Understanding Society for Literature and Languages- myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theUnderstanding Society for Literature and Languages. Answer: A society is constructed through the active involvement of its citizens. The relationship between an individual and the society is mutual where society influences the way individuals life is shaped and individuals actions shape the way society is viewed. However, societal beliefs exert stronger influence on the individual and the community. In this essay, two key aspects of the society and their influence on the individual shall be thoroughly discussed. The discussion will focused on the two aspects specifically from the perspective of unemployment situation in Australia. The essay will first provide a detailed description of the two aspects of societal beliefs that include social construction and social imagination. Then, it will delve upon the issue of unemployment in Australia and attempt to find the possible reasons using relevant theories. This will be followed by the use of social theories to explain the problem of unemployment in Australia further. According to the theory of social construction, human beings associate their experiences by developing model of the social world. They share this model with their peer communities in a well-constructed manner by communicating through messages and languages (Holmes et al. 2014). To put it simply, social constructions are common suppositions developed by the society and may differ as per the contexts of culture (Whitty 2017). The first use of the term social construction was found in Berger and Luckmans work titled Social Construction of Reality published in 1966 (Best 2017). However, the origin of the concept is credited to theorists like Piaget and Vygotsky. According to Piaget, social construction occurs through active alteration to reality in which beginners construct knowledge by making and examining their own theories of world. Light (2017) while supporting his view states that Piagets approach gave rise to the contemporary theories of cognitive development that contributed largely towards social construction. The author remarks, The no-mans land between cognitive development and social psychology has recently been transformed into a very busy place. He further adds, Much of the contemporary research identified by social cognition is concerned with the interpretation of social behavior in cognitive terms. In contrast to this view, Loureno (2016) argues that with the development of science, explainin g social construction in cognitive terms have become vague. According to the author, the developmental stages proposed by Piaget although useful to chart developmental change, must be based on strong conceptions. Vygotsky is credited with the development of social constructivism, as he was the one who completely rejected Piagets assumptions that upheld the possibility of separating learning from social context (Amineh and Asl 2015). Vygotsky propagated that social construction help understand the cultural development of human beings. In his view, cultural development occurs twice in a persons life, once at the individual level and next at the social level. Marginson and Dang (2017) stated that Vygotskys theory helped develop the contemporary theories that define social construction. The authors argue that the concepts of Vygotsky have helped understand the social psychology of people. Social imagination, on the other hand, links the life of an individual with the history of the society. Social imagination helps individuals realize the connection between larger society and personal experiences by developing a deeply rooted comprehension in the individual. The American sociologist C Wright Mills first introduced the concept in 1959 in his book The Sociological Imagination (Laliberte Rudman 2014). As per the views of Mills, sociological imagination refers to the realization of the link between personal experience and the wider society. Many experts claim that social imagination in the contemporary world assists in understanding some complex issues concerning todays society. The author raises the issue of same-sex marriage in the U.S. and interprets it in terms of changing social imagination. The social imagination thus provides a solid ground for both researchers and students to comprehend some of the complex issues of the modern society by linking the social behavio r to the constructs of the wider society. Unemployment is a social menace that hampers the progress of any society. Unemployment arises out of several reasons, most glaring of which include lack of education and poverty. All these reasons are interlinked as unemployment leads to poverty and increased poverty leads to lack of education, which then escalates the problem of unemployment. However, the concept of unemployment could be more clearly understood with the use of the two theories of social construction and social imagination. The social construction theory explains unemployment as the unwillingness in people to work. As Smyth (2016) puts it, unemployment provides a good excuse to lazy people to avoid working. This theory however, does not attempt to investigate deeper into the causes of unemployment. The proponents of this theory overlook many reasons like satisfaction at job, less payment and so on. The theory relates the grave issue of unemployment with a petty reason like personal weakness. Many theorists have heavily criticized social constructionists perspective of unemployment in the past and in the present. However, it is important to note that this view of unemployment is still relevant in countries like France where laziness is always attributed to lack of employment opportunities. In Japan as well as in Brazil too, the social constructionist view of unemployment prevails. In contrast to this theory, social imagination views the problem of unemployment not something due to individual weakness but due to social problem. As per this theory, unemployment arises when the society fails to safeguard the interest