Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Changes to British Identity and Attitude Since the 1950s

Changes to British indistinguishability and Attitude Since the fiftiesHow has British individuality and attitude transmitd since the 1950s? designMany pot happen upon it difficult to cope with changes in endures attitudes and identity, in particular since the 1950s. They struggle with the direction in which ships company appears to be going. The expanding nature of modern society means that at that place ar more opportunities for tribe, this coup take with an elaborateness in skills and a less authoritarian attitude in the work gives volume greater individual freedom. However, the continuing changes that absorb interpreted shopping mall in society over the last fifty years requires that people develop a greater adaptability in assures to their personal identities their attitude to wards self and society. They need to be ready to move along with the rate of change and this requires a corresponding change in how they understand themselves. Thus, for Giddens (1991), the self is an current project whereby identity is made and remade to meet the conditions of modern aliveness.This paper leave alone look at how British identity and attitude set about changed since the 1950s. thither will be a brief look at what life was like in cardinal fifties and how identity was understood. This will then(prenominal) be compargond to attitudes and identity today to postgraduatelight the changes.1950s BritainPost-war Britain was quite distinguishable to today. In the early 1950s there was still a peachy deal of war damage which led the regimen to introduce clutchive building programmes to ensure adequate housing for the population. Immediately after the war the welfare state was set up. The funding of this was based on the conception that the (predominantly male) workforce would continue to have full troth, which led the Government to accept that it would be able to look after its citizens from the cradle to the grave. They were overly majestic in their views and in the last fifty years Britain has witnessed massive changes in both welfare and employment work and welfare. Attitudes have changed towards family structures and this, along with other(a) cultural changes, has had corresponding implications for peoples identities.In the years following the Second human beings contend people felt that they were secure in their employment. In diligence working phase men were conditioned to the view that if they worked hard then they would have a job for life, even though they may non have earned a lot of money (Giddens, 2001). This is no protracted the case however, and is one of the many reasons that there are now so many women in the workforce (Abbott and Wallace, 1997).In 1950s Britain society was clearly class ridden and people did non much move from one class to a nonher. The class into which a person was born therefore was very often the one in which they stayed and this had implications for their life chances i n other areas. People did not have the choices that they have nowadays few women went out to work and it was the generates responsibility to go out and earn money to livelihood his family (Walby, 1986).In the years since the nineteen fifties the face of Britain has altered. at that place have been massive changes in employment patterns and this has, in many cases, led to ever-ever-changing roles in society which has had further implications for peoples sense of identity. Post-War in-migration along with rapid kindly and technological change has brought with it n change magnitude focus on contemporary racialised and ethnicised identities. This mixing of new identities along with previous(a) ones, and the introduction of new cultural forms contri only whenes to the sense of indecision that many people feel is a feature of modern life (Hall, 1992).British IdentityThe concept of identity is extremely important in sociological thinking, furthermore, constructions of identity are a lso closely linked to horticulture and peoples identities are reflected in the cultures and sub-cultures to which they belong (Willis, 1967).Smith (1991) claims that in Britain in the 1950s there was a fairly homogenous cultural, aristocratic sense of Britishness, which dated natural covering to the sixteenth century. The British realm state, therefore was, essentially, seen as English with elements taken from Wales and Scotland. Langlands (1999) maintains thatAs it is true of all national identities, the meanings and saliency attached to Englishness are fluid and have varied considerably it has at some times drawn upon Celtic sources and at other times it has been conflated with Britishness (the myth of our island race for instance) (Langlands, 199960).The Arts Council was established in 1947. This was an attempt to bring art to as many people as possible. Ballet, Opera and the theatre were publicity and held up as models of British cultural life. During the 1950s collectivist policies were pursued which resulted in cultural stability. Cultural heritage is of great importance. (the issue inheritance state of affairs tells us) it is also crucial to the construction of identities and to social behaviour (Turnpenny, 2004). These policies which conjure upd what were seen as high culture were stable until the late nineteen sixties and seventies. The growing reduce of immigrants was changing the way Britain looked and the way it had to find new understandings of itself By the seventies things had changed and opinions on the far left held all cultural values as a reflection of the interests of white middle class males (Abbott and Wallace, 1997)..In the nineteen eighties the market principles of Margaret Thatchers Government meant that art had to justify its proceed existence on the basis of its marketability. In 1986 the cultural policy advisors to the greater capital of the United Kingdom Council wroteIn an age when we know longer expect to find a single a ll- encompassing truth, the best strategies for survival often concern creating alternative, exclusive realms, which reject dominant modes (Mulgan and Worpole, 198632)When New Labour came to power in the 1990s it took over elements of the left and the right in an attempt to promote a more diverse and inclusive view of culture and cultural heritage (Pearce, 2000). Pearce