Throughout the society, religion and education in United Kingdom

British society is a mixture of nearly all races, religions, stages of education and social positions. As a post-colonial empire it gathers its citizens all over the world and as one of the economical leaders it needs labour force. It’s a typical modern society of individuality shown in decreasing of familiar ties, weakened position of a religion, but in a growing one of education as well.

The diversification in British population, settlement and migration

The population of the United Kingdom is estimated on more than 60 million people which is the third largest in Europe (after Germany and France) and the twentieth biggest in the world. More than ten per cent of them live in London and its suburban areas, while the very majority settled the urban (centres of cities, blocks of flats or apartments among skyscrapers and factories) and suburban (suburbs near bigger towns, cosy mixture of municipal and rural features) areas of economically developed south-east. Nine per ten British citizens are white, the rest are Asians and Africans that came to Britain years ago, mainly from Commonwealth countries and China, besides about 10 per cent of British society belongs to ethnic minority. Between 2004 and 2008 more than two million of European Union workers came to Britain to get a job and the numbers are still raising, which means that the migration isn’t preserved only for the Third World countries. The structure of age is changing as an effect of World War II deaths and a baby boom soon after its end. That’s why in 1980s unemployment rate dramatically raised while ten years later there were too few workers to fulfil retirement holes created in corporations.

The structure of employment and its consequences

Among about 60 million of British people, about 40 million are in a working age and those are traditionally divided into white-collar workers (working intellectually having a knowledge of modern technologies like doctors, lawyers, engineers, officers, self-employed) and blue-collar workers (working manually like builders, janitors, miners, smiths). However, modern times has brought quite a large group of people working home or being hired for particular jobs and the visible decrease of blue-collar workers who became the minority of employed. The development in corporations caused high differences in salaries – one in three full time workers get less than 66 per cent of an average salary  which is an European decency threshold. The level of unemployment is low and those with no job are given a social support.

A job is also strictly connected with social position. Blue-collar workers represent mainly relatively poor and charity supported working class, while white-collar workers belong to the quickly developing since post-war times middle class which usually enjoy a suburban house, a car and holidays abroad creating the majority of British society. The richest directors and aristocracy (is still given a great respect despite of decreasing power and limiting number of owned properties) are the core of upper class that lives in palaces, have servants and send children to famous, public schools. According to law women are legally equal to men, however a job makes serious differences in this case. In case of sex discrimination or just a tradition there are almost no women on directorships in most companies, while among university professors or surgeons only 5 per cent are women, although the number of financially active female grew twice since 1950s.

Economical and social divisions among British nation

The mountainous, marshy areas of Scotland and Wales are generally connected with bigger unemployment, poverty, but pretty strong familiar relationship. It’s the ‘peripheral’ area of poorer development when it comes to economical factors. That’s why a lot of people move into the ‘core’, which is the centre of industry and trade (a lowland terrain in 120 miles long radius from London). The great advantage of the ‘core’ is a profusion of water, coal, pleasant climate that affected the development of industry, agriculture and the communication and trade with the world, although you need to take under account twice higher prizes of houses in the ‘core’.

As the prizes of properties incline corporations to settle in the north, which brings problems with cheaper, but less-qualified labour force. however permanent progress among ‘peripheries’ will lead to breaking the divisions among British people. This would be very difficult from the geographical and social point of view, but it’s quite probable soon.

People and their familiar ties

As Britain consist of about 60 million citizens, it means that those people have to be grouped in teens millions families when accepting the definition of a family as a group of at least two related people connected with feelings of love and confidence. A few years ago a nuclear family gained an extremely big popularity and consisted only of a couple and perfectly their two children (son and daughter if possible) with relatively smaller cooperation with other relatives. The more traditional, multigenerational family was reflected with a vast assistance of other families and e.g. grandparents, aunts. However the new millennium saw a breakthrough in case of familiar ties and when two in three marriages finish with a divorce in Britain keeping a nuclear family seems to be impossible, moreover for a few years a marriage can be created also by people of the same sex. We observe a gaining number of single-parent families or families educating children from different marriages. As in 1961 only one per cent of couples lived together before wedding, now it’s a very majority.

