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Patterns of Social Inequality and Exclusion  How many hours a day do each of these persons spend at work? What kind of work do they do – in what ways is their work tiring, stressful, pleasant or unpleasant? What kinds of relationship does it involve with other people – do they have to take orders, give orders, seek cooperation, enforce discipline….? Are they treated with respect by the people they have to deal with in their work, or do they themselves have to show respect for others? It may be that the poorest, and in some cases even the richest, person you know actually has no real ‘job’ or is currently ‘not working’. If this is so, do go ahead and find out about their daily routine anyway. But in addition, try to answer the following questions.  Why is the person ‘unemployed’? Has he/she been looking for work? Howishe/shesupportingherself/himself? Inwhatwaysaretheyaffected by the fact of not having any work? Is their lifestyle any different from when they were working? Activity 5.1 invites you to rethink the widely held commonsense view that hard work alone can improve an individual’s life chances. It is true that hard work matters, and so does individual ability. If all other things were equal, then personal effort, talent and luck would surely account for all the differences between individuals. But, as is almost always the case, all other things are not equal. It is these non-individual or group differences that explain social inequality and exclusion. 5.1 W hat s Social A bout Social Inequality and E xclusion ? The question being asked in this section has three broad answers which may be stated briefly as follows. First, social inequality and exclusion are social because they are not about individuals but about groups. Second, they are social in the sense that they are not economic, although there is usually a strong link between social and economic inequality. Third, they are systematic and structured – there is a definite pattern to social inqualities. These three broad senses of the ‘social’ will be explored briefly below. S ocial Inequality In every society, some people have a greater share of valued resources – money, property, education, health, and power – than others. These social resources can be divided into three forms of capital – economic capital in the form of material assets and income; cultural capital such as educational qualifications and status; and social capital in the form of networks of contacts and social associations (Bourdieu 1986). Often, these three forms of capital overlap and 71 one can be converted into the other. For example, a person from a well-off Reprint 2026-27