assignment on social problems

Assignment on Social Problems

Social Problems  is the official publication of the The Society for the Study of Social Problems. A social problem is a condition that at least some people in a community view as being undesirable. Everyone would agree about some social problems, such as murders and DWI traffic deaths. Other social problems may be viewed as such by certain groups of people.

Introduction:

Social issues are matters which directly or indirectly affect many or all members of a society and are considered to be problems, controversies related to moral values, or both.

Social Problems is the official publication of the The Society for the Study of Social Problems. It is a quarterly journal published by University of California Press, in Berkeley, California. It was first published in 1953.

Some of the areas covered by the journal include: conflict, social action, and change; crime and juvenile delinquency; drinking and drugs; health, health policy, and health services; mental health poverty, class, and inequality; racial and ethnic minorities; sexual behavior, politics, and communities; youth, aging, and the life course. Among Sociology journals ranked by the Institute for Scientific Information, Social Problems was ranked 5th, with an impact factor of 1.796.

A social problem is a condition that at least some people in a community view as being undesirable. Everyone would agree about some social problems, such as murders and DWI traffic deaths. Other social problems may be viewed as such by certain groups of people. Teenagers who play loud music in a public park obviously do not view it as a problem, but some other people may consider it an undesirable social condition. Some nonsmokers view smoking as an undesirable social condition that should be banned or restricted in public buildings.

Every newspaper is filled with stories about undesirable social conditions. Examples include crime, violence, drug abuse, and environmental problems. Such social problems can be found at the local, state, national and international levels. You will be focusing in the Public Policy Analyst on social problems in your own community.

Specific community locations

Your own community consists of…

your school and your school district;

your village, town or city;

your county.

The four examples of social problems above could possibly exist in all of these communities. For example, there could be a problem of increased stealing within your school or throughout the school district. Likewise, local police agencies—village, town, city and county—maintain statistics on crimes such as thefts within their jurisdiction.

When you describe the social problem in step 1, you must specify the geographical setting. Some examples include Lehman High School, the Bronx High School District, the Bronx, New York City, or New York State. As mentioned before, PPA will be used only for local and state social problems.

When informal relationships and sanctions prove insufficient to establish and maintain a desired social order, a government or a sovereign state may impose more formalized or stricter systems of social control. With institutional and legal machinery at their disposal, agents of the State can compel populations to conform to codes, and can opt to punish or to attempt to reform those who do not conform.

Authorities employ various mechanisms to regulate (encouraging or discouraging) certain behaviors in general. Governing or administering agencies may for example codify rules into laws, police citizens and visitors to ensure that they comply with those laws, and implement other policies and practices which legislators or administrators have prescribed with the aim of discouraging or preventing crime. In addition, authorities provide remedies and sanctions, and collectively these constitute a criminal justice system. Legal sanctions vary widely in their severity, they may include (for example) incarceration of temporary character aimed at reforming the convict. Some jurisdictions have penal codes written to inflict permanent harsh punishments: legal mutilation, capital punishment or life without parole.

The sociologist Richard Quinney has written about the relationship between society and crime. When Quinney states “crime is a social phenomenon” he envisages both how individuals conceive crime and how populations perceive it, based on societal norms. The label of “crime” and the accompanying social stigma normally confine their scope to those activities seen as injurious to the general population or to the State, including some that cause serious loss or damage to individuals. Those who apply the labels of “crime” or “criminal” intend to assert the hegemony of a dominant population, or to reflect a consensus of condemnation for the identified behavior and to justify any punishments prescribed by the State (in the event that standard processing tries and convicts an accused person of a crime).

  Feminism:

Feminists are persons of either sex, or females only (in which case males may be profeminists), who believe in feminism .

According to Maggie Humm and Rebecca Walker, the history of feminism can be divided into three waves. The first wave transpired in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the second occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, and the third extends from the 1990s to the present. Feminist theory emerged from these feminist movements. It is manifest in a variety of disciplines such as feminist geography, feminist history, feminist theology, and feminist literary criticism.

Feminism has changed traditional perspectives on a wide range of areas in human life, from culture to law. Feminist activists have campaigned for women’s legal rights—such as rights of contract, property rights, and voting rights—while also promoting women’s rights to bodily integrity and autonomy, abortion rights, and reproductive rights. They have struggled to protect women and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment, and rape. On economic matters, feminists have advocated for workplace rights, including maternity leave and equal pay, and against other forms of gender-specific discrimination against women. Although the terms feminism and feminist did not gain widespread use until the 1970s, they were already being used in public parlance much earlier; for instance, Katharine Hepburn speaks of the “feminist movement” in the 1942 film Woman of the Year .

During much of its history, feminist movements and theories were led predominantly by middle-class white women from Western Europe and North America. However, at least since Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech to American feminists, women of other races have proposed alternative feminisms. This trend accelerated in the 1960s with the civil rights movement in the United States and the collapse of European colonialism in Africa, the Caribbean, parts of Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Since that time, women in former European colonies and the Third World have proposed “Post-colonial” and “Third World” feminisms. Some Postcolonial feminists, such as Chandra Talpade Mohanty, are critical of Western feminism for being ethnocentric. Black feminists, such as Angela Davis and Alice Walker, share this view.

While most drugs are legal to possess, many governments regulate the manufacture, distribution, marketing, and sale of some drugs, for instance through a prescription system. Only certain drugs are banned with a “blanket prohibition” against all use. However, a continuing problem remains in effect, as the prohibited drugs continue to be available through illegal trade, see illegal drug trade, also known as the Black Market. The most widely banned substances include psychoactive drugs, although blanket prohibition also extends to some steroids and other drugs. Many governments do not criminalize the possession of a limited quantity of certain drugs for personal use, while still prohibiting their sale or manufacture, or possession in large quantities. Some laws set a specific volume of a particular drug, above which is considered ipso jure to be evidence of trafficking or sale of the drug.

Islamic countries mostly prohibit the use of alcohol. Many non-Islamic governments levy a sin tax on alcohol and tobacco products, and restrict alcohol and tobacco from sales or gifts to minors. Other common restrictions include bans on outdoor drinking and indoor smoking. The United States (1920–1933), Finland (1919–1932), Norway (1916–1927), Canada, Iceland (1915–1922) and the USSR (1914–1925) had alcohol prohibition

This condition progressively reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumors. HIV is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, and breast milk.

This transmission can involve anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion, contaminated hypodermic needles, exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids.

AIDS is now a pandemic. In 2007, it was estimated that 33.2 million people lived with the disease worldwide, and that AIDS killed an estimated 2.1 million people, including 330,000 children. Over three-quarters of these deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa.