British sense of community in clubs and organisations

British society is much diversified in case of migrations and in many ways is individualistic as a consumptional lifestyle gives no bigger financial problems that used to join people. Otherwise, people (averagely one in six) gather in different organisations of voluntary activity like charity organisations, neighbourhood action groups, choirs, drama clubs, politics just to persuade central government to some actions or at least spend a good time with friends. Actually there are 200,000 of such groups registered by government and probably another 200,000 exist as well. Even most of them has an annual budget smaller than a £1000, the voluntary actions for different people are extremely important. Moreover, many organisations gather people of the same origin, dialect, the fans of the same sport club, especially football, who unfortunately has lately been associated rather with hooligans fighting during the matches than with gentle fans. A popular place of public meetings is British pub – an area of beer, discussions, gossips, jokes and tightening social ties whatever position in hierarchy you possess.

British system of elementary, secondary and high education and its effects

Education system has been attempted to be improved by every post-war government and always has been an area of criticism. Children in United Kingdom are legally forced to start attending school which may be state-funded or fee-paying (public at the cost of about £7000 a year) at the age of 5 when they enter infant school. Being 8 they go to junior school and finally as 11 years old they attend secondary school which lasts until they are 16. Then, students take the General Certificate of Secondary Education to assess their educational skills and abilities. Those who want to continue studying in case of later academic education may choose learning two or three subjects until their 18 in a so called ‘sixth form’ which is a prolongation of secondary school. The highest education level is assured by public colleges like Winchester (founded 1382) or Eton (founded 1440) which enjoy a viable independence, high discipline and top social positions (authorities, law, medicine, armed forces) of its graduates.

            One in five British students attend university, however in Germany or France it would be four in five ones. It’s just because high education is extremely expensive and with a good system of secondary education simply not essential to attend even more sophisticated posts. Universities are generally divided in four groups – ancient English (Oxford and Cambridge which are the oldest and most significant British universities gaining the fame and respect  in case of high educational level all over the world since twelfth century and commonly known with the name ‘Oxbridge’), ancient Scottish (Glasgow, Aberdeen, St Andrews, Edinburgh), redbrick (built in 19^th century in industrial cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle, Bristol and Liverpool) and plate glass (founded with the development of higher schooling in 1950s in Sussex or Kent). After university studies in England you get the title of a Bachelor of Arts (or Science) and after additional courses the title of a Master of Arts (or Science). On the other hand the polytechnics provide education in technological (electric or mechanic) skills for engineers, constructors, physicists etc. Open University is a slightly different kind of institution where all of those who regret not having made academic studies in younger age may study by mail, radio, television or Internet.

Faith, religions and ecclesiastical traditions in Britain

In Britain all the citizens are free in their belief and may attend every church or sect or not attend any, even the monarch is the Head of Anglican Church and must be protestant as well as his/her family, though persecutions of non-protestants finished in 19^th century. Generally, one in six British belong to a Christian Church with the very majority gathered in the Church of England (15 million) which is a protestant faith founded in 1534 by king Henry VIII who didn’t get the divorce with his wife Catherine of Aragon from papacy known also as the Anglican Church or in the Church of Scotland (2 millions) which similarly is a protestant faith though having its roots in the rise of Christianity in Scotland founded in 1560. The Head of the Anglican Church nominates archbishops, bishops and deans who must be loyal to the heir according to the Prime Minister’s (who doesn’t have to be protestant) recommendation. The Archbishop of Canterbury is Primate of All England and the most senior spiritual leader, while the Archbishop of York is a Primate of England with a bit smaller power and responsibility and both of them are the heads of main ecclesiastical provinces (there are also 42 dioceses with the dominion of bishops) on which England is divided. Apart from National Churches, in Britain there are almost 5 million of Roman Catholics, 1,5 million of Moslems, a million of Methodists, 700,000 of Hinduists, 300,000 of Jewish etc. but only ten per cent of overall citizens regularly attend church services and this number is still decreasing. In England only 13 per cent of adult citizens are members of some kind of a church, in Wales it’s 23 per cent, in Scotland 37 and in Northern Ireland almost 80.