Social problems

Founder of sociology

Auste Comte

Sociologist

Investigate social structures, organizations, and societies, and how people interact in these contexts

Sociology

The study of society and how people live together

Sociology looks at:

• How people behaving groups

• How and rules and roles shape what we do

• How institutions like schools and families work?

• How power, inequality and culture affect our lives.

W.E.B DuBois

• Pioneer scientific method to study racial inequality

• Developed the concept of the veil and double consciousness

• Use data to challenge scientific racism, and advocate for agency of oppressed people.

• The souls of black folk use empirical research to reveal social conditions.

Jane Adam’s

• Applied pragmatist ( solutions) and feminist perspective to her work

• Established whole house which served as a community service and natural experiment and group living and social reform

• Gathered data on immigrants and urban poor using her findings to advocate her social change

Society

Group of people who live in a certain location, share culture, connected by organized relationships and institutions.

Social construction

Something becomes normal because people in society agree to treat it that way. Even if not true.

Social Constructive Perspective

• Individuals assign meaning to the world around them

• Perceptions are influenced by social environments (societies, and time periods in which we live)

• Culture; rules, values, beliefs, and material goods made by society

• Social structure framework of society constructed through social institutions. ( EX: gender roles)

Sociological Imagination

Connecting self and society

Sociological Eye

Observing patterns

Core concepts used by sociologist

Sociological imagination and sociological eye

Core concept one: Sociological Eye

• Noticing pattern structures and social focuses in society

• Social patterns grouping by race, gender or status

Core concept two: Sociological Imagination

• Connecting personal experiences to larger social structures

(EX: is this just me, or is something bigger going on)

Personal troubles:

Focuses on our own personal

problems

Public issues

To what degree these problems relate to things happening in society

Two other ways in the concept of social imagination

Biography: individual experiences

History: story created

Social Problems

Conceptualizes as troubling issues within a society that is recognized as needing change

Social Problems is…

• Linked to inequality, power, or institutions

• Power is essential to understanding social problems

Power can…

Influence what’s considered a social problem?

How is the Sociological Imagination used?

• Not viewing problems as isolated, individual failures, and seeing them as symptoms of larger social structures.