Genetic research indicates that HIV originated in west-central Africa during the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. AIDS was first recognized by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1981 and its cause, HIV, identified in the early 1980s.

Although treatments for AIDS and HIV can slow the course of the disease, there is currently no vaccine or cure. Antiretroviral treatment reduces both the mortality and the morbidity of HIV infection, but these drugs are expensive and routine access to antiretroviral medication is not available in all countries. Due to the difficulty in treating HIV infection, preventing infection is a key aim in controlling the AIDS pandemic, with health organizations promoting safe sex and needle-exchange programmes in attempts to slow the spread of the virus.

Pornography:

Pornography or porn is the portrayal of explicit sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual excitement and erotic satisfaction.

Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video, or video game. However, when sexual acts are performed for a live audience, by definition, it is not pornography, as the term applies to the depiction of the act, rather than the act itself. Thus, portrayals such as sex shows and striptease are not classified as pornography.

A pornographic model poses for pornographic photographs. A pornographic actor, also called porn star , acts in pornographic films. In cases where few actor skills are required a performer in pornographic films is also called a pornographic model.

Pornography has often been subject to censorship and legal restraints on publication on grounds of obscenity. Such grounds and the very definition of what is or is not pornography have differed in different historical, cultural and national contexts.

Over the past few decades, an immense industry for the production and consumption of pornography has grown, with the increasing use of the VCR, the DVD, and the Internet, as well as the emergence of social attitudes more tolerant of sexual portrayals. Amateur pornography has become widely popular and generally distributed via the Internet for free.

In criminal law, rape is an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with another person without that person’s consent. Outside of law, the term is often used interchangeably with sexual assault, a closely related (but in most jurisdictions technically distinct) form of assault typically including rape and other forms of non-consensual sexual activity.

The rate of reporting, prosecution and convictions for rape varies considerably in different jurisdictions. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (1999) estimated that 91% of U.S. rape victims are female and 9% are male, with 99% of the offenders being male.

In one survey of women, only two percent of respondents who stated they were sexually assaulted said that the assault was perpetrated by a stranger. Several studies argue that male-male prisoner rape might be the most common and least-reported form of rape, with some studies suggesting such rapes are substantially more common in both per-capita and raw-number totals than male-female rapes in the general population.

When part of a widespread and systematic practice, rape and sexual slavery are recognized as crimes against humanity and war crimes. Rape is also recognized as an element of the crime of genocide when committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a targeted ethnic group.

Child Labor:

In many developed countries, it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works (excluding household chores or school-related work). An employer is usually not permitted to hire a child below a certain minimum age. This minimum age depends on the country and the type of work involved. States ratifying the Minimum Age Convention adopted by the International Labour Organization in 1973, have adopted minimum ages varying from 14 to 16. Child labor laws in the United States set the minimum age to work in an establishment without restrictions and without parents’ consent at age 16.

The incidence of child labor in the world decreased from 25 to 10 percent between 1960 and 2003, according to the World Bank.

Racism is the belief that race is a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. As a practice, it means the same thing as racial discrimination. In the case of institutional racism, certain racial groups may be denied rights or benefits, or receive preferential treatment.

Racial discrimination typically points out taxonomic differences between different groups of people, although anyone may be discriminated against on an ethnic or cultural basis, independently of their somatic differences. According to the United Nations conventions, there is no distinction between the term racial discrimination and ethnic discrimination .

Bullying is a form of abuse. It comprises repeated acts over time that involves a real or perceived imbalance of power with the more powerful individual or group abusing those who are less powerful. The power imbalance may be social power and/or physical power. The victim of bullying is sometimes referred to as a target.

Bullying consists of three basic types of abuse – emotional, verbal and physical. It typically involves subtle methods of coercion such as psychological manipulation. Bullying can be defined in many different ways. Although the UK currently has no legal definition of bullying, some US states have laws against it.

Bullying in school and the workplace is also referred to as peer abuse. Robert W. Fuller has analyzed bullying in the context of rankism.

Bullying can occur in any context in which human beings interact with each other. This includes school, church, the workplace, home and neighborhoods. It is even a common push factor in migration. Bullying can exist between social groups, social classes and even between countries (see Jingoism).

Divorce (or the dissolution of marriage ) is the final termination of a marital union, cancelling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties. In most countries divorce requires the sanction of a court or other authority in a legal process. The legal process for divorce may also involve issues of spousal support, child custody, child support, distribution of property and division of debt.

In Western countries, a divorce does not declare a marriage null and void, as in an annulment, but it does cancel the married status of the parties. Where monogamy is law, this allows each former partner to marry another. Where polygyny is legal, divorce allows the woman to marry another. Divorce laws vary considerably around the world. Divorce is not permitted in some countries, such as in Malta and in the Philippines, though an annulment is permitted. From 1971 to 1996, four European countries legalised divorce: Spain, Italy, Portugal and the Republic of Ireland.

Conclusion: Societies differ in resources, culture, tradition, wealth, and political power. The same could be said of people. Despite these differences, societies and people share the potential to develop and overcome historical limitations. It is not easy to define this capacity for change in the 1990s, but it includes the expectations, beliefs, and values that cause people to look ahead, to take actions, and to hope that tomorrow will be different, better, and more rewarding than today. This capacity, not easy to measure, is often behind most processes of human change from the migration to urban centre to changes in social mobility, from cultural assimilation to political mobilization, or to the emergence of new forms of community organization. One of the main challenges of the current human development approach is to make this capacity the driving force for social reform.

Social policies are an effective way to face this challenge. Although there is no question about the importance of measures such as antipoverty programs, social integration efforts, political reforms, and employment programs, more than ever before there is an urgent need to design and implement social policies that explicitly address the goals of human development. This means that the conception and operation of social polices must be looked at from a holistic, integrated perspective. This in itself is a major challenge in the prevailing circumstances of crisis of development paradigms, social frustration, economic incertitude, political disorientation, and external conditions, particularly in developing countries. At the same time, however, it seems more important than ever before that these countries have means and opportunities at their disposal to improve the social and human development conditions of their societies.

This perception, perhaps optimistic, emerges, in part, as a result of examining the social reform processes — decentralization, institutional reform, and democratization — under way in countries like Canada and those of the Latin American region. The differences among these countries are indeed many, and common conclusions about these societies, their social reform approaches, and their policy systems cannot be easily drawn from a comparative perspective. In spite of these differences, however, there are also similarities that help to identify lessons and, above all, to identify words of caution about the opportunities and pitfalls that can be faced in social policymaking in a world where globalization has become the predominant context of human development.

