racism such as a colour of a person's skin, hair texture and facial features, culture also if people have a disability it can be racism as they are different. Racism is when a group of people think they are better than another group or individual because they look different, in their eyes better. E.g. a group of British girls bully an Asian girl because she has a different skin colour and also the fact she believes in god and they think it is total rubbish and that she shouldn't be allowed to mix with them. This is a bad form of racism but it happens all over the world, really no one is different just because they believe in the religion.
Institutional Racism- Institution racism happens in jobs all over the world whether it's a organisation or a business such as the public services, universities, charities and owned companies. This kind of racism occurs when a organisation fails to deliver the same kindness or professional service to someone who has a different colour skin, culture, religion or ethnic origin as to everybody else. An example of this is that a British person gets promoted after only being in the company for 2 weeks but a Muslim who has been there for 2 years has never been promoted and always been on the lowest salary possible. Companies sometimes only advertise jobs in certain newspapers that aren't often read by ethnic minorities. The term 'institutional racism' had a large impact on the public services in 1999 with the metropolitan police force when they was being racist towards the murdered man Stephen Lawrence's family throughout the case.
Multiculturalism- This is the presence and acceptance of a variety of different religious cultures within a community or society. The idea of Multiculturalism is that all cultures are treated fairly and the same in every way possible and no culture should be promoted higher than anyone else in a community or society.
Ethnocentricity- This is a belief that your own ethnic group is central to society and all the other groups surrounding you are judged in relation to yours. it looks in to a person's own culture at the expense of others.
Sexism-This is a form of discrimination between women and men just based on the gender of the individual. It is normally women that is discriminated more than men as people think we have less ability to do certain things, e.g. a women not being able to be a builder as it requires strength, some women are just as good as men at jobs like this and everyone should be equal. Although it is mainly women who get discriminated against it can also happen to men in some aspects and also transgender who wasn't happy with how they was born.
Heterosexist- Heterosexual is a person that feels romantic and sexual attraction towards people of the opposite gender. A female and a male fancying each other is heterosexist, this is superior to homosexuals as this is when a person is attracted to the same sex.
Homophobia- This is when people have a fear or hatred towards homosexual people just because they fancy the same sex (lesbians & gays), homophobia can be linked to attacks and abuse towards a homophobic person for no reason whatsoever, just some people can't get there head around people liking the same sex, this is a very common towards homophobic people, they can't help how they feel.
Equal Opportunities- This can sometimes be very difficult to define in life but it is basically that every individual has the right to live their lives free of discrimination. This usually means that everybody has a equal opportunity to life and all should be presented the same whether it's in a workplace, socially or even in a education environment, it doesn't matter if individuals have a different background, religion, sexuality, disability, age or anything else