Quest:
Lecture 2: June 10
SOCIAL
PROBLEMS
 Today’s schedule:
 Logistics:
 Essay 1 prompt
 More on Project Option 1:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world
 Thursday: Sign-in sheet for Projects—which option, which game/topic
 Topics
 Quick review
 Wrap-up: 3 sociological approaches to Soc Probs
 Next: Class inequality in America
 Nature of poverty
 Explanations for inequality
 Solutions
 One page, double-spaced, one-inch margins all around.
 Heading: NAME ONLY, NO TITLE/DATE/CLASS/ETC.
 Grading for content, organization, spelling, grammar
 Submit hard copy on Monday, June 16
 Topic:
 What do you think is the single best thing we could do to reduce poverty in
America?
 Reference ONE of the views (general or sociological)
 Be clear, concise, and precise
 A social problem is in evidence “when enough people in a society agree that a
condition exists that threatens the quality of their lives and their most cherished
values, and they also agree that something should be done to remedy that
condition” (Kornblum and Julian).
 New element here: not just quality of life, but “cherished values” meaning those most
widely-shared and deeply-felt by all members of society.
 What do we think?
1.
Social Pathology:
 Source of problem: “person blame,” deeply immoral or defective personality
 Solution: public corporal punishment/execution, permanent imprisonment
2.
Social Disorganization:
 Source: “person blame,” confused individual who hasn’t caught up with recent changes
 Solution: imprisonment replaces brutality, fines; or education, assimilation
3.
Social Structure:
 Source: “system blame,” individuals are all following the rules, but structures don’t deliver
 Solution: social change, revise the offending structure
 All 3 remain throughout time. We might apply to next topic…
 Structures a.k.a. “institutions”
 Structures include things like politics, the law, the
church, the education system, the family…
 What do all of these have in common?
 Structure can be thought of as culture that is made
more permanent
 Either because it’s formally documented,
 Or just so widespread it’s hard to imagine changing
it.
 Appears “bigger” than individual people.
 Concepts:
 Sociological views of social problems (similarities, differences)
 Functionalist, Conflict, Interactionist
 Problems with the poverty threshold
 3 soc views on poverty problem
 Terms:
 Social construction
 Welfare state
 Meritocracy
 Trends:
 Poverty in US vs. other modern countries
Sociologists agree that social problems
typically have structural causes.
But they disagree on:
1. Are structures under human control or not?
2. Are structures typically helpful or harmful?
 And to whom?
 Structures assumed to favor stability, benefitting all. Why?
 Society is like a human body. Structures are the organs. People are the cells.
 Changes throw society out of whack, but just like an organism, structures evolve
over time to deal with it.
 Structures assumed to be controlled by elites, for their exclusive benefit. Why?
 “The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle”
(Marx).
 Changes may shift the players around, but the struggle and the exploitation is
always there.
 Human activity gives rise to structures, but they can get
out of human control in weird and harmful ways.
 Society is like a runaway train sometimes, and anyone
can get stuck on board—rich or poor.
 Problems are complex to the point of
chaos. You can’t predict how
structures will evolve and interact, you
just try to respond.
1. F(x): intellectuals can spot bad trends and help
adjust structures faster.
2. Conflict: activists can help move individual
workers toward communist revolution.
3. Interactionist: we can convince individuals to
try and adjust structures.
 Interactionists’ focus on perceptions leads us to our last approach:
 Social constructionists argue that they key to solving a problem is raising it to
public awareness.
 Structures don’t naturally fix themselves.
 Elites don’t have to get away with it.
 Evidence: non-problems, non-starters…
 Media influence…
 Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZxjb4gB93A
 Watch for connections to 3 general perspectives, 3 sociological perspectives…
 Support or refute any of these?
 Poverty generally means not having enough money to get by.
 To determine who counts as “living in poverty,” the U.S. federal government sets a
poverty threshold based on the net income they think is required for a family to
survive.
 Currently set at about $24,000 for a family of four.
 2010: 39.8 million (13.2%) of Americans live in poverty.
 Critiques:
 Antiquated logic for calculation = cost of “food basket” X 3
 Does not account for regional variation!
 Many sociologists think that really 30% of Americans live in poverty.
 Why does the method of calculation matter?
1. Determines eligibility for entitlement programs like
SNAP
2. Tells society in general how much of a problem there is
 The US is now considered a welfare state:
 A significant portion of GDP spent on “safety net” for poor, aged, disabled, etc.
 Are poverty and inequality “fair”? Or is this a harm that also threatens core
American values?
 http://www.npr.org/series/306866080/war-on-poverty-50-years-later
 Societies are stratified: they sort people into status groups to distribute rewards
 No complaints when rewards match your ideological beliefs about your society.
 Possible social problem when reality ≠ ideology
 Meritocracy: belief that individuals earn their
privileges through their knowledge, ability,
and/or effort.
 Social mobility: belief that individuals can
change their status through work
 AKA people have an “achieved status” not an
“ascribed status”
 NO equality of rewards, but rather:
Equality of Opportunity
 Davis-Moore thesis: social stratification benefits society as a whole by giving
greater rewards to those that do more important work
 True? Top-paying jobs (on average):
 More valuable?
Risk/performance?
Equal opportunity?
Maybe on average we’re okay…but how much dysfunction is too much?
1.
Functionalist: the world has changed faster than U.S. structures…HOW?
 Education for new job market: STEM
2. Conflict: capitalism = rich get richer, poor get poorer
 Logic of capitalism…
 Plus the Great Recession…
3. Interactionist: individual, face-to-face interaction blocks mobility…HOW?
 Mobility is possible when you can hang out in the right circles
 But most people don’t feel comfortable trying…
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU5MtVM_zFs