Sociology 2140: Social Problems

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Sociology 2140 Social Problems

• Introduction

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What Is a Social Problem?

• Social problems are interrelated
• Debate in society centers on
• the causes of social problems
• who is responsible for the problem
• solutions to the problem
• Definitions vary

3
What is a Social Problem (cont.)?

• A condition (e.g., poverty)
• A pattern of behaviour (e.g., violence)
• that people believe warrants public concern
  and collective action to bring about change
• Social problems are conditions that
• affect the quality of life of a large number of
  people
• affect cherished values

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What is a Social Problem (cont.)?

• Social problems can also be discrepancies between
  ideals and achievement
• For example, between rights guaranteed by the
  Charter and discrimination actions or practices
  of dominant group members that have harmful
  effects on members of subordinate groups
• The discrimination could be acted out in the form
  of violence, a hate crime, an act of violence
  motivated by prejudice against people on the
  basis of racialized identity, religion, gender,
  or sexual orientation.

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Why Study Social Problems?

• To understand social forces that shape our lives
  on personal and societal levels
• To gain new insights into ourselves and
  connections between our world and that of other
  people, and
• To make more effective decisions about these
  concerns

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Index of Social Health

• To measure social problems
• The need for a single quantitative measure of
  social well-being resulted in the development of
  the Index of Social Health (ISH) in 1986 by Marc
  Miringoff at Fordham University in the United
  States. The Index focuses on specific social
  problems, to determine if there has been an
  improvement or a decline over time.
• Retrieved from http//www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/cs/sp/sdc
  /pkrf/publications/bulletins/1997-000006/page03.sh
  tml May 12, 2007

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The Index of Social Health

• Measures sixteen major social problems in the
  U.S. including
• Unemployment
• Percentage of children in poverty
• Average weekly earnings
• Levels of child abuse
• Health Insurance Coverage
• In Canada, this index was revised in 1997 by
  HRSDC to look at 15 Canadian social problems
  and a comparison was done between GDP and the
  index for both the US and Canada
• (see http//www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/cs/sp/sdc/pkrf/publ
  ications/bulletins/1997-000006/page03.shtml for
  more detail)

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US Index compared to US GDP
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Modified Can. Index compared to Canadian GDP
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Crosscultural Look Social Problems from a
Canadian Perspective (text)

• Poverty and Economic Inequality
• Crime and Violence
• Drugs and Alcohol Abuse
• Racial and Ethnic Relations
• Sexism and Gender Inequality
• Sexual Orientation and Homophobia
• Aging and Ageism
• Family
• Work and Unemployment
• Health and Health Care
• Population, Urbanization, and Environment
• War and Terrorism

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Social Problems from an Indian Perspective
(http//www.khoj.com/Society_and_Culture/Social_Pr
oblems/)

• Adoption and Child Support
• Poverty 
• Sati
• Social Work 
• Unemployment
• Women's Rights 
• Child Labour
• Child Marriage 
• Consumer Rights
• Crime and Enforcement 
• Dowry
• Female Infanticides 
• Homelessness
• Illiteracy

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History of Social Problems Theory

• Early medical model used, did not take
  complexities of a diverse society into account
• 1920s-1930s focused on the conditions of society
  that fostered social problems
• Past few decades sought the sources of deviation
  within the social structure and focused on the
  role of society in creating deviance through
  labeling people viewed as abnormal
• Recent subjective nature of social problems

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Creating A Comprehensive Definition of Social
Problems

• Objective reality
• Subjective factors will always be present
• The study of social problems can never be
  value-free
• Tepperman, Curtis, and Kwan define a social
  problem as both an objective and a subjective
  dimension
• A condition that can be empirically observed
• A process by which society comes to define the
  problem

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Types of Social Problems

• Acts and conditions that violate the norms and
  values present in society
• Societal-induced conditions that cause psychic
  and material suffering for any segment of the
  population

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C. Wright Mills (1959)The Sociological
Imagination

• The ability to see the relationship between an
  individuals experiences and the larger society
  (C. Wright Mills)
• For example, the relationship between personal
  unemployment, and technological change and
  economic cycles that cause it
• The task of sociology is to realize that
  individual circumstances are inextricably linked
  to the structure of society.

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The Sociological Imagination

• For Mills the difference between effective
  sociological thought and that which fails rested
  upon imagination. The sociological imagination is
  simply a "quality of mind" that allows one to
  grasp "history and biography and the relations
  between the two within society.

