Identifying Social Problems
The definition of a social problem varies greatly depending on whether an objectivist
approach or a constructionist approach is taken. This is because sociologists that adopt these
unique perspectives will differ in how they view the nature of a social problem. The
objectivist definition of a social problem is perhaps more common sense because it "suggests
that the essence of social problems lies in objective social conditions and that some
conditions are problems." [1] This definition focuses around the evaluation of conditions in
society to decide whether they are harmful to either individuals or society, and then defining
them as social problems. If a condition fails to meet a given criterion of harm, it then would
not be considered a social problem.
While this process of defining social problems in terms of objective conditions may
seem adequate, further analysis reveals serious flaws. Foremost "it minimizes or even
ignores the subjective nature of social problems." [2] This becomes apparent when one realizes that not all harmful conditions are considered to be social problems, such as the nutritional concerns of a high fat diet. Another flaw in considering social problems to be the result of objective conditions of harm is that "the objective conditions that people define as social problems have relatively little in common." [3] A list of social problems will have a great
variety of topics with no common theme, nor common causes and effects. It may appear that
social problems are inevitably subjective, and that a more valid definition could be sought in
the constructionist perspective.
The constructionist perspective to social problems foc...
... middle of paper ...
...abuse
could simply be a symptom of a greater problem such as the breakdown of the family, and
focus its intervention here instead. Whatever the conclusion suggested, it is always based on
the grounds statements, and is justified through the use of warrants.
Bibliography:
[1] Best, Joel. Images of Issues, Typifying Contemporary Social Problems. 2nd Edition. Aldine de Gruyter, New York. 1995, 3.
[2] Best, 1995, 4.
[3] Best, 1995, 5.
[4] Best, 1995, 6.
[5] Best, 1995, 6.
[6] Best, 1995, 8.
[7] Best , 1995, 342.
[8] Best, 1995, 345.
[9] Sgroi, Suzanne M. Handbook of Clinical intervention in Child Sexual Abuse. Lexington Books, Toronto, 1982. 9.
[10] Kendall, Diana, et al. Sociology in Our Times. ITP Nelson and Co. Toronto, 1997. 126.
[11] Best, Joel. Rhetoric in Claims about Missing Children. 1990, 31.
2. What sociological explanation were given for the general problem posed in #1 by Rothe? Is the scope
Social stability can be the cause of problems. After reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, we are informed that “Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!” Now is it worth it? Is it worth the sacrifice? Questions like those are addressed throughout the book. Huxley wants to warn us of many things, for example the birth control pill, the way that we can colon ourselves and many other things. He wanted us to know that many of the experiments that they do to the caste in Brave New World, we were later going to do investigate more ourselves or start doing them to others. We have all, at a point; come to a point to the question where we ask ourselves “is it worth it? Is it worth the sacrifice?”
The social problem identified is through the view of the subjective approach or the approach where a social condition is deemed harmful to society and can and should be changed. The social problem then goes through a process of claims making to media coverage to public reaction then to clams making is the claim needs revision. Once gaining a large enough public base the claim then goes to the policy making stage then off to the social problems work stage and then to a policy outcome. The claim or policy may be refined in any stage to create for a better claim that will provide the correct outcome of change. In the film Buggin’ Out, a friend of Mookie, states that there is a problem will Sal’s famous Pizza shop. In the shop there is a wall of fame with only Italians/ white people on the wall. Being that the pizzeria is in a largely African American community, Buggin’ Out makes the claim that there should be African American people on the wall of fame since they are the ones who spend most of their money in the pizzeria (Warrant). During the social problems process Buggin’ Out goes from making the claim that there are no African Americans on the wall of fame at Sal’s (claimsmaking), to telling everyone in the neighborhood to boycott Sal’s since he will not change the wall (media coverage). Buggin’ Out wants people in the neighborhood to boycott under the ground that Sal has twenty or so pictures of famous Italian people but not a single African American on the wall. The public’s reaction is that they refuse to boycott Sal’s since he is the only pizzeria in the neighborhood, makes great pizza, and that he had been there for decades without any trouble. The redefining of the claim is usually the next step to get the most people that you can on board to support your claim but Buggin’ Out continues with his same claim until he finds one person who will stand with him, Radio
fundamental issues of how a society works and maintains itself. The goals behind the two works,
The overall health of the population can be due impart to the living conditions in which they experience, rather than traditional risk factors of health we first think of. The umbrella term social determinants of health (SDH) can be defined as: the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life.
This domain is the one that can be manipulated and fixed in a person’s life. In the United States, most of our population is considered overweight and have a poor diet. Once you add a poor diet into a person’s life, everything begins to go downhill, especially the individual’s health. Consequently, many of these practices are all tied together. When a person is emotionally unstable, they often turn to food, drugs, alcohol, and sex because they think it will make them feel better. This negatively affects any persons’ health in a variety of ways. Mentally disabled individuals already have a difficult time integrating into social norms, so adding on unhealthy life practices could juristically impact their health. Heart disease, diabetes, depression, alcoholism, and promiscuity are just a few of those
Conklin, J. (2001). “Wicked Problems and Social Complexity.” CogNexus Institute. [Online]. Available from the World Wide Web: http://cognexus.org/wpf/wickedproblems.pdf
Gusfield, J. (2011). How Do We Decide What are Social Problems? Retrieved April 6, 2011 from http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/soc235ch02.html
Social problems exist all around us and are part of our everyday routine, we may not always see them but they are always there. It could simply be someone losing there job, a female not getting hired over a male, a male expecting a female to clean up a mess or an older adult being fired for not being fast enough, most individuals don’t think anything of it, its just a way of everyday life and we have seen it time and time again. Individuals look at issues in a narrow minded egotistical kind of way by just focusing on themselves and the cause and effect of their own personal issues. Poor me, I’m unemployed because my car broke down and I couldn’t get to work, my boss fired me and now I don’t have a job and cant fix my car. While a sociologist examines the connection between individuals and society to get a better
Joel Best explains within the textbook, Social Problems, that two diverse outlooks define one’s own understanding of a social problem. These two outlooks are: The Objectivist Outlook and The Subjectivist Outlook. The Objectivist Outlook’s approach to defining social problems attempts to “crouch the definition in terms of objectively measured characteristics” (Best 4). Although this approach seems to cover all defined harmful conditions, it tends to group conditions together that some people would believe are not harmful conditions. It also has the tendency to leave specific problems out and does not “specify what constitutes harm” (Best 8). The Subjectivist Outlook defines a social problem “in terms of people’s subjective sense that something
1) Examine the social justice perspective, including how the unequal distribution of benefits and hardships throughout the world contributes to social problems, including those that impact health.
When studying in the field of Sociology everyone is going to approach topics in a different manner. No two people are going to have the exact same view on a particular subject. There are however, three major categories in which people might choose to approach topics. The approaches are know as sociological perspectives and are the functionalist, conflict, and interactionist perspectives. These perspectives name different ways in which different people choose to analyze a subject, and how they look at a society as a whole. The following paragraphs compare and contrast the three, and identify major characteristics of each.
Theories in sociology sometime provide us with the different perspectives with which to view our social...
...analyzing a social issue because neither of the perspectives solely addresses all the possibly circumstances of an issue.
A social problem has many definitions. One way to define is that is a social condition/issue which has negative effects on an individual, our social and our physical world. A social problem does not have to be experienced by every individual to be called a problem, it comes from acknowledging that the problem exists and that a particular social condition affects a greater percentage of the population. We as sociologists and psychologists need to be able to face the one-sided reality of a social condition and need to address it as a social problem.