provide adequate opportunities to its people. In a nation with close to 30% population facing the crisis of unemployment, it is evident that the problem lies more within the societal structure rather the within the individual (Mavromaras et al. 2015). In Australia, the trend depicts that the society is more inclined towards following the social constructionist theory. Here, most people associate unemployment with an individuals laziness rather than the social problems. Nonetheless, many people on the other hand consider lack of sufficient opportunities to individuals as per qualifications as the root cause of unemployment. Many Australian youths do not succeed in finding a job in spite of the fact that they possess adequate qualification to be employed (Golebiowska et al. 2016). This has resulted in the higher rate of emigration where Australian youth leave their homeland to find suitable jobs in other advanced nations. It is thus the need of the hour that the government both at state and federal level invest a fair amount of their time and money to find concrete solutions to the problem. Some scholars have analyzed the causes of unemployment in the country during the early years of 1960s and 70s. The author states that the causes of unemployment resulted from the level of unemployment benefit payments and the conditions imposed on income earned by unemployment benefit recipients. On the other hand, some attribute lower wages, negligence of under privileged minority community including the indigenous community in Australia as the prime causes of unemployment. These views incline towards the fact that unemployment is not due to the weakness of the individual as social constructionism believes but it is the result of larger problems prevalent in the society. Practical instances could be used to present a better picture of the situation where the collective view of the Australians regarding the problem could be explained. In regards to this, Australia is viewed as a nation that is market oriented and liberal, a welfare state that regards unemployment and receipt of social security as a social stigma (Livingstone 2018). In the past, Australian policies on unemployment and the unemployed population has largely focused on encouraging unemployed people to seek jobs. The social security policy according to which, the unemployed were entitled to receive payments was also limited to those who demonstrated consistency in their efforts to search for jobs. Despite the cut in payments for the unemployed, there has been gradual decline in the rate of employment in the last 40 years in the country. According to leading English daily, there has been a 13.5% rise in the rate of joblessness and 18% rise in underemployment in Australia over the last four decades (Theguardian.com 2018). The reason for this remarkable downfall in the employment rate is largely attributed to the rapid increase in migration over the past few decades. This further evidences the influence of social constructionist view. To conclude it can be stated that social construction and social imagination are two effective and important theories that clearly explain the problem of unemployment. Unemployment is a social evil that arises due to the lack in certain benefits to the individuals. The assignment focuses on these two theories to explain unemployment in Australia. Primarily, the assignment compares and contrasts the two theories and beliefs regarding the Australian unemployment problem. It could be analyzed from the study that the Australian society emphasizes social construction theory and associates unemployment with personal weakness and failure rather than limitations within the society and the government. In addition, it has also been found from the analysis that apart from attributing personal weakness to unemployment, the Australian society provides excuses like increase in migration as a major cause of unemployment. References: Amineh, R.J. and Asl, H.D., 2015. Review of constructivism and social constructivism.Journal of Social Sciences, Literature and Languages,1(1), pp.9-16. Best, J., 2017. Typification and social problems construction. InImages of issues(pp. 3-10). Routledge. Carvalho, P., 2015. Youth unemployment in Australia.Policy: A Journal of Public Policy and Ideas,31(4), p.36. Golebiowska, K., Elnasri, A. and Withers, G., 2016. Responding to Negative Public Attitudes towards Immigration through Analysis and Policy: regional and unemployment dimensions.Australian Geographer,47(4), pp.435-453. Holmes, D., Hughes, K. and Julian, R., 2014.Australian sociology. Pearson Australia. Laliberte Rudman, D., 2014. Embracing and enacting an occupational imagination: Occupational science as transformative.Journal of Occupational Science,21(4), pp.373-388. Light, P., 2017. Social interaction and cognitive development: a review of post-Piagetian research. InDeveloping thinking(pp. 67-88). Routledge. Livingstone, D. W 2018,The Education-Jobs Gap: Underemployment or Economic Democracy?, Abingdon: Routledge, pp.56-65. Loureno, O.M., 2016. Developmental stages, Piagetian stages in particular: A critical review.New Ideas in Psychology,40, pp.123-137. Marginson, S. and Dang, T.K.A., 2017. Vygotskys sociocultural theory in the context of globalization.Asia Pacific Journal of Education,37(1), pp.116-129. Mavromaras, K., Sloane, P., Wei, Z 2015, The scarring effects of unemployment, low pay and skills under-utilization in Australia compared,Applied economics,vol. 47, no.23, pp. 2413-2429. Smyth, J 2016, Puncturing notions of precarity through critical educational research on young lives in Australia: Towards a critical ethnography of youth,Ethnography and Education,vol.11. no.2, pp.129-141. Theguardian.com (2018).Third of Australian youth have no job or are underemployed, report finds. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/27/third-of-australian-youth-have-no-job-or-are-underemployed-report-finds [Accessed 28 Apr. 2018]. Whitty, G 2017,Sociology and school knowledge: Curriculum theory, research and politics, Abingdon: Routledge, pp.305-412.