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First quiz material
What is a social problem?
Affects large # of people
solved by collective action
Threaten values of influential groups
Whats public issues?
Impacts large # of people and typically topic of public debate
Whats personal issues?
Affects individuals and immediate surroundings
Whats sociological Imagination?
Understand relationship between personal lives and social forces
ie. Biography→history→interaction within society
Social conditions that can lead to social problems include
deviate from social norms
break down of social institutions
Social and cultural diversity
excercise of power and authority
Why does social problems arise?
They arise because everyone has different views.
What are the stages of trying ot fix social problems?
Transformation- private trouble becomes a public issue
Legitimization- issue 1st policy to try and fix
Conflict- must adjust policy
Alternative systems- find solutions outside of power
Whats an objective condition for social problems?
Situation that can be measured (unemployment rate, crime rate, economy)
Not sufficient to constitute a social problem
Whats a subjective condition in social problems?
Values play a major role (residential segregation, affordable housing)
Values can obstruct solutions if remedies violate beliefs
What are the 3 perspectives?
Functionalist, interactionalist, conflict
What is functionalist perspective?
Interlocking parts that contribute to operation as a whole on the macro level
What is the conflict perspective?
Different groups who struggle with other to attain scarce resources
Ex: Bourgeoisie and proletariat
What is the interactionist perspective?
focuses on everyday social interaction on a micro
We measure problems through…
Validity and reliability
The 5 solutions to social problems?
Prevention
Intervention
Social reform (go to choice)
Reconstruction (refine what the problem is)
Alleviate consequences
Where causing awareness for issues fail?
Leads to no action
wrong audience
Creates harm or not effective
Creates backlash
How to prevent issues with raising awareness…
Target audience as narrowly as possible
Clear call to actions
use the right messenger and theory of change
What are the 3 myths of creating a social change?
Knowledge leads to change
Change attitude= change behavior
Know what motivates someone to change
Myth 1: Knowledge
how you present info matters and make info tangible
Myth 2: Attitudes follow behavior
Must understand someone’s values for change
attitude follows behavior, they don’t predict it
Myth 3: People know what motivates them
Following social norms
no one knows what truly motivates them
Attractions to declaring war
name your enemy
uniformity
mobilization of resources: willing to work together
Downsides to declaring “war”
Complexity
Victory
Duration
Loss of unit and integrity
What is Life chances?
Oppotunities that are shaped by our class, status, and power
The colonial era when it comes to poverty…
Small communities→ many poor
Limited to acts of personal kindness
Poverty: Early industrial era
Immagration: negative attitude towards poor
Poverty: 20th century
1929 Great depression helped acknowledge poverty as a social problem
What worked for great depression…
Relief: sent out $ directly
Recover: gave people jobs in public work
Reform: created safety nets incase it happened again (Disability, social securtiy)
What was the Welfare reform…
who is “poor” must fall below FPL line and homeless
Whats ideal culture in terms of poverty?
equal opportunity for all
What is real culture in terms of poverty?
Social forces make it difficult for some people to improve
Cultural poverty is…
defined by booth how many resources people have, but also why they failed to achieve a higher economic level
Relative poverty is…
poor relative to some standard that is partially shaped by lifestyle of other citizens
Absolute poverty…
Economic level below which people are considered poor, and this level doesnt change as society on the who affluents.
What goes into absolute poverty?
Only having enough for ones basic needs
Issues of homelessness can be found in
decline in industrial jobs that pay a living wage
Jobs leaving the city where most ppl are located
Contradiction of social welfare
increase in ppl in poverty
decline in low-cost housing
deinstitutionalization
Davis-Moore theory
inequality is needed to induce the most qualified fulfill the roles and lest qualified goes to others SOCIAL DARWINISM
Herber- Gans Theory
Poverty benefits society because someone needs to do the dirty work
Poor is used as a symbol of the UNDERDOG
Conflict theory
must work to protect what we got
Interactionist theory
Blaming the victim