The following sections focus on some of the strategic areas for analysis and research on social policy that have emerged from the previous chapters. Although the reality of social reform in Canada and Latin America is too fluid to provide an exhaustive overview of the issues, opportunities, and prospects these countries face, an attempt is made to outline the main points to help set a research agenda on the principal topics related to social reform, the policymaking processes, the economic factors influencing social policymaking, and the needs for policy evaluation. Some ideas are also advanced about how a multifaceted research strategy might contribute by providing timely and relevant knowledge to reduce the current uncertainty affecting public policy in these countries.

Psychopaths

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Chapter 1: What Is a Social Problem?

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Social Problems Copyright © by Kim Puttman. All Rights Reserved.

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25 Major Social Problems (Examples)

Social Problems constitute a key topic in Sociology. They refer to different kinds of troubles negatively affecting a society, its social structure , and its values.

Social problems can consist of global issues such as poverty, displacement, and terrorism. They can also include issues in a specific society or region, such as the pressing homelessness issue in Seattle and Portland.

Unlike personal problems or natural disasters, social problems are created by society and they can be solved by it.

Definition of Social Problems

In simple terms, social problems are issues that harm a group of people in the society.

They also refer to:

“Social conditions, processes, societal arrangements or attitudes that are commonly perceived to be undesirable, negative, and threatening certain values or interests…” (Jamrozik & Nocella, 1998, p. 1)

Social problems can be seen in a single country or affect the international global society. They can affect the society through harming its harmony, stability, safety or freedom.

Unlike physical issues or natural problems, social problems are related to social processes and social interactions . For instance, while malnutrition might seem like a physical condition, it is actually a social problem resulting from war, conflict, poverty, or abuse.

Most of the social problems are results of social inequality and its implications (Jamrozik & Nocella, 1998). For example, socioeconomic inequality leads to lack of affordable housing and homelessness.

A social problem can be identified by three main characteristics:

• Social Reasons: A condition must have social reason in order to be considered a social problem.
• Negative Impacts: A social problem should have a negative impact on the society by threatening its safety, freedom, or other values.
• Social Solutions: A social problem should be a condition that can be ended by social solutions (Jamrozik & Nocella, 1998). 

Quick Examples of Social Problems

• Unemployment and Underemployment : While unemployment refers to not having a job, underemployed people only have part-time, casual, or temporary work. Both unemployment and underemployment are social problems on a global level. They harm individuals and communities by limiting their productivity and harming their socioeconomic status.
• Racial discrimination : Racial discrimination includes all kinds of hostile treatment against an individual or a group based on their race. It is a social problem resulting from racial inequalities. Racial discrimination leads to unfair social and economic conditions for individuals and communities who are discriminated against.
• Housing Crisis : Lack of affordable housing is an increasing social problem which affects most of the Canadian cities as well as parts of the United States and Europe. It includes rising costs of housing and renting, and it can lead to homelessness.
• Malnutrition : Lack of access to nutritious and affordable food is a social problem that affects various societies globally. While in countries like Yemen, malnutrition is a result of war and conflict, in some other countries such as the United States it is a result of growing income inequality.
• Healthcare Shortage : Lack of access to timely and quality healthcare is a social problem that is increasingly affecting Canadian and American societies, leading to extremely long waiting times for seeing a doctor. It also affects the overall quality of mental and physical healthcare negatively.
• Displacement : Forced migration and displacement of individuals from their home countries is a social problem on a global level. Every year, thousands of people have to become refugees because of wars, conflicts, poverty, and climate change. 
• Political Corruption : Political corruption refers to the abuse of power by government officials to gain personal benefits. It is a social problem which leads to mistrust and suspicion towards political authorities. 
• Substance Abuse: The problem with substance abuse is often that it make society less safe, and can bring instability and harm into households with vulnerable people.
• Obesity: Poor quality food in stores, high cost of fresh food, and poor social education campaigns can lead to obesity which lowers life expectancy.
• Social Isolation: Social isolation often happens to elderly people or vulnerable populations with low social capital. Their isolation can be detrimental to their mental health.
• Glass Ceiling : As a result of the social injustices in hiring practices , women make up just 19% of executive positions and 6% of S&P 500 CEO positions.
• Gender Pay Gap: Women earn 83 cents for every dollar men earn. This is due to a range of complex social and cultural factors .
• Ageism : This involves the mistreatment or bias against people due to their age. Up to 64 percent of older workers say they have seen age discrimination in the workplace.
• Gerrymandering : This involves the rigging of electoral districts to preference one part over another. The USA is ranked as a flawed democracy due to gerrymandering.
• Gender in Education: In the developing world, millions of girls are denied an education due to gender discrimination.
• Forced Marriage: There are over 15 million people forced to marry against their will around the world. 88% of the victims are women.
• Religious Discrimination: Christians face government-sanctioned discrimination in 168 countries . Muslims face government-sanctioned discrimination in 121 countries.
• Child Poverty: Children from poor families in the USA perform 10% lower , on average, in tests scores, and face more mental health issues in childhood.
• Unequal Service Delivery: Rural and remote areas often suffer most. For example, there are still 71 remote Indigenous communities in Canada without clean drinking water.
• Human Trafficking: Vulnerable people are often taken from their homes illegally or with coersion so they can work for low wages. There are over 20 million victims of human trafficking worldwide today.
• Stereotyping: Gender, racial, class-based, and other stereotypes continue to work to suppress people of various social identities.
• Child Labor: There are 160 million victims of forced labor in the world today. Often, this is because families are too poor to send their children to school.
• Disability Discrimination: People with disabilities are more likely to face discrimination and physical threats, and less likely to be taken seriously by police.
• Digital Divide: Poor access to technology is increasing the gap between rich and poor. Only 39% of people in Africa have access to the internet, compared to 94% of people in the United States.
• Colonial Practices: Indigenous people account for 5% of the global population but make up 15% of the world’s people in extreme poverty.

5 Best Examples

1. social isolation.

Social isolation is a pressing social problem for elderly people. It occurs when elderly people lose contact with their families or their families die out, and no friends or community members are available to step in to help.

It can lead elderly people to fall into depression and, in worse case scenarios, mean they do not have the support to survive in their own homes. Some societies deal with this through free or subsidized assisted living, while others do not have sufficient infrastructure and policies in place to alleviate social isolation.

Note that social isolation may occur at younger ages, especially among the disabled, neurodivergent, and others who struggle to interact with the community.

2. Malnutrition

Malnutrition is a significant social problem both in developed and developing countries, threatening the safety and functioning of these societies.

Many communities in the United States suffer from malnutrition as a result of living in food deserts: Areas which do not have affordable grocery stores or other sources of healthy nutrition in close proximity (Christian et al., 2020).

Another reason for malnutrition is having an eating disorder, such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorder. Studies show that eating disorders are an ongoing problem among teenagers, particularly teenage girls (Chamay-Weber et al., 2005).

