Equality: from theory to action
- PDF / 54,501 Bytes
- 3 Pages / 536 x 697 pts Page_size
- 91 Downloads / 251 Views
John Baker, Kathleen Lynch, Sara Cantillon and Judy Walsh, Palgrave Macmillan/Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, 2004, ISBN 1 4039 4429 6 d20.99 (Pbk); ISBN 1 4039 0392 1 d60.00 (Hbk)
Equality: From Theory to Action is the excellent collaborative effort of four academics at the Equality Studies Centre at University College Dublin. Equality studies are described as ‘an interdisciplinary field that combines both normative and empirical enquiry and aims at transformation’ (p. 14). The book asserts that there is a global egalitarian social movement. It theorizes some of the movement’s aims, and offers principles for promoting egalitarianism in the future. While the authors believe their framework and recommendations are germane for egalitarians around the world, they acknowledge that the focus is on Western, developed societies, particularly the Republic of Ireland. The book is in three parts. Part one represents the theoretical core. It sets out three models of equality: basic equality, liberal egalitarianism and the authors’ preferred model – equality of condition. It compares the latter two models along five key dimensions of equality: respect and recognition; resources; affect (which includes love, care and solidarity); power; and working and learning. According to liberal egalitarianism, social inequalities are inevitable because our basic social institutions – for example, capitalism and liberal democracy – generate them. Therefore, the task is to try to limit these inequalities, not to eliminate them. The authors assert that from this view, equality means ‘the right to compete, not the right to choose among alternatives of similar worth’ (p. 33). In contrast, the concept of equality of condition challenges the character of western societies’ basic institutions. For example, the equal opportunity to compete for jobs in a hierarchical division of labour is insufficient. Equality of condition says people should have ‘real choices among real options’ (p. 34) of roughly equal value. The book’s second part, ‘Putting Equality into Practice’, enlarges on the five dimensions of inequality. For example, a chapter on education rejects the commonsense view that the distribution of education is primarily a problem of resource inequality. Instead, they relate the different experiences that individuals have in formal education to the inequalities of social class; respect and recognition (e.g., the silencing of gay and lesbian students and the segregation of students with disabilities); feminist review 82 2006 c 2006 Feminist Review. 0141-7789/06 $30 www.feminist-review.com (131–143)
131
and power (symbolized by the hierarchical relationships between administrators and teachers, and teachers and students). In general, the analysis sets out concrete recommendations for institutional changes required to bring about greater equality in each dimension, stressing the interconnectedness of inequalities in individuals’ lives. The book’s final part is called ‘Strategies for Change’. It addresses political, strategic and ideologi
Data Loading...
