In this essay, British society is going to be discussed. However, before starting any further theories about the given topic, it is crucially important to know exactly the meanings of the terms " society " and " homogeneous ". According to the dictionary, society is " a large group of people who live together in an organized way, making decisions about how to do things and sharing the work that needs to be done. All the people in a country, or in several similar countries, can be referred to as society " ( Cambridge International Dictionary of English, p. 1370), while the word homogeneous means anything , " consisting of parts that similar to each other " ( Cambridge, p. 680 ). The opposite to it is " heterogeneous " meaning anything , " consisting of various parts that are very different from each other " (Cambridge, p. 665 ). Yet, no two people are the same, it is rather easy to start with a theory that society is not and it cannot be homogeneous because it consists of people. This paper is going to discuss ethnicity, age and classes in British society and in the end, either confirming or disproving the thesis that the society in Britain is not homogeneous.

When looking at Great Britain today, it is of great value to consider the historical continuity, cultural and social development. Various historical references help us to understand the position the United Kingdom after the Second World War. In the nineteenth century, Britain was one of the world powers, its empire consisted of a high number of colonies in Central Africa, the Caribbean nd the Indian subcontinent. By the 1950s, the most of the former " British belongings " had won their independence. However, all the old colonies wanted to carry on with friendly relationships with Britain, and yet highly appreciated the offer to join the British Commnwealth as free and equal members. This is mentioned to help to understand the fact why there is in the UK such a high number of the ethnic monority groups in present times. The reason is that all members of the Commonwealth were, in the post-war periods, encouraged to come to Britain, to work there and to live there.

Even though, the presence of black immigrants in Britain was recorded as early as the sixteenth century, the substantial number of immigrants came to Britain in the middle of the twentieth century, for the reasons which have been already explained above.

Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and the Afro-Caribbean people now add to different ethnic minorities in Britain. Most of them live in the capital city and metropolitan counties. Ethnic groups in Britain are mainly distinguished from the rest of the population by the differences in race, language, culture and, not necessarily, by their religious and political beliefs.

The interesting fact is that predominant in the ethnic population are " children and young adults aged under 25 " ( " Labour Force Survey ", 1986-1988 ). This situation surely will have had its results in near future, for the new born children of immigrants will have had the British citizenship. Despite the citizenship, they will have been still regarded as immigrants, and if not, they will be still different from the original white Britons because of the colour of their skin. Hence, from this aspect British society is not homogeneous because in present times there live many ethnic groups. Since the different minorities do not support the condition of similarity, the society in Britain is heterogeneous.

Age is another feature according to which a society can be divided. Vertical distribution of the population helps to distinguish among the yuong, the middle-aged and the old people, basically. In modern Britain, young people have developed a wide variety of attitudes towards music, literature, films, various tastes in dress, hairstyles and general trends in public street life.

Above all, it must be remembered that " this is a new phenomenon. Young people were not always treated as a problem or a special category. There have not always been well-marked characteristics of appearance or tastes in music, films or books special to the young, there has not always, in other words, been a distinctive youth culture " ( Contemporary British Society, p. 423 ). This culture can be also called a " social construction " because it is not biologically determined by age.

There are three main distinctive features of a youth culture by which it is significantly different from adult groups. According to Contemporary British Society, the authors distinguish leisure interests, peer groups and style ( p. 424 ) which are characteristic for any youth culture. For this fact has provedthat there is a variety of well-marked youth cultures we can say that British society is also heterogeneous by age.

When looking at the United Kingdom today, we should also take into consideration another distinctive feature of a society, and that is class.

There is hardly any modern society in present times with no classes. The situation is similar in Britain, although it has been changed in recent years.

In earlier times, basically in the Middle Ages, the society used to be based on wealth, property ownership, political power or aristocratic priviledge. The former hierarchies have been radically changed during past few centuries into another version that is a division into lower or working class, middle and upper class. In the twentieth century, the class structure has become more and more orientated on education. Education, of course, provides varios job oportunities, and therefore present British class structure can be and is based on occupation.

The latest model divides British society into: a professional class made of higher and lower-grade professional workers, an intermediate skilled class consisting of non-manual and manual skilled workers and a mixed class of semi-skilled and unskilled workers.

Even though, class system is not a virtually closed structure, there exist problems of social mobility. Britons are significantly class-conscious and they clearly distinguish between relatively constant class-boundaries. These boundaries are even being emphasised by market researchers, politicians and even by Britons themselves.

It is impossible to have a society with no class distinctions, and Britain is not an exception, too. As for we can relatively clearly see different classes in the UK, from this point of view, British society cannot be regarded as homogeneous.

As far as this point, different aspects of society in Britain have been analysed. In the following conclusion the thesis from the introduction is going to be confirmed or disproved.

Hence, in this work, ethnicity, age and class in British society have been discussed. While there exist various ethnic minorities with distinctive languages and culture in Britain, while the society is divided according to age groups, each group having its own culture and style, while the society is also stratified according to class system, it can be confirmed that British society is not homogeneous, it is heterogeneous.

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British Society Is Not Homogeneous