causes of social problems essay

Essay On Social Issues

500 words essay on social issues.

Social Issues is an undesirable state which opposes society or a certain part of society. It refers to an unwanted situation that frequently results in problems and continues to harm society . Social issues can cause a lot of problems that can be beyond the control of just one person. Through an essay on social issues, we will learn why they are harmful and what types of social issues we face.

Drawbacks of Social Issues

Social issues have a lot of drawbacks that harms our society. They are situations that have an adverse and damaging result on our society. They arise when the public leaves nature or society from an ideal situation.

If you look closely, you will realize that almost all types of social issues have common origins. In the sense that they all are interconnected somehow. Meaning to say, if one solves the other one is also most likely to resolve.

Social issues have a massive lousy effect on our society and ultimately, it affects all of us. In order to solve some social issues, we need a common approach. No society is free from social issues, almost every one of them has some social issue or the other.

For instance, in India, you will find a lot of social issues which the country is facing. It ranges from the caste system to child labour and gender inequality to religious conflicts. Thus, we are going through a critical time where we all must come together to free our society from undesirable social evils.

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Major Social Issues

There are a lot of social issues we are facing right now, some more prominent than the others. First of all, poverty is a worldwide issue. It gives birth to a lot of other social issues which we must try to get away with at the earliest.

Further, countries like India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and more are facing the issue of the caste system since times unknown. It results in a lot of caste violence and inequality which takes the lives of many on a daily basis.

Moreover, child labour is another major social issue that damages the lives of young children. Similarly, illiteracy also ruins the lives of many by destroying their chances of a bright future.

In developing countries mostly, child marriage still exists and is responsible for ruining many lives. Similarly, dowry is a very serious and common social issue that almost all classes of people partake in.

Another prominent social issue is gender inequality which takes away many opportunities from deserving people. Domestic violence especially against women is a serious social issue we must all fight against.

Other social issues include starvation, child sex abuse, religious conflicts, child trafficking, terrorism , overpopulation, untouchability, communalism and many more. It is high time we end these social issues.

Conclusion of the Essay on Social Issues

A society can successfully end social issues if they become adamant. These social issues act as a barrier to the progress of society. Thus, we must all come together to fight against them and put them to an end for the greater good.

FAQ on Essay on Social Issues

Question 1: What is the meaning of social problem?

Answer 1: A social problem refers to any condition or behaviour which has a negative impact on a large number of people. It is normally recognized as a condition or behaviour that needs to be addressed.

Question 2: What are the effects of social issues?

Answer 2: Social issues affect our society adversely. Most importantly, it disturbs the harmony of society and gives rise to hostility and suspicion. Moreover, it creates large-scale social dissatisfaction, suffering and misery.

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1.2 Defining a Social Problem

Figure 1.2 Sociologist Anna Leon-Guerrero. We use her definition of a social problem.

When you think about the current issues facing our society and our planet, you might name war, addiction, climate change, houselessness, or the global pandemic as social problems. You would be right, sort of. Sociologists need to be more specific than that. Because they are trying to explain what social problems are or how to fix them, they need a much more precise definition. Sociology professor and author Anna Leon-Guerrero (figure 1.2) defines a social problem as “a social condition or pattern of behavior that has negative consequences for individuals, our social world, or our physical world.”(2018:4).

More concretely, it is not just that one person gets sick from COVID-19. The social problem is that our healthcare systems are overwhelmed with sick patients. People are experiencing different rates of exposure to COVID-19. Their health outcomes differ because of their race, class, and gender. Because social problems affect people across the social and physical worlds, the solutions to social problems must be collectively created. It is not enough for one person to get well, although that may really matter to you. Instead, we must act collectively, as groups, governments, or systems to identify and implement solutions. Our health is personal, but getting well depends on all of us.

To talk effectively about social problems, we must understand their characteristics. In this text, we will explore five important dimensions of a social problem :

• A social problem goes beyond the experience of an individual.
• A social problem results from a conflict in values.
• A social problem arises when groups of people experience inequality.
• A social problem is socially constructed but real in its consequences.
• A social problem must be addressed interdependently, using both individual agency and collective action.

In the following section, we examine each of these five characteristics. Where these characteristics exist, social problems follow. Each component provides an additional layer of explanation about why any human problem is a social problem.

1.2.1 Social Problems: Beyond Individual Experience

Individuals have problems. Social problems, though, go beyond the experience of one individual. They are experienced by groups, nations, or people around the world. An individual experiences job loss, but the wider social problem may be rising unemployment rates. An individual may experience a divorce, but the wider social problem may be changing expectations around marriage and long-term partnerships. Solving a social problem is a collective task, outside of the capability of one individual or group.

Figure 1.3 Sociologist C. Wright Mills, pictured on the left wrote about the Sociological Imagination

In his book The Sociological Imagination , American sociologist C. Wright Mills helps us understand the difference between individual problems and social problems, and connects the two concepts (figure 1.3). Mills (1959) uses the term personal troubles to describe troubles that happen both within and to an individual. He contrasts these personal troubles with social problems, which he calls public issues . Public issues transcend the experience of one individual, impacting groups of people over time.

To illustrate, a recent college graduate may be several hundred thousand dollars in debt because of student loans. They may have trouble paying for living expenses because of this debt. This would be a personal trouble. If we look for larger social patterns, however, we see that as of 2021 about 1 in 8 Americans have student loan debt, owing about 1.6 trillion dollars (Federal Reserve Bank of New York 2021). The volume of this debt, the related laws, policies, and practices, and the harm that is being caused stretch far beyond the experience of a few individuals, resulting in student loan debt becoming a public issue.

In addition to differentiating personal troubles and public issues, Mills also connects them using the sociological imagination , a quality of mind that connects individual experience and wider social forces. He writes, “The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. This is its task and its promise” (Mills 1959:6).

In other words, when we use our own sociological imaginations, we connect our own lives with the experiences of other people. We consider how our own past actions and the historical actions of others may have contributed to our current reality. We use our sociological imaginations to consider what the outcomes of our actions or of social policies might be. When you use your sociological imagination, complicated social problems begin to make sense. When Mills linked personal troubles and public issues, he emphasized that individuals are acted upon by wider social forces.

Figure 1.4 A society consists of more than individual people, just like a forest consists of more than just individual trees: The forest around Cougar Hot Springs, Oregon—More than just individual trees. Tokyo, Japan—More than individual people.

Building on Mills’s concepts, current sociologists highlight the complex relationships of the social world. In the 2019 Society for the Study of Social Problems Presidential Address, Society president Nancy Mezey explores the topic of climate change as a social problem. Understanding and solving climate change requires a deep understanding of the relationship of people and systems. She emphasizes that “society is not just a collection of unrelated individuals, but rather a collection of people who live in relationship with each other” (Mezey 2020: 606). To make this point, she uses the work of sociologist Allan Johnson. In his book The Forest and the Trees, Johnson compares the physical world to our social world:

In one sense, a forest is simply a collection of individual trees, but it is more than that. It is also a collection of trees that exist in particular relation to one another, and you cannot tell what that relation is by looking at the individual trees. Take a thousand trees and scatter them across the Great Plains of North America and all you have is a thousand trees. But take those same trees and put them close together, and now you have a forest. The same individual trees in one case constitute a forest and in another are just a lot of trees. The “empty space” that separates individual trees from one another is not a characteristic of any one tree or the characteristics of all the individual trees somehow added together. It is something more than that, and it is crucial to understand the relationships among trees that make a forest what it is. Paying attention to that “something more” — whether it is a family or a society or the entire world – and how people are related to it lies at the heart of what it means to practice sociology . (Johnson 2014: 11-12, emphasis added)

Using this comparison, Mezey reminds us human society is made up of interdependent individuals, groups, institutions, and systems, similar to the living ecosystem of the forest. This similarity is illustrated in figure 1.4. The reach of a social problem can also be planet-wide. As the response to COVID-19 demonstrates, migrations between countries, vaccination policies and implementations for any nation, and the responses of health systems in local areas can all impact whether any individual is likely to get COVID-19 or to recover from it. A social problem, then, is one that involves a wider scope of groups, institutions, nations, or global populations.

1.2.2 Social Problems: A Conflict in Values

Social problems can also be defined as issues in which social values conflict. A value is an ideal or principle that determines what is correct, desirable, or morally proper. A society may share common values. For example, a society may value universal education, the ideal that all children should learn to read and write or, at minimum, be in school until they are 18. A different society may value practical experience, focusing on teaching children skills related to farming, hunting, or raising children. When core values are shared, there is no basis for conflict.

Social problems may begin to arise if people cannot agree on values. For example, some groups may value business growth and expansion. They oppose restrictions on pollution or emissions because following these regulations would cost money. In contrast, other groups might value sustaining the environment. They support regulations that limit industrial pollution, even when they cost more money. This conflict in values provides a rich soil from which a social problem may grow.

1.2.3 Social Problems: Inequality

A social problem can arise if there is a conflict between a widely shared value and a society’s success in meeting expectations around that value. For example, to sustain life, people need sufficient water, food, and shelter. To work well, a society values human life and creates infrastructure so that all members have water, food, and shelter. However, even at this most basic level, people experience significant inequality in their access to these resources.

Figure 1.5 In this chart, we see that women experience more food insecurity than men, in every region of the world. In Africa, more than half of all people experience hunger. This rate of food insecurity has also increased around the world between 2015 and 2020. How do you think COVID-19 might have impacted world hunger? Figure 1.5 Image Description

For example, the United Nations reports that one in three people worldwide do not have access to adequate food. That number is rising (United Nations 2020). As we can see in the chart in figure 1.5, women are more likely than men to experience hunger in all regions of the world. The related report also notes that 22 percent of all children worldwide are stunted because they do not have enough to eat (FAO 2021).

In another example at the local level, the Oregon Food Bank explicitly defines hunger as a social problem. They write, “Hunger isn’t just an individual experience; it’s a symptom of barriers to employment, housing, health care and more—and a result of unfair systems that continue to keep these barriers in place” (Oregon Food Bank 2021). In exploring who is hungry in Oregon, they note that communities of color experience greater housing instability and therefore greater food insecurity than White families (Oregon Food Bank 2019). Unequal access and unequal outcomes are both common in our world and fundamental to social problems.

1.2.4 Social Problems: A Social Construction with Real Consequences

Figure 1.6: This 10 minute video on social construction explores what it means to jointly create our social reality. What else do you see that is socially constructed? Note to Reviewers: This 10 minute video on social construction is under construction. The final version will be included with the final version of the book. At the same time, we welcome comments on this draft.

Sociologists delight in statistics, those numbers that measure rates, patterns, and trends. You might think that a social problem exists when things get measurably worse—unemployment rises, food prices increase, deaths from AIDS skyrocket, or gender-related hate crimes explode. Changes in the numbers, or objective measures, provide only part of the story. Sometimes these changes go unnoticed in the wider society and don’t result in conflict or action. Other times a local community takes action, but another local community with similar statistics does not.

To explain this difference, we turn to the fundamental sociological concept of social construction , the idea that we create meaning through interaction with others. This concept asserts that while material objects and biological processes exist, it is the meaning that we give to them that creates our shared social reality. The video in figure 1.6 provides more examples of this concept.

The term social construction was used in 1966 by sociologists Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. They wrote a book called The Social Construction of Reality . In it, they argued that society is created by humans and human interaction. These interactions are often habits. They use the term habitualization to describe how “any action that is repeated frequently becomes cast into a pattern, which can then be … performed again in the future in the same manner and with the same economical effort” (Berger and Luckmann 1966). Not only do we construct our own society but we also accept it as it is because others have created it before us. Society is, in fact, habit .

For example, a school building exists as a school and not as a generic building because you and others agree that it is a school. If your school is older than you are, it was created by the agreement of others before you. In a sense, it exists by consensus, both prior and current. This is an example of the process of institutionalization, the act of implanting a convention or social expectation into society. By employing the convention of naming a building as a school , the institution, while socially constructed, is made real and assigned specific expectations as to how it will be used.

Another way of looking at the social construction of reality is through an idea developed by American sociologist W. I. Thomas. The Thomas theorem states, “If [people] define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas and Thomas 1928). In other words, people’s behavior can be determined by their subjective construction of reality rather than by objective reality. For example, a teenager who is repeatedly given a label—rebellious, emo, goth—often lives up to the term even though it initially wasn’t a part of their character.

Figure 1.7 What do you think the person in the photo, gesturing “Thumbs up” is trying to say? Depending on his country, he may be saying great , on e, or five . Even our gestures are socially constructed.

Sociologists who study how we interact also recognize that language and body language reflect our values. One has only to learn a foreign language to know that not every English word can be easily translated into another language. The same is true for gestures. What does the gesture in figure 1.7 mean? While Americans might recognize a thumbs-up as meaning great , in Germany it would mean one , and in Japan, it would mean five . Thus, our construction of reality is influenced by our symbolic interactions. When we apply this idea of the social construction of reality to social problems, then, we say that a social problem only exists when people say they have one.

Figure 1.8 In this picture of social protest, the protester is holding a sign “Whatever we wear, wherever we go, Yes means Yes and No means No” Over time our ideas about bodily autonomy, consent, and gender based violence are changing.

Let’s look at the crime of rape to understand this concept more clearly. Initially, rape was defined as a property crime. This view of women’s bodies is profoundly disturbing to us today but was common in seventeenth-century English law. Legally, women were considered the property of their fathers or their husbands. Therefore, rape was legally understood as decreasing the value of their property. Taking this model further, married women could not be raped by their husbands because consent was implied as part of the marriage contract.

When feminists in the 1970s challenged this legal definition, laws related to rape began to change. Rape, which included marital rape, became defined as a crime of violence and social control against an individual person (Rose 1977). In a more recent study, researchers examined how rape was defined in a college community between 1955 and 1990. Early descriptions of rape in school and community newspapers painted the picture that White women students were safe on campus. If they ventured beyond campus to predominantly Black neighborhoods, they risked being raped. Rape was considered a crime committed by a racialized other, a Black or Brown stranger rather than a member of a White student community. This perspective saw police as responsible for keeping women safe (Abu-Odeh, Khan, and Nathanson 2020).

With the work of feminist activists, the concept of rape and the response to rape changed. In the 1970s and 1980s, women’s centers and health professionals defined rape as an act of sexual violence that supported the structural power of men and an issue that threatened women’s health. The person who experienced rape began to be called a survivor rather than a victim . Men who raped or committed other kinds of sexual harassment could be identified as part of the campus community rather than being defined as a stranger or an outsider. The changes in the social construction of rape allowed for more effective community responses in preventing rape, prosecuting rape, and supporting the healing of rape survivors (Abu-Odeh, Khan, and Nathanson 2020).

Feminist activists continue this work. Black activist Tarana Burke founded the #MeToo movement in 2006 so that survivors of sexual violence could tell their stories. These stories highlight how common sexual violence is for women, men, and nonbinary people. It expands our conversation about rape to a wider discussion around the causes and consequences of sexual violence. If you would like to learn more about #MeToo from Burke herself, please watch this TED Talk, “ Me Too Is a Movement, Not a Moment .” Actor Alyssa Milano drew attention to this movement when she tweeted #MeToo in 2017. This movement has resulted in some changes in the law (Beitsch 2018) and in stronger prosecution of perpetrators of sexual violence, in some cases (Carlsen et al. 2018).

In this constructionist view, the definition of rape, the actors in the crime, and the responsibility for fixing the problem changed over time, with significant consequences to the people involved. Even concepts like consent, active agreement to sexual activity (see figure 1.8), are taught and learned. A Cup of Tea and Consent [YouTube] teaches the concept (some explicit language). We will see the usefulness of the social construction of a social problem as we explore each social problem raised in this book.

1.2.5 Social Problems: Interdependent Solutions of Individual Agency and Collective Action

All life is interelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.

—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., activist, sociologist, and minister

Figure 1.9 Video: Martin Luther King Jr. A Christmas Speech: . Martin Luther King Jr. asserts that we are all interrelated, another word for interdependence in his Christmas Speech from 1967. While watching the whole speech is optional, you may want to view from minutes 7:10-7:12 to listen to the quote that begins this section.

Our diversity can be a source of innovative solutions to social problems. At the same time, the ways in which we are different divide us. We see bullying, hate crimes, war, gender based violence, and other patterns of treating each other differently based on our social location. At the same time, many of us go to school, raise families, live in neighborhoods, and die of old age. How is it that we are able to maintain our sense of community?

We begin to answer this question by reminding ourselves that the sociological imagination helps us see that there are wider social forces at play in our individual lives. Interdependence is the concept that people rely on each other to survive and thrive (Schwalbe 2018). Martin Luther King Jr. asserts that we are all interrelated, another word for interdependence, in his Christmas Speech from 1967 in figure 1.9. While watching the whole speech is optional, you may want to view from minutes 7:10-7:12 to listen to the quote that begins this section.

Interdependence is everywhere, but specific examples of social, economic, and physical interdependence may help us see it more clearly. With social interdependence, we rely on other people to cooperate to support our life. We give the same cooperation to others in turn. For example, when you consider your own life, you might notice how many people helped you become the person you are. When you were very young, you relied on a parent or caregivers to feed you, to clothe you, to keep you warm, and maybe to read you bedtime stories. As we widen this picture, we see that your caregivers relied on store owners and doctors, farmers and truckers, business people, and friends to support the work of caring for you. You may not have had a happy life, yet you lived long enough to read these words. This book was brought to you by authors, editors, artists, videographers, designers, musicians, librarians, and other students like you. These relationships demonstrate our social interdependence.

In addition to social interdependence, we experience economic interdependence. As we shop for groceries this week, we see empty shelves and rising food prices. COVID-19 is disrupting the global supply chain. Farmers growing oranges in Mexico can’t find laborers to pick the fruit. U.S. car manufacturers can’t get electronic chips manufactured in China. Even when people in Vietnam sew T-shirts or factory workers in Korea build TVs, the ships that carry these products from one country to another wait for dock workers to unload them. Our experiences with COVID-19 underline the truth of our economic interdependence.

We express this economic interdependence in relationships that describe the power of workers and the power of business owners. In 2017, Francis Fox Piven, the president of the American Sociological Association, defined interdependent power, arguing that while wealth and privilege create power, workers, tenants, and voters also have the power of participation. We see interdependent power today in the Great Resignation, with people deciding to resign from their jobs rather than return to work. We see it in restaurants reducing hours or closing down because they can’t find workers to wait tables and bus dishes. We see this in frontline workers becoming even more critical in providing basic services to a quarantined public. We live in a globally interdependent economy.

Finally, and maybe foundationally, we are physically interdependent. I remember being on a boat in a glacial lake in Alaska. The tour guide, a biologist, was asking the people on the tour about how many oceans there were in the world. All of us were desperately trying to remember fifth-grade geography, and counting the various oceans we remembered. Atlantic, Pacific, Indian . . . wait did the Arctic and Antarctic count as oceans? Maybe five? Maybe six? Maybe seven? At each answer, the biologist shook her head, “No.” We were stumped.

Figure 1.10 The Pacific Ocean at Lincoln City, Oregon, or maybe just one view of our planet’s one ocean.

She revealed that scientists who study the ocean now say that we have just one ocean (even though the ocean in figure 1.10 happens to be the Pacific Ocean, a few blocks from my house). It contains all the ocean water across our entire planet. Debris from a tsunami in Japan washed up on beaches from the tip of Alaska to the Baja peninsula and Hawaii. Rivers contribute up to 80 percent of the plastics pollution found in the ocean. We see that the COVID-19 virus travels with people around the world as infections move from place to place. As we cross the globe on our feet, bikes, camels, trains, cars, and airplanes, our diseases travel with us. We are physically interdependent.

Figure 1.11 When do we comply with the social norms of mask-wearing and elbow bumping?

Each of these ways of considering our interdependence matters when it comes to studying social problems and creating change. Because our actions affect one another, any social problem or solution ripples through our social world. For example, social scientists are examining mask-wearing during COVID-19.

In the video “ The Importance of Social Norms” (episode 8 on the website) , researcher Dr. Vera te Velde from the University of Queensland explores mask-wearing behavior around the world. She wanted to find out what would make mask wearing a social norm. Social norms are the rules or expectations that determine and regulate appropriate behavior within a culture, group, or society.

Dr. de Velde finds that when people trust each other and their government, they are much more likely to wear masks. Trust and shared agreement around social norms encourage consistent behavior. In other words, when we notice our interdependence and trust that others will follow social norms, we are more likely to follow them too. Sociologist Michael Schwalbe, in The Sociologically Examined Life, calls this mindfulness of interdependence. When we are aware, or mindful, of how our actions impact others, we are noticing our interdependence. We then often act for the good of all.

The interdependent nature of social problems also requires interdependent solutions. For this, we look at individual agency and collective action. The discipline of sociology always asks why? , but the sociologists who study social problems are particularly committed to taking action. They try to understand why a problem occurs to inform policy decisions, create community coalitions, or support healthy families. In the best cases, they seek to know their own biases and work to remediate them, so their research is used to create change. This challenge is explicitly stated by SSSP President Mezey:

The theme for the 2019 SSSP [Society for the Study of Social Problems] meeting is a call to sociologists and social scientists in general to draw deeply and widely on sociological roots to illuminate the social in all social problems with an eye to solving those problems. The theme calls us to speak broadly and widely, so that our discipline becomes a central voice in larger public discourses. I am calling on you, the reader, through this presidential address to focus on what is perhaps the largest social problem: climate change. Indeed, because we have been focusing on individual rather than social solutions regarding climate change—we are now facing grave and imminent danger. (Mezey 2020:606)

Society president Mezey tells us that studying problems is not enough. We must focus on the most critical social problem—climate change, to support all of us in taking action.

Addressing social problems requires individuals to act. Social agency is the capacity of an individual to actively and independently choose and to affect change. In other words, any individual can choose to vote, to protest, to parent well, or to be authentic about who they are in the world. Each act of positive social agency matters to that person and their community, even if the small waves of change are hard to see in the wider world.

Collective action refers to the actions taken by a collection or group of people, acting based on a collective decision. whose goal is to enhance their condition and achieve a common objective (Sekiwu and Okan 2022). These kinds of actions people take are creative responses to local issues. We typically think of collective action as a protest march or a social movement. Collective action can also be setting up the Salmon River Grange as the distribution center for food, clothes, and pizza for survivors of the Echo Mountain Fire. It could also be reinvigorating an Indigenous language or connecting businesses and nonprofits so you can provide digital literacy skills training. People, communities, and organizations imagine the future they want to see, and take organized action to make it happen.

To confront the social problems of our world, we need a both/and approach to their resolution. We act with individual agency to create a life that is healthy and nurturing and we act collectively to address interdependent issues.

1.2.6 Licenses and Attributions for Defining a Social Problem

1.2.6.1 open content, shared previously.