3. Substance Abuse

Substance abuse is a social problem that causes thousands of deaths in Canada and other parts of the world (Rehm et al., 2006).

It also harms the society by causing healthcare costs, law enforcement costs, and loss of safety and productivity (Rehm et al., 2006).

Studies show that substance abuse closely interact with other social problems includng lack of access to proper mental healthcare and homelessness (Folsom et al., 2005). Increasingly, society is addressing this addiction as a mental health problem rather than a criminal one in order to help people to recover.

4. Housing Crisis

Housing crisis refers to the shortage of affordable, safe, and available housing and shelter options in a region. It also includes more specific social problems such as homelessness and housing insecurity.

Housing crisis has been prevalent in several North American and European cities for a long time.

However, recent global health events have worsened the crisis by increasing housing prices and rents in multiple countries such as the United States and Turkey (Li & Zhang, 2021; Subaşı & Baycan, 2022).

As a social problem, the housing crisis negatively affects the society by adding to the existing socioeconomic inequalities and making disadvantaged communities more vulnerable.

5. Displacement

Forced migration and displacement are global social problems which currently affect more than 89 million people worldwide (UNHCR, 2022).

Each year, millions of people have to escape from their home countries because of wars, conflicts, persecution, or climate change (UNHCR, 2022).

As social problems, forced migration and displacement reflect the injustices faced by refugees and asylum seekers who experience unsafe living conditions.

Thousands of asylum seekers lose their lives by drowning in the Mediterranean Sea each year while trying to reach Europe (Statista, 2021).

In many cases, refugees continue to face challenges even after reaching a safe country.  In this sense displacement also interacts with other social problems such as racial discrimination.

Social problems refer to various types of issues and troubles that negatively affect a society’s safety, freedom, harmony, and other values.

Social problems are different from individual, physical, and natural problems as they have societal roots. They are social conditions that harm or threaten the society in any way. They can be solved through social means and measures.

Social problems can exist in one specific society, or they can affect multiple societies globally. Examples of contemporary social problems include poverty, homelessness, and displacement.

It is important to study and understand social problems as they illustrate how different forms of social inequalities can harm the society in various ways.

Chamay-Weber, C., Narring, F., & Michaud, P. A. (2005). Partial eating disorders among adolescents: A review. Journal of adolescent health , 37 (5), 416-426.

Christian, V. J., Miller, K. R., & Martindale, R. G. (2020). Food insecurity, malnutrition, and the microbiome. Current nutrition reports , 9 (4), 356-360.

Folsom, D. P., Hawthorne, W., Lindamer, L., Gilmer, T., Bailey, A., Golshan, S., … & Jeste, D. V. (2005). Prevalence and risk factors for homelessness and utilization of mental health services among 10,340 patients with serious mental illness in a large public mental health system. American Journal of Psychiatry , 162 (2), 370-376.

Jamrozik, A., & Nocella, L. (1998). The sociology of social problems: Theoretical perspectives and methods of intervention . Cambridge University Press.

Rehm, J., Baliunas, D., Brochu, S., Fischer, B., Gnam, W., Patra, J., … & Taylor, B. (2006). The costs of substance abuse in Canada 2002.

Statista. (2021, September 17). Deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea 2021 . Statista. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/1082077/deaths-of-migrants-in-the-mediterranean-sea/

UNHCR. (2022). Global Trends . UNHCR. Retrieved from https://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends

Sanam Vaghefi (PhD Candidate)

Sanam Vaghefi (BSc, MA) is a Sociologist, educator and PhD Candidate. She has several years of experience at the University of Victoria as a teaching assistant and instructor. Her research on sociology of migration and mental health has won essay awards from the Canadian Sociological Association and the IRCC. Currently, she is am focused on supporting students online under her academic coaching and tutoring business Lingua Academic Coaching OU.

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Chris Drew (PhD)

This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.

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2 thoughts on “25 Major Social Problems (Examples)”

Dear Sanam Vaghefi, I am a retired Environmental Engineer, working on a book project now. I am trying to write a chapter on the relationships between social problems and environmental issues, to suggest how low income communities can work on both kinds of these issues on self-help basis. I congratulate you for writing such a beautiful and sensible article, which is the best piece of text I found on the internet, and which is EXACTLY what I needed. I wish you best luck in your PhD research. Please accept my sincere thanks for sharing your valuable effort online. You are a hero. My thanks also to Dr. Chris Drew, and your supervisors, and every one who is helping you! If I succeed in completing the book, I will proudly cite your name where I use points from your text! Regards, Wali

I read flowed and I agreed to 100% these liste of social problems

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Making Social Problems Social Solutions

Social Problems has problems. The class title alone, “Social Problems,” is pessimistic and despair inspiring. On top of that most texts (and most classes if we want to keep it real) are 99% focused on diagnosing the problems our society faces and their social causes. Furthermore, we reify social problems when we disconnect them from everyday “real” world students live in. Should we really be surprised when students call the course Doom & Gloom 101? In a cruel irony, social problems taught this way [paralyzes students] with despair, mystifies the causes of social problems in our students’ lives, and subsequently reproduces or at least exacerbates the social problems the course was designed to tackle. Damn.

To fix social problems’ problems I’ve devised a semester long project that will empower your students to identify, analyze, and solve a social problem facing their community. Furthermore, this semester long project requires students to critically analyze empirical research, synthesize their analysis, and frame their findings in a way that is accessible to the public. Pairing this activity with a “social solutions” mindset inspires students to be activists in their community.

Nuts & Bolts of the Project

The semester long project is really five separate, but interlocking assignments. Two of the assignments are group projects and three of them are individual assignments. I break up the class into groups of five students. Students are then charged with finding a social problem they are all interested in learning more about. Students can pick any social problem they like, but it must be 1) social in nature and 2) they have to be willing to adopt a system-blame approach to the problem as opposed to a person-blame approach. 1 After students settle on a topic I sit with them and help them develop their idea and supply them with any sociological jargon that may be helpful in their search for scholarly resources.

Students hate group work because of freeloaders, so these assignments are designed for students to be graded for their independent work before they are asked to use it in group work. For instance, students work together to create a group “fact sheet” based off of 10 peer reviewed sources. Before they start this group project each student must turn in a “Sources & Synopsis” assignment that asks them to find two peer reviewed sources and write a one page synopsis about it. That way when the five students meet to work on the fact sheet each student must have two sources in hand and be ready to share a synopsis of the article.

Overview of Assignments

DOWNLOAD ALL 5 ASSIGNMENTS HERE

Sources & Synopsis This first assignment asks students to find two peer reviewed sources about their sociological topic. This assignment affords me the opportunity to teach students about the peer-review process, how to do scholarly research, and how to think about their social problem in sociological terms (i.e. the jargon & concepts used in sociological research).

