ABSTRACT
For almost a century, successive UK governments have had the opportunity to promote social cohesion through collective social responsibility but, although political rhetoric has alluded to this aspiration, the reality of equality and a socially just society has not materialised. This chapter explores Robert Putnam's claim that community and equality are mutually reinforcing. It merges cultural and social structures such as schooling, the media and child-rearing practices to identify ways of transforming social structures collectively. To explain how social norms are constructed we turn to C.A. Brown and T.J. Cooney who advocate that belief structures have their roots in Herskovits' patterns and processes of cultural transmission, distinguishing between acculturation; enculturation; and socialization. Identity is created from our sense of self within society: we know who we are in relation to others by, for example, generation, culture, race, ethnicity, social class, gender, ability and language.
