what are examples of personal troubles and how can they be connected to pubic issues?
- unemployment - deskilling, job market, global pandemic
- addiction - trauma, lack or resources/support
- illness - lack of access to medical
- education - poor system, alternative reason for dropping out
definition of social problems
Any condition or behaviour that has negative consequences for large #’s of people and that is generally recognized as a condition or behaviour that needs to be addressed. To address it you must be persistent, but change is possible.
Subjective component of Social Problems
Involves the perception. There must
be a perception that a condition or behavior needs to be addressed for it to be considered a social problem.
Objective Component of Social Problems
Involves empirical evidence of the negative consequences of a social condition or behaviour. For any condition or behavior to be considered a social problem, it must have negative consequences for large numbers of people.
3 ways to start to see a change
- People need to get involved through volunteering, public service, activism, etc
- Policy makers pass laws or enact policies
- Learning/being influenced by other countries
4 stages of social movements
- Preliminary stage
- Coalescence stage
- Institutionalization stage
- Decline stage
What happens during the Preliminary stage in social movements?
People become aware of the issue and leaders in the movement begin to emerge
What happens during the Coalescence stage in social movements?
The group organizes to publicize the issue and plans to begin to raise awareness
What happens during the Institutionalization stage in social movements?
The movement is now an established organization with people in roles/duties (perhaps even paid staff).
What happens during the Decline stage in social movements?
The Movement successfully brings about the change it sought (unless it failed/faded out in a previous stage). Members lose interest &/or adopt a new movement.
What is the theoretical perspective - structural functionalism?
Views on society:
- Society = structure + function
- structures: organized social arrangements
- functions - how the needs of a society are met
- Can compare the body to society - all parts are connected & work together to serve functions and meet needs
- Society’s social institutions perform important functions to help ensure social stability.
Views on social problems:
- some social problems may meet the needs of society, for ex. crime in community creates jobs in society (police, judges, jail employees, etc)
- Social stability is necessary for a strong society
and adequate socialization and social integration
are necessary for social stability.
- Slow social change is desirable, but rapid social change threatens social order.
- Social problems weaken a society’s stability but do not reflect fundamental faults in how the society is structured.
What is the theoretical perspective - conflict theory?
- Conflict (competition) over power/resources
- Marxism: economic power by controlling means of production, how we turn resources into what we need, shared beliefs/norms/practices/emotions
- Feminism: patriarchal power by leveraging unequal gendered relations, gender differences is the central focus, gender relations = social problem
View on society:
- Society is characterized by pervasive inequality
based on social class, race, gender, and other
factors.
View on social problems:
- Social problems arise from fundamental
faults in the structure of a society and both
reflect and reinforce inequalities based on
social class, race, gender, and other
dimensions.
- Intersectionality - problems are all combined, no single issue struggle ( we do not live single issue lives)
- Far-reaching social change is needed to
reduce or eliminate social inequality and to
create an egalitarian society.
What is the theoretical perspective - symbolic interactionism?
Act toward things based on the meaning that things have - meanings derived from social interactions - dependant on and modified by an interpretive process of the people who interact with one another.
View on society:
- People construct their roles as they interact; they
do not merely learn the roles that society has set
out for them.
As this interaction occurs, individuals negotiate their definitions of the situations in which they find themselves and socially construct the reality of these situations.
- rely heavily on symbols such as words and gestures to reach a shared understanding of their interaction
View on social problems:
- Social problems arise from the interaction
of individuals.
- People who engage in socially problematic behaviors often learn these behaviors from other people.
- Individuals also learn their perceptions of
social problems from other people.
Society - Social Institutions
Traditional:
- family
- religion
- education
- gov’t
- economy
Emergent:
- sports
- mass media
- science/medicine
- military
Society - Statuses and Roles
Ascribed status:
- race, ethnicity
- age
- gender
- class
Achieved status:
- education
- occupation
- income
Society - Social Groups
Primary groups:
- family members
- close friends
- peers
Secondary groups:
- school
- church
- corporation
Material culture
- physical objects that are a part of a culture
- dress, style
- artifacts
- art work
Non-Material Culture
- religion
- values
- morals
- language
- norms: folkways, mores, taboos, laws
4 stages of Natural History of a Social Problem
- emergence & claims making
- legitimacy
- renewed claims making
- development of alternative strategies
What are 3 theoretical perspectives we cover?
- Structure functionalist
- conflict theory
- symbolic interactionist
4 stages of Natural History of a Social Problem - Emergence and Claims Making
- begins to call attention to a condition or behavior that is undesirable
and in need of remedy - tries to influence public perceptions of the problem, the reasons for it, and possible solutions to it
- Not all efforts to turn a condition
or behavior into a social problem succeed, and if they do not succeed, a social problem does not emerge
4 stages of Natural History of a Social Problem - Legitimacy
- tries to persuade the government (local, state, and/or federal) to take some action—spending and policymaking— to address the problem
- tries to convince the government that its claims about the problem are legitimate—that they make sense and are supported by empirical (research-based) evidence
4 stages of Natural History of a Social Problem - Renewed Claims Making
- social change groups often conclude that the action is too limited in goals or scope to be able to successfully address the social problem
- reasserting their claims and by criticizing the
official response they have received from the government or other established interests - may involve a fair amount of tension between the social change groups and these targets of their claims
4 stages of Natural History of a Social Problem - Development of Alternative Strategies
- social change groups often conclude that the government and
established interests are not responding adequately to their claims - may realize that these claims may fail to win an adequate response from established interests
- realization leads them to develop their own strategies for addressing the social problem