Group Fact Sheet 2 The second assignment has the five students pool their peer reviewed sources together and create a “fact sheet”. The fact sheet is designed to be accessible to the general public while maintaining a solid ASA citation form. Students are encouraged to include images and present their information in a visually appealing way. The fact sheets must include information about the social problem, debates or conflicting information within the scholarly community, and (most importantly) (Inter)National, State, and local resources so that a reader of the fact sheet could do something to mitigate the problem if they were so inspired by the fact sheet.

Social Institutions Analysis Where does this social problem come from and what could be done about it at the macro level? These are the two base questions of this assignment. Students are expected to dive into their system-blame analysis and explain how our social institutions create, reinforce, and exacerbate their social problem. I ask students to think like a conflict theorist and identify the benefactors of their social problem and the oppressed. You could ask students to use any other theory, but I find that students in this low level class struggle with finding their own theory and seem to have the strongest grasp on conflict theory. What I like about this assignment is, for students to do well on this assignment they must have truly read their scholarly sources, understood them, and then drawn their own connections between them. This paper really tests their ability to synthesize and evaluate their sources.

Finding Local Solutions & Taking Action Now that they understand the social and institutional causes of their social problem, students are asked to take action in reducing their social problem. They have to come up with a course of action independently, pitch it to me, and then carry it out by semester’s end. The social action needs to only satisfy two criteria. 1) it reduces their social problem in a meaningful way and 2) the action is verifiable. In the past students have led food drives, volunteered at domestic violence shelters, created a pamphlet on ways to avoid drinking and driving, and even carried out a letter writing campaign. Students then write a paper about their experiences and why they feel it made a positive impact.

Group Presentation The project wraps up with a group presentation where students inform their peers about their social problem. Students relay the information they collected for their fact sheet, their social institutions analysis, and they discuss the social action they took. I have students do this during finals week.

A Couple of Issues

This isn’t a paint-by-numbers assignment and despite all the pedagogical value assignments like this have, some students hate choose-your-own-adventure assignments. I implore my students to see that the world they will graduate into doesn’t need people who can follow directions, but leaders who can create their own directions. Most students passionately accept the challenge, some hate my guts. Such is life.

You should also be aware that students may inadvertently recreate the oppression they seek to ameliorate. If students fall into a person-blame approach it’s easy to take points away because they didn’t follow the directions, but sometimes it’s not that cut and dry. I had a group of students lead a letter writing campaign targeting the Georgia State lawyer responsible for prosecuting child support non-payments. On the surface it seems like a good thing; make dads accept the financial responsibility of parenthood. However, it also disproportionately vilifies low income men. Some men don’t pay child support because they are deadbeats, some don’t pay because they are unable to. I had my students address this issue in their papers and I asked them to present an argument from both sides of this issue. They did an excellent job and I think learned a great deal from it.

1. I tell my students during the first week of class that both a person-blame and a system-blame approach have value. That regardless of the social problem there are systemic causes and issues of personal responsibility. I argue that systemic causes are more significant than many students think they are. I also explain that this class is focused on Sociological analyses of social problems and therefore we will almost exclusively focus on system-blame approaches. I end by saying that there is no shortage of person-blame in the media, politics, and the news, so they should have no problem finding a venue for their person-blame energies.

2. Have to thank Laci Fiala , Katie Slauson-Blevins , and April Schueths for this assignment. I lifted whole portions of these fine teachers excellent assignment. Thanks!

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Social Issues Research Paper: Assignment Guidelines

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Essential Question

• What social issues impact the way that you live as an individual and what are the responsibilities of your role in society as a whole ?
• When should an individual take a stand against what he/she believes to be an injustice? What are the most effective ways to do this?

Prompt: Research, explore, and examine policy, actions, merits of debate, assumptions, and factual evidence on a social justice, human rights, or environmental justice issue. Write an argumentative research paper that explores the different ways that you as an individual can have an impact on the issue.

Objective: Students will produce a 2-3 page persuasive research essay on the approved topic. Project should thoroughly support topic with cited sources and provide new insight.

Requirements : Sources must be obtained from library books, online research databases, and approved websites. If the reliability of a source is questionable, consult with your AHS librarians.

• Consult and cite from two sources in  MLA format from school library databases, books and approved websites ONLY.
• We will highlight and annotate directly into the article from Opposing Viewpoints. Make sure to upload to OneDrive after you finish reading and taking notes in the article.
• All information should come from a variety of reliable, authoritative sources and be documented in final essay ( in-text citations ). If not sure, ask and verify.
• Find the author's key words and images
• Mark up this section by coloring and highlighting main ideas and evidence within the text you paste
• Explain what you pasted in the first box (quote box) in your own words
• What have you learned from the evidence collected?
• What do you wonder about?
• What questions can you follow up on?
• Time is limited so everyone is encouraged to work on research during class and out of class.
• All research will be turned in electronically via NoodleTools, however, essay will be submitted as a hard copy.

TEKS: (10)  Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Persuasive Text. Students analyze, make inferences and draw conclusions about persuasive text and provide evidence from text to support their analysis. Students are expected to: (A)  evaluate the merits of an argument, action, or policy by analyzing the relationships (e.g., implication, necessity, sufficiency) among evidence, inferences, assumptions, and claims in text; and (B)  draw conclusions about the credibility of persuasive text by examining its implicit and stated assumptions about an issue as conveyed by the specific use of language. (20)  Research/Research Plan. Students ask open-ended research questions and develop a plan for answering them. Students are expected to: (A)  brainstorm, consult with others, decide upon a topic, and formulate a major research question to address the major research topic; and (B)  formulate a plan for engaging in in-depth research on a complex, multi-faceted topic. (21)  Research/Gathering Sources. Students determine, locate, and explore the full range of relevant sources addressing a research question and systematically record the information they gather. Students are expected to: (A)  follow the research plan to gather evidence from experts on the topic and texts written for informed audiences in the field, distinguishing between reliable and unreliable sources and avoiding over-reliance on one source; (B)  systematically organize relevant and accurate information to support central ideas, concepts, and themes, outline ideas into conceptual maps/timelines, and separate factual data from complex inferences; and (C)  paraphrase, summarize, quote, and accurately cite all researched information according to a standard format (e.g., author, title, page number), differentiating among primary, secondary, and other sources. (22)  Research/Synthesizing Information. Students clarify research questions and evaluate and synthesize collected information. Students are expected to: (A)  modify the major research question as necessary to refocus the research plan; (B)  differentiate between theories and the evidence that supports them and determine whether the evidence found is weak or strong and how that evidence helps create a cogent argument; and (C)  critique the research process at each step to implement changes as the need occurs and is identified.  