“Social Construction of Reality” is adapted from “ Social Construction of Reality ” by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang, Introduction to Sociology 3e , Openstax , which is licensed under CC BY 4.0 . Modifications: Summarized some content and applied it specifically to social problems. License Terms: Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/1-introduction

Figure 1.3. “ Sociologist C Wright Mills ” by Institute for Policy Studies is licensed under CC BY 2.0 .

Figure 1.4a. Photo by Deric is licensed under the Unsplash License .

Figure 1.4b. Photo by Chris Chan is licensed under the Unsplash License .

Figure 1.7. Photo by Aziz Acharki is licensed under the Unsplash License .

Figure 1.8. Photo by Raquel García is licensed under the Unsplash License .

Figure 1.11. Photo by Maxime is licensed under the Unsplash License .

1.2.6.2 All Rights Reserved Content

Figure 1.2. “ Anna Leon-Guerrero ” © Pacific Lutheran University is included under fair use.

Figure 1.9 “ Martin Luther King, Jr., Christmas Sermon ” by Mapping Minds is licensed under the Standard YouTube License .

1.2.6.3 Open Content, Original

“Defining a Social Problem” by Kimberly Puttman is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

Figure 1.5. “Chart of World Hunger” by Kim Puttman and Michaela Willi Hooper, Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

Figure 1.6. “ Social Construction Video (Draft) ” by Liz Pearce, Kim Puttman and Colin Stapp, Open Oregon Educational Resources is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

Figure 1.10. Photo by Kimberly Puttman is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

Image Description for Figure 1.5:

Globally, and in every region, the prevalence of food insecurity is higher among women than men

A line chart shows moderate or severe food insecurity for both women and men in different regions of the world from 2015 to 2020. The lines are often close, but women are always more food insecure than men. Throughout the world, food insecurity has risen for both women and men (from around 20% in 2015 to over 30% for women in 2020). The two lines diverge the most for Latin America and the Caribbean, where food insecurity went from approximately 25% in 2015 to over 40% in 2020. Food insecurity rates for both men and women are highest in Africa (almost 60% for both men and women in 2020) and lowest in North America (between 10 and 15% in 2020).

Data source: State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2021, prepared by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO.

This simplified version created by Michaela Willi Hooper and Kimberly Puttman and licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

[Return to Figure 1.5]

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

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839 Social Issues Essay Topics, Lists, & Good Ideas

18 January 2024

last updated

Social issues essay topics mean contemporary matters that affect society at large. They encompass many subjects, including poverty, racial and gender inequality, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, climate change, and gun control. These topics offer an in-depth exploration of societal constructs, systems, and beliefs that shape the human world, encouraging critical thinking and fostering empathy toward diverse perspectives. Moreover, discussing hot issues allows people to identify societal imbalances and injustices while proposing solutions for a better and inclusive future. Thus, social issues essay topics can foster personal growth, broaden horizons, and serve as a platform to initiate dialogue and action on pressing problems or challenges in the global community.

Best Social Issues Essay Topics

• Racial Profiling and Its Impact on Modern Society
• Addressing Gender Inequality in the Workplace
• Implications of Cyberbullying in the Digital Age
• The Effect of Mass Media on Body Image
• Balancing Privacy Rights and National Security in Surveillance
• Modern-Day Human Trafficking: A Hidden Crime
• Climate Change: Examining Environmental Racism
• Immigration Policies: Social and Economic Impacts
• Cultural Appropriation in Fashion and Entertainment
• Violence in Video Games: Correlation to Real-World Aggression
• Youth Unemployment: A Rising Social Issue
• Religious Freedom vs. Societal Safety: The Thin Line
• Universal Basic Income: Solution for Poverty?
• Decriminalizing Drugs: The Portuguese Model
• Impacts of Technological Advancements on the Job Market
• Examining the Glass Ceiling Phenomenon
• Body Shaming: A Social Media Issue
• Exploring Mental Health Stigma in Society
• Consumerism and Its Effect on Climate Change
• Evaluating LGBTQ+ Rights Across Different Cultures
• Dissecting the Prison Industrial Complex in the US
• Effects of Single-Parenting on Child Development
• Social Implications of Genetically Modified Organisms
• Income Inequality: Impacts on Health and Longevity
• Discrimination in the Housing Market: A Hidden Problem

Easy Social Issues Essay Topics

• Economic Consequences of Child Labor
• Substance Abuse: A Social or Medical Issue?
• Ageism and Its Impact on Employment Opportunities
• Cybersecurity Threats: A Growing Social Concern
• The Digital Divide: Rural vs. Urban Internet Access
• Child Obesity: The Role of School Meals
• Modern Slavery: A Global Issue Hidden in Plain Sight
• Understanding the Roots of Homelessness in Developed Countries
• Food Insecurity in First-World Nations: Causes and Consequences
• Influence of Social Media on Political Polarization
• Effects of Fast Fashion on Third-World Workers
• Assisted Suicide: Ethical Dilemma or Human Right?
• Transgender Rights in Sports: A Critical Examination
• Terrorism and Its Impact on Social Cohesion
• Stereotypes and their Influence on Criminal Justice
• Understanding Social Exclusion in Public Schools
• Internet Censorship: Freedom of Speech vs. National Security
• Affordable Housing Crisis and Its Social Implications
• GMOs: A Solution for World Hunger or an Ecological Disaster?
• Social and Economic Impacts of Automation on Manufacturing Jobs
• Cultural Relativism: Understanding Human Rights Across Different Societies
• Privacy Issues Arising From Facial Recognition Technology
• Parental Rights vs. Child Protection in Medical Decisions
• Disability Discrimination in Employment: A Silent Crisis

Interesting Social Issues Essay Topics

• Social Impacts of Modernization on Indigenous Communities
• Stigmatization of Sex Work: Society’s View and Legal Status
• Animal Rights: Ethical Concerns Surrounding Factory Farming
• Influence of Television on Children’s Behavioral Development
• Political Corruption: Effects on Social Trust and Development
• Internet Addiction: A 21st Century Mental Health Issue
• Food Deserts: Addressing Urban Nutritional Inequality
• Ethical Dilemmas in Biomedical Engineering and Cloning
• Social Consequences of Aging Populations in Developed Countries
• Regulating Big Tech: Balancing Innovation and Privacy
• Analyzing Sexism in the Advertising Industry
• Impacts of Remote Work on Social Interaction and Mental Health
• Capital Punishment: A Justified Measure or a Human Rights Violation?
• Global Water Crisis: Social and Health Impacts
• Adoption Laws: Discrimination Against Single and LGBTQ+ Parents
• Refugees and Asylum Seekers: A Humanitarian or Security Issue?
• Waste Management: Social and Environmental Implications
• The Role of Education in Preventing Youth Crime
• Social Implications of Autonomous Vehicles on Traffic and Employment
• Cultural Impacts of Westernization in Non-Western Countries
• Animal Assisted Therapy: Evaluating Benefits and Ethical Concerns
• Euthanasia: Medical, Legal, and Ethical Perspectives

Social Issues Research Topics

• Misinformation Spread: Impacts on Democracy and Public Health
• Child Soldiers: An Unresolved Global Crisis
• Identity Theft: The Growing Concern in Digital Age
• Pandemic and Its Impact on Mental Health
• Reality TV: Influence on Perception of Body Image and Relationships
• Genetic Engineering: Balancing Potential Benefits and Ethical Concerns
• Deconstructing Toxic Masculinity: A Psychological Perspective
• Roles of Non-Governmental Organizations in Social Change
• Media’s Influence on Perception of Police Brutality
• Importance of Financial Literacy in Youth Empowerment
• Addressing Period Poverty: The Hidden Barrier to Education
• Sports and Nationalism: The Social Impact of International Competitions
• Intersectionality in Feminism: Need for Inclusion in Activism
• Childhood Vaccinations: Public Health Necessity or Parental Choice?
• Social Media Influencers: Impacts on Youth and Consumer Behavior
• Obesity Epidemic: Fast Food Industry’s Responsibility
• Parenting Styles and Their Effect on Child’s Mental Health
• Impacts of Microfinance on Poverty Alleviation
• Cyberstalking: The Hidden Dangers of the Internet
• Juvenile Delinquency: Factors and Prevention Strategies
• Examining the Ethical Implications of Human Cloning
• The Changing Dynamics of Family Structure in Modern Society
• Online Education: Impacts on Accessibility and Quality of Learning

Social Argumentative Essay Topics

• Analyzing the Impact of Cyberbullying on Teen Mental Health
• Evaluating Measures for Reducing Plastic Waste in Urban Areas
• Addressing Racial Profiling Within Law Enforcement Agencies
• The Role of Affordable Housing in Mitigating Homelessness
• Necessity for Implementing Universal Basic Income
• Exploring the Efficacy of Gun Control Legislation
• Harnessing Technology for Elderly Care: An Imperative Approach
• Balancing Freedom of Speech With Hate Speech Regulations
• Prioritizing LGBTQ+ Rights in Contemporary Societies
• Reforming Education Systems to Promote Equality
• Human Trafficking: A Global Challenge Requiring Immediate Action
• The Growing Threat of Food Insecurity in Developed Nations
• Combatting Domestic Violence: Effectiveness of Current Legal Measures
• The Stigma Around Mental Health and Its Societal Impact
• Mandatory Vaccinations: A Necessary Evil or a Personal Choice?
• Unveiling Hidden Poverty in Affluent Societies
• Addressing Racial Disparities in Health Care Delivery
• Gender Pay Gap: A Persistent Social Issue
• Bridging the Digital Divide: Strategies and Solutions
• Potential Dangers of Unregulated AI Technologies
• Climate Change Denial: An Analysis of Its Sociopolitical Impact
• Child Labor in Developing Countries: Causes and Solutions
• Public Health Challenges of Obesity in Children
• Socioeconomic Impacts of Drug Addiction

Persuasive Speech Topics on Social Issues

• Restorative Justice as a Solution to Overcrowded Prisons
• Empowering Women Through Microfinance in Developing Countries
• Environmental Racism: An Underexplored Aspect of Social Inequality
• Suicide Rates Among Veterans: A Hidden Crisis
• Implementing Sustainable Practices in Urban Development
• The Effect of Advertising on Consumerism and Waste Generation
• Systemic Bias in the Workplace: A Closer Look
• Income Inequality: Examining the Effects on Social Mobility
• Substance Abuse Prevention Programs in Schools
• The Consequences of Child Neglect on Future Generations
• Addressing Stigmatization of HIV/AIDS Patients
• Ethical Issues Surrounding Assisted Suicide Legislation
• The Role of Social Structures in Perpetuating Poverty
• Evaluating the Impact of Religious Discrimination on Society
• The Influence of Socioeconomic Status on Academic Achievement
• Advocacy for Animal Rights in Modern Industrial Farming
• Transgender Rights: Overcoming Legal and Social Barriers
• The Effect of Climate Change on Global Poverty
• Exploring Ethical Issues in Genetic Engineering
• Refugees and Asylum Seekers: A Challenge for Global Cooperation
• Accessibility Challenges in Public Transportation for Disabled Individuals
• Overcoming Barriers to Mental Health Services for Marginalized Communities
• Addressing Child Malnutrition in Low-Income Countries

Social Issues Essay Topics on Abortion

• Historical Perspectives on Abortion Laws Globally
• Ethical Dilemmas: The Clash Between Personal Beliefs and Abortion
• Abortion Stigma: Understanding Its Roots and Effects
• Abortion and Religion: A Complex Intersection
• Public Policies Impacting Abortion Rights: A Comparative Analysis
• Emotional Consequences Experienced Post-Abortion
• Legal Implications of Restrictive Abortion Laws
• Safeguarding Women’s Health: The Role of Safe Abortion Services
• Evaluating the Economic Factors That Influence Abortion Decisions
• Exploring Medical Advancements in Abortion Procedures
• Adolescents and Abortion: Addressing the Legal and Social Implications
• Diverse Perspectives on Abortion: A Multicultural Examination
• Understanding the Relationship Between Abortion and Mental Health
• The Battle Between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice: An Ongoing Debate
• Sex Education’s Influence on Abortion Rates
• Roles of Feminism in the Fight for Abortion Rights
• Medical Ethics and Abortion: A Critical Examination
• Abortion’s Societal Impact: A Quantitative Study
• Dissecting the Stance of Various Political Parties on Abortion
• Access to Abortion Services: Disparity in Urban and Rural Areas

Social Issues Essay Topics on Animal Rights & Animal Welfare

• Unveiling the Truth: Animal Testing in Cosmetic Industries
• Captivity vs. Conservation: The Dilemma of Zoos
• From Farm to Plate: The Reality of Factory Farming
• Whales in Danger: Consequences of Commercial Whaling
• Shedding Light on Fur Trade: Ethical Concerns and Alternatives
• Animal Rights in Fashion: Examining the Use of Leather
• Exploring Ethical Dimensions: Use of Animals in Medical Research
• Wild At Heart: The Controversy Surrounding Trophy Hunting
• Lessons from Wildlife: The Impact of Habitat Destruction
• Outlawing Animal Cruelty: Legislation Across Different Countries
• Paws in Pain: The Distressing World of Puppy Mills
• Silent Sufferers: Effects of Climate Change on Animals
• Revealing the Dark Side: Illegal Animal Trade and Smuggling
• Spotlight on Animal Welfare: Importance of Veterinary Care
• Fins at Risk: Shark Finning and Its Ecological Consequences
• The Stolen Freedom: Circuses and Animal Entertainment Industry
• Livestock’s Long Journey: Animal Welfare in Transport
• Animal Rights vs. Religious Customs: A Delicate Balance
• Raising Awareness: The Role of Media in Animal Rights
• Laying Bare: The Deplorable Conditions of Animal Shelters
• Elephant Tusk Trade: A Dire Threat to Biodiversity

Consumption & Development Social Issues Topics

• Inequities in Global Resource Distribution: The Ethical Dilemma
• Technological Progress: Is It a Boon or a Bane for Sustainable Consumption?
• The Dark Side of Fast Fashion: Exploitation and Waste
• Climate Change: Impact on Global Food Security and Consumption
• E-Waste Management: Solutions for a Growing Global Concern
• Plastic Pollution: Analyzing Current Measures and Future Alternatives
• Economic Growth versus Environmental Conservation: Can They Coexist?
• Unchecked Tourism: Deciphering Its Impact on Natural Resources
• Overpopulation and Consumption: The Unsustainable Global Footprint
• Modern Agriculture’s Roles in Overconsumption and Soil Degradation
• Fast Food Culture: A Critical Look at Health and Environment
• Socioeconomic Disparities: How Do They Influence Consumption Patterns?
• The Rise of Electric Vehicles: Assessing Environmental Impact and Sustainability
• Impacts of Consumerism on Mental Health: Unmasking the Materialistic Culture
• Consumption in the Digital Age: E-Commerce and Its Environmental Consequences
• Urban Sprawl: Analyzing Its Effects on Natural Resources and Wildlife
• Influences of Advertising on Consumer Behavior: A Critical Analysis
• Access to Clean Water: A Global Crisis of Consumption and Pollution
• Global Supply Chains: Assessing Labor Exploitation and Sustainability
• The Role of Government Policies in Controlling Resource Overconsumption

Social Issues Topics on Cultural Appropriation & Stereotyping

• Identifying the Line Between Cultural Appreciation and Cultural Appropriation
• Stereotypes and Their Impact on Multicultural Relationships
• Consequences of Racial Stereotypes in Media Representation
• Commercialization and Exploitation of Indigenous Artifacts: Is It Cultural Appropriation?
• Stereotyping in Advertising: A Social Issue Worth Investigating
• Cultural Appropriation in the Fashion Industry: A Matter of Concern?
• Dissecting the Influence of Stereotypes on Academic Achievement
• Roles of Stereotyping in Gender Bias and Discrimination
• Music Genres: The Unseen Consequences of Cultural Appropriation
• Stereotypes in Children’s Books: Effects on Young Minds
• Influence of Cultural Appropriation on Traditional Cuisine and Recipes
• Roles of Stereotyping in Perpetuating Social Inequalities
• Cultural Appropriation in Yoga and Mindfulness Practices: Is It Problematic?
• Examination of Racial Stereotypes in Sports and Athletics
• Analyzing the Consequences of Cultural Appropriation in Hair and Beauty Trends
• Impact of Stereotyping on Mental Health and Self-Esteem
• Cultural Appropriation in Hollywood: Does It Harm or Help Cultural Understanding?
• Stereotypes in Video Games: Reflection of Society or Cause of Bias?
• Ethics of Cultural Appropriation in Literature and Fiction
• Stereotyping in Job Interviews: Its Effect on Employment Opportunities
• Linguistic Stereotypes and Their Consequences on Communication

Social Issues Topics on Cultural Property

• Protection of Indigenous Artifacts: Upholding Cultural Integrity
• Ethics of Art Repatriation: Addressing Historical Injustices
• National Museums’ Roles in Preserving Cultural Property
• Legislation Governing Cultural Heritage: An International Perspective
• Exploitation of Cultural Resources: Implications for Native Communities
• Antiquities Trade and Cultural Property: A Critical Analysis
• Cultural Patrimony: The Need for Enhanced International Cooperation
• Digitization of Cultural Property: Challenges and Opportunities
• Illicit Traffic of Cultural Goods: A Global Concern
• Respecting Intangible Heritage: Measures for Cultural Safeguarding
• Modern Architecture as Cultural Property: Preservation Challenges
• Safeguarding Underwater Heritage: Issues in Maritime Archaeology
• War Effects on Cultural Heritage: A Case Study
• Postcolonial Dynamics in Cultural Property Ownership
• Religious Institutions and the Preservation of Cultural Property
• Consequences of Tourism on Cultural Sites and Artifacts
• Climate Change Impact on Cultural Heritage Sites
• Archaeological Excavations: Ethical Considerations in Cultural Property Handling
• Historical Sites and Urban Development: A Balancing Act
• Sacred Objects Repatriation: Ethical Dilemmas

Current Social Issues Topics in America

• Unequal Access to Healthcare: A Crisis in American Communities
• Evaluating the Implications of Police Reform Movements
• Climate Change and Its Effect on US Coastal Cities
• Dissecting the Racial Disparities in American Public Education
• Homelessness Crisis: Solutions and Strategies for American Urban Areas
• Obesity Epidemic: America’s Unseen Public Health Dilemma
• Addressing the Wage Gap: Women’s Fight for Economic Equality
• The Struggle for LGBTQ+ Rights and Recognition in America
• Cybersecurity Threats: The Invisible War on American Infrastructure
• Investigating the Opioid Epidemic: Its Socioeconomic Ramifications
• The Future of Immigration Policy and Its Impact on American Society
• Free Speech vs. Hate Speech: Striking a Balance in the Digital Age
• Childhood Obesity: A Growing Issue in American Society
• Veterans’ Struggles: The Unaddressed Trauma and Its Consequences
• Gun Control and Second Amendment Rights: A Polarizing Debate
• The Role of Technology in Exacerbating Income Inequality
• Confronting Racism in American Sports: A Silent Scourge
• Democracy and Disinformation: The Threat of Fake News
• Youth Suicide Rates: The Silent Epidemic in American Schools
• Implications of Artificial Intelligence on the American Job Market
• Challenges Facing Indigenous Peoples: Reservations, Rights, and Resources

Social Issues Essay Topics on Disability & Accessibility

• The Role of Universal Design in Fostering Inclusivity
• Exploring the Physical Barriers That Hinder Accessibility
• The Effect of Societal Attitudes on Disability Acceptance
• Modern Technology’s Impacts on Accessibility for the Disabled
• Employment Opportunities and Disability: A Global Perspective
• Understanding Disability Representation in Media
• Disability Rights Movements: Their Evolution and Impact
• Societal Implications of Disability Stereotypes
• Investigating the Intersectionality of Disability and Race
• Disabilities and Education: Tackling Systemic Challenges
• Mental Health and Its Relation to Disability
• Accessibility in Public Transportation: An Unsolved Problem
• Sports Participation and Its Significance for Disabled Individuals
• Chronic Illness: Unseen Disabilities and Societal Perception
• Inadequacies in Health Care Services for People With Disabilities
• The Influence of Disability on Social Identity
• Assessing the Current State of Assistive Technology
• Cultural Perspectives on Disability: A Comparative Study
• Barriers to Effective Disability Legislation: Overcoming Challenges
• Disability Advocacy: Celebrating Prominent Figures and Their Contributions

Social Issues Topics on Discrimination & Prejudice

• Unraveling the Causes and Consequences of Religious Discrimination in Contemporary Society
• Ageism in the Workplace: An Overlooked Issue in the Modern Professional Environment
• Investigating Homophobia: The Role of Media in Shaping Attitudes Toward the LGBTQ+ Community
• Ethnic Prejudice in Education: Analysis of Its Impact on Minority Students’ Performance
• Stereotypes in Advertising: Their Influence on Consumer Perception and Bias
• Discrimination Against Immigrants: Exploring Its Socioeconomic Consequences
• Intersectionality: The Complex Overlay of Gender, Race, and Class Discrimination
• Roles of Legislation in Reducing Workplace Discrimination: A Comparative Study
• Body Shaming: Prevalence and Impact on Mental Health in Adolescents
• Cyberbullying and Online Hate Speech: The New Frontier of Discrimination
• Colorism: A Forgotten Aspect of Racial Discrimination in Society
• Disparity in Criminal Sentencing: Examining Racial Bias in the Justice System
• Prejudice Toward Mental Health: Evaluating Society’s Misunderstandings and Fear
• Parental Discrimination: The Unseen Prejudice Against Single Fathers in Society
• Obesity Stigma: The Social and Psychological Impacts of Weight Discrimination
• Ableism in Popular Media: Effects on Perception of Disabled Individuals
• Wealth Inequality: The Role of Discrimination in the Widening Socioeconomic Gap
• Transgender Rights: Unpacking Discrimination in Public Policy and Healthcare
• Xenophobia and Its Influence on Nationalistic Politics
• Linguistic Discrimination: The Unaddressed Bias Against Accents and Dialects
• Socioeconomic Discrimination: Implications for Access to Quality Education

Social Issues Topics About Education & Access to Education

• Exploring the Digital Divide: Impact on Rural Students’ Access to Education
• Gender Bias in Educational Resources: A Global Perspective
• Implications of Socioeconomic Status on Educational Attainment
• Understanding Disability-Inclusive Policies in Modern Education Systems
• Effectiveness of Online Learning for Underserved Communities
• Analyzing Racial Disparities in Standardized Testing
• Mitigating the Influence of Poverty on Student Performance
• Unraveling the Impact of Cultural Differences in Bilingual Education
• Diversity in School Curricula: The Need for Greater Representation
• Cyberbullying: Its Effect on Student Mental Health and Academic Performance
• Improving Immigrant Student Assimilation Through Culturally Sensitive Teaching Methods
• College Affordability: The Rising Student Debt Crisis
• School-to-Prison Pipeline: Effects of Zero Tolerance Policies
• Inequalities in Education: Comparing Urban and Rural Schools
• Reducing High School Dropout Rates: Successful Intervention Strategies
• Reforming Educational Policies for LGBTQ+ Students
• Evaluating Mental Health Support in Schools
• Public vs. Private Education: Impact on Student Success
• The Role of Technology in Modernizing Classroom Infrastructure
• Promoting Female Participation in STEM Fields