contends thatCultural heritage is something that can be inherited, which enables the inheritors to enter into their just states and be their true selves (Pearce, 200059).This cultural heritage consists of artefacts, practices, objects and cultural spaces which people have it off as part of their cultural heritage. Turnpenny (2004) maintains that this heritage relates to all aspects of a nations life. Current cultural policy concentrates on buildings or monument, make heritage very tightly defined and denying wider cultural interpretation (Turnpenny, ibid).sociable practices which are a source of group identity ha ve been omitted from Government legislation on cultural heritage yet they traditional, and cultural implication and should therefore be considered as part of our cultural heritage (Jones, 1996). Turnpenny (2004) argues that this is dictatorial as it does not take into account community values and the communities perceptions of their cultural heritage and it thus contri yetes to social exclusion. Current cultural policy, in its command of the intangible, separates fact from value. In doing so it imposes a form of national identity that does not truly reflect the identity of community groups in Britain.Changes in society affect social structures which in turn affect peoples identities in myriad ways. Because identities are no longer fixed, but as Bradley (1996) has argued are fractured, they are a source of continuing uncertainty. This uncertainty leads to further changes in the social structure. Contemporary peoples identities are unsettled because the changes mentioned above tend to cross ethnic boundaries. For example the changing role of women and their greater inclusion in the labour market has unnatural not only womens and mens identities, it has also led to changes in family structures.Changing Attitudes and the FamilyOver the last fifty years, Britain has witnessed changes in marriage, household, and family forms that would not have been thought possible prior to the Second World War (Giddens, 2001). The rise in the divorce rate and the topic of single sustain families, has mostly been blamed on the 1960s rise of the feminist movement. There has also been a growth in the rate of women who have children but have not married (Social Trends, 2000). Attitudes have changed considerably in this regard and it is rare to hear of the lonely old spinster. People do not think that women who dont want to marry are in some way strange.Parsons (1955) argued that (what has been called)the traditional family serves two major purposes that are communal to societi es, the primary socialisation of children into the norms and values of society, and the stabilisation of adult personalities. For Parsons the institution of the family provided the mutual love and support needed by individuals in order for them to be fit enough to take their places in society (Giddens, 2001).In 1997 when Blairs Government came to power the above ideology of the family that had existed in Britain for almost a century was breaking down and unemployment was continuing to rise. Death, divorce, and the rise in the number of single advert families meant that the traditional ideal of the male breadwinner and the female carer/housewife were becoming less common (Giddens, 2001). Single mothers (although not a unbendable favorite) were no longer seen as shamed women, as they might have been in the nineteen fifties. The concerns of the Welfare State were with the traditional, nuclear family where the man was the breadwinner and the cleaning woman cared for the home and chi ldren. It was not therefore, set up to deal with single parent households. In this way changing family structures result in an increase in other social problems, particularly poverty (Giddens, 2001). Traditional family structures are no longer the norm in the UK and this has led to a change of attitudes towards those who do not live in the traditional nuclear family that Parsons described. However, this leads to other social problems because the state system is not equipped to deal with either the change magnitude burden on the benefits system or in making the employment and childcare systems more equitable.ConclusionBritish identities and attitudes have changed considerably since the 1950s. This is largely as a result of changing employment patterns, cultural policy, mass immigration, and changes in family structures.Human behaviour is based on guidelines that are divided by a group and in order for that group/society to function effectively the guidelines must apply to all its m embers. Thus culture is learned and shared and without it members of a society would be unable to give notice (of) effectively and chaos would result (Giddens, 2001). This is why attitudes have had to change in Britain and this has had corresponding effects on how people understand both their Britishness and their identities.BibliographyAbbott, P. and Wallace, C. 1997. An Introduction to Sociology Feminist Perspectives. London, Routledge.Bradley, H. 1997. Fractured Identities Changing Patterns of Inequality. Cambridge, order Press.Cohen, R. 1996 The poverty trap Community upkeep 1 Aug 96, p.26-7Crowe, G. and Hardey,M.1992. Diversity and ambiguity among lone-parent households in modern Britain. In Marsh, C. and Arber, S. (Eds.) 1992. Families and Households Divisions and Change. London Macmillan. Giddens, A. 2001. (4th ed). Sociology. Cambridge, Polity Press.Giddens, A. 1991 Modernity and Self Identity Cambridge, Polity PressHall, S. and Gleben, B. eds. (1992) Formations of Moder nity. Cambridge, Polity Press in association with the Open University Press.Pearce, S. M. 2000 The Making of Cultural Heritage, In Values and Heritage Conservation, edited by E. Avrami, R. Mason and M. de la Torre. Los Angeles Getty Conservation Institute (2000) 5964.Parsons, T. and Bales, R. 1955. Family, Socialisation, and Interaction Process. Glencoe, Illinois Free PressSmith, A. 1991 National Identity Harmondsworth, PenguinSocial Trends 30 2000. General Household Survey in Giddens, A. 2001. (4th ed). Sociology. Cambridge, Polity Press.p.181Turnpenny, M 2004 Cultural Heritage, an ill defined concept? A call for joined-up policy International Journal of Heritage Studies 10 (3) July 2004 pp. 295-307Walby, S. 1986. patriarchate at Work. Cambridge Polity.

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