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Sociological Imagination (cont.)

• Connections between personal and socioeconomic
  levels is made through
• Microlevel analysis focusing on small-group
  relations and individual interaction, and
• Macrolevel analysis focusing on large-scale
  institutions, e.g., government and the economy
• Examining the historical circumstances that link
  the two levels.

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Main Elements of a Sociological Imagination

• A willingness to view the social world from the
  perspective of others
• Focusing on the social, economic, and historical
  circumstances that influence families, groups,
  and organizations
• Questioning the structural arrangements that
  shape social behavior and seeing the solutions
  not in changing problem people but in changing
  the structure of society
• Read an excerpt of C. Wright Mills Sociological
  Imagination (1959) at http//www.lclark.edu/gold
  man/socimagination.html

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Private Troubles and Social Issues

• One main distinction to keep in mind when using
  the sociological imagination is the distinction
  between private troubles and social issues.
• Mill uses this example when 1 person in a city
  of 100,000 is unemployed, that is a private
  trouble, but when 5 million in a nation of 150
  million are unemployed, it is a social issuewe
  need to focus on the larger issue, not that one
  person who is unemployed, blaming him/her for
  his/her) situation

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The Sociological Imagination

• "What I am suggesting is that by addressing
  ourselves to issues and to troubles, and
  formulating them as problems of social science,
  we stand the best chance, I believe the only
  chance, to make reason democratically relevant to
  human affairs in a free society, and so to
  realize the classic values that underlie the
  promise of our studies" (1959 194).

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Why are Social Structure and Culture Important?

• Social problems are rooted in both the structure
  and culture of society
• In order to use the sociological imagination we
  need to understand the basic elements of both
  social structure and of culture
• Macro-level theories (functionalism, conflict and
  feminist theory) focus their attention on social
  structure while micro-level theories tend to
  focus more on culture and the creation of meaning

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Elements of Social Structure

• 1. Institutions
• patterns of social relationships
• Family, media, religion, etc.
• 2. Social groups
• Members have common identity
• Primary and secondary

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Social Structure (cont.)

• 3. Statuses
• position in group
• Ascribed, achieved and master status
• 4. Roles
• Associated with status
• rights, obligations, and expectations

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Elements of Culture

• Culture the meanings and ways of life that
  characterize a society
• 1. Beliefs what is assumed to be true
• 2. Values agreements about good and bad
• 3. Norms socially defined rules of behaviour
• Folkways, laws, mores

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Culture (cont.)

• 4. Sanctions social consequences for conforming
  to, or violating norms
• positive, negative, formal and informal
• 5. Symbols language, gestures, and objects
• The meaning commonly understood by group members
• They form communication

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Another View Culture as Stories

• According to George Gerbners (1986) cultivation
  theory culture is a set of stories passed
  through generations
• Stories about
• 1. What things are
• 2. How they work
• 3. What to do about them
• Gerbner believes the media now tell our stories
• Heavy exposure (esp. to TV) cultivates our
  beliefs, attitudes and values

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Person-Blame vs. System-Blame

• Person-Blame
• The assumption that social problems result from
  the pathologies of individuals
• System-Blame
• The assumption that social problems result from
  social conditions
• The sociological imagination recognizes that
  large-scale social problems originate with the
  system, are formed through historical
  circumstances, and can then affect individuals
  lives adversely.

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Ideology of Cultural Deprivation

• A loaded ethnocentric term
• Implies that the culture of the minority is
  inferior and deficient in comparison to the
  culture of the majority
• Examples children in a low-income area school,
  ex-convicts, inner-city poor.

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Ideology of Social Darwinism

• Social Darwinism was developed by Herbert Spencer
  (1860s)
• Coined the term survival of the fittest
• Has its origins in Charles Darwins work on
  natural selection (1859) in nature which was
  applied to society
• The belief that the place of people in the
  stratification system is a function of their own
  ability and effort.