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Education Standards

Louisiana common course catalogue.

Learning Domain: Sociology

Standard: Social Problems

A note to the Instructor

Canvas course export, chapter 10 assignment - marriage and divorce rates, chapter 10 powerpoint, chapter 10 quiz, chapter 11 assignment: a prison by any other name, chapter 11 assignment - to be formal, or not to be, chapter 11 powerpoint, chapter 11 quiz, chapter 12 assignment - the sociology of work and the economy, chapter 12 powerpoint, chapter 12 quiz, chapter 13 assignment - sociological theoretical perspectives on health and health care, chapter 13 powerpoint, chapter 13 quiz, chapter 14 assignment - sociological perspectives on urbanization, chapter 14 powerpoint, chapter 14 quiz, chapter 15 assignment - population and the environment activity, chapter 15 powerpoint, chapter 15 quiz, chapter 16 assignment - terrorist groups, chapter 16 powerpoint, chapter 16 quiz, chapter 1 assignment - identifying social probelms, chapter 1 powerpoint, chapter 1 quiz, chapter 2 assignment - community needs and solutions, chapter 2 powerpoint, chapter 2 quiz, chapter 3 assignment - brown eye blue eye experiment, chapter 3 assignment - intergroup relations continuum part 1, chapter 3 powerpoint, chapter 3 quiz, chapter 3 resource - intergroup continuum part 2, chapter 4 assignment - gender inequality is good, chapter 4 powerpoint, chapter 4 quiz, chapter 5 assignment - the sociology of sexual orientation, chapter 5 powerpoint, chapter 5 quiz, chapter 6 assignment - aging and ageism, chapter 6 powerpoint, chapter 6 quiz, chapter 7 assignment: chasing the dragon, chapter 7 powerpoint, chapter 7 quiz, chapter 8 assignment - can a crime be victimless, chapter 8 assignment - crime and justice activity, chapter 8 assignment - the death penalty reading, chapter 8 powerpoint, chapter 8 quiz, chapter 9 assignment - hookup culture, chapter 9 powerpoint, chapter 9 quiz, social problems syllabus (in-class), social problems syllabus (online), oer social problems (sociology).

OER Social Problems Course 

Please feel free to take/modify/use all or a few of the resources provided in the OER. 

All resources licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License by Katie Cali, except where noted.

Chapter 1: Understanding Social Problems

Contact LOUIS for quiz answer set. 

Chapter 2: Poverty

Chapter 3: racial and ethnic inequality, chapter 4: gender inequality, chapter 5: sexual orientation and inequality, chapter 6: aging and ageism, chapter 7: alcohol and other drugs, chapter 8: crime and criminal justice, chapter 9: sexual behavior, chapter 10: the changing family, chapter 11: schools and education, chapter 12: work and the economy, chapter 13: health and health care, chapter 14: urban and rural problems, chapter 15: population and the environment, chapter 16: war and terrorism, instructor resources.

Contact LOUIS for quiz answer sets. 

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1.4 Doing Research on Social Problems

Learning objectives.

• List the major advantages and disadvantages of surveys, observational studies, and experiments.
• Explain why scholars who study social problems often rely on existing data.

Sound research is an essential tool for understanding the sources, dynamics, and consequences of social problems and possible solutions to them. This section briefly describes the major ways in which sociologists gather information about social problems. Table 1.2 “Major Sociological Research Methods” summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

Table 1.2 Major Sociological Research Methods

The survey is the most common method by which sociologists gather their data. The Gallup poll is perhaps the most well-known example of a survey and, like all surveys, gathers its data with the help of a questionnaire that is given to a group of respondents . The Gallup poll is an example of a survey conducted by a private organization, but sociologists do their own surveys, as does the government and many organizations in addition to Gallup. Many surveys are administered to respondents who are randomly chosen and thus constitute a random sample . In a random sample, everyone in the population (whether it be the whole US population or just the population of a state or city, all the college students in a state or city or all the students at just one college, etc.) has the same chance of being included in the survey. The beauty of a random sample is that it allows us to generalize the results of the sample to the population from which the sample comes. This means that we can be fairly sure of the behavior and attitudes of the whole US population by knowing the behavior and attitudes of just four hundred people randomly chosen from that population.

Some surveys are face-to-face surveys, in which interviewers meet with respondents to ask them questions. This type of survey can yield much information, because interviewers typically will spend at least an hour asking their questions, and a high response rate (the percentage of all people in the sample who agree to be interviewed), which is important to be able to generalize the survey’s results to the entire population. On the downside, this type of survey can be very expensive and time consuming to conduct.

Surveys are very useful for gathering various kinds of information relevant to social problems. Advances in technology have made telephone surveys involving random-digit dialing perhaps the most popular way of conducting a survey.

plantronicsgermany – Encore520 call center man standing – CC BY-ND 2.0.

Because of these drawbacks, sociologists and other researchers have turned to telephone surveys. Most Gallup polls are conducted over the telephone. Computers do random-digit dialing, which results in a random sample of all telephone numbers being selected. Although the response rate and the number of questions asked are both lower than in face-to-face surveys (people can just hang up the phone at the outset or let their answering machine take the call), the ease and low expense of telephone surveys are making them increasingly popular. Surveys done over the Internet are also becoming more popular, as they can reach many people at very low expense. A major problem with web surveys is that their results cannot necessarily be generalized to the entire population because not everyone has access to the Internet.

Surveys are used in the study of social problems to gather information about the behavior and attitudes of people regarding one or more problems. For example, many surveys ask people about their use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs or about their experiences of being unemployed or in poor health. Many of the chapters in this book will present evidence gathered by surveys carried out by sociologists and other social scientists, various governmental agencies, and private research and public interest firms.

Experiments

Experiments are the primary form of research in the natural and physical sciences, but in the social sciences they are for the most part found only in psychology. Some sociologists still use experiments, however, and they remain a powerful tool of social research.

The major advantage of experiments, whether they are done in the natural and physical sciences or in the social sciences, is that the researcher can be fairly sure of a cause-and-effect relationship because of the way the experiment is set up. Although many different experimental designs exist, the typical experiment consists of an experimental group and a control group , with subjects randomly assigned to either group. The researcher does something to the experimental group that is not done to the control group. If the two groups differ later in some variable, then it is safe to say that the condition to which the experimental group was subjected was responsible for the difference that resulted.