Environmental Social Issues Topics

• Consequences of Deforestation on Global Biodiversity
• Climate Change: Its Impact on Polar Ice Caps
• Analyzing Plastic Waste: Threats and Alternatives
• Overpopulation: Evaluating Its Effect on Natural Resources
• Water Scarcity: A Deep Dive Into Its Global Impact
• Impacts of Urbanization on Natural Habitats
• The Significance of Green Architecture in Reducing Carbon Footprint
• Industrial Pollution: Evaluating Its Effect on Air Quality
• The Importance of Sustainable Agriculture in Maintaining Soil Health
• Coral Reefs: Threats and Conservation Strategies
• Ocean Acidification: The Invisible Climate Threat
• Endangered Species: Exploring the Role of Poaching
• Genetic Modification in Agriculture: Boon or Bane for Biodiversity
• E-Waste Management: A New Global Challenge
• Pollution Control: Scrutinizing the Efficacy of International Laws
• Landfill Dilemmas: Exploring the Potential of Waste-to-Energy Technologies
• Invasive Species: Assessing Their Impact on Native Ecosystems
• Food Waste: A Hidden Contributor to Greenhouse Gas Emissions
• Renewable Energy: A Possible Solution to Fossil Fuel Dependence
• Hydropower Projects: Weighing Environmental Costs Against Energy Benefits
• Sustainable Tourism: Balancing Economic Growth and Environmental Preservation

Feminism Social Issues Topics

• Evolution of Feminism in the 21st Century: A Historical Perspective
• Unveiling the Multidimensional Impact of Cyberfeminism
• Feminist Literary Criticism: An Examination of Its Influence on Modern Literature
• Intersectionality: A Pivotal Factor in Feminism
• Dissecting the Representation of Women in the Media
• Glass Ceiling Phenomenon: A Feminist Analysis
• Analysis of Feminism’s Role in Promoting Equal Educational Opportunities
• Unpacking the Implications of Feminist Legal Theory
• Unveiling Men’s Roles in the Feminist Movement: A Contemporary Perspective
• Analysis of Body Positivity: A Feminist Perspective
• Understanding the Intersection of Feminism and Environmental Justice
• Exploring the Gender Pay Gap Through the Lens of Feminism
• Queer Theory and Feminism: An Unfolding Narrative
• Ecofeminism: An Analysis of Its Relevance in the Modern World
• Transnational Feminism: Exploring Its Impact on Global Gender Equality
• Impacts of Feminist Economics on the Global Financial System
• Dissecting the Influence of Feminist Activism on Social Change
• Gender Stereotypes: Feminism’s Response to Societal Norms
• Exploring the Role of Feminism in Promoting Reproductive Rights
• Comparative Analysis of Feminist Movements Across the Globe

Social Issues Essay Topics About Gender Identity & Transgender

• Understanding the Struggles of Transgender Teens in Public Schools
• Intersectionality in the Transgender Community: Race, Class, and Gender
• Gender Dysphoria: Psychological Perspectives and Treatment Approaches
• Public Restroom Access: A Crucial Issue for Transgender Individuals
• Fostering Safe Spaces: Inclusion of Transgender People in Sports
• Media Representation: Portrayal of Transgender Characters in Film and Television
• Debunking Myths: Unraveling Misconceptions About Non-Binary Identities
• Transgender Rights: Analyzing Global Legal Landscapes
• Queer Theory and Its Influence on Transgender Studies
• Gender Affirmation Surgeries: Accessibility and Ethical Dilemmas
• Workplace Discrimination: Challenges Faced by Transgender Employees
• Religious Perspectives: Understanding Transgender Acceptance in Different Faiths
• Bias in Healthcare: Addressing Transgender Medical Discrimination
• Parental Support: Influence on Transgender Youth Mental Health
• Evolution of Language: The Importance of Pronouns in Transgender Identities
• Activism’s Role in Advancing Transgender Equality and Justice
• Fashion Industry: Promoting or Hindering Transgender Inclusivity?
• Racial Disparities: Exploring Transgender Experiences Within Minority Groups
• Military Service: Transgender Inclusion and Barriers
• Legislation Impact: Tracing Changes in Transgender Rights Over Time
• Education Reform: Incorporating Gender Identity Into School Curriculum

Social Issues Topics About Gun Control & Second Amendment

• Influences of Media Portrayals on Gun Control Attitudes
• Evaluating the Effectiveness of Current Gun Control Measures
• The Second Amendment: A Historical Perspective
• School Shootings and Proposed Gun Control Solutions
• Rights of Individuals vs. Societal Safety: A Critical Analysis
• Roles of Firearms in Domestic Violence Cases
• Arguments for Stricter Gun Control Laws in the United States
• Mental Health Considerations in Gun Control Discussions
• Diverse Opinions on Gun Control: A Comparative Study
• Gun Control Policies: A Comparative Analysis Between States
• Perspectives on Concealed Carry Laws Across America
• Examining the Link Between Gun Ownership and Crime Rates
• Impacts of Gun Control on Suicide Rates
• Gun Shows and the Loophole in Gun Control Laws
• Stand-Your-Ground Laws: An Examination of Gun Rights
• Gun Control Debate: Rural vs. Urban Perspectives
• Racial Disparities in Gun Control Enforcement
• Influence of Political Parties on Gun Control Legislation
• Constitutional Interpretations of the Second Amendment
• Gun Control Laws and Their Effect on Hunting Culture

Social Issues Topics About Healthcare & Access to Healthcare

• Exploring the Implications of Mental Health Stigma in Healthcare Access
• Impacts of Socioeconomic Status on Quality of Medical Care
• Evaluating the Role of Education in Preventive Healthcare
• Assessing Challenges Faced by the Homeless in Obtaining Essential Medical Services
• Childhood Obesity: Tracing the Societal and Systemic Contributors
• Unpacking the Barriers to Healthcare in Rural Communities
• Telemedicine: Assessing its Effect on Health Equity
• Roles of Health Insurance in Shaping Healthcare Accessibility
• Gender Disparities in Healthcare: A Critical Examination
• Health Literacy: Its Influence on Patient-Care Provider Interactions
• Analyzing the Intersectionality of Race, Gender, and Healthcare Access
• Effects of Pandemics on Healthcare Inequality
• Transgender Health: Overcoming Challenges in Access and Understanding
• The Influence of Immigrant Status on Healthcare Access
• Comparing Global Health Systems: Lessons for Improved Access
• Food Insecurity and Its Link to Chronic Health Conditions
• Reproductive Rights: A Deep Dive Into Accessibility and Quality of Care
• Tackling Ageism in Health Services: A Study on Elderly Care
• Health Disparities Among Indigenous Populations: Causes and Solutions
• Holistic Healthcare: How Accessibility to Alternative Medicine Matters
• Substance Abuse Treatment: A Study on Access and Stigma

Health-Related Social Issues Essay Topics

• Stigma Attached to Mental Health Disorders in Society
• Obesity Epidemic: Societal Factors and Solutions
• Impacts of Socioeconomic Status on Nutritional Choices
• Alcoholism and Its Societal Consequences
• Social Implications of Ageing Population Dynamics
• Vaccination Hesitancy: A Public Health Crisis
• Intersection of Racism and Health Inequalities
• Domestic Violence: Hidden Health Crisis in Homes
• Effects of Urbanization on Public Health
• Bullying and Its Influence on Adolescent Mental Health
• Climate Change: Potential Impact on Global Health
• Exploring Substance Abuse Within Marginalized Communities
• Roles of Education in Promoting Sexual Health
• Chronic Illness and Social Isolation: A Silent Dilemma
• Investigating the Link Between Poverty and Disease Prevalence
• Health Insurance: The Great Divide in Medical Access
• Gender Disparities in Health: Biological or Societal?
• Exploring the Correlation Between Illiteracy and Poor Health
• HIV/AIDS Stigmatization: A Barrier to Effective Treatment
• Roles of Government Policies in Obesity Prevention

Social Issues Essay Topics About Homelessness & Housing Insecurity

• Addressing the Root Causes of Housing Instability: Poverty and Inequality
• The Intersection of Race and Homelessness in Society
• Promoting Social Inclusion for the Homeless Community
• Innovative Approaches to Sheltering the Unhoused
• Breaking the Cycle of Homelessness: Rehabilitation Programs
• Supporting Homeless Veterans: Ensuring Their Well-Being
• Substance Abuse and Its Impact on Homelessness
• Rethinking Urban Development to Address Housing Insecurity
• The Role of Education in Preventing Homelessness
• Legal Rights and Protections for Individuals Experiencing Homelessness
• The Link Between Homelessness and Food Scarcity
• LGBTQ+ Youth Homelessness: Upholding and Supporting Vulnerable Communities
• Improving Healthcare Access to Reduce Homelessness
• Overcoming Housing Challenges in Rural Areas
• Gentrification and Its Effects on Housing Instability
• Safe Spaces for Homeless Families With Children
• Homelessness and the Aging Population: Ensuring Support and Dignity
• Natural Disasters and Their Impact on Housing Insecurity
• Challenging Stereotypes: Changing Perceptions of Homelessness
• Collaborative Solutions to Homelessness: Public-Private Partnerships
• Housing First Approach: A Pathway to Stability

Social Issues Topics About Human Trafficking & Modern Slavery

• Unveiling the Dark Reality: Exploring the Causes and Consequences of Human Trafficking
• International Cooperation: Strengthening Efforts to Combat Modern Slavery
• Gender, Race, and Class: The Intersectionality of Human Trafficking
• Shaping Public Opinion: Media’s Influence on Raising Awareness about Human Trafficking
• Linkages Between Global Migration and Human Trafficking
• Preventing Human Trafficking: The Vital Role of Education
• Strengthening Legal Frameworks and Policies against Human Trafficking
• Corporate Social Responsibility: Addressing Human Trafficking in Supply Chains
• Healing and Recovery: Understanding the Psychological Impact on Human Trafficking Survivors
• Complex Nexus: Exploring the Connection Between Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation
• Unmasking the Hidden Reality: Investigating Human Trafficking and Forced Labor
• Grassroots Movements for Change: The Role of NGOs in Combating Human Trafficking
• Breaking the Cycle of Exploitation: Human Trafficking and Child Labor
• Bridging the Gap: Human Trafficking and Human Rights
• Emerging Challenges and Opportunities: Technology’s Impact on Human Trafficking
• A Harsh Reality of Modern Warfare: Human Trafficking in Conflict Zones
• Identifying and Prosecuting Human Traffickers: Law Enforcement’s Crucial Role
• Addressing the Root Causes: Exploring the Role of Demand in Human Trafficking
• Protecting Vulnerable Populations: Human Trafficking and Labor Migration
• An Alarming Nexus: Human Trafficking and Organ Trafficking

Humanity Social Issues Topics

• Gender Inequality: Challenging Societal Norms
• Combating Racism and Promoting Equality in Society
• Mental Health Stigma: Breaking the Silence
• Human Rights Violations and the Importance of Advocacy
• Overcoming Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation
• Economic Disparities: Addressing Wealth Inequality
• The Power of Empathy in Fostering Social Change
• Access to Healthcare: Bridging the Gap
• Eradicating Child Labor: A Pathway to a Better Future
• Challenges of Immigration and Refugee Integration
• Promoting Ethical Practices in the Business World
• Social Media and Its Impact on Human Connection
• Tackling Food Insecurity: A Humanitarian Imperative
• Promoting Cultural Diversity in a Globalized World
• Addressing Human Trafficking: Protecting the Vulnerable
• Disability Rights and Inclusion: Building an Accessible Society
• The Role of NGOs in Addressing Humanitarian Crises
• Challenging Ageism: Valuing the Wisdom of the Elderly
• Ending Domestic Violence: Empowering Survivors
• Fighting Corruption: Preserving Societal Integrity
• Overcoming Religious Intolerance: Promoting Interfaith Dialogue

Illiteracy Social Issues Topics

• Overcoming Educational Disadvantages: Illiteracy and Poverty
• Digital Divide: Overcoming Barriers to Illiteracy
• Empowering Women through Literacy Education
• Illiteracy and Its Effect on Health and Access to Healthcare
• Education for All: Tackling Illiteracy Challenges
• Harnessing Technology to Combat the Illiteracy Crisis
• The Role of Parental Involvement in Reducing Illiteracy
• Social Exclusion and Illiteracy: A Vicious Cycle
• Bridging the Gap: Accessible Education in Rural Areas
• Early Childhood Literacy Programs: Building a Strong Foundation
• Illiteracy and Environmental Sustainability: Raising Awareness
• Media Literacy: Breaking Illiteracy Barriers to Information
• Empowering Refugees through Literacy Education
• Addressing Illiteracy in the Aging Population
• Illiteracy and Crime: Disrupting the Connection
• Indigenous Communities and Literacy: Empowering Cultural Heritage
• Innovative Approaches to Adult Literacy Programs
• Illiteracy’s Role in Perpetuating Gender Inequality
• Language Access in Adult Literacy Initiatives
• Overcoming Stigma: Transforming Perceptions of Illiteracy

LGBT Social Issues Topics & Ideas

• Intersectionality: Exploring the Experiences of LGBTQ+ People of Color
• Religion and Homosexuality: Bridging the Gap
• LGBTQ+ Representation in Media: Significance and Challenges
• Conversion Therapy: Harmful Effects on LGBTQ+ Individuals
• Aging and Healthcare Access for LGBTQ+ Individuals
• Workplace Equality: Upholding LGBTQ+ Rights
• Parental Acceptance and Support for LGBTQ+ Youth
• Education and LGBTQ+ Inclusion: Fostering Acceptance
• Homosexuality and the Criminal Justice System: Challenges and Progress
• Protecting and Empowering LGBTQ+ Refugees
• LGBTQ+ Activism: Historical Milestones and Future Directions
• Bisexuality: Challenging Stereotypes and Biphobia
• Non-Binary Identity: Embracing Gender Non-Conformity
• LGBTQ+ Representation in Politics and Leadership
• Transgender Healthcare: Addressing Barriers and Disparities
• LGBTQ+ Families: Diverse Dynamics and Parenting
• Homelessness and Housing Discrimination Among LGBTQ+ Individuals
• LGBTQ+ Pride Parades: Celebration, Solidarity, and Resistance
• Isolation and Support for LGBTQ+ Elders
• Asexuality: Beyond the Binary Norms and Misconceptions
• Combating LGBTQ+ Hate Crimes: Strengthening Legislation and Awareness

Social Issues Essay Topics on Mental Health & Mental Illness

• Addressing Mental Health Disparities Among Marginalized Populations
• Understanding the Relationship Between Trauma and Psychiatric Conditions
• Promoting Mental Health Support in Educational Institutions
• Examining the Role of Genetics in Mental Health Disorders
• Integrating Mental Health Care into Primary Healthcare Systems
• Challenging Gender Stereotypes and Societal Expectations Surrounding Mental Health
• The Influence of Socioeconomic Factors on Mental Well-Being Outcomes
• Advocating for Mental Health Education in Academic Settings
• Exploring the Link Between Substance Abuse and Psychiatric Disorders
• The Role of Art Therapy in Enhancing Mental Health
• Investigating the Connection Between Mental Health and Homelessness
• Supporting Children and Adolescents Coping With Mental Health Challenges
• Breaking the Cycle: Mental Health in the Criminal Justice System
• Addressing Mental Health Stigma Within the LGBTQ+ Community
• The Impact of Nutrition on Mental Well-Being
• Exploring the Effects of Climate Change on Psychological Health
• Promoting Mental Health in Rural Communities
• Examining the Intersectionality of Mental Health and Disability
• The Relationship Between Exercise and Emotional Wellness
• Supporting Veterans Dealing With Psychological Challenges

Social Issues Topics About Migration & Immigration

• Enhancing Access to Healthcare for Undocumented Individuals
• Effects of Immigration Policies on Family Unity
• Assessing the Link Between Immigration and Crime Rates
• The Economic Contribution of Immigrant Entrepreneurs
• Balancing National Security and Humanitarian Responsibility in Migration Policies
• Examining the Impact of Migration on Cultural Diversity and Identity
• The Role of Social Services in Assisting Migrants
• Implications of Climate Change on Migration Patterns
• Promoting International Cooperation in Managing Migration Flows
• Explaining the Effects of Immigration on Wage Disparities
• Addressing the Integration Challenges Faced by Immigrant Women
• Assessing the Economic Impact of Deportation Policies
• Media’s Influence on Public Perception of Immigration
• The Role of Education in Immigrant Integration and Empowerment
• Securing Borders and Enforcing Immigration Laws
• Analyzing the Impact of Brain Drain on Developing Nations
• Non-Governmental Organizations’ Assistance to Migrants
• Rights and Responsibilities of Immigrants in Host Countries
• The Impact of Immigration on Social Welfare Systems
• Language Acquisition and Immigrant Integration
• Exploring the Effects of Migration on Housing Markets

Peace and War Social Issues Topics

• Healing the Wounds: Restorative Justice in Post-War Communities
• Education as a Catalyst for Peaceful Coexistence
• Media’s Roles in Influencing Public Perception of Conflict and Harmony
• Safeguarding Human Rights in Times of Armed Strife
• Environmental Degradation: Implications for Peaceful Societies
• Ethics of Intervention: Balancing Sovereignty and Responsibility
• Economic Disparity: A Driver of Conflict
• Addressing the Underlying Causes of Strife: Social, Economic, and Political Factors
• Empowering Women for Lasting Peace: Achieving Gender Equality
• Religion’s Influence on Peaceful Coexistence: Bridging Divides or Exacerbating Tensions?
• Cyber Warfare: Emerging Battlegrounds and the Imperative for Digital Harmony
• Curbing Arms Trade: Mitigating Weapons Proliferation for Global Security
• Refugee Crises: Humanitarian Responses and the Quest for Peace
• Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs): Mediating Conflict and Fostering Reconciliation
• Nationalism’s Roles in International Relations: Building Bridges or Deepening Divisions?
• Nuclear Disarmament: The Urgency of Global Collaboration
• Ensuring Accountability for War Crimes: Pursuing Justice for Victims
• Promoting Peace through Education: Instilling a Culture of Nonviolence
• Complexities of Peacekeeping: Triumphs, Trials, and Lessons Learned
• Art and Literature: Conveying Messages of Peace and Facilitating Healing

Social Issues Essay Topics on Police & Criminal Justice

• Community Impacts of Mass Incarceration: Reevaluating Strategies
• Balancing Rehabilitation and Punishment in Criminal Justice Systems
• Juvenile Justice: Empowering Youth Through Rehabilitation
• Examining the Consequences of Privatizing Prisons
• Safeguarding Civil Liberties: Evaluating Police Militarization
• Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Fostering Equal Opportunities
• Achieving Gender Equality in the Criminal Justice System
• Bridging the Gap: Mental Health Support in the Criminal Justice System
• The Ethics of Capital Punishment: Alternatives and Reflections
• Enhancing Public Safety: Police Training and De-Escalation Tactics
• Restorative Justice: Healing Communities, Reducing Recidivism
• Promoting Equity: Reforming Bail Systems
• Rethinking Drug Policies: Consequences and Alternative Approaches
• Collaboration and Trust: Strengthening Community Policing
• Combating Cybercrime: Law Enforcement’s Evolving Role
• Preserving Innocence: Addressing Wrongful Convictions
• Addressing Sentencing Disparities: Pursuing Fairness
• Transparency and Accountability: Police Internal Affairs
• Successful Reintegration: Rehabilitation Programs for Offenders
• Balancing Privacy and Security: The Impact of Technology in Policing
• Combating Hate Crimes: Bias Awareness and Law Enforcement

Pornography Social Issues Topics

• Addiction to Sexual Material: Understanding and Treating the Issue
• Feminist Perspectives on Obscene Material and Objectification
• Pornography and Its Influence on Adolescent Development
• The Economic Implications of the Adult Entertainment Industry
• Representations of Gender in Erotic Media and Their Impact
• Media Literacy and Critical Thinking: Analyzing Sexual Content
• The Connection Between Adult Material and Violence Against Women
• Addressing Consent and Boundaries in Explicit Productions
• Sexualized Media and Body Image Issues: Unrealistic Standards
• Education’s Roles in Preventing Harmful Sexual Content Consumption
• The Intersection of Pornography and Technology: Challenges and Solutions
• Cultivating Healthy Sexual Expression in the Age of Explicit Material
• The Erosion of Intimacy in Long-Term Relationships: Pornography’s Role
• The Impact of Sexual Material on Youth Sexual Education
• Addressing the Demand for Exploitative Content: Legal and Social Approaches
• Media Responsibility: Portrayal of Sexuality Beyond Obscenity
• Pornography and Sexual Violence: Unraveling the Connection
• Rehabilitation and Support for Individuals Affected by the Adult Entertainment Industry
• The Role of Social Media in the Accessibility and Consumption of Sexual Content
• Educating about Consent: Empowering Individuals to Make Informed Choices

Social Issues Essay Topics About Poverty & Income Inequality

• Addressing Poverty and Reducing Income Disparities
• Implementing Effective Policies for Economic Equality
• Ensuring Equal Opportunities for Economic Advancement
• Bridging the Wealth Gap: Strategies for Equity
• Alleviating Poverty Through Sustainable Development
• Tackling Income Inequality: Fair Wealth Distribution
• Empowering Marginalized Communities in Overcoming Poverty
• Reducing Income Disparity: A Holistic Approach
• Combating Poverty Through Education and Skill Development
• Promoting Social Mobility to Address Income Inequality
• Breaking the Cycle of Poverty: Empowering Future Generations
• Strengthening Social Safety Nets for the Impoverished
• Increasing Wages: A Step Toward Reducing Income Inequality
• Raising Awareness About Poverty and Wealth Disparities
• Encouraging Corporate Responsibility to Address Poverty
• Advocating Affordable Housing for Poverty Alleviation
• Empowering Women to Overcome Income Disparities
• Promoting Financial Inclusion to Reduce Poverty
• Addressing Income Inequality in Developing Nations
• Overcoming Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Wealth and Poverty
• Enhancing Healthcare Access for Vulnerable Populations