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Consequences of the Person-Blame Approach

• Frees the institutions of society from any blame
  and efforts to change them
• Controls problem people in ways that reinforce
  negative stereotypes
• Legitimizes person-control programs
• Justifies the logic of Social Darwinism

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Danger of System-Blame Approach

• It is only part of the truth
• It presents a rigidly deterministic explanation
  of social problems
• It suggests that people are merely robots
  controlled by their social environment

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Reasons to Use the System-Blame Approach

• A need to balance the perspective of the average
  citizen, police, and legislators who typically
  use a person-blame approach
• The system is the subject matter of sociology,
  not the individual
• The institutional framework of society is the
  source of many social problems

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Sociological Perspectives

• Perspectives are an overall approach toward a
  subject. Four main perspectives are
• Functionalist
• Conflict
• Interactionist
• Feminist (not in text)
• Theory is a set of logically related statements
  that attempt to describe, explain, or predict
  social events

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Functionalist Theory

• Assumption Society is a stable, orderly system
  composed of interrelated parts that perform
  functions to keep society stable
• Concepts
• Manifest functions are intended and recognized
  consequences of social processes
• Latent functions are unintended and
• Dysfunctions are undesirable

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Functionalist (cont.)

• Dysfunctions can create
• Social disorganization conditions in society
  that undermine the ability of traditional
  institutions to govern behaviour
• Which cause breakdowns in
• Values collective ideas about what is right or
  wrong and norms are established or standards of
  conduct
• Application Violence occurs when institutions
  become disorganized. To solve problems regenerate
  institutions

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Conflict Theory

• Assumption Groups in society are engaged in
  continuing power struggles for control of scarce
  resources
• Two types
• Value conflict problems come from incompatible
  group values, e.g., liberty and group values
• Critical-conflict problems come from
  contradictions in the organization of societies,
  e.g., class and gender inequalities.

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Conflict (cont.)

• Concepts
• Ideal vs. Real Culture, e.g., people claim they
  support liberty, but not with issues of ethnic
  relations
• Capitalist class controls working class
• Application Violence occurs because of conflict
  between groups values and relations of
  capitalist domination and subordination

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Interactionist Theory

• Assumption Society is the sum of the
  interactions of individuals and groups
• Concept
• self-fulfilling prophesy a false definition of
  the situation that evokes a new behaviour that
  makes the original conception become true, e.g.,
  labelling behaviour as delinquent may cause more
  delinquent behaviour
• Application Violence is a learned response, not
  an inherent characteristic, to rewarded
  behaviour or inappropriate socialization

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Interactionism (cont.) Labeling and
Self-fulfilling Prophecies

• Social problems as conditions, behaviors and
  situations that are defined and labeled as social
  problems
• Labeling and deviance
• Secondary deviance-stems from adapting to the
  effects of the label and taking on the self
  concept and roles associated with it

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Deviance as a Social Problem

• Deviant Individuals (Norm Violators)
• Norm violators are symptoms of social problems,
  not the disease itself
• Most deviants are victims and should not be
  blamed entirely
• The system should also be blamed
• Institutionalized Deviance
• When a society is organized in such a way that it
  is not meeting the needs of individuals.

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Interactionism (cont.) The Social Construction
of Social Problems

• Social problems are created through the actions
  of others which raise our consciousness to issues
  in society
• The media and the creation of social problems
• Universities and colleges
• Government agencies
• Civic voluntary organization

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Moral Entrepreneurs

• Those who have or develop the power to label
  problems or problem behaviour in society
• Often members of elites or interest groups
• Malcolm Spector and John Kitsuse (1977) saw
  social problems as Claims-Making activity
• Stage 1 Problem Definition
• - gaining public recognition
• Stage 2 Legitimacy
• - acceptance by official agencies
• Stage 3 Reemergence of demands
• -reasserting demands
• Stage 4 Rejection and institution building
• - forming new organization to solve the problem

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Moral Panics and The Media

• Modern mass media aids in claims-making
• Mass media allows for the rapid spread of new
  information
• The media is often the vehicle by which the
  public becomes aware of social problems
• Create intense public concern about and issue a
  moral panic
• Two factors help
• Media and the need for news
• Public demand for sensational news stories

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Feminist Theory

• Assumption Theorists should look at differential
  impacts of social phenomena on men and women, and
  emphasize power relationships. Every issue is a
  feminist issue and interlocking oppressions,
  e.g., sexism, racism, and homophobic are
  addressed
• Concept Patriarchy is control by men
• Application Violence comes from power
  differences especially between men and women and
  is a means of reinforcing patriarchy

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Population Health Perspective (used by text
authors)    

• A comparatively new theory that emerged due to
  the observation that many social problems are
  associated with health consequences.
• Is a broad approach whose goals are to improve
  the health of the entire population and to reduce
  health inequalities among social groups.

