Anti-Opressive Practice

Today it seems that the social system and some social groups have a pecking order, with high status and some with a lower status. This is essentially linked to class, but can refer to social groups such as women, young people, elderly etc. An individual’s social class position reflects wealth, income, education, status and power; therefore, if someone has no education, job, status and power they can be pushed to the side of society and not be involved. Those at a disadvantage i.e. working class are seen to   be those with less material resources, and are pushed to the edge of society because of this.
‘It has long been recognised that people can be ‘located within the social structure in terms of the intersection of different social divisions’ (Berger, 1996) Anti-Discriminatory Practice Third Edition (N.Thompson 2001 page17)
The Marxist view towards education is that it benefits them in their ruling of class. The ruling class ideologies are filtered down through the hierarchy by stratified diffusion. Marxists focus on the Social system and the structuralist theory, they believe that the individual is less important than the social structure of society. They also believe that the ruling class (bourgeoisie) exploit the working class (proletariat). Marxists would claim that this occurs as the middle class hold not only the status but also the power, and keep the lower classes marginalized so that they can keep this control. As this happens and the rich become richer whilst the poor become poorer, this means that anyone who is not rich will be unable to become or get into a higher status, as they will be left without the economic power to protect their own interests. This again shows that these social groups are marginalized and excluded from a capitalist society.
‘There are those who, follow Marx, define class in relation to ownership or control of the means of production (specifically, the means of producing wealth- land, factories machinery an so on) (Giddens 1997)...