Most experiments take place in the laboratory, which for psychologists may be a room with a one-way mirror, but some experiments occur in the field, or in a natural setting ( field experiments ). In Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the early 1980s, sociologists were involved in a much-discussed field experiment sponsored by the federal government. The researchers wanted to see whether arresting men for domestic violence made it less likely that they would commit such violence again. To test this hypothesis, the researchers had police do one of the following after arriving at the scene of a domestic dispute: They either arrested the suspect, separated him from his wife or partner for several hours, or warned him to stop but did not arrest or separate him. The researchers then determined the percentage of men in each group who committed repeated domestic violence during the next six months and found that those who were arrested had the lowest rate of recidivism, or repeat offending (Sherman & Berk, 1984). This finding led many jurisdictions across the United States to adopt a policy of mandatory arrest for domestic violence suspects. However, replications of the Minneapolis experiment in other cities found that arrest sometimes reduced recidivism for domestic violence but also sometimes increased it, depending on which city was being studied and on certain characteristics of the suspects, including whether they were employed at the time of their arrest (Sherman, 1992).

As the Minneapolis study suggests, perhaps the most important problem with experiments is that their results are not generalizable beyond the specific subjects studied. The subjects in most psychology experiments, for example, are college students, who obviously are not typical of average Americans: They are younger, more educated, and more likely to be middle class. Despite this problem, experiments in psychology and other social sciences have given us very valuable insights into the sources of attitudes and behavior. Scholars of social problems are increasingly using field experiments to study the effectiveness of various policies and programs aimed at addressing social problems. We will examine the results of several such experiments in the chapters ahead.

Observational Studies

Observational research, also called field research , is a staple of sociology. Sociologists have long gone into the field to observe people and social settings, and the result has been many rich descriptions and analyses of behavior in juvenile gangs, bars, urban street corners, and even whole communities.

Observational studies consist of both participant observation and nonparticipant observation . Their names describe how they differ. In participant observation, the researcher is part of the group that she or he is studying, spends time with the group, and might even live with people in the group. Several classical social problems studies of this type exist, many of them involving people in urban neighborhoods (Liebow, 1967; Liebow, 1993; Whyte, 1943). In nonparticipant observation, the researcher observes a group of people but does not otherwise interact with them. If you went to your local shopping mall to observe, say, whether people walking with children looked happier than people without children, you would be engaging in nonparticipant observation.

Similar to experiments, observational studies cannot automatically be generalized to other settings or members of the population. But in many ways they provide a richer account of people’s lives than surveys do, and they remain an important method of research on social problems.

Existing Data

Sometimes sociologists do not gather their own data but instead analyze existing data that someone else has gathered. The US Census Bureau, for example, gathers data on all kinds of areas relevant to the lives of Americans, and many sociologists analyze census data on such social problems as poverty, unemployment, and illness. Sociologists interested in crime and the criminal justice system may analyze data from court records, while medical sociologists often analyze data from patient records at hospitals. Analysis of existing data such as these is called secondary data analysis . Its advantage to sociologists is that someone else has already spent the time and money to gather the data. A disadvantage is that the data set being analyzed may not contain data on all the topics in which a sociologist may be interested or may contain data on topics that are not measured in ways the sociologist might prefer.

The Scientific Method and Objectivity

This section began by stressing the need for sound research in the study of social problems. But what are the elements of sound research? At a minimum, such research should follow the rules of the scientific method . As you probably learned in high school and/or college science classes, these rules—formulating hypotheses, gathering and testing data, drawing conclusions, and so forth—help guarantee that research yields the most accurate and reliable conclusions possible.

An overriding principle of the scientific method is that research should be conducted as objectively as possible. Researchers are often passionate about their work, but they must take care not to let the findings they expect and even hope to uncover affect how they do their research. This in turn means that they must not conduct their research in a manner that helps achieve the results they expect to find. Such bias can happen unconsciously, and the scientific method helps reduce the potential for this bias as much as possible.

This potential is arguably greater in the social sciences than in the natural and physical sciences. The political views of chemists and physicists typically do not affect how an experiment is performed and how the outcome of the experiment is interpreted. In contrast, researchers in the social sciences, and perhaps particularly in sociology, often have strong feelings about the topics they are studying. Their social and political beliefs may thus influence how they perform their research on these topics and how they interpret the results of this research. Following the scientific method helps reduce this possible influence.

Key Takeaways

• The major types of research on social problems include surveys, experiments, observational studies, and the use of existing data.
• Surveys are the most common method, and the results of surveys of random samples may be generalized to the populations from which the samples come.
• Observation studies and existing data are also common methods in social problems research. Observation studies enable the gathering of rich, detailed information, but their results cannot necessarily be generalized beyond the people studied.
• Research on social problems should follow the scientific method to yield the most accurate and objective conclusions possible.

For Your Review

• Have you ever been a respondent or subject in any type of sociological or psychological research project? If so, how did it feel to be studied?
• Which type of social problems research method sounds most interesting to you? Why?

Liebow, E. (1967). Tally’s corner . Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

Liebow, E. (1993). Tell them who I am: The lives of homeless women . New York, NY: Free Press.

Sherman, L. W., & Berk, R. A. (1984). The specific deterrent effects of arrest for domestic assault. American Sociological Review, 49 , 261–272.

Sherman, L. W. (1992). Policing domestic violence: Experiments and dilemmas . New York, NY: Free Press.

Whyte, W. F. (1943). Street corner society: The social structure of an Italian slum . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Social Problems Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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1.1.4: Doing Research on Social Problems

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Learning Objectives

• List the major advantages and disadvantages of surveys, observational studies, and experiments.
• Explain why scholars who study social problems often rely on existing data.

Sound research is an essential tool for understanding the sources, dynamics, and consequences of social problems and possible solutions to them. This section briefly describes the major ways in which sociologists gather information about social problems. Table 1.2 “Major Sociological Research Methods” summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

The survey is the most common method by which sociologists gather their data. The Gallup poll is perhaps the most well-known example of a survey and, like all surveys, gathers its data with the help of a questionnaire that is given to a group of respondents. The Gallup poll is an example of a survey conducted by a private organization, but sociologists do their own surveys, as does the government and many organizations in addition to Gallup. Many surveys are administered to respondents who are randomly chosen and thus constitute a random sample. In a random sample, everyone in the population (whether it be the whole US population or just the population of a state or city, all the college students in a state or city or all the students at just one college, etc.) has the same chance of being included in the survey. The beauty of a random sample is that it allows us to generalize the results of the sample to the population from which the sample comes. This means that we can be fairly sure of the behavior and attitudes of the whole US population by knowing the behavior and attitudes of just four hundred people randomly chosen from that population.