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Reducing Social Problems through Social Change

• Social change alteration, modification, or
  transformation of public policy, culture, or
  social institutions over time
• Efforts can be
• Short-term, middle-term, or long-term
• Micro-level, mid-range, or macro-level
• For most problems, a combination of strategies is
  required

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Micro-Level Attempts to Solve Social Problems

• Micro-level attempts focus on how individuals
  operate within small groups to solve problems
• Example people turn to primary groups small,
  less specialized groups in which members engage
  in face-to-face interactions, for help, e.g.,
  getting a job
• Limitation Fails to consider that secondary
  groups and institutions play a major part in
  creating, maintaining, and exacerbating many
  social problems

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Mid-Range Attempts to Solve Social Problems

• Mid-range attempts focus on how secondary groups
  and formal organizations deal with problems such
  as drug addiction
• Example
• Self-help groups, like AA (Alcoholics Anonymous)
  and NA (Narcotics Anonymous) often work to change
  an individuals behaviour and
• Grassroots groups, started by people with a
  problem in their territory, sometimes grow to
  social movements
• Limitation Local efforts usually lack the
  capacity to produce the larger changes needed at
  the national or international levels

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Macro-Level Attempts to Solve Social Problems

• Macro-level attempts focus on how large-scale
  institutions (e.g., government and media) may
  become involved in remedies
• Limitations This approach may
• Overemphasize structural barriers in society,
  making them appear insurmountable
• De-emphasize the importance of individual
  responsibility

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Politics and Social Policy

• Debate on policies often focuses on how best to
  address the social problem
• Opinions range from neo-conservativism to
  left-wing liberalism
• Conservatives - limiting governmental involvement
  in the solution to social problems
• Private enterprise as a solution
• Focus on individual responsibility
• Liberals - government intervention in
  social-welfare institutions as the solution to
  social problems

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Politics (cont.)

• Emancipatory Politics
• Involve liberation of people from adverse
  conditions through eliminating exploitation,
  promoting justice
• Life Politics
• Involve lifestyles, particularly issues
  pertaining to the self, sexuality, reproduction,
  and the body
• Looks at global concerns such as ecological
  survival

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Special-Interest Groups and Social Change in
Solving Social Problems

• A political coalition composed of individuals or
  groups sharing a specific interest
• Types of pressure groups
• Issue focus Single issue, e.g., gun control,
  versus multiple demands, e.g., better schools
• View of the present system of wealth and power
• people have a range of demands
• Beliefs about elites Whether to influence them
  or replace them
• Type of political action Working through the
  system

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Social Movements and Social Change in Solving
Social Problems

• Collective behaviour
• Voluntary
• Often spontaneous
• Engaged in by large number of people
• Typically violates group norms and values
• Civil disobedience
• Non-violent action that seeks to change a policy
  or law by refusing to comply with it

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Types of Social Movements

• Reform movements Seek to change some aspect of
  the social structure
• Revolutionary movements Seek to bring about a
  total change in society
• Religious movements Seek to renovate people
  through inner change
• Alternative movements Seek limited change in
  some aspects of behavior
• Resistance movements Seek to prevent or undo
  change

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Research on Social Problems

• Ethnography (field studies) - the close
  observation of interaction among people in a
  social group or organization
• Provides in depth understanding of the nature of
  a problem
• Demographic Studies - how social conditions are
  distributed in human populations
• How many people are affected
• Characteristics of the people that are affected

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Research (cont.)

• Survey Research way of gathering information
  from a large population
• Sample-representative part from the population to
  be studied
• Cross-sectional data data collected at one
  point in time
• Longitudinal data data collected at different
  points in time
• Interviewing or administering a questionnaire to
  a sample

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Research (cont.)

• Social Experiments are studies that are
  conducted in a controlled setting
• Random assignment of subjects to two groups
• Experimental group
• Control group
• Test the effect of a treatment on the
  experimental group

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A Humanist Agenda

• Criteria include
• Improving most of the worlds peoples lives
• Corresponding to widely held common interests
• Providing handles for action at a variety of
  levels
• Including elements that can be implemented
  independently but are compatible
• Making it easier to solve non-economic problems,
  such as environmental protection
• Growing out of social movements in response to
  the needs of diverse peoples

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To Conclude

• Each perspective involves different assumptions
  and thus provides a different analysis of social
  problems
• Also need a means to solve them
• Strategies are short-, middle- and long-term
• Remedies are found at the micro-, mid-range-, and
  macro-level
• Canadians do have a number of pressing social
  problems to address, and it is our responsibility
  to work together for a better world