Racism Social Issues Topics

• Uniting Communities: Building Bridges to Eradicate Racial Prejudice
• Addressing Implicit Bias: Challenging Stereotypes and Racial Profiling
• Racial Injustice Within the Criminal Justice System: Reforming Policies and Practices
• Equality in the Workplace: Fostering Diversity and Inclusion
• Eradicating Hate Speech: Promoting Respectful Communication
• Racism in Healthcare: Ensuring Equitable Access and Quality Treatment
• Environmental Racism: Protecting Marginalized Communities From Toxic Exposure
• The Role of Education in Combating Racism: Promoting Cultural Understanding
• Racism and Mental Health: Addressing the Psychological Impacts
• Promoting Racial Justice in Immigration Policies
• Racial Disparities in Wealth and Economic Opportunities: Bridging the Gap
• Segregation in Residential Areas: Promoting Integration and Equality
• Challenging Colorism: Overcoming Prejudice Based on Skin Tone
• The Intersectionality of Racism and Sexism: Empowering Women of Color
• Racial Profiling and Policing: Ensuring Fair and Just Law Enforcement
• Inequality in Voting Rights: Safeguarding Democracy for All
• Racism and Sports: Promoting Inclusivity and Fair Play
• Historical Reparations for Racial Injustices: Acknowledging Past Wrongs
• Addressing Racism in the Digital Sphere: Countering Online Hate
• Racism in Immigration Policies: Promoting Fairness and Compassion

Social Issues Essay Topics Related to Social Media

• Analyzing the Effectiveness of Social Media in Facilitating Social Movements
• Shaping Public Opinion and Perception: The Role of Social Media
• Recognizing and Managing the Consequences of Social Media Addiction
• Empowering Marginalized Communities Through Online Activism
• Unmasking Misinformation: Combating Fake News on Social Media
• Exploring Social Media’s Impact on Interpersonal Connections
• Transforming Education: Leveraging Social Media for Learning
• Enhancing Cybersecurity on Digital Platforms: Safeguarding Users
• Social Media and Online Activism: A Comparative Study
• Ethics and Data Collection on Social Media: An Analytical Perspective
• Bridging Political Polarization through Social Media Engagement
• Analyzing the Influence of Social Media on Youth Culture and Identity
• Mobilizing Communities for Change: Social Media and Civic Engagement
• Fostering Inclusivity: Promoting Diversity on Digital Platforms
• The Dark Side of the Internet: Cyberstalking and Online Harassment
• Navigating Social Media Algorithms: Challenges and Strategies
• Balancing Freedom of Expression and Hate Speech on Digital Platforms
• Global Perspectives on Digital Activism: The Power of Social Media
• Social Media’s Influence on Political Campaigns and Elections
• Environmental Activism in the Digital Age: Leveraging Social Media
• Promoting Online Safety and Digital Citizenship on Social Platforms

Justice Essay Topics on Human Rights Issues

• Privacy in the Digital Age: Balancing Security and Individual Rights
• Criminal Justice Reform: Addressing Systemic Injustices
• Promoting LGBTQ+ Rights: Striving for Inclusion and Acceptance
• Eradicating Child Labor: Protecting the Future Generation
• Climate Change and Human Rights: Mitigating Environmental Injustices
• Disability Rights: Promoting Inclusivity and Accessibility
• Indigenous Peoples’ Rights: Recognizing and Preserving Cultural Heritage
• Freedom of Speech: Navigating the Boundaries of Expression
• Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Ensuring Protection and Support
• The Right to Healthcare: Overcoming Barriers to Access
• LGBTQ+ Adoption Rights: Fostering Loving Families
• Racial Profiling: Combating Discrimination in Law Enforcement
• Workers’ Rights: Empowering Labor in the Global Economy
• Right to Religious Freedom: Respecting Diverse Beliefs
• Genital Mutilation: Eliminating Harmful Traditional Practices
• Social Media and Human Rights: Navigating the Online Landscape
• The Right to Adequate Housing: Addressing Homelessness
• Children’s Rights in Armed Conflict: Protecting Innocence
• The Right to Water: Combating Water Scarcity and Inequality
• Combatting Hate Crimes: Promoting Tolerance and Unity

Social Justice Essay Topics

• Environmental Injustice: A Call for Sustainability
• Eradicating Hunger: Addressing Food Insecurity
• Affordable Housing: Combating Homelessness
• Access to Quality Healthcare: A Social Justice Imperative
• Reforming Prisons: Reducing Mass Incarceration
• Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Upholding Migrant Rights
• Combating Islamophobia: Promoting Religious Tolerance
• Ending Exploitation of Child Labor: Ensuring Access to Education
• Breaking Mental Health Stigma: Expanding Support Services
• Respect for the Elderly: Combating Ageism
• Safeguarding Online Spaces: Combating Cyberbullying
• Equal Pay for Fair Work: Closing the Gender Wage Gap
• Native American Rights: Preserving Indigenous Cultures
• Combating Human Trafficking: Ensuring Justice for All
• Access to Clean Water: Addressing Underserved Communities’ Needs
• Animal Rights: Advocating Ethical Treatment
• Protecting Religious Minority Rights: Eliminating Discrimination
• Prisoners’ Rights: Rehabilitation and Reintegration
• Accessible Transportation: Empowering People With Disabilities
• Ensuring Voting Rights: Expanding Electoral Participation
• LGBTQ+ Housing Equality: Eliminating Discrimination

Social Issues Essay Topics on Science

• Socioeconomic Disparities in Access to Healthcare and Breakthroughs
• Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Job Market Dynamics
• Gender Equality in Science: Overcoming Stereotypes and Biases
• Combating Misinformation in Scientific Research
• Contributions of Science to Sustainable Development Goals
• Balancing Public Interest and Corporate Influence in Science and Politics
• Challenges of Science Communication in the Digital Era
• Promoting Science Education and Equity in Underprivileged Communities
• Advancements in Renewable Energy Sources
• Technological Innovations and Social Inequality
• Addressing Food Insecurity Through Agricultural Science
• Ensuring Ethical Standards in Clinical Trials and Human Experimentation
• Accessibility in Science: Inclusive Solutions for Persons With Disabilities
• Science and Social Justice: Examining Biases in Research and Outcomes
• Roles of Science in Public Health Crises, such as Pandemics
• Influence of Corporate Funding on Scientific Research
• Ethical Considerations in Animal Testing for Scientific Research
• Science and Cultural Diversity: Recognizing Indigenous Knowledge Systems
• Breakthroughs in Mental Health Treatment and Reducing Stigma
• Ethics of Human Enhancement Technologies

Social Issues Topics About Substance Abuse & Addiction

• Combating Human Trafficking: Addressing a Global Crisis
• Overcoming Substance Dependency: The Path to Recovery
• Breaking the Cycle: Ending Child Abuse
• Addressing the Root Causes of Substance Abuse
• Empowering Survivors: Supporting Victims of Abuse
• Domestic Violence in LGBTQ+ Relationships
• The Role of Education in Preventing Substance Abuse
• Exploring the Link Between Childhood Trauma and Addiction
• The Economic Burden of Substance Abuse on Society
• Challenging Gender Stereotypes in the Context of Abuse
• Effective Intervention Strategies for Combatting Substance Abuse
• Elder Abuse: Protecting the Vulnerable in Society
• Addiction as a Disease: Shifting Perspectives and Approaches
• Raising Awareness: The Importance of Public Campaigns against Abuse
• Overcoming Stigma: Supporting Individuals in Recovery
• Media Influence on Substance Abuse and Violence
• Healing through Art: The Therapeutic Potential for Survivors
• Preventing Substance Abuse in Teenagers: A Holistic Approach
• Breaking the Silence: Encouraging Reporting of Abuse Cases
• Substance Abuse in the Workplace: Impacts and Solutions
• Digital Abuse: Navigating the Dark Side of Social Media
• Tackling Substance Abuse in Prisons: Rehabilitation vs. Punishment

Technology & Privacy Social Issues Topics

• Digital Surveillance: Protecting Individual Privacy in the Digital Age
• Ethical Implications of Facial Recognition Technology in Public Spaces
• Cyberbullying: Addressing Online Harassment and Protecting Users
• The Impact of Social Media on Privacy and Personal Relationships
• Artificial Intelligence: Balancing Innovation and Privacy Concerns
• Data Breaches and Cybersecurity: Safeguarding Personal Information
• The Right to Be Forgotten: Ensuring Digital Privacy and Data Erasure
• Online Privacy Policies: Transparency and User Consent
• Privacy vs. National Security: Striking a Balance in the Digital Era
• Digital Divide: Bridging the Gap in Access to Technology and Privacy Protection
• Online Harassment: Combating Threats and Protecting Users’ Safety
• Internet Service Providers: Preserving Net Neutrality and User Privacy
• Algorithmic Bias: Examining the Ethical Implications of Automated Systems
• Government Surveillance: Protecting Civil Liberties in the Digital World
• Internet of Things: Privacy Challenges and Security Risks
• Online Identity Theft: Preventing Fraud and Identity Misuse
• Location Tracking: Privacy Implications and Personal Safety
• Privacy in Health Tech: Balancing Benefits and Confidentiality
• Children’s Online Privacy: Safeguarding Vulnerable Users
• Privacy and Biometric Data: Ethics and Consent in Digital Identification

War & Violence Social Issues Essay Topics

• Psychological Effects of War on Veterans and Their Families
• Promoting Peace Education to Prevent Violence
• Rebuilding Societies After Civil Wars: Challenges and Opportunities
• Nonviolent Resistance Movements: Lessons From History
• War Crimes and International Criminal Justice
• The Arms Trade and its Influence on Global Conflicts
• Ethical Considerations of Drone Warfare
• Exploring the Link Between Poverty and Violence
• Peacekeeping Operations: Successes and Failures
• Protecting Children’s Rights in Times of War
• Resolving Ethnic and Religious Conflicts Through Dialogue
• Preventing Radicalization and Extremism in Post-War Societies
• Diplomacy’s Roles in Conflict Resolution
• Media Censorship in War Zones: Implications for Democracy
• Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Former Child Soldiers
• Environmental Devastation Caused by Warfare
• Addressing Domestic Violence During and After Armed Conflicts
• NGO Contributions to Peace and Reconciliation Efforts
• Exploring the Link between Economic Inequality and Violent Conflict
• Ethical Dilemmas Surrounding Torture in War
• Disrupting Education Systems in Times of War

To Learn More, Read Relevant Articles

502 ethics essay topics & ideas, 568 reflective essay topics & good ideas.

Chapter 1 Understanding Social Problems

As we move well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, the United States and the rest of the world face many social problems: poverty and hunger, racism and sexism, drug use and violence, and climate change, to name just a few. Why do these problems exist? What are their effects? What can be done about them? This new open textbook (free online, very affordable in other formats) from a student-friendly publisher, Unnamed Publisher , tries to answer these questions with the latest theory and research from sociology and other social sciences.

The discipline of sociology began in Western Europe during the late 1800s and soon made its way to the United States. Many of the new American sociologists focused on the various social problems facing the United States at the time. This was perhaps especially true at two institutions: Atlanta University (now known as Clark Atlanta University) and the University of Chicago. Befitting their urban locations, sociologists at both universities were very interested in poverty and racial inequality, and they sought to use sociological theory and research to address these problems and, more generally, to improve society (Calhoun, 2007). Calhoun, C. (2007). Sociology in America: An introduction. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Sociology in America: A history (pp. 1–38). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

A. Javier Treviño (2011, p. 1), Treviño, A. J. (2011). Program theme: Service sociology. Program of the 61st Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems , 1. Retrieved from http://www.sssp1.org/file/2011AnnualMeeting/Final%20Program.pdf . recent president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, refers to the vision and goals of these early American sociologists as service sociology , and he emphasizes that “early American sociology was primarily a reformist endeavor.” He adds, “Service sociology is a sociology of social problems intended to ameliorate conditions of life for those in need of assistance, and to insure and promote the welfare of the community. Motivated by care and compassion, a service-oriented sociology is aimed at helping people meet their pressing social needs. As such, service sociology involves the application of sociological knowledge combined with the expression of humanitarian sentiment.”

In the spirit of early American sociology and service sociology, this book brings sociological insights to bear on the important problems of our time. Using the latest social science evidence, it discusses the dimensions and effects of various kinds of social problems, the reasons for them, and possible solutions to them.

This first chapter begins our journey into the world of social problems by examining how sociology understands social problems and gathers research about them.

1.1 What Is a Social Problem?

Learning objectives.

• Define “social problem.”
• Explain the objective and subjective components of the definition of a social problem.
• Understand the social constructionist view of social problems.
• List the stages of the natural history of social problems.

A social problem Any condition or behavior that has negative consequences for large numbers of people and that is generally recognized as a condition or behavior that needs to be addressed. is any condition or behavior that has negative consequences for large numbers of people and that is generally recognized as a condition or behavior that needs to be addressed. This definition has both an objective component and a subjective component.

The objective component is this: For any condition or behavior to be considered a social problem, it must have negative consequences for large numbers of people, as each chapter of this book discusses. How do we know if a social problem has negative consequences? Reasonable people can and do disagree on whether such consequences exist and, if so, on their extent and seriousness, but ordinarily a body of data accumulates—from work by academic researchers, government agencies, and other sources—that strongly points to extensive and serious consequences. The reasons for these consequences are often hotly debated, and sometimes, as we shall see in certain chapters in this book, sometimes the very existence of these consequences is disputed. A current example is climate change : Although the overwhelming majority of climate scientists say that climate change (changes in the earth’s climate due to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) is real and serious, fewer than two-thirds of Americans (64 percent) in a 2011 poll said they “think that global warming is happening” (Leiserowitz, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Smith, 2011). Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Roser-Renouf, C., & Smith, N. (2011). Climate change in the American mind: Americans’ global warming beliefs and attitudes in May 2011 . New Haven, CT: Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.

This type of dispute points to the subjective component of the definition of social problems: There must be a perception that a condition or behavior needs to be addressed for it to be considered a social problem. This component lies at the heart of the social constructionist view The belief that negative social conditions or behaviors do not become social problems unless citizens, policymakers, and other parties call attention to the condition or behavior and define it as a social problem. of social problems (Rubington & Weinberg, 2010). Rubington, E., & Weinberg, M. S. (2010). The study of social problems: Seven perspectives (7th ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. In this view, many types of negative conditions and behaviors exist. Many of these are considered sufficiently negative to acquire the status of a social problem; some do not receive this consideration and thus do not become a social problem; and some become considered a social problem only if citizens, policymakers, or other parties call attention to the condition or behavior.

The history of attention given to rape and sexual assault in the United States before and after the 1970s provides an example of this latter situation. These acts of sexual violence against women have probably occurred from the beginning of humanity and certainly were very common in the United States before the 1970s. Although men were sometimes arrested and prosecuted for rape and sexual assault, sexual violence was otherwise ignored by legal policymakers and received little attention in college textbooks and the news media, and many people thought that rape and sexual assault were just something that happened (Allison & Wrightsman, 1993). Allison, J. A., & Wrightsman, L. S. (1993). Rape: The misunderstood crime . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Thus although sexual violence existed, it was not considered a social problem. When the contemporary women’s movement began in the late 1970s, it soon focused on rape and sexual assault as serious crimes and as manifestations of women’s inequality. Thanks to this focus, rape and sexual assault eventually entered the public consciousness, views of these crimes began to change, and legal policymakers began to give them more attention. In short, sexual violence against women became a social problem.

Before the 1970s, rape and sexual assault certainly existed and were very common, but they were generally ignored and not considered a social problem. When the contemporary women’s movement arose during the 1970s, it focused on sexual violence against women and turned this behavior into a social problem.

Image courtesy of Women’s eNews, http://www.flickr.com/photos/wenews/5167303294/ .

The social constructionist view raises an interesting question: When is a social problem a social problem? According to some sociologists who adopt this view, negative conditions and behaviors are not a social problem unless they are recognized as such by policymakers, large numbers of lay citizens, or other segments of our society; these sociologists would thus say that rape and sexual assault before the 1970s were not a social problem because our society as a whole paid them little attention. Other sociologists say that negative conditions and behaviors should be considered a social problem even if they receive little or no attention; these sociologists would thus say that rape and sexual assault before the 1970s were a social problem.

This type of debate is probably akin to the age-old question: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, is a sound made? As such, it is not easy to answer, but it does reinforce one of the key beliefs of the social constructionist view: Perception matters at least as much as reality, and sometimes more so. In line with this belief, social constructionism emphasizes that citizens, interest groups, policymakers, and other parties often compete to influence popular perceptions of many types of conditions and behaviors. They try to influence news media coverage and popular views of the nature and extent of any negative consequences that may be occurring, the reasons underlying the condition or behavior in question, and possible solutions to the problem.

Social constructionism’s emphasis on perception has a provocative implication: Just as a condition or behavior may not be considered a social problem even if there is strong basis for this perception, so may a condition or behavior be considered a social problem even if there is little or no basis for this perception. The “issue” of women in college provides a historical example of this latter possibility. In the late 1800s, leading physicians and medical researchers in the United States wrote journal articles, textbooks, and newspaper columns in which they warned women not to go to college. The reason? They feared that the stress of college would disrupt women’s menstrual cycles, and they also feared that women would not do well in exams during “that time of the month” (Ehrenreich & English, 2005)! Ehrenreich, B., & English, D. (2005). For her own good: Two centuries of the experts’ advice to women (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Anchor Books. We now know better, of course, but the sexist beliefs of these writers turned the idea of women going to college into a social problem and helped to reinforce restrictions by colleges and universities on the admission of women.

In a related dynamic, various parties can distort certain aspects of a social problem that does exist: politicians can give speeches, the news media can use scary headlines and heavy coverage to capture readers’ or viewers’ interest, businesses can use advertising and influence news coverage. News media coverage of violent crime provides many examples of this dynamic (Robinson, 2011; Surette, 2011). Robinson, M. B. (2011). Media coverage of crime and criminal justice . Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press; Surette, R. (2011). Media, crime, and criminal justice: Images, realities, and policies (4th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. The news media overdramatize violent crime, which is far less common than property crime like burglary and larceny, by featuring so many stories about it, and this coverage contributes to public fear of crime. Media stories about violent crime also tend to be more common when the accused offender is black and the victim is white and when the offender is a juvenile. This type of coverage is thought to heighten the public’s prejudice toward African Americans and to contribute to negative views about teenagers.

The Natural History of a Social Problem

We have just discussed some of the difficulties in defining a social problem and the fact that various parties often try to influence public perceptions of social problems. These issues aside, most social problems go through a natural history consisting of several stages of their development (Spector & Kitsuse, 2001). Spector, M., & Kitsuse, J. I. (2001). Constructing social problems . New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.

Stage 1: Emergence and Claims Making

A social problem emerges when a social entity (such as a social change group, the news media, or influential politicians) begins to call attention to a condition or behavior that it perceives to be undesirable and in need of remedy. As part of this process, it tries to influence public perceptions of the problem, the reasons for it, and possible solutions to it. Because the social entity is making claims about all these matters, this aspect of Stage 1 is termed the claims-making process The use of arguments to try to influence public perceptions of a social problem, the reasons for it, and possible solutions to it. . Not all efforts to turn a condition or behavior into a social problem succeed, and if they do not succeed, a social problem does not emerge. Because of the resources they have or do not have, some social entities are more likely than others to succeed at this stage. A few ordinary individuals have little influence in the public sphere, but masses of individuals who engage in protest or other political activity have greater ability to help a social problem emerge. Because politicians have the ear of the news media and other types of influence, their views about social problems are often very influential. Most studies of this stage of a social problem focus on the efforts of social change groups and the larger social movement to which they may belong, as most social problems begin with bottom-up efforts from such groups.

A social problem emerges when a social change group successfully calls attention to a condition or behavior that it considers serious. Protests like the one depicted here have raised the environmental consciousness of Americans and helped put pressure on businesses to be environmentally responsible.

Image courtesy of ItzaFineDay, http://www.flickr.com/photos/itzafineday/3085307050/ .

Stage 2: Legitimacy

Once a social group succeeds in turning a condition or behavior into a social problem, it usually tries to persuade the government (local, state, and/or federal) to take some action—spending and policymaking—to address the problem. As part of this effort, it tries to convince the government that its claims about the problem are legitimate—that they make sense and are supported by empirical (research-based) evidence. To the extent that the group succeeds in convincing the government of the legitimacy of its claims, government action is that much more likely to occur.

Stage 3: Renewed Claims Making

Even if government action does occur, social change groups often conclude that the action is too limited in goals or scope to be able to successfully address the social problem. If they reach this conclusion, they often decide to press their demands anew. They do so by reasserting their claims and by criticizing the official response they have received from the government or other established interests, such as big businesses. This stage may involve a fair amount of tension between the social change groups and these targets of their claims.

Stage 4: Development of Alternative Strategies

Despite the renewed claims making, social change groups often conclude that the government and established interests are not responding adequately to their claims. Although the groups may continue to press their claims, they nonetheless realize that these claims may fail to win an adequate response from established interests. This realization leads them to develop their own strategies for addressing the social problem.

Key Takeaways

• The definition of a social problem has both an objective component and a subjective component. The objective component involves empirical evidence of the negative consequences of a social condition or behavior, while the subjective component involves the perception that the condition or behavior is indeed a problem that needs to be addressed.
• The social constructionist view emphasizes that a condition or behavior does not become a social problem unless there is a perception that it should be considered a social problem.
• The natural history of a social problem consists of four stages: emergence and claims making, legitimacy, renewed claims making, and alternative strategies.

For Your Review

• What do you think is the most important social problem facing our nation right now? Explain your answer.
• Do you agree with the social constructionist view that a negative social condition or behavior is not a social problem unless there is a perception that it should be considered a social problem? Why or why not?

1.2 Sociological Perspectives on Social Problems

• Define the sociological imagination.
• Explain what is meant by the blaming-the-victim belief.
• Summarize the most important beliefs and assumptions of functionalism and conflict theory.
• Summarize the most important beliefs and assumptions of symbolic interactionism and exchange theory.

The sociological understanding of social problems rests heavily on the concept of the sociological imagination . We discuss this concept in some detail before turning to various theoretical perspectives that provide a further context for understanding social problems.

The Sociological Imagination

Many individuals experience one or more social problems personally. For example, many people are poor and unemployed, many are in poor health, and many have family problems, drink too much alcohol, or commit crime. When we hear about these individuals, it is easy to think that their problems are theirs alone, and that they and other individuals with the same problems are entirely to blame for their difficulties.

Sociology takes a different approach, as it stresses that individual problems are often rooted in problems stemming from aspects of society itself. This key insight informed C. Wright Mills’s (1959) Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination . London, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. classic distinction between personal troubles C. Wright Mills’s term for the personal problems that many individuals experience. and public issues C. Wright Mills’s term for problems in society that underlie personal troubles. . Personal troubles refer to a problem affecting individuals that the affected individual, as well as other members of society, typically blame on the individual’s own personal and moral failings. Examples include such different problems as eating disorders, divorce, and unemployment. Public issues , whose source lies in the social structure and culture of a society, refer to social problems affecting many individuals. Problems in society thus help account for problems that individuals experience. Mills felt that many problems ordinarily considered private troubles are best understood as public issues, and he coined the term sociological imagination From C. Wright Mills, the realization that personal troubles are rooted in public issues. to refer to the ability to appreciate the structural basis for individual problems.

