Sociology of Childhood Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Sociology of Childhood - Essay Example Browne (2011) defines the term â€Å"life chances† as an individual’s chances of getting access to all those things which are considered as desirable by the society and not being affected by all those things which are considered undesirable by the society. Similarly, in the opinion of Ferrante (2012), social class can be identified as the phenomenon in which an individual’s belonging to a section of society can influence their life chances. Thus, one has to infer that the term â€Å"life chances† indicates having access to at least good education, healthcare facilities, food, clothing and housing. An important point of Marx’s theory of social class is that the bourgeoisies, or the people who own the means of production, enjoy better social standing as they are powerful enough to impose their ideas on the proletariat (the working class). As the bourgeoisie class does not share the wealth justifiably, the difference in wealth between the working class and the bourgeoisie increases. Hence, the working class is deprived of the goods and services enjoyed by the bourgeoisie (Browne 2011). Similarly, Weber categorises the society into two groups; the negatively privileged property class and the positively privileged property class. The positively privileged class is blessed with marketable abilities, and hence is able to enjoy expensive consumer goods and better services. On the other hand, the other class has no marketable abilities, and hence, is deprived of good goods and services (Ferrante 2012). It is pointed out by a UK Government report that measuring child poverty is a difficult task because their life chances are influenced by a number of factors other than just income of the family. Some such dimensions to be included are material deprivation, worklessness, unmanageable debt, poor housing, parental skill level, access to quality education, family stability, and parental health (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions 2012) The Child