Some surveys are face-to-face surveys, in which interviewers meet with respondents to ask them questions. This type of survey can yield much information, because interviewers typically will spend at least an hour asking their questions, and a high response rate (the percentage of all people in the sample who agree to be interviewed), which is important to be able to generalize the survey’s results to the entire population. On the downside, this type of survey can be very expensive and time consuming to conduct.

Because of these drawbacks, sociologists and other researchers have turned to telephone surveys. Most Gallup polls are conducted over the telephone. Computers do random-digit dialing, which results in a random sample of all telephone numbers being selected. Although the response rate and the number of questions asked are both lower than in face-to-face surveys (people can just hang up the phone at the outset or let their answering machine take the call), the ease and low expense of telephone surveys are making them increasingly popular. Surveys done over the Internet are also becoming more popular, as they can reach many people at very low expense. A major problem with web surveys is that their results cannot necessarily be generalized to the entire population because not everyone has access to the Internet.

Surveys are used in the study of social problems to gather information about the behavior and attitudes of people regarding one or more problems. For example, many surveys ask people about their use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs or about their experiences of being unemployed or in poor health. Many of the chapters in this book will present evidence gathered by surveys carried out by sociologists and other social scientists, various governmental agencies, and private research and public interest firms.

Experiments

Experiments are the primary form of research in the natural and physical sciences, but in the social sciences they are for the most part found only in psychology. Some sociologists still use experiments, however, and they remain a powerful tool of social research.

The major advantage of experiments, whether they are done in the natural and physical sciences or in the social sciences, is that the researcher can be fairly sure of a cause-and-effect relationship because of the way the experiment is set up. Although many different experimental designs exist, the typical experiment consists of an experimental group and a control group, with subjects randomly assigned to either group. The researcher does something to the experimental group that is not done to the control group. If the two groups differ later in some variable, then it is safe to say that the condition to which the experimental group was subjected was responsible for the difference that resulted.

Most experiments take place in the laboratory, which for psychologists may be a room with a one-way mirror, but some experiments occur in the field, or in a natural setting ( field experiments ). In Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the early 1980s, sociologists were involved in a much-discussed field experiment sponsored by the federal government. The researchers wanted to see whether arresting men for domestic violence made it less likely that they would commit such violence again. To test this hypothesis, the researchers had police do one of the following after arriving at the scene of a domestic dispute: They either arrested the suspect, separated him from his wife or partner for several hours, or warned him to stop but did not arrest or separate him. The researchers then determined the percentage of men in each group who committed repeated domestic violence during the next six months and found that those who were arrested had the lowest rate of recidivism, or repeat offending (Sherman & Berk, 1984). This finding led many jurisdictions across the United States to adopt a policy of mandatory arrest for domestic violence suspects. However, replications of the Minneapolis experiment in other cities found that arrest sometimes reduced recidivism for domestic violence but also sometimes increased it, depending on which city was being studied and on certain characteristics of the suspects, including whether they were employed at the time of their arrest (Sherman, 1992).

As the Minneapolis study suggests, perhaps the most important problem with experiments is that their results are not generalizable beyond the specific subjects studied. The subjects in most psychology experiments, for example, are college students, who obviously are not typical of average Americans: They are younger, more educated, and more likely to be middle class. Despite this problem, experiments in psychology and other social sciences have given us very valuable insights into the sources of attitudes and behavior. Scholars of social problems are increasingly using field experiments to study the effectiveness of various policies and programs aimed at addressing social problems. We will examine the results of several such experiments in the chapters ahead.

Observational Studies

Observational research, also called field research , is a staple of sociology. Sociologists have long gone into the field to observe people and social settings, and the result has been many rich descriptions and analyses of behavior in juvenile gangs, bars, urban street corners, and even whole communities.

Observational studies consist of both participant observation and nonparticipant observation. Their names describe how they differ. In participant observation, the researcher is part of the group that she or he is studying, spends time with the group, and might even live with people in the group. Several classical social problems studies of this type exist, many of them involving people in urban neighborhoods (Liebow, 1967; Liebow, 1993; Whyte, 1943). In nonparticipant observation, the researcher observes a group of people but does not otherwise interact with them. If you went to your local shopping mall to observe, say, whether people walking with children looked happier than people without children, you would be engaging in nonparticipant observation.

Similar to experiments, observational studies cannot automatically be generalized to other settings or members of the population. But in many ways they provide a richer account of people’s lives than surveys do, and they remain an important method of research on social problems.

Existing Data

Sometimes sociologists do not gather their own data but instead analyze existing data that someone else has gathered. The US Census Bureau, for example, gathers data on all kinds of areas relevant to the lives of Americans, and many sociologists analyze census data on such social problems as poverty, unemployment, and illness. Sociologists interested in crime and the criminal justice system may analyze data from court records, while medical sociologists often analyze data from patient records at hospitals. Analysis of existing data such as these is called secondary data analysis. Its advantage to sociologists is that someone else has already spent the time and money to gather the data. A disadvantage is that the data set being analyzed may not contain data on all the topics in which a sociologist may be interested or may contain data on topics that are not measured in ways the sociologist might prefer.

The Scientific Method and Objectivity

This section began by stressing the need for sound research in the study of social problems. But what are the elements of sound research? At a minimum, such research should follow the rules of the scientific method . As you probably learned in high school and/or college science classes, these rules—formulating hypotheses, gathering and testing data, drawing conclusions, and so forth—help guarantee that research yields the most accurate and reliable conclusions possible.

An overriding principle of the scientific method is that research should be conducted as objectively as possible. Researchers are often passionate about their work, but they must take care not to let the findings they expect and even hope to uncover affect how they do their research. This in turn means that they must not conduct their research in a manner that helps achieve the results they expect to find. Such bias can happen unconsciously, and the scientific method helps reduce the potential for this bias as much as possible.

This potential is arguably greater in the social sciences than in the natural and physical sciences. The political views of chemists and physicists typically do not affect how an experiment is performed and how the outcome of the experiment is interpreted. In contrast, researchers in the social sciences, and perhaps particularly in sociology, often have strong feelings about the topics they are studying. Their social and political beliefs may thus influence how they perform their research on these topics and how they interpret the results of this research. Following the scientific method helps reduce this possible influence.

Key Takeaways

• The major types of research on social problems include surveys, experiments, observational studies, and the use of existing data.
• Surveys are the most common method, and the results of surveys of random samples may be generalized to the populations from which the samples come.
• Observation studies and existing data are also common methods in social problems research. Observation studies enable the gathering of rich, detailed information, but their results cannot necessarily be generalized beyond the people studied.
• Research on social problems should follow the scientific method to yield the most accurate and objective conclusions possible.

For Your Review

• Have you ever been a respondent or subject in any type of sociological or psychological research project? If so, how did it feel to be studied?
• Which type of social problems research method sounds most interesting to you? Why?