To illustrate Mills’s viewpoint, let’s use our sociological imaginations to understand some contemporary social problems. We will start with unemployment, which Mills himself discussed. If only a few people were unemployed, Mills wrote, we could reasonably explain their unemployment by saying they were lazy, lacked good work habits, and so forth. If so, their unemployment would be their own personal trouble. But when millions of people are out of work, unemployment is best understood as a public issue because, as Mills (1959, p. 9) Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination . London, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. put it, “the very structure of opportunities has collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of possible solutions require us to consider the economic and political institutions of the society, and not merely the personal situation and character of a scatter of individuals.”

The high US unemployment rate stemming from the severe economic downturn that began in 2008 provides a telling example of the point Mills was making. Millions of people lost their jobs through no fault of their own. While some individuals are undoubtedly unemployed because they are lazy or lack good work habits, a more structural explanation focusing on lack of opportunity is needed to explain why so many people were out of work. If so, unemployment is best understood as a public issue rather than a personal trouble.

Another social problem is eating disorders. We usually consider a person’s eating disorder to be a personal trouble that stems from a lack of control, low self-esteem, or another personal problem. This explanation may be OK as far as it goes, but it does not help us understand why so many people have the personal problems that lead to eating disorders. Perhaps more important, this belief also neglects the larger social and cultural forces that help explain such disorders. For example, most Americans with eating disorders are women, not men. This gender difference forces us to ask what it is about being a woman in American society that makes eating disorders so much more common. To begin to answer this question, we need to look to the standard of beauty for women that emphasizes a slender body (Boyd, Reynolds, Tillman, & Martin, 2011). Boyd, E. M., Reynolds, J. R., Tillman, K. H., & Martin, P. Y. (2011). Adolescent girls’ race/ethnic status, identities, and drive for thinness. Social Science Research, 40 (2), 667–684. If this cultural standard did not exist, far fewer American women would suffer from eating disorders than do now. Because it does exist, even if every girl and woman with an eating disorder were cured, others would take their places unless we could somehow change this standard. Viewed in this way, eating disorders are best understood as a public issue, not just as a personal trouble.

Picking up on Mills’s insights, William Ryan (1976) Ryan, W. (1976). Blaming the victim (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: Vintage Books. pointed out that Americans typically think that social problems such as poverty and unemployment stem from personal failings of the people experiencing these problems, not from structural problems in the larger society. Using Mills’s terms, Americans tend to think of social problems as personal troubles rather than public issues. As Ryan put it, they tend to believe in blaming the victim The belief that people experiencing difficulties are to blame for these problems. rather than blaming the system The belief that personal difficulties stem from problems in society. .

To help us understand a blaming-the-victim ideology, let’s consider why poor children in urban areas often learn very little in their schools. According to Ryan, a blaming-the-victim approach would say the children’s parents do not care about their learning, fail to teach them good study habits, and do not encourage them to take school seriously. This type of explanation, he wrote, may apply to some parents, but it ignores a much more important reason: the sad shape of America’s urban schools, which, he said, are overcrowded, decrepit structures housing old textbooks and out-of-date equipment. To improve the schooling of children in urban areas, he wrote, we must improve the schools themselves and not just try to “improve” the parents.

As this example suggests, a blaming-the-victim approach points to solutions to social problems such as poverty and illiteracy that are very different from those suggested by a more structural approach that blames the system. If we blame the victim, we would spend our limited dollars to address the personal failings of individuals who suffer from poverty, illiteracy, poor health, eating disorders, and other difficulties. If instead we blame the system, we would focus our attention on the various social conditions (decrepit schools, cultural standards of female beauty, and the like) that account for these difficulties. A sociological understanding suggests that the latter approach is ultimately needed to help us deal successfully with the social problems facing us today.

Theoretical Perspectives

Three theoretical perspectives guide sociological thinking on social problems: functionalist theory, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionist theory. These perspectives look at the same social problems, but they do so in different ways. Their views taken together offer a fuller understanding of social problems than any of the views can offer alone. Table 1.1 "Theory Snapshot" summarizes the three perspectives.

Table 1.1 Theory Snapshot

Functionalism

Functionalism The view that social institutions are important for their contributions to social stability. , also known as the functionalist theory or perspective, arose out of two great revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The first was the French Revolution of 1789, whose intense violence and bloody terror shook Europe to its core. The aristocracy throughout Europe feared that revolution would spread to their own lands, and intellectuals feared that social order was crumbling.

The Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century reinforced these concerns. Starting first in Europe and then in the United States, the Industrial Revolution led to many changes, including the rise and growth of cities as people left their farms to live near factories. As the cities grew, people lived in increasingly poor, crowded, and decrepit conditions, and crime was rampant. Here was additional evidence, if European intellectuals needed it, of the breakdown of social order.

In response, the intellectuals began to write that a strong society, as exemplified by strong social bonds and rules and effective socialization, was needed to prevent social order from disintegrating. Without a strong society and effective socialization, they warned, social order breaks down, and violence and other signs of social disorder result.

This general framework reached fruition in the writings of Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), a French scholar largely responsible for the sociological perspective, as we now know it. Adopting the conservative intellectuals’ view of the need for a strong society, Durkheim felt that human beings have desires that result in chaos unless society limits them (Durkheim, 1897/1952, p. 274). Durkheim, É. (1952). Suicide (J. Spaulding & G. Simpson, Trans.). New York, NY: Free Press. (Original work published 1897) It does so, he wrote, through two related social mechanisms: socialization and social integration. Socialization helps us learn society’s rules and the need to cooperate, as people end up generally agreeing on important norms and values, while social integration, or our ties to other people and to social institutions such as religion and the family, helps socialize us and integrate us into society and reinforce our respect for its rules.

Today’s functionalist perspective arises out of Durkheim’s work and that of other conservative intellectuals of the nineteenth century. It uses the human body as a model for understanding society. In the human body, our various organs and other body parts serve important functions for the ongoing health and stability of our body. Our eyes help us see, our ears help us hear, our heart circulates our blood, and so forth. Just as we can understand the body by describing and understanding the functions that its parts serve for its health and stability, so can we understand society by describing and understanding the functions that its parts—or, more accurately, its social institutions—serve for the ongoing health and stability of society. Thus functionalism emphasizes the importance of social institutions such as the family, religion, and education for producing a stable society.

Émile Durkheim was a founder of sociology and is largely credited with developing the functionalist perspective.

Source: http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/d/pics/durkheim.jpg .

Similar to the view of the conservative intellectuals from which it grew, functionalism is skeptical of rapid social change and other major social upheaval. The analogy to the human body helps us understand this skepticism. In our bodies, any sudden, rapid change is a sign of danger to our health. If we break a bone in one of our legs, we have trouble walking; if we lose sight in both our eyes, we can no longer see. Slow changes, such as the growth of our hair and our nails, are fine and even normal, but sudden changes like those just described are obviously troublesome. By analogy, sudden and rapid changes in society and its social institutions are troublesome according to the functionalist perspective. If the human body evolved to its present form and functions because these made sense from an evolutionary perspective, so did society evolve to its present form and functions because these made sense. Any sudden change in society thus threatens its stability and future.

As these comments might suggest, functionalism views social problems as arising from society’s natural evolution. When a social problem does occur, it might threaten a society’s stability, but it does not mean that fundamental flaws in the society exist. Accordingly, gradual social reform should be all that is needed to address the social problem.

Functionalism even suggests that social problems must be functional in some ways for society, because otherwise these problems would not continue. This is certainly a controversial suggestion, but it is true that many social problems do serve important functions for our society. For example, crime is a major social problem, but it is also good for the economy because it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in law enforcement, courts and corrections, home security, and other sectors of the economy whose major role is to deal with crime. If crime disappeared, many people would be out of work! Similarly, poverty is also a major social problem, but one function that poverty serves is that poor people do jobs that otherwise might not get done because other people would not want to do them (Gans, 1972). Gans, H. J. (1972). The positive functions of poverty. American Journal of Sociology, 78 , 275–289. Like crime, poverty also provides employment for people across the nation, such as those who work in social service agencies that help poor people.

Conflict Theory

In many ways, conflict theory The view that society is composed of groups with different interests arising from their placement in the social structure. is the opposite of functionalism but ironically also grew out of the Industrial Revolution, thanks largely to Karl Marx (1818–1883) and his collaborator, Friedrich Engels (1820–1895). Whereas conservative intellectuals feared the mass violence resulting from industrialization, Marx and Engels deplored the conditions they felt were responsible for the mass violence and the capitalist society they felt was responsible for these conditions. Instead of fearing the breakdown of social order that mass violence represented, they felt that revolutionary violence was needed to eliminate capitalism and the poverty and misery they saw as its inevitable results (Marx, 1867/1906; Marx & Engels, 1848/1962). Marx, K. (1906). Capital . New York, NY: Random House. (Original work published 1867); Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1962). The communist manifesto. In Marx and Engels: Selected works (Vol. 2, pp. 21–65). Moscow, Russia: Foreign Language Publishing House. (Original work published 1848).

According to Marx and Engels, every society is divided into two classes based on the ownership of the means of production (tools, factories, and the like). In a capitalist society, the bourgeoisie , or ruling class, owns the means of production, while the proletariat , or working class, does not own the means of production and instead is oppressed and exploited by the bourgeoisie. This difference creates an automatic conflict of interests between the two groups. Simply put, the bourgeoisie is interested in maintaining its position at the top of society, while the proletariat’s interest lies in rising up from the bottom and overthrowing the bourgeoisie to create an egalitarian society.

In a capitalist society, Marx and Engels wrote, revolution is inevitable because of structural contradictions arising from the very nature of capitalism. Because profit is the main goal of capitalism, the bourgeoisie’s interest lies in maximizing profit. To do so, capitalists try to keep wages as low as possible and to spend as little money as possible on working conditions. This central fact of capitalism, said Marx and Engels, eventually prompts the rise of class consciousness Awareness of one’s placement in the social structure and the interests arising from this placement. , or an awareness of the reasons for their oppression, among workers. Their class consciousness in turn leads them to revolt against the bourgeoisie to eliminate the oppression and exploitation they suffer.

Marx and Engels’ view of conflict arising from unequal positions held by members of society lies at the heart of today’s conflict theory. This theory emphasizes that different groups in society have different interests stemming from their different social positions. These different interests in turn lead to different views on important social issues. Some versions of the theory root conflict in divisions based on race and ethnicity, gender, and other such differences, while other versions follow Marx and Engels in seeing conflict arising out of different positions in the economic structure. In general, however, conflict theory emphasizes that the various parts of society contribute to ongoing inequality, whereas functionalist theory, as we have seen, stresses that they contribute to the ongoing stability of society. Thus while functionalist theory emphasizes the benefits of the various parts of society for ongoing social stability, conflict theory favors social change to reduce inequality.

Feminist theory The view that society is filled with gender inequality characterized by women being the subordinate sex in the social, political, and economic dimensions of society. has developed in sociology and other disciplines since the 1970s and for our purposes will be considered a specific application of conflict theory. In this case, the conflict concerns gender inequality rather than the class inequality emphasized by Marx and Engels. Although many variations of feminist theory exist, they all emphasize that society is filled with gender inequality such that women are the subordinate sex in many dimensions of social, political, and economic life (Lorber, 2010). Lorber, J. (2010). Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics . New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Liberal feminists view gender inequality as arising out of gender differences in socialization, while Marxist feminists say that this inequality is a result of the rise of capitalism, which made women dependent on men for economic support. On the other hand, radical feminists view gender inequality as present in all societies, not just capitalist ones. Several chapters in this book emphasize the perspectives of feminist sociologists and other social scientists.

Conflict theory in its various forms views social problems as arising from society’s inherent inequality. Depending on which version of conflict theory is being considered, the inequality contributing to social problems is based on social class, race and ethnicity, gender, or some other dimension of society’s hierarchy. Because any of these inequalities represents a fundamental flaw in society, conflict theory assumes that fundamental social change is needed to address society’s many social problems.

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism A perspective in sociology that focuses on the meanings people gain from social interaction. focuses on the interaction of individuals and on how they interpret their interaction. Its roots lie in the work of early 1900s American sociologists, social psychologists, and philosophers who were interested in human consciousness and action. Herbert Blumer (1969), Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and Method . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. a sociologist at the University of Chicago, built on their writings to develop symbolic interactionism, a term he coined. Drawing on Blumer’s work, symbolic interactionists feel that people do not merely learn the roles that society has set out for them; instead they construct these roles as they interact. As they interact, they negotiate their definitions of the situations in which they find themselves and socially construct the reality of these situations. In doing so, they rely heavily on symbols such as words and gestures to reach a shared understanding of their interaction.

An example is the familiar symbol of shaking hands. In the United States and many other societies, shaking hands is a symbol of greeting and friendship. This simple act indicates that you are a nice, polite person with whom someone should feel comfortable. To reinforce this symbol’s importance for understanding a bit of interaction, consider a situation where someone refuses to shake hands. This action is usually intended as a sign of dislike or as an insult, and the other person interprets it as such. Their understanding of the situation and subsequent interaction will be very different from those arising from the more typical shaking of hands. As the term symbolic interactionism implies, their understanding of this encounter arises from what they do when they interact and from their use and interpretation of the various symbols included in their interaction. According to symbolic interactionists, social order is possible because people learn what various symbols (such as shaking hands) mean and apply these meanings to different kinds of situations. If you visited a society where sticking your right hand out to greet someone was interpreted as a threatening gesture, you would quickly learn the value of common understandings of symbols.

Symbolic interactionism views social problems as arising from the interaction of individuals. This interaction matters in two important respects. First, socially problematic behaviors such as crime and drug use are often learned from our interaction with people who engage in these behaviors; we adopt their attitudes that justify committing these behaviors, and we learn any special techniques that might be needed to commit these behaviors. Second, we also learn our perceptions of a social problem from our interaction with other people, whose perceptions and beliefs influence our own perceptions and beliefs.

Because symbolic interactionism emphasizes the perception of social problems, it is closely aligned with the social constructionist view discussed earlier. Both perspectives emphasize the subjective nature of social problems. By doing so, they remind us that perceptions often matter at least as much as objective reality in determining whether a given condition or behavior rises to the level of a social problem and in the types of possible solutions that various parties might favor for a particular social problem.

Applying the Three Perspectives

To help you further understand the different views of these three theoretical perspectives, let’s see what they would probably say about armed robbery , a very serious form of crime, while recognizing that the three perspectives together provide a more comprehensive understanding of armed robbery than any one perspective provides by itself.

A functionalist approach might suggest that armed robbery actually serves positive functions for society, such as the job-creating function mentioned earlier for crime in general. It would still think that efforts should be made to reduce armed robbery, but it would also assume that far-reaching changes in our society would be neither wise nor necessary as part of the effort to reduce crime.

Conflict theory would take a very different approach to understanding armed robbery. It might note that most street criminals are poor and thus emphasize that armed robbery is the result of the despair and frustration of living in poverty and facing a lack of jobs and other opportunities for economic and social success. The roots of street crime, from the perspective of conflict theory, thus lie in society at least as much as they lie in the individuals committing such crime. To reduce armed robbery and other street crime, conflict theory would advocate far-reaching changes in the economic structure of society.

For its part, symbolic interactionism would focus on how armed robbers make such decisions as when and where to rob someone and on how their interactions with other criminals reinforce their own criminal tendencies. It would also investigate how victims of armed robbery behave when confronted by a robber. To reduce armed robbery, it would advocate programs that reduce the opportunities for interaction among potential criminal offenders, for example, after-school programs that keep at-risk youths busy in “conventional” activities so that they have less time to spend with youths who might help them get into trouble.

• According to C. Wright Mills, the sociological imagination involves the ability to recognize that private troubles are rooted in public issues and structural problems.
• Functionalism emphasizes the importance of social institutions for social stability and implies that far-reaching social change will be socially harmful.
• Conflict theory emphasizes social inequality and suggests that far-reaching social change is needed to achieve a just society.
• Symbolic interactionism emphasizes the social meanings and understandings that individuals derive from their social interaction.
• Select an example of a “private trouble” and explain how and why it may reflect a structural problem in society.
• At this point in your study of social problems, which one of the three sociological theoretical perspectives sounds most appealing to you? Why?

1.3 Continuity and Change in Social Problems

• Explain what is meant by this book’s subtitle, “Continuity and Change.”
• List the three sources of changes to social problems.
• Describe how the United States compares to other democracies regarding the seriousness of social problems.

This book’s subtitle, “Continuity and Change,” conveys a theme that will guide every chapter’s discussion. Social problems are, first of all, persistent . They have continued for decades and even centuries, and they show no sign of ending anytime soon. In view of social problems’ long history, certainty of continuing for some time to come, and serious consequences, it is easy to feel overwhelmed when reading about them, to think that little can be done about them, and even to become a bit depressed. As a result, it is easy for students to come away from social problems courses with a rather pessimistic, “doom and gloom” outlook (Johnson, 2005). Johnson, B. (2005). Overcoming “doom and gloom”: Empowering students in courses on social problems, injustice, and inequality. Teaching Sociology, 33 , 44–58.

That is why this book stresses the second part of the subtitle, change . Although social problems are indeed persistent, it is also true that certain problems are less serious now than in the past. Change is possible. As just one of many examples, consider the conditions that workers face in the United States. As Chapter 12 "Work and the Economy" discusses, many workers today are unemployed, have low wages, or work in substandard and even dangerous workplaces. Yet they are immeasurably better off than a century ago, thanks to the US labor movement that began during the 1870s. Workers now have the eight-hour day, the minimum wage (even if many people think it is too low), the right to strike, and workplaces that are much safer than when the labor movement began. In two more examples, people of color and women have made incredible advances since the 1960s, even if, as Chapter 3 "Racial and Ethnic Inequality" and Chapter 4 "Gender Inequality" discuss, they continue to experience racial and gender inequality, respectively. To repeat: Change is possible.

How does change occur? One source of change in social problems is social science theory and research. Over the decades, theory and research in sociology and the other social sciences have pointed to the reasons for social problems, to potentially successful ways of addressing them, and to actual policies that succeeded in addressing some aspect of a social problem. Accordingly, the discussion in each chapter of this book is based on sound social science theory and research, and each chapter will present examples of how the findings from sociological and other social science research have either contributed to public policy related to the chapter’s social problem or have the potential of doing so.

The actions of individuals and groups may also make a difference. Many people have public-service jobs or volunteer in all sorts of activities involving a social problem: they assist at a food pantry, they help clean up a riverbank, and so forth. Others take on a more activist orientation by becoming involved in small social change groups or a larger social movement. Our nation is a better place today because of the labor movement, the Southern civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the gay rights movement, the environmental movement, and other efforts too numerous to mention. According to Frances Fox Piven (2006), Piven, F. F. (2006). Challenging authority: How ordinary people change America . Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. a former president of the American Sociological Association, it is through such efforts that “ordinary people change America,” as the subtitle of her book on this subject reads.

Sharing this view, anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Change thus is not easy, but it can and does occur. Eleanor Roosevelt (1960, p. 168) Roosevelt, E. (1960). You learn by living: Eleven keys for a more fulfilling life . New York, NY: Harper & Row. recognized this when she wrote, “Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try. For one thing we know beyond all doubt: Nothing has ever been achieved by the person who says, ‘It can’t be done.’” In the optimistic spirit of these two famous women, we will see examples throughout this book of people making a difference in their jobs, volunteer activities, and involvement in social change efforts.

Change also occurs in social problems because policymakers (elected or appointed officials and other individuals) pass laws or enact policies that successfully address a social problem. They often do so only because of the pressure of a social movement, but sometimes they have the vision to act without such pressure. It is also true that many officials fail to take action despite the pressure of a social movement, so those who do take action should be applauded. A recent example involves the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, who made the legalization of same-sex marriage a top priority for his state when he took office in January 2011. After the New York state legislature narrowly approved same-sex marriage six months later, Cuomo’s advocacy was widely credited for enabling this to happen (Barbaro, 2011). Barbaro, M. (2011, June 6). Behind NY gay marriage, an unlikely mix of forces. New York Times , p. A1.

A final source of change is the lessons learned from other nations’ experiences with social problems. Sometimes these lessons for the United States are positive ones, as when another nation has tackled a social problem more successfully than the United States, and sometimes these lessons are negative ones, as when another nation has a more serious problem than the United States and/or has made mistakes in addressing this problem. The United States can learn from the good examples of some other nations, and it can also learn from the bad ones. For this reason, each chapter of this book discusses such examples. In this regard, the United States has much to learn from the experiences of other long-standing democracies like Canada, the nations of Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand. Despite its great wealth, the United States ranks below most of its democratic peers on many social indicators, such as poverty, health, and so on (Holland, 2011; Russell, 2011). Holland, J. (2011, June 15). 9 countries that do it better: Why does Europe take better care of its people than America? AlterNet . Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/story/151312/151319_countries_that_do_it_better%151313A_why_does_europe_take_better_care _of_its_people_than_america?page=151311 ; Russell, J. W. (2011). Double standard: Social policy in Europe and the United States (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. A major reason for this difference is that other democratic governments are far more proactive, in terms of attention and spending, than the US federal and state governments in helping their citizens. Because the United States has much to learn from their positive example, this book’s chapters all discuss policies that enable other democracies to address certain social problems far more successfully than the United States has addressed them.

• Social problems are persistent, but they have also changed over the years, and many social problems are less serious now than in the past.
• Three sources of change to social problems include social science research, the efforts of citizens acting alone or especially in social change groups, and the experiences of other nations.
• Have you participated in any volunteer or other activity involving a social problem? If so, why did you do so? If not, why have you not participated in such an effort?
• Do you share Eleanor Roosevelt’s optimism that social change is possible? Why or why not?

1.4 Doing Research on Social Problems

• 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 People who answer a questionnaire. . 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 A subset drawn from the larger population in which every unit in the population has the same chance of being included in the subset. . 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 a sample that agrees to be included in a study, usually a survey. (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 In an experiment, the group that experiences the experimental condition. and a control group In an experiment, the group that does not experience the experimental condition. , 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). Sherman, L. W., & Berk, R. A. (1984). The specific deterrent effects of arrest for domestic assault. American Sociological Review, 49 , 261–272. 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). Sherman, L. W. (1992). Policing domestic violence: Experiments and dilemmas . New York, NY: Free Press.

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 Field research in which the researcher is an active member of the group or setting being observed. and nonparticipant observation Field research in which the researcher merely observes a group or setting . 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). 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; Whyte, W. F. (1943). Street corner society: The social structure of an Italian slum . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 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 The analysis of data from existing records. . 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.

• 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.
• 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?

1.5 End-of-Chapter Material

• Some sociologists favor the social constructionist view that negative social conditions or behaviors are not social problems unless they are generally perceived as a social problem, but other sociologists say that these conditions and behaviors are still social problems even if they are not perceived as such.
• According to C. Wright Mills, the sociological imagination involves the ability to realize that personal troubles are rooted in problems in the larger social structure. The sociological imagination thus supports a blaming-the-system view over a blaming-the-victim view.
• Social problems have existed for decades or even centuries, but many of these have also lessened in their seriousness over time, and change in the future is indeed possible.
• Several theoretical perspectives in sociology exist. Functionalism emphasizes the functions that social institutions serve to ensure the ongoing stability of society, while conflict theory focuses on the conflict among different racial, ethnic, social class, and other groups and emphasizes how social institutions help ensure inequality. Symbolic interactionism focuses on how individuals interpret the meanings of the situations in which they find themselves.

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1.2: Sociological Perspectives on Social Problems

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Learning Objectives

• Define the sociological imagination.
• Explain what is meant by the blaming-the-victim belief.
• Summarize the most important beliefs and assumptions of functionalism and conflict theory.
• Summarize the most important beliefs and assumptions of symbolic interactionism and exchange theory.

The sociological understanding of social problems rests heavily on the concept of the sociological imagination . We discuss this concept in some detail before turning to various theoretical perspectives that provide a further context for understanding social problems.

The Sociological Imagination

Many individuals experience one or more social problems personally. For example, many people are poor and unemployed, many are in poor health, and many have family problems, drink too much alcohol, or commit crime. When we hear about these individuals, it is easy to think that their problems are theirs alone, and that they and other individuals with the same problems are entirely to blame for their difficulties.

Sociology takes a different approach, as it stresses that individual problems are often rooted in problems stemming from aspects of society itself. This key insight informed C. Wright Mills’s (1959) (Mills, 1959) classic distinction between personal troubles and public issues. Personal troubles refer to a problem affecting individuals that the affected individual, as well as other members of society, typically blame on the individual’s own personal and moral failings. Examples include such different problems as eating disorders, divorce, and unemployment. Public issues , whose source lies in the social structure and culture of a society, refer to social problems affecting many individuals. Problems in society thus help account for problems that individuals experience. Mills felt that many problems ordinarily considered private troubles are best understood as public issues, and he coined the term sociological imagination to refer to the ability to appreciate the structural basis for individual problems.

To illustrate Mills’s viewpoint, let’s use our sociological imaginations to understand some contemporary social problems. We will start with unemployment, which Mills himself discussed. If only a few people were unemployed, Mills wrote, we could reasonably explain their unemployment by saying they were lazy, lacked good work habits, and so forth. If so, their unemployment would be their own personal trouble. But when millions of people are out of work, unemployment is best understood as a public issue because, as Mills (Mills, 1959) put it, “the very structure of opportunities has collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of possible solutions require us to consider the economic and political institutions of the society, and not merely the personal situation and character of a scatter of individuals.”

When only a few people are out of work, it is fair to say that their unemployment is their personal trouble. However, when millions of people are out of work, as has been true since the economic downturn began in 2008, this massive unemployment is more accurately viewed as a public issue. As such, its causes lie not in the unemployed individuals but rather in our society’s economic and social systems.

Rawle C. Jackman – The line of hope… – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The high US unemployment rate stemming from the severe economic downturn that began in 2008 provides a telling example of the point Mills was making. Millions of people lost their jobs through no fault of their own. While some individuals are undoubtedly unemployed because they are lazy or lack good work habits, a more structural explanation focusing on lack of opportunity is needed to explain why so many people were out of work. If so, unemployment is best understood as a public issue rather than a personal trouble.

Another social problem is eating disorders. We usually consider a person’s eating disorder to be a personal trouble that stems from a lack of control, low self-esteem, or another personal problem. This explanation may be OK as far as it goes, but it does not help us understand why so many people have the personal problems that lead to eating disorders. Perhaps more important, this belief also neglects the larger social and cultural forces that help explain such disorders. For example, most Americans with eating disorders are women, not men. This gender difference forces us to ask what it is about being a woman in American society that makes eating disorders so much more common. To begin to answer this question, we need to look to the standard of beauty for women that emphasizes a slender body (Boyd, et. al., 2011). If this cultural standard did not exist, far fewer American women would suffer from eating disorders than do now. Because it does exist, even if every girl and woman with an eating disorder were cured, others would take their places unless we could somehow change this standard. Viewed in this way, eating disorders are best understood as a public issue, not just as a personal trouble.

Picking up on Mills’s insights, William Ryan (1976) (Ryan, 1976) pointed out that Americans typically think that social problems such as poverty and unemployment stem from personal failings of the people experiencing these problems, not from structural problems in the larger society. Using Mills’s terms, Americans tend to think of social problems as personal troubles rather than public issues. As Ryan put it, they tend to believe in blaming the victim rather than blaming the system.

To help us understand a blaming-the-victim ideology, let’s consider why poor children in urban areas often learn very little in their schools. According to Ryan, a blaming-the-victim approach would say the children’s parents do not care about their learning, fail to teach them good study habits, and do not encourage them to take school seriously. This type of explanation, he wrote, may apply to some parents, but it ignores a much more important reason: the sad shape of America’s urban schools, which, he said, are overcrowded, decrepit structures housing old textbooks and out-of-date equipment. To improve the schooling of children in urban areas, he wrote, we must improve the schools themselves and not just try to “improve” the parents.

As this example suggests, a blaming-the-victim approach points to solutions to social problems such as poverty and illiteracy that are very different from those suggested by a more structural approach that blames the system. If we blame the victim, we would spend our limited dollars to address the personal failings of individuals who suffer from poverty, illiteracy, poor health, eating disorders, and other difficulties. If instead we blame the system, we would focus our attention on the various social conditions (decrepit schools, cultural standards of female beauty, and the like) that account for these difficulties. A sociological understanding suggests that the latter approach is ultimately needed to help us deal successfully with the social problems facing us today.

Theoretical Perspectives

Three theoretical perspectives guide sociological thinking on social problems: functionalist theory, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionist theory. These perspectives look at the same social problems, but they do so in different ways. Their views taken together offer a fuller understanding of social problems than any of the views can offer alone. Table 1.1 “Theory Snapshot” summarizes the three perspectives.

Functionalism

Functionalism, also known as the functionalist theory or perspective, arose out of two great revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The first was the French Revolution of 1789, whose intense violence and bloody terror shook Europe to its core. The aristocracy throughout Europe feared that revolution would spread to their own lands, and intellectuals feared that social order was crumbling.

The Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century reinforced these concerns. Starting first in Europe and then in the United States, the Industrial Revolution led to many changes, including the rise and growth of cities as people left their farms to live near factories. As the cities grew, people lived in increasingly poor, crowded, and decrepit conditions, and crime was rampant. Here was additional evidence, if European intellectuals needed it, of the breakdown of social order.

In response, the intellectuals began to write that a strong society, as exemplified by strong social bonds and rules and effective socialization, was needed to prevent social order from disintegrating. Without a strong society and effective socialization, they warned, social order breaks down, and violence and other signs of social disorder result.

This general framework reached fruition in the writings of Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), a French scholar largely responsible for the sociological perspective, as we now know it. Adopting the conservative intellectuals’ view of the need for a strong society, Durkheim felt that human beings have desires that result in chaos unless society limits them (Durkheim, 1952). It does so, he wrote, through two related social mechanisms: socialization and social integration. Socialization helps us learn society’s rules and the need to cooperate, as people end up generally agreeing on important norms and values, while social integration, or our ties to other people and to social institutions such as religion and the family, helps socialize us and integrate us into society and reinforce our respect for its rules.

Today’s functionalist perspective arises out of Durkheim’s work and that of other conservative intellectuals of the nineteenth century. It uses the human body as a model for understanding society. In the human body, our various organs and other body parts serve important functions for the ongoing health and stability of our body. Our eyes help us see, our ears help us hear, our heart circulates our blood, and so forth. Just as we can understand the body by describing and understanding the functions that its parts serve for its health and stability, so can we understand society by describing and understanding the functions that its parts—or, more accurately, its social institutions—serve for the ongoing health and stability of society. Thus functionalism emphasizes the importance of social institutions such as the family, religion, and education for producing a stable society.

Émile Durkheim was a founder of sociology and is largely credited with developing the functionalist perspective. (Marxists.org – public domain.)

Similar to the view of the conservative intellectuals from which it grew, functionalism is skeptical of rapid social change and other major social upheaval. The analogy to the human body helps us understand this skepticism. In our bodies, any sudden, rapid change is a sign of danger to our health. If we break a bone in one of our legs, we have trouble walking; if we lose sight in both our eyes, we can no longer see. Slow changes, such as the growth of our hair and our nails, are fine and even normal, but sudden changes like those just described are obviously troublesome. By analogy, sudden and rapid changes in society and its social institutions are troublesome according to the functionalist perspective. If the human body evolved to its present form and functions because these made sense from an evolutionary perspective, so did society evolve to its present form and functions because these made sense. Any sudden change in society thus threatens its stability and future.

As these comments might suggest, functionalism views social problems as arising from society’s natural evolution. When a social problem does occur, it might threaten a society’s stability, but it does not mean that fundamental flaws in the society exist. Accordingly, gradual social reform should be all that is needed to address the social problem.

Functionalism even suggests that social problems must be functional in some ways for society, because otherwise these problems would not continue. This is certainly a controversial suggestion, but it is true that many social problems do serve important functions for our society. For example, crime is a major social problem, but it is also good for the economy because it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in law enforcement, courts and corrections, home security, and other sectors of the economy whose major role is to deal with crime. If crime disappeared, many people would be out of work! Similarly, poverty is also a major social problem, but one function that poverty serves is that poor people do jobs that otherwise might not get done because other people would not want to do them (Gans, 1972). Like crime, poverty also provides employment for people across the nation, such as those who work in social service agencies that help poor people.

Conflict Theory

In many ways, conflict theory is the opposite of functionalism but ironically also grew out of the Industrial Revolution, thanks largely to Karl Marx (1818–1883) and his collaborator, Friedrich Engels (1820–1895). Whereas conservative intellectuals feared the mass violence resulting from industrialization, Marx and Engels deplored the conditions they felt were responsible for the mass violence and the capitalist society they felt was responsible for these conditions. Instead of fearing the breakdown of social order that mass violence represented, they felt that revolutionary violence was needed to eliminate capitalism and the poverty and misery they saw as its inevitable results (Marx, 1906; Marx & Engels, 1962).

According to Marx and Engels, every society is divided into two classes based on the ownership of the means of production (tools, factories, and the like). In a capitalist society, the bourgeoisie , or ruling class, owns the means of production, while the proletariat , or working class, does not own the means of production and instead is oppressed and exploited by the bourgeoisie. This difference creates an automatic conflict of interests between the two groups. Simply put, the bourgeoisie is interested in maintaining its position at the top of society, while the proletariat’s interest lies in rising up from the bottom and overthrowing the bourgeoisie to create an egalitarian society.

In a capitalist society, Marx and Engels wrote, revolution is inevitable because of structural contradictions arising from the very nature of capitalism. Because profit is the main goal of capitalism, the bourgeoisie’s interest lies in maximizing profit. To do so, capitalists try to keep wages as low as possible and to spend as little money as possible on working conditions. This central fact of capitalism, said Marx and Engels, eventually prompts the rise of class consciousness, or an awareness of the reasons for their oppression, among workers. Their class consciousness in turn leads them to revolt against the bourgeoisie to eliminate the oppression and exploitation they suffer.

Marx and Engels’ view of conflict arising from unequal positions held by members of society lies at the heart of today’s conflict theory. This theory emphasizes that different groups in society have different interests stemming from their different social positions. These different interests in turn lead to different views on important social issues. Some versions of the theory root conflict in divisions based on race and ethnicity, gender, and other such differences, while other versions follow Marx and Engels in seeing conflict arising out of different positions in the economic structure. In general, however, conflict theory emphasizes that the various parts of society contribute to ongoing inequality, whereas functionalist theory, as we have seen, stresses that they contribute to the ongoing stability of society. Thus while functionalist theory emphasizes the benefits of the various parts of society for ongoing social stability, conflict theory favors social change to reduce inequality.

Feminist theory has developed in sociology and other disciplines since the 1970s and for our purposes will be considered a specific application of conflict theory. In this case, the conflict concerns gender inequality rather than the class inequality emphasized by Marx and Engels. Although many variations of feminist theory exist, they all emphasize that society is filled with gender inequality such that women are the subordinate sex in many dimensions of social, political, and economic life (Lorber, 2010). Liberal feminists view gender inequality as arising out of gender differences in socialization, while Marxist feminists say that this inequality is a result of the rise of capitalism, which made women dependent on men for economic support. On the other hand, radical feminists view gender inequality as present in all societies, not just capitalist ones. Several chapters in this book emphasize the perspectives of feminist sociologists and other social scientists.

Conflict theory in its various forms views social problems as arising from society’s inherent inequality. Depending on which version of conflict theory is being considered, the inequality contributing to social problems is based on social class, race and ethnicity, gender, or some other dimension of society’s hierarchy. Because any of these inequalities represents a fundamental flaw in society, conflict theory assumes that fundamental social change is needed to address society’s many social problems.

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism focuses on the interaction of individuals and on how they interpret their interaction. Its roots lie in the work of early 1900s American sociologists, social psychologists, and philosophers who were interested in human consciousness and action. Herbert Blumer (1969) (Blumer, 1969), a sociologist at the University of Chicago, built on their writings to develop symbolic interactionism, a term he coined. Drawing on Blumer’s work, symbolic interactionists feel that people do not merely learn the roles that society has set out for them; instead they construct these roles as they interact. As they interact, they negotiate their definitions of the situations in which they find themselves and socially construct the reality of these situations. In doing so, they rely heavily on symbols such as words and gestures to reach a shared understanding of their interaction.

Symbolic interactionism focuses on individuals, such as the people conversing here. Sociologists favoring this approach examine how and why individuals interact and interpret the meanings of their interaction. (Wikimedia Commons – public domain.)

An example is the familiar symbol of shaking hands. In the United States and many other societies, shaking hands is a symbol of greeting and friendship. This simple act indicates that you are a nice, polite person with whom someone should feel comfortable. To reinforce this symbol’s importance for understanding a bit of interaction, consider a situation where someone refuses to shake hands. This action is usually intended as a sign of dislike or as an insult, and the other person interprets it as such. Their understanding of the situation and subsequent interaction will be very different from those arising from the more typical shaking of hands. As the term symbolic interactionism implies, their understanding of this encounter arises from what they do when they interact and from their use and interpretation of the various symbols included in their interaction. According to symbolic interactionists, social order is possible because people learn what various symbols (such as shaking hands) mean and apply these meanings to different kinds of situations. If you visited a society where sticking your right hand out to greet someone was interpreted as a threatening gesture, you would quickly learn the value of common understandings of symbols.

Symbolic interactionism views social problems as arising from the interaction of individuals. This interaction matters in two important respects. First, socially problematic behaviors such as crime and drug use are often learned from our interaction with people who engage in these behaviors; we adopt their attitudes that justify committing these behaviors, and we learn any special techniques that might be needed to commit these behaviors. Second, we also learn our perceptions of a social problem from our interaction with other people, whose perceptions and beliefs influence our own perceptions and beliefs.

Because symbolic interactionism emphasizes the perception of social problems, it is closely aligned with the social constructionist view discussed earlier. Both perspectives emphasize the subjective nature of social problems. By doing so, they remind us that perceptions often matter at least as much as objective reality in determining whether a given condition or behavior rises to the level of a social problem and in the types of possible solutions that various parties might favor for a particular social problem.

Applying the Three Perspectives

To help you further understand the different views of these three theoretical perspectives, let’s see what they would probably say about armed robbery , a very serious form of crime, while recognizing that the three perspectives together provide a more comprehensive understanding of armed robbery than any one perspective provides by itself.

A functionalist approach might suggest that armed robbery actually serves positive functions for society, such as the job-creating function mentioned earlier for crime in general. It would still think that efforts should be made to reduce armed robbery, but it would also assume that far-reaching changes in our society would be neither wise nor necessary as part of the effort to reduce crime.

Conflict theory would take a very different approach to understanding armed robbery. It might note that most street criminals are poor and thus emphasize that armed robbery is the result of the despair and frustration of living in poverty and facing a lack of jobs and other opportunities for economic and social success. The roots of street crime, from the perspective of conflict theory, thus lie in society at least as much as they lie in the individuals committing such crime. To reduce armed robbery and other street crime, conflict theory would advocate far-reaching changes in the economic structure of society.

For its part, symbolic interactionism would focus on how armed robbers make such decisions as when and where to rob someone and on how their interactions with other criminals reinforce their own criminal tendencies. It would also investigate how victims of armed robbery behave when confronted by a robber. To reduce armed robbery, it would advocate programs that reduce the opportunities for interaction among potential criminal offenders, for example, after-school programs that keep at-risk youths busy in “conventional” activities so that they have less time to spend with youths who might help them get into trouble.

Key Takeaways

• According to C. Wright Mills, the sociological imagination involves the ability to recognize that private troubles are rooted in public issues and structural problems.
• Functionalism emphasizes the importance of social institutions for social stability and implies that far-reaching social change will be socially harmful.
• Conflict theory emphasizes social inequality and suggests that far-reaching social change is needed to achieve a just society.
• Symbolic interactionism emphasizes the social meanings and understandings that individuals derive from their social interaction.

For Your Review

• Select an example of a “private trouble” and explain how and why it may reflect a structural problem in society.
• At this point in your study of social problems, which one of the three sociological theoretical perspectives sounds most appealing to you? Why?

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Social Issues Essay

Social issues are the problems that affect the masses. These are due to current situations and protracted lived disagreements and complications that are difficult to resolve due to different beliefs, viewpoints and opinions. Here are a few sample essays on ‘social issues’.

100 Words Essay On Social Issues

Social issues are due to traditional and cultural stereotypes harming ordinary people, which need immediate attention. Social problems are subjective. They mean different things to different people. Social issues include poverty, child marriage, violence, crime, illiteracy, racial discrimination, gender bias, economic inequality, caste discrimination etc. Poverty is a severe social issue in rural areas, giving way to a lack of food and education, malnutrition, crime and violence. Gender bias and casteism are very evident in developing countries. Lack of education has resulted in issues like child marriages and racial discrimination. Modern society has resulted in new issues like pollution, climate change, corruption and terrorism.

These issues have plagued every country, society and, at some point, every household. These issues can be solved with strategic planning and educating people about them.

200 Words Essay On Social Issues

Numerous social issues have severely paralyzed our society. Ancient social issues like Sati, Polio etc., had taken tremendous effort to eradicate. Social problems aren’t just the ill that need solutions; they are topics of debate that affect a particular set of people differently. These are the result of various happenings in society by humans that affect them only.

Social Issues that require immediate attention

Poverty - Unequal distribution of the economy in the urban and rural areas has resulted in a higher level of poverty in the rural part of the country. As a result, many people need access to basic human needs like food, clothing and shelter.

Gender discrimination - Pay disparity between males and females is evident in many walks of our lives. Lack of female representatives in parliament or government duties are some issues the government is trying to tackle. Female infanticide is one of the main reasons for the unequal gender ratio in India.

Other social issues - Religion and Caste based discrimination are significant issues in India. They lead to communal riots.

Other issues like child labour, women empowerment, fundamental human rights, and national wars exist in many parts of the world.

We face these issues regularly, and these lead to violence and anarchy. Changing the mindset of people is the first step towards change. Governments and NGOs are actively moving towards enhancing these situations.

500 Words Essay On Social Issues

Social issues have existed since before civilization. Social problems occur when people’s views and beliefs don’t align. They affect the growth and peace of the country adversely and in the long run, affecting its development too. Pre-Independent India faced social issues like sati practise, untouchability, female infanticide, polygamy, female discrimination etc. The fact that some of these issues still prevail in a few parts of our country is undeniable. Issues like poverty, illiteracy, economic inequalities, unemployment, drug abuse, gender disparity, child abuse, climate change, corruption, casteism etc., have plagued modern India. Advances in science and technology have resulted in new socio-environmental issues like climate change, pollution, and deforestation.

Primary Cause For Social Issues

Described as a ‘Melting Pot, ’ India is home to 28 states, 8 Union territories, and 36 entities. These states and UT follow different cultural traditions, languages, music and art. India is an accurate representation of the term “Unity in diversity.” With diversity comes diverse opinions and beliefs. Sometimes these opinions can’t align, resulting in disputes that negatively affect society, leading to social issues.

Major Social issues

Poverty -Around 17% of the Indian population lives in poverty. Research shows people earn as little as 1059/- in rural India. High population, Illiteracy, unequal distribution of wealth, lack of financial resources, and unemployment are significant reasons for Poverty. Poverty leads to homelessness, less access to health care, lack of food and malnutrition.

Communalism - Casteism, Religion-based discrimination gives way to communal riots now and then. Dividing people based on their caste and religion is known as communalism. Political elements add fuel to this fire. India has witnessed a few of the worst riots, like the Mumbai riots of 1991, the Ayodhya riots, Godra riots. The caste system is a deep-rooted problem in India. Removal of Caste based reservations in education and employment can be the first step towards removing this discrimination.

Gender Discrimination - This issue impacts all developing countries. Females aren’t given equal opportunities as men. The Dowry system has affected females and their families adversely. There are many households where women are not allowed to work or obtain higher education. Female foeticide is banned now, but it has resulted in an unequal gender ratio. Pay disparity based on gender is also present.

Corruption - Abusing one’s power for personal gains is corruption. It is a deep-rooted problem of India slowing the economic development of our country, which is present both in the private and public sectors. Commonwealth scams, 2G scams, 3g scams, and Satyam scams are some of the significant frauds that recently came to light. Moral laws must be laid out and practiced by everyone to become a corruption-free country.

Solution To Social Problems

The first step is to educate the masses about these issues and create awareness about them. Governments and NGOs enforce strict laws and schemes. Recognising the origin of the problem and discussing all aspects with an open mind is the first step towards finding a solution. We have successfully dealt with issues like Sati and polygamy in the past. If proper steps, along with everyone's support, are taken, we have hope to overcome the current problems.

Explore Career Options (By Industry)

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• Information Technology

Data Administrator

Database professionals use software to store and organise data such as financial information, and customer shipping records. Individuals who opt for a career as data administrators ensure that data is available for users and secured from unauthorised sales. DB administrators may work in various types of industries. It may involve computer systems design, service firms, insurance companies, banks and hospitals.

Bio Medical Engineer

The field of biomedical engineering opens up a universe of expert chances. An Individual in the biomedical engineering career path work in the field of engineering as well as medicine, in order to find out solutions to common problems of the two fields. The biomedical engineering job opportunities are to collaborate with doctors and researchers to develop medical systems, equipment, or devices that can solve clinical problems. Here we will be discussing jobs after biomedical engineering, how to get a job in biomedical engineering, biomedical engineering scope, and salary. 

Ethical Hacker

A career as ethical hacker involves various challenges and provides lucrative opportunities in the digital era where every giant business and startup owns its cyberspace on the world wide web. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path try to find the vulnerabilities in the cyber system to get its authority. If he or she succeeds in it then he or she gets its illegal authority. Individuals in the ethical hacker career path then steal information or delete the file that could affect the business, functioning, or services of the organization.

GIS officer work on various GIS software to conduct a study and gather spatial and non-spatial information. GIS experts update the GIS data and maintain it. The databases include aerial or satellite imagery, latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, and manually digitized images of maps. In a career as GIS expert, one is responsible for creating online and mobile maps.

Data Analyst

The invention of the database has given fresh breath to the people involved in the data analytics career path. Analysis refers to splitting up a whole into its individual components for individual analysis. Data analysis is a method through which raw data are processed and transformed into information that would be beneficial for user strategic thinking.

Data are collected and examined to respond to questions, evaluate hypotheses or contradict theories. It is a tool for analyzing, transforming, modeling, and arranging data with useful knowledge, to assist in decision-making and methods, encompassing various strategies, and is used in different fields of business, research, and social science.

Geothermal Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as geothermal engineers are the professionals involved in the processing of geothermal energy. The responsibilities of geothermal engineers may vary depending on the workplace location. Those who work in fields design facilities to process and distribute geothermal energy. They oversee the functioning of machinery used in the field.

Database Architect

If you are intrigued by the programming world and are interested in developing communications networks then a career as database architect may be a good option for you. Data architect roles and responsibilities include building design models for data communication networks. Wide Area Networks (WANs), local area networks (LANs), and intranets are included in the database networks. It is expected that database architects will have in-depth knowledge of a company's business to develop a network to fulfil the requirements of the organisation. Stay tuned as we look at the larger picture and give you more information on what is db architecture, why you should pursue database architecture, what to expect from such a degree and what your job opportunities will be after graduation. Here, we will be discussing how to become a data architect. Students can visit NIT Trichy , IIT Kharagpur , JMI New Delhi . 

Remote Sensing Technician

Individuals who opt for a career as a remote sensing technician possess unique personalities. Remote sensing analysts seem to be rational human beings, they are strong, independent, persistent, sincere, realistic and resourceful. Some of them are analytical as well, which means they are intelligent, introspective and inquisitive. 

Remote sensing scientists use remote sensing technology to support scientists in fields such as community planning, flight planning or the management of natural resources. Analysing data collected from aircraft, satellites or ground-based platforms using statistical analysis software, image analysis software or Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a significant part of their work. Do you want to learn how to become remote sensing technician? There's no need to be concerned; we've devised a simple remote sensing technician career path for you. Scroll through the pages and read.

Budget Analyst

Budget analysis, in a nutshell, entails thoroughly analyzing the details of a financial budget. The budget analysis aims to better understand and manage revenue. Budget analysts assist in the achievement of financial targets, the preservation of profitability, and the pursuit of long-term growth for a business. Budget analysts generally have a bachelor's degree in accounting, finance, economics, or a closely related field. Knowledge of Financial Management is of prime importance in this career.

Underwriter

An underwriter is a person who assesses and evaluates the risk of insurance in his or her field like mortgage, loan, health policy, investment, and so on and so forth. The underwriter career path does involve risks as analysing the risks means finding out if there is a way for the insurance underwriter jobs to recover the money from its clients. If the risk turns out to be too much for the company then in the future it is an underwriter who will be held accountable for it. Therefore, one must carry out his or her job with a lot of attention and diligence.

Finance Executive

Product manager.

A Product Manager is a professional responsible for product planning and marketing. He or she manages the product throughout the Product Life Cycle, gathering and prioritising the product. A product manager job description includes defining the product vision and working closely with team members of other departments to deliver winning products.  

Operations Manager

Individuals in the operations manager jobs are responsible for ensuring the efficiency of each department to acquire its optimal goal. They plan the use of resources and distribution of materials. The operations manager's job description includes managing budgets, negotiating contracts, and performing administrative tasks.

Stock Analyst

Individuals who opt for a career as a stock analyst examine the company's investments makes decisions and keep track of financial securities. The nature of such investments will differ from one business to the next. Individuals in the stock analyst career use data mining to forecast a company's profits and revenues, advise clients on whether to buy or sell, participate in seminars, and discussing financial matters with executives and evaluate annual reports.

A Researcher is a professional who is responsible for collecting data and information by reviewing the literature and conducting experiments and surveys. He or she uses various methodological processes to provide accurate data and information that is utilised by academicians and other industry professionals. Here, we will discuss what is a researcher, the researcher's salary, types of researchers.

Welding Engineer

Welding Engineer Job Description: A Welding Engineer work involves managing welding projects and supervising welding teams. He or she is responsible for reviewing welding procedures, processes and documentation. A career as Welding Engineer involves conducting failure analyses and causes on welding issues. 

Transportation Planner

A career as Transportation Planner requires technical application of science and technology in engineering, particularly the concepts, equipment and technologies involved in the production of products and services. In fields like land use, infrastructure review, ecological standards and street design, he or she considers issues of health, environment and performance. A Transportation Planner assigns resources for implementing and designing programmes. He or she is responsible for assessing needs, preparing plans and forecasts and compliance with regulations.

Environmental Engineer

Individuals who opt for a career as an environmental engineer are construction professionals who utilise the skills and knowledge of biology, soil science, chemistry and the concept of engineering to design and develop projects that serve as solutions to various environmental problems. 

Safety Manager

A Safety Manager is a professional responsible for employee’s safety at work. He or she plans, implements and oversees the company’s employee safety. A Safety Manager ensures compliance and adherence to Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) guidelines.

Conservation Architect

A Conservation Architect is a professional responsible for conserving and restoring buildings or monuments having a historic value. He or she applies techniques to document and stabilise the object’s state without any further damage. A Conservation Architect restores the monuments and heritage buildings to bring them back to their original state.

Structural Engineer

A Structural Engineer designs buildings, bridges, and other related structures. He or she analyzes the structures and makes sure the structures are strong enough to be used by the people. A career as a Structural Engineer requires working in the construction process. It comes under the civil engineering discipline. A Structure Engineer creates structural models with the help of computer-aided design software. 

Highway Engineer

Highway Engineer Job Description:  A Highway Engineer is a civil engineer who specialises in planning and building thousands of miles of roads that support connectivity and allow transportation across the country. He or she ensures that traffic management schemes are effectively planned concerning economic sustainability and successful implementation.

Field Surveyor

Are you searching for a Field Surveyor Job Description? A Field Surveyor is a professional responsible for conducting field surveys for various places or geographical conditions. He or she collects the required data and information as per the instructions given by senior officials. 

Orthotist and Prosthetist

Orthotists and Prosthetists are professionals who provide aid to patients with disabilities. They fix them to artificial limbs (prosthetics) and help them to regain stability. There are times when people lose their limbs in an accident. In some other occasions, they are born without a limb or orthopaedic impairment. Orthotists and prosthetists play a crucial role in their lives with fixing them to assistive devices and provide mobility.

Pathologist

A career in pathology in India is filled with several responsibilities as it is a medical branch and affects human lives. The demand for pathologists has been increasing over the past few years as people are getting more aware of different diseases. Not only that, but an increase in population and lifestyle changes have also contributed to the increase in a pathologist’s demand. The pathology careers provide an extremely huge number of opportunities and if you want to be a part of the medical field you can consider being a pathologist. If you want to know more about a career in pathology in India then continue reading this article.

Veterinary Doctor

Speech therapist, gynaecologist.

Gynaecology can be defined as the study of the female body. The job outlook for gynaecology is excellent since there is evergreen demand for one because of their responsibility of dealing with not only women’s health but also fertility and pregnancy issues. Although most women prefer to have a women obstetrician gynaecologist as their doctor, men also explore a career as a gynaecologist and there are ample amounts of male doctors in the field who are gynaecologists and aid women during delivery and childbirth. 

Audiologist

The audiologist career involves audiology professionals who are responsible to treat hearing loss and proactively preventing the relevant damage. Individuals who opt for a career as an audiologist use various testing strategies with the aim to determine if someone has a normal sensitivity to sounds or not. After the identification of hearing loss, a hearing doctor is required to determine which sections of the hearing are affected, to what extent they are affected, and where the wound causing the hearing loss is found. As soon as the hearing loss is identified, the patients are provided with recommendations for interventions and rehabilitation such as hearing aids, cochlear implants, and appropriate medical referrals. While audiology is a branch of science that studies and researches hearing, balance, and related disorders.

An oncologist is a specialised doctor responsible for providing medical care to patients diagnosed with cancer. He or she uses several therapies to control the cancer and its effect on the human body such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy and biopsy. An oncologist designs a treatment plan based on a pathology report after diagnosing the type of cancer and where it is spreading inside the body.

Are you searching for an ‘Anatomist job description’? An Anatomist is a research professional who applies the laws of biological science to determine the ability of bodies of various living organisms including animals and humans to regenerate the damaged or destroyed organs. If you want to know what does an anatomist do, then read the entire article, where we will answer all your questions.

For an individual who opts for a career as an actor, the primary responsibility is to completely speak to the character he or she is playing and to persuade the crowd that the character is genuine by connecting with them and bringing them into the story. This applies to significant roles and littler parts, as all roles join to make an effective creation. Here in this article, we will discuss how to become an actor in India, actor exams, actor salary in India, and actor jobs. 

Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats create and direct original routines for themselves, in addition to developing interpretations of existing routines. The work of circus acrobats can be seen in a variety of performance settings, including circus, reality shows, sports events like the Olympics, movies and commercials. Individuals who opt for a career as acrobats must be prepared to face rejections and intermittent periods of work. The creativity of acrobats may extend to other aspects of the performance. For example, acrobats in the circus may work with gym trainers, celebrities or collaborate with other professionals to enhance such performance elements as costume and or maybe at the teaching end of the career.

Video Game Designer

Career as a video game designer is filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. A video game designer is someone who is involved in the process of creating a game from day one. He or she is responsible for fulfilling duties like designing the character of the game, the several levels involved, plot, art and similar other elements. Individuals who opt for a career as a video game designer may also write the codes for the game using different programming languages.

Depending on the video game designer job description and experience they may also have to lead a team and do the early testing of the game in order to suggest changes and find loopholes.

Radio Jockey

Radio Jockey is an exciting, promising career and a great challenge for music lovers. If you are really interested in a career as radio jockey, then it is very important for an RJ to have an automatic, fun, and friendly personality. If you want to get a job done in this field, a strong command of the language and a good voice are always good things. Apart from this, in order to be a good radio jockey, you will also listen to good radio jockeys so that you can understand their style and later make your own by practicing.

A career as radio jockey has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. If you want to know more about a career as radio jockey, and how to become a radio jockey then continue reading the article.

Choreographer

The word “choreography" actually comes from Greek words that mean “dance writing." Individuals who opt for a career as a choreographer create and direct original dances, in addition to developing interpretations of existing dances. A Choreographer dances and utilises his or her creativity in other aspects of dance performance. For example, he or she may work with the music director to select music or collaborate with other famous choreographers to enhance such performance elements as lighting, costume and set design.

Social Media Manager

A career as social media manager involves implementing the company’s or brand’s marketing plan across all social media channels. Social media managers help in building or improving a brand’s or a company’s website traffic, build brand awareness, create and implement marketing and brand strategy. Social media managers are key to important social communication as well.

Photographer

Photography is considered both a science and an art, an artistic means of expression in which the camera replaces the pen. In a career as a photographer, an individual is hired to capture the moments of public and private events, such as press conferences or weddings, or may also work inside a studio, where people go to get their picture clicked. Photography is divided into many streams each generating numerous career opportunities in photography. With the boom in advertising, media, and the fashion industry, photography has emerged as a lucrative and thrilling career option for many Indian youths.

An individual who is pursuing a career as a producer is responsible for managing the business aspects of production. They are involved in each aspect of production from its inception to deception. Famous movie producers review the script, recommend changes and visualise the story. 

They are responsible for overseeing the finance involved in the project and distributing the film for broadcasting on various platforms. A career as a producer is quite fulfilling as well as exhaustive in terms of playing different roles in order for a production to be successful. Famous movie producers are responsible for hiring creative and technical personnel on contract basis.

Copy Writer

In a career as a copywriter, one has to consult with the client and understand the brief well. A career as a copywriter has a lot to offer to deserving candidates. Several new mediums of advertising are opening therefore making it a lucrative career choice. Students can pursue various copywriter courses such as Journalism , Advertising , Marketing Management . Here, we have discussed how to become a freelance copywriter, copywriter career path, how to become a copywriter in India, and copywriting career outlook. 

In a career as a vlogger, one generally works for himself or herself. However, once an individual has gained viewership there are several brands and companies that approach them for paid collaboration. It is one of those fields where an individual can earn well while following his or her passion. 

Ever since internet costs got reduced the viewership for these types of content has increased on a large scale. Therefore, a career as a vlogger has a lot to offer. If you want to know more about the Vlogger eligibility, roles and responsibilities then continue reading the article. 

For publishing books, newspapers, magazines and digital material, editorial and commercial strategies are set by publishers. Individuals in publishing career paths make choices about the markets their businesses will reach and the type of content that their audience will be served. Individuals in book publisher careers collaborate with editorial staff, designers, authors, and freelance contributors who develop and manage the creation of content.

Careers in journalism are filled with excitement as well as responsibilities. One cannot afford to miss out on the details. As it is the small details that provide insights into a story. Depending on those insights a journalist goes about writing a news article. A journalism career can be stressful at times but if you are someone who is passionate about it then it is the right choice for you. If you want to know more about the media field and journalist career then continue reading this article.

Individuals in the editor career path is an unsung hero of the news industry who polishes the language of the news stories provided by stringers, reporters, copywriters and content writers and also news agencies. Individuals who opt for a career as an editor make it more persuasive, concise and clear for readers. In this article, we will discuss the details of the editor's career path such as how to become an editor in India, editor salary in India and editor skills and qualities.

Individuals who opt for a career as a reporter may often be at work on national holidays and festivities. He or she pitches various story ideas and covers news stories in risky situations. Students can pursue a BMC (Bachelor of Mass Communication) , B.M.M. (Bachelor of Mass Media) , or  MAJMC (MA in Journalism and Mass Communication) to become a reporter. While we sit at home reporters travel to locations to collect information that carries a news value.  

Corporate Executive

Are you searching for a Corporate Executive job description? A Corporate Executive role comes with administrative duties. He or she provides support to the leadership of the organisation. A Corporate Executive fulfils the business purpose and ensures its financial stability. In this article, we are going to discuss how to become corporate executive.

Multimedia Specialist

A multimedia specialist is a media professional who creates, audio, videos, graphic image files, computer animations for multimedia applications. He or she is responsible for planning, producing, and maintaining websites and applications. 

Quality Controller

A quality controller plays a crucial role in an organisation. He or she is responsible for performing quality checks on manufactured products. He or she identifies the defects in a product and rejects the product. 

A quality controller records detailed information about products with defects and sends it to the supervisor or plant manager to take necessary actions to improve the production process.

Production Manager

A QA Lead is in charge of the QA Team. The role of QA Lead comes with the responsibility of assessing services and products in order to determine that he or she meets the quality standards. He or she develops, implements and manages test plans. 

Process Development Engineer

The Process Development Engineers design, implement, manufacture, mine, and other production systems using technical knowledge and expertise in the industry. They use computer modeling software to test technologies and machinery. An individual who is opting career as Process Development Engineer is responsible for developing cost-effective and efficient processes. They also monitor the production process and ensure it functions smoothly and efficiently.

AWS Solution Architect

An AWS Solution Architect is someone who specializes in developing and implementing cloud computing systems. He or she has a good understanding of the various aspects of cloud computing and can confidently deploy and manage their systems. He or she troubleshoots the issues and evaluates the risk from the third party. 

Azure Administrator

An Azure Administrator is a professional responsible for implementing, monitoring, and maintaining Azure Solutions. He or she manages cloud infrastructure service instances and various cloud servers as well as sets up public and private cloud systems. 

Computer Programmer

Careers in computer programming primarily refer to the systematic act of writing code and moreover include wider computer science areas. The word 'programmer' or 'coder' has entered into practice with the growing number of newly self-taught tech enthusiasts. Computer programming careers involve the use of designs created by software developers and engineers and transforming them into commands that can be implemented by computers. These commands result in regular usage of social media sites, word-processing applications and browsers.

Information Security Manager

Individuals in the information security manager career path involves in overseeing and controlling all aspects of computer security. The IT security manager job description includes planning and carrying out security measures to protect the business data and information from corruption, theft, unauthorised access, and deliberate attack 

ITSM Manager

Automation test engineer.

An Automation Test Engineer job involves executing automated test scripts. He or she identifies the project’s problems and troubleshoots them. The role involves documenting the defect using management tools. He or she works with the application team in order to resolve any issues arising during the testing process. 

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Essay on Social Issues

List of essays on social issues, essay on social issues – for children (essay 1 – 200 words), essay on social issues (essay 2 – 250 words), essay on social issues – 10+ lines on social issues written in english (essay 3 – 300 words), essay on social issues – for school students (class 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 standard) (essay 4 – 400 words), essay on social issues – short essay (essay 5 – 500 words), essay on social issues – poverty, corruption, caste system, dowry system, child labour, uncleanliness and others (essay 6 – 600 words), essay on social issues in india – for college and university students (essay 7 – 750 words), essay on social issues in india – long essay for competitive exams (essay 8 – 1000 words).

Social issues have plagued the life of too many people. Many times you may have noticed that a lot of things in the society which doesn’t seem good. For instance, you must have noticed poor children begging on the streets. They don’t go to school. They have been forced to beg for a living. Such circumstances along with others which affect the population at large are social issues.

Begging is an issue which arises out of poverty. Poverty is itself is one of the major social issues in India. It is important to understand the general social issues of our society and how they impact the lives of the people of the country. Therefore we have come up with long essays for students which shall throw more light on social issues.

Audience: The below given essays are exclusively written for school students (Class 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 Standard) and college students. Furthermore, those students preparing for competitive exams like IAS, IPS and UPSC  can also increase their knowledge by studying these essays.

Social issues include issues like poverty, violence, crime, religion, illiteracy and racism that affect society.

What is a Social Issue?

A social issue is a problem that influences a considerable number of individuals. It is an aspect of society that people are concerned about and would like to get it changed. The concern of a social issue may be objective or subjective. A social issue arises due to diverse opinions of individuals based on what is perceived as right. Social issue does not necessarily refer to an ill to be solved, but it may be a topic to be discussed. Social issues can be different for different groups, societies, countries and world.

Causes of the Social Issues:

There are many causes of the social issues. Social issues arise due to inequalities in society. Different individuals and different societies may have different perceptions about a problem giving rise to a social issue. There can be disagreements about which social issue is important and worth solving, or which should take precedence.

Solving Social Issues:

There are a variety of methods to resolve variety of social issues. These include political processes, non-profit organizations, community groups and volunteering to have public dialogue on a social issue and arrive at a most acceptable solution.

Introduction:

‘Social Issues’ are the main factors that hinder the growth of a nation. The social issues that roots up in each society affects the country as a whole. Social issues are caused by humans and it is the humans who face its worst consequences also.

A social issue is something of real concern that affects a certain group of people . Social issues are not caused by a single person; it is the result of various happenings that are beyond a person’s control. This essay will take us through some of the social issues that are of great concern in today’s world.

Poverty means lack of money or material possessions and it is one of the most important social issue. The poverty level is higher in the rural areas as compared to urban areas. Poverty leads to many other social problems such as lack of food, education and health.

Gender Bias:

Discrimination based on gender is another social issue which is commonly found in most of the developing countries. Importance is given only to male and the voice of female is less heard even in the households.

Caste Discrimination:

Discriminating people based on their castes is a social issue that needs to be plucked out. This is a serious social issue because this has taken many innocent lives. Poverty and lack of education are the main reasons for such social issue to rise.

Conclusion:

Most of the social problems still exists because people are ignorant of its consequences. The Government and NGO’s must work together to eliminate the social issues from society by educating the people through awareness programmes.

Social issues have plagued the life of too many people. Our society in particular is crippled with several social issues. There was a time when social issues like dowry, child marriage, and sati and so on were prevalent. It took a lot of efforts for some of the social issues to be banned completely. The tradition of sati wherein women ended up burning themselves after the death of their husband was something which called for a ban.

The Modern Day Society:

Even though we have become independent and are en route to the modern society, there are plenty of social issues which need to be addressed. The fact that women are not at par with men and the presence of gender disparity is surely one concern which should be addressed.

Not only this, it is also important to address social issues like poverty, mismanagement of wealth, caste system and so on. The people of lower caste are still looked down upon and the concept of untouchables is still present in our society.

The Remedial Measures:

Mere talking about the problem is not going to do anything. It is important to really seek the right solution. If you want to get rid of social issues, it is about time that we create the right awareness for it.

Education needs to be offered to the masses so that they understand why the presence of certain social issues needs to be eradicated. When women would be educated enough to know that they deserve the same as men, they would fight for their own cause.

So, try to create an awareness channel and educate the masses about how certain social issues are doing nothing but crippling our society. We need to be the change that we are looking to bring. Often, it is one movement which triggers a phenomenal change.

Social issues are found in abundance in our country. Some of the common social issues which seem to have plagued the Indian society are child abuse, illiteracy, drug abuse, child trafficking, poverty, unemployment, gender disparity, and so on. It is really important for the nation to come together and take a stand against these problems.

If we do not do our bit right now, these social issues might become too huge for our country to function properly.

The Dark Future:

The reason we are emphasizing so much when it comes to eradicating social issues is because it can put our future in grave trouble. Think of a country whose youth is largely uneducated and unemployed. Do you really believe that such a country can steer forth in the right direction? How will such a nation prosper if our leaders of tomorrow have barely any knowledge of how the world economy functions? Education and employment are two of the vital things that form the base for all kinds of progress.

Gender Disparity:

Further, when we are talking about the possible issues regarding gender disparity, it is important to understand that women too deserve the right position in the Indian society. If you are not willing to give women the equal rights and they cannot walk at par with men, the future of the nation doesn’t look too bright. In today’s times, it is really important to address such social issues because women are equally talented and if it is so, they deserve the same thing as men.

It is a shame that in a lot of Indian households, women aren’t granted the right to higher education nor are they allowed to work. What type of society is this and what is the example we are showing to the rest of the world!

Addressing the Social Issues:

When you are looking to remedy the situation and improve the condition of the society, we need to think of the best way to handle social issues. We believe that it is with the right educational awareness that changes can be brought. Try and have sessions wherein we educate the masses about the need to get rid of such social issues and come up with strategies and plans regarding how you can do so.

Every little step can end up creating a ripple effect and might help you strip the country of the woes of social issues. So, do your bit now!

Social issues are a general word that is used for a variety of situations and actions that affect the society. These issues can be changed only with a certain kind of social planning.

Social issues affect every member of the society directly as well as indirectly. Some people considered the social issues as the issues or disputes which are linked to the people’s moral values.

Social Issues in the Society:

The following are the 4 main groups in which the social issues can be categorized:

1. Political Social Issues:

Politics is a procedure in which some groups of people utilize their power and impact to function in an organized way for mutual decision making. It is also considered as one of the biggest social issues as the maximum number of verdicts declared by the governments might not essentially help the poor people in the society. In fact, the leaders gratify their self-centered interests with the misuse of public funds.

2. Pollution Social Issues:

Pollution results in instability, illness, harm or distress to the environment. The human activities such as industrial activities have made this problem one of the major social issues. The man-made activities result in the pollution of the soil and water to a great extent.

3. Climate change Social Issues:

It is the alteration in statistical dispersal of climate which might include the change in the weather or change in the amount of rainfall due to human activities like pollution. These social issues influence the patterns of weather in diverse areas.

One of the recent examples of this social issue is global warming which is instigated by human activities from the past several years. Altering patterns of climate influence the economic activities like farming that result in poverty among the people who survives on it.

4. Poverty Social Issues:

It is the absence of general human requirements, like clean water, nutrition, health care, clothing and shelter, and education. This social issue occurs due to the lack of funds that can help in meeting the expenses of the daily needs.

Mainly, there are 2 kinds of poverty i.e., relative poverty and absolute poverty. In relative poverty, there are comparatively fewer resources or fewer funds in the society in comparison to other societies of the world. On the other hand, Absolute poverty means when there are no resources.

Poverty is one of the biggest social issues as it decreases economic development owing to less production. At present, steady and constant economic growth of the nation has been inhibited by the absence of economic independence for numerous persons owing to related issues like political uncertainty, exploitation, as well as unemployment.

All the above four social issues influence every country and society in the world. It is very important to deal with these social issues seriously if we want to relish the quality life.

The problem of global warming is an inkling to reverse the entire human progress that is attained in so many years. In fact, it will make efforts towards the poverty reduction unattainable. Besides this, the political solutions are also needed for overcoming all types of social issues in the future.

Social issues are those problems in a society by which a significant population is affected and requires immediate solution. Right from the most basic problem of poverty that kills people physically to the problem of social media that affects children mentally, there are a variety of social issues in the society that have affected considerable amount of population and requires solution urgently.

It is shocking to note that Global Hunger Index places India on the 97th position in terms of starvation. Statistics also indicate that about 15% of the Indian population is undernourished. Therefore, it has become an undeniable fact that poverty exists in India although the politicians, the media and the general public have failed to recognise it. Food security is the basic right of every citizen and the Government must ensure effective laws to fulfill it.

Corruption:

Corruption is a social issues which includes the misuse of authority in public and private services for personal gains. It is the root cause for all other social evils and backwardness in the society. Though India is developing into a super power on the one hand, it is being pulled down on many grounds due to corruption. If the general public restrains from offering bribe, then truthfulness and transparency would prevail in the administration. It requires a change from both the corrupted and affected people.

Caste System:

Caste System discriminates the citizens and causes unnecessary tensions in the society. Though many leaders and stakeholders have been working since independence days, it still remains a social issue. The first step in this direction is the removal of reservations based on caste system. Though inter-caste marriages have been prevalent in the last few decades, the reservations have been adding fuel to the waning caste system.

Dowry System:

The dowry system has been affecting the women of the society in many ways. Though many pioneers have worked to eradicate this social issue for several decades, it has also been prevalent in the society. Some steps that help overcome this social issue includes economic freedom to women through inheriting family properties and employment. It requires the combined effort of both the offending and affected parties to root out this social evil.

Child Labour:

This social issue against children prevents the right of a child to enjoy its childhood and attend regular schooling. The inability of parents and selfishness of employers work together to promote child labour. Online help systems have been initiated to locate child labourers, rescue them and provide relief from their suffering. The general public requires more awareness to eradicate this social issue.

Uncleanliness:

The progress of a society is determined by the cleanliness maintained in public places, workplaces and residences. Cleanliness ensures good health, provides good feeling, promotes confidence and demands respect from others. Uncleanliness, on the other hand, acts as deterrent for the progress and prosperity of the nation as well as demean the society.

Other Social Issues:

Apart from the social issues listed above, there are a variety of social issues that affect various sections of the society. They include terrorism, human rights issues, issues related to women like female foeticide, discrimination on status, jobs and wages etc., drugs abuse, child abuse, unemployment, population explosion, unrestrained use of social media, etc.

Recognition of the social issues is the first step to find solution. Most of the issues are due to lack of awareness and could be addressed through sensitization programs from the Governments and stakeholders. Since many social issues like sati, untouchability  etc., have been dealt successfully in the past, the future holds hope to deal with the current social issues.

Social issues are those that concern the society and the change in these issues are the only way to solve them. In our country, there are many social issues that create a disturbance in the smooth life of every citizen.

These social issues are those that deal with the mind-set of a group of people who belongs to a particular condition that alters their mind and their concern on the issue changes the way they react. There are many such issues that have created both social and political imbalance in our country over years.

India being a country with vast diversity has faced many social issues varying in different aspects, till date. For example, the different and versatile people have the same difference in their feeling and emotions about their religion, caste, colour, believes, lifestyle, etc. Social issues have a great impact on the development and betterment of a country and its people.

Some of the social issues that concern our country:

Social issues vary according to time, place people, etc. There are some common issues that affect society in a considerably negative way. Let us take a look at some of them.

Poverty is one of those major social issues yet to be resolved in our country. This simple issue has chained other massive issues to evolve like child labour, female infanticide, discrimination and more. If this basic problem gets resolved the major concern of our country will be wiped away.

Poverty is a state in the life where the basic needs of a person cannot be fulfilled with their income. The unemployment and lack of education can be the major reason behind this social issue. Social issues like poverty can be solved only through introducing other schemes like free education, better employment opportunities, etc.

This state of poverty pushes the family to find a more secure way to get their safe zone, which in turn gives rise to other social issues. One of them is child labour and this is occurred due to the money gaining mentality of society.

Child labour is another social issue. Poor parents send their children to small jobs where they are forced to work hard to get considerably less money as a reward. Social issues arise when the child is denied his childhood and basic education due to poverty. This not only affects them physically but also mentally due to the pressure and heavy workload they do.

Female Discrimination:

Poverty is one of the reasons that creates discrimination against females. Social issues like female infanticide, denial of education of girl child, domestic violence, etc., are included in this category. Due to poverty or narrow mind-set girl child is seen to be denied their rights even from their birth.

A poor family thinking girl child is a liability abort them in the womb itself to solve the problem of poverty and later hardships. This is one of those social issues that was a common practice in the earlier years and now the government has issued many laws to stop this inhumanity.

Social issues regarding women have a comparatively long list to be addressed. Poverty also leads to denial of education of girl child. This is different from child labour in a way that this focuses fully on the girl child rather than a child.

The parents get to the mentality that educating a girl is completely unwanted money wastage as they get married to another man and no good is there for the family. This thinking in unaware families creates one of the most right denial issues among the social issues category.

Social issues like domestic violence also arise due to such unawareness among the people about the importance of women and their rights, which should be solved completely to improve the state of women and children in the society.

The above mentioned social issues are only some of them that are a threat to the nation and decreases the opportunity in developing a better place. There are more to be added in the list like religion discrimination, harmony in the society, etc., other than that the naturally occurring social issues are pollution rate, global warming, etc.

S olution to Social Issues:

All these social issues can only be solved through mutual efforts of the people and the greater schemes introduced by the government. If these social issues are resolved correctly or even get reduced, it will directly show results on the development of the nation and thus the development of each citizen’s lifestyle. Solutions to Social issues can only be provided by educating and creating awareness among the people about the evil effects of the existing social issues.

Social issues are the issues which affect the larger sections of the society. They have been discussed since ancient times. In fact, these very social issues have been instrumental in bringing upon a change in our society from time to time.

Historical References:

India is a country of different cultures, religions, languages and beliefs. Therefore, within the same country there lie different social issues which differ from region to region, state to state. Social issues in India are not something new. They have been there since ancient times.

For instance, the caste system in India is a social issue which has been there since the earlier times and exists even today. Similarly, untouchability is another social issue which has been existent in India since older times. Such issues have affected the development of the people as well as society. They are often the cause of hatred among people and lead to conflicts and sometimes even riots.

Current Social Issues:

As in any other society, there are some social issues which are prevalent at a given period of time. India is a no different country. It has its own share of social issues. India is a developing country. Therefore, poverty is a major social issue here. At the time of independence, a large population of India was struggling with basic needs such as food shelter and clothing.

Even today, such facilities are lacking in the rural areas of the country. People have to travel long distances in search of potable water. Despite many initiatives by the Government as well as private organisations, still, a large section of the population lives below the poverty line. This hampers the overall development of the country.

Illiteracy is among the major social issues which have affected the growth of the country. However, there are many causes of this social issue. On one hand, it is the lack of education facilities especially in the rural belt which has led to the people being illiterate. On the other hand, it is the reluctance of people to send their children to school has also resulted in a high illiteracy rate in the country. Due to illiteracy and ignorance, the people are not able to avail the facilities provided by the government.

The caste system is another of such social issues which has deep roots in the society. In India, people are divided among four castes, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. Among all these, the Shudras are considered as the lowest and are looked upon as untouchables in the society.

The upper castes do not allow the lower ones to avail even the basic facilities such as drawing water from the same well. Often this has been a cause of hatred and fights among the people. However, with different schemes introduced by the government from time to time, things have started changing. Now, the Shudras are provided jobs, education and other facilities at par with other citizens of the country.

Social issues which have been abolished:

Not all social issues are permanent in society. There are many such social issues which existed earlier, but with changing mind-sets of the people and awareness among the citizens, many of them have been abolished. For instance, Sati system was one such social issue which was actually cruelty against women. In case the husband of a woman dies, she was required to burn herself alive in the pyre of her husband. Women had no right to live in a society without their husbands. But with the initiatives of leaders such a Raja Ram Mohan Roy such evil practices were abolished.

Similarly, polygamy was a social issue in India since ancient times. A man was allowed to marry many women. Kings of earlier times had many queens. Women were treated as objects and married off as presents to men. However, with changing times and introduction of different laws such practice has been abolished.

Similar to this is the social issue of child marriage. Earlier, girls and boys were married as soon as they attained puberty. In fact, it was a general mind-set to marry off a girl within two years of her attaining puberty. Due to such practices, the girls were not able to have equal opportunities in education as men.

In fact, they were not treated as equal to men in any matter. However, with laws in place, this practice was termed illegal. As per the laws enacted by the Indian Government, a minimum age of 18 for girls and 21 for boys has been fixed for marriage. However, in remote parts of the country, such practices still exist and there are initiatives by the government from time to time in educating people about the evil aspects of this practice.

In spite of the fact that Governmental and NGOs are moving in the direction of enhancing the current condition in the social issues, the results are not exceptionally reassuring. Maybe the issue lies in the plain profound established convictions in the psyches of individuals of the nation which isn’t letting the circumstance to change such social issues. For example, the issue of Female Feticides is one of the disgraceful practices. Despite the fact that there are different rules in place which term this practice an illegal, it is still rampant in many parts of the country.

The genuine purpose behind this is the Patriarchy arrangement of the society of our nation which thinks about male as the better specialist and ladies as subordinate than them. Along these lines, the exceptionally powerful urge of having a male youngster in contrast with female prompted the disgraceful routine with regards to female feticides. In this manner, it is conviction framework or the social moulding of the general population which isn’t letting the general public to change at a quick pace.

Despite the fact that there have been a few positive changes in the general public, for example, presently young girls are going to school in greater part and their business proportion is likewise expanding, education facilities are available in rural areas, the backwards are provided equal opportunities, and still we have a long way to go.

We witness many social issues every day such as inequality against women in our own homes, sexual savagery against ladies which is being heard on a consistent schedule, female feticide, religious-mutual brutality which is on the ascent, untouchability which is yet a reality and child labour which still exists. Unless and until we change our mind-sets, nothing can change in our society. It is up to us whether we see these as social issues or accept them as a part of our society.

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• Essay on Gender Equality in India
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Module 18: Social Movements and Social Change

Causes of social change, learning outcomes.

• Explain how technology, social institutions, population, and the environment can bring about social change

Collective behavior and social movements are just two of the forces driving social change , which is the change in society created through social movements as well as external factors like environmental shifts or technological innovations. Essentially, any disruptive shift in the status quo, be it intentional or random, human-caused or natural, can lead to social change. Below are some of the likely causes.

Changes to technology, social institutions, population, and the environment, alone or in some combination, create change. Below, we will discuss how these act as agents of social change, and we’ll examine real-world examples. We will focus on four agents of change that social scientists recognize: technology, social institutions, population, and the environment.

Some would say that improving technology has made our lives easier. Imagine what your day would be like without the Internet, the automobile, or electricity. In The World Is Flat , Thomas Friedman (2005) argues that technology is a driving force behind globalization, while the other forces of social change (social institutions, population, environment) play comparatively minor roles. He suggests that we can view globalization as occurring in three distinct periods. First, globalization was driven by military expansion, powered by horsepower and wind power. The countries best able to take advantage of these power sources expanded the most, and exert control over the politics of the globe from the late fifteenth century to around the year 1800. The second shorter period from approximately 1800 C.E. to 2000 C.E. consisted of a globalizing economy. Steam and rail power were the guiding forces of social change and globalization in this period. Finally, Friedman brings us to the post-millennial era. In this period of globalization, change is driven by technology, particularly the Internet (Friedman 2005).

But also consider that technology can create change in the other three forces social scientists link to social change. Advances in medical technology allow otherwise infertile women to bear children, which indirectly leads to an increase in population. Advances in agricultural technology have allowed us to genetically alter and patent food products, which changes our environment in innumerable ways. From the way we educate children in the classroom to the way we grow the food we eat, technology has impacted all aspects of modern life.

Of course there are drawbacks. The increasing gap between the technological haves and have-nots––sometimes called the digital divide––occurs both locally and globally. Further, there are added security risks: the loss of privacy, the risk of total system failure (like the Y2K panic at the turn of the millennium), and the added vulnerability created by technological dependence. Think about the technology that goes into keeping nuclear power plants running safely and securely. What happens if an earthquake or other disaster, like in the case of Japan’s Fukushima plant, causes the technology to malfunction, not to mention the possibility of a systematic attack to our nation’s relatively vulnerable technological infrastructure?

Technology and Crowdsourcing

Millions of people today walk around with their heads tilted toward a small device held in their hands. Perhaps you are reading this textbook on a phone or tablet. People in developed societies now take communication technology for granted. How has this technology affected social change in our society and others? One very positive way is crowdsourcing.

Thanks to the web, digital crowdsourcing is the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. Web-based companies such as Kickstarter have been created precisely for the purposes of raising large amounts of money in a short period of time, notably by sidestepping the traditional financing process. This book, or virtual book, is the product of a kind of crowdsourcing effort. It has been written and reviewed by several authors in a variety of fields to give you free access to a large amount of data produced at a low cost. The largest example of crowdsourced data is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia which is the result of thousands of volunteers adding and correcting material.

Perhaps the most striking use of crowdsourcing is disaster relief. By tracking tweets and e-mails and organizing the data in order of urgency and quantity, relief agencies can address the most urgent calls for help, such as for medical aid, food, shelter, or rescue. On January 12, 2010 a devastating earthquake hit the nation of Haiti. By January 25, a crisis map had been created from more than 2,500 incident reports, and more reports were added every day. The same technology was used to assist victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011, and many more times in disasters since then.

The Darker Side of Technology: Electronic Aggression in the Information Age

One dark side of technology is known as “electronic aggression”. The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) uses the term to describe “any type of harassment or bullying that occurs through e-mail, a chat room, instant messaging, a website (including blogs), or text messaging” (CDC, n.d.). We generally think of this as cyberbullying. Cyberbullying represents a powerful change in modern society.  A 2011 study by the U.S. Department of Education found that 27.8 percent of students aged twelve through eighteen reported experiencing bullying. From the same sample 9 percent specifically reported having been a victim of cyberbullying (Robers et al. 2013). A more recent study conducted in 2016 on 5700 high school and middle school students between the ages of 12 and 17 found that 34% of students reported being cyber-bullied in their lifetime ( [1]

Cyberbullying is a special feature of the Internet. Something unique to electronic aggression is that it can happen twenty-four hours a day, every day—it can reach a child (or an adult) even though she or he might otherwise feel safe in a locked house. The messages and images may be posted anonymously and to a very wide audience, and they might even be impossible to trace. Finally, once posted, the texts and images are very hard to delete. Its effects range from the use of alcohol and drugs to lower self-esteem, health problems, and even suicide (CDC, n.d.).

The Story of Megan Meier

According to the Megan Meier Foundation web site (2014a), Megan Meier had a lifelong struggle with weight, attention deficit disorder, and depression. But then a sixteen-year-old boy named Josh Evans asked Megan, who was thirteen years old, to be friends on the social networking web site MySpace. The two began communicating online regularly, though they never met in person or spoke on the phone. Now Megan finally knew a boy who, she believed, really thought she was pretty.

But things changed, according to the Megan Meier Foundation web site (2014b). Josh began saying he didn’t want to be friends anymore, and the messages became cruel on October 16, 2006, when Josh concluded by telling Megan, “The world would be a better place without you.” The cyberbullying escalated when additional classmates and friends on MySpace began writing disturbing messages and bulletins. That night Megan hanged herself in her bedroom closet, three weeks before what would have been her fourteenth birthday.

According to an ABC News article titled, “Parents: Cyber Bullying Led to Teen’s Death” (2007), it was only later that a neighbor informed Megan’s parents that Josh was not a real person. Instead, “Josh’s” account was created by the mother of a girl who used to be friends with Megan.

You can find out more of Megan’s story at her mother’s web site .

or through her Ted Talk, “What Kids Have To Say About Bullying And How To End It” .

Social Institutions

Each change in a single social institution leads to changes in all social institutions. For example, the industrialization of society meant that there was no longer a need for large families to produce enough manual labor to run a farm. Further, new job opportunities were in close proximity to urban centers where living space was at a premium. The result is that the average family size shrunk significantly.

This same shift toward industrial corporate entities also changed the way we view government involvement in the private sector, created the global economy, provided new political platforms, and even spurred new religions and new forms of religious worship like Scientology. It has also informed the way we educate our children: originally schools were set up to accommodate an agricultural calendar so children could be home to work the fields in the summer, and even today, teaching models are largely based on preparing students for industrial jobs, despite that being an outdated need. A shift in one area, such as industrialization, means an interconnected impact across social institutions.

Population composition is changing at every level of society. Births increase in one nation and decrease in another. Some families delay childbirth while others start bringing children into their folds early. Population changes can be due to random external forces, like an epidemic, or shifts in other social institutions, as described above. But regardless of why and how it happens, population trends have a tremendous interrelated impact on all other aspects of society. For example, because we are experiencing an increase in our senior population as baby boomers begin to retire, this will in turn change the way many of our social institutions are organized. For instance, there is an increased demand for housing in warmer climates, a massive shift in the need for elder care and assisted living facilities, and growing awareness of elder abuse. There is concern about labor shortages as boomers retire, not to mention the knowledge gap as the most senior and accomplished leaders in different sectors start to leave. Further, as this large generation leaves the workforce, the loss of tax income and pressure on pension and retirement plans means that the financial stability of the country is threatened.

Globally, often the countries with the highest fertility rates are least able to absorb and attend to the needs of a growing population. Family planning is a large step in ensuring that families are not burdened with more children than they can care for. On a macro level, the increased population, particularly in the poorest parts of the globe, also leads to increased stress on the planet’s resources.

The Environment

Turning to human ecology, we know that individuals and the environment affect each other. As human populations move into more vulnerable areas, we see an increase in the number of people affected by natural disasters, and we see that human interaction with the environment increases the impact of those disasters. Part of this is simply the numbers: the more people there are on the planet, the more likely it is that some will be affected by a natural disaster.

But it goes beyond that. Movements like 350.org describe how we have already seen five extinctions of massive amounts of life on the planet, and the crisis of global change has put us on the verge of yet another. According to their website, “The number 350 means climate safety: to preserve a livable planet, scientists tell us we must reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from its current level of 400 parts per million to below 350 ppm” (350.org).

The environment is best described as an ecosystem, one that exists as the interplay of multiple parts including 8.7 million species of life. However dozens of species are going extinct every day, a number 1,000 times to 10,000 times the normal “background rate” and the highest rate since the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago. The Center for Biological Diversity states that this extinction crisis, unlike previous ones caused by natural disasters, is “caused almost entirely by us” (Center for Biological Diversity, n.d.). The growth of the human population, currently over seven billion and expected to rise to nine or ten billion by 2050, perfectly correlates with the rising extinction rate of life on earth.

Hurricane Katrina: When It All Comes Together

We’ve mentioned that four key elements that affect social change are the environment , technology , social institutions , and population . In 2005, New Orleans was struck by a devastating hurricane. But it was not just the hurricane that was disastrous. It was the converging of all four of these elements, and the text below will connect the elements by putting the words in parentheses.

Before Hurricane Katrina (environment) hit, poorly coordinated evacuation efforts had left about 25 percent of the population, almost entirely African Americans who lacked private transportation, to suffer the consequences of the coming storm (demographics). Then “after the storm, when the levees broke, thousands more [refugees] came. And the city buses, meant to take them to proper shelters, were underwater” (Sullivan 2005). No public transportation was provided, drinking water and communications were delayed, and FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (institutions), was headed by an appointee with no real experience in emergency management. Those who were eventually evacuated did not know where they were being sent or how to contact family members. African Americans were sent the farthest from their homes. When the displaced began to return, public housing had not been reestablished, yet the Superdome stadium, which had served as a temporary disaster shelter, had been rebuilt. Homeowners received financial support, but renters did not.

As it turns out, it was not entirely the hurricane that cost the lives of 1,500 people, but the fact that the city’s storm levees (technology), which had been built too low and which failed to meet numerous other safety specifications, gave way, flooding the lower portions of the city, occupied almost entirely by African Americans.

Journalist Naomi Klein, in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, presents a theory of a “triple shock,” consisting of an initial disaster