Sociology 2140:

Social Problems
Introduction
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…
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
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.
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
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.shtml May 12, 2007
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/publications/bulletins/1997-
000006/page03.shtml for more detail)
US Index compared to US GDP
Modified Can. Index compared
to Canadian GDP
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
Social Problems from an Indian
Perspective: (http://www.khoj.com/Society_and_Culture/Social_Problems/)

 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
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

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
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
C. Wright Mills (1959):
The Sociological Imagination
 The ability to see the relationship between an
individual’s 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.
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.”
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.
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/~goldman/socimagination.html
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 issue…we need to focus
on the larger issue, not that one person who is
unemployed, blaming him/her for his/her) situation
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).
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
Elements of Social Structure
 1. Institutions
 patterns of social relationships
 Family, media, religion, etc.

 2. Social groups
 Members have common identity
 Primary and secondary
Social Structure (cont.)
 3. Statuses:
 position in group
 Ascribed, achieved and master status

 4. Roles
 Associated with status
 rights, obligations, and expectations
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
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
 Another View: Culture as Stories
 According to George Gerbner’s (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
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 individual’s lives adversely.
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.
Ideology of Social Darwinism
 Social Darwinism was developed by Herbert
Spencer (1860’s)
 Coined the term “survival of the fittest”
 Has its origins in Charles Darwin’s 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.
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
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
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
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
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

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
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
 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
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
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
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.
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
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
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 individual’s
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
A Humanist Agenda
Criteria include:
 Improving most of the world’s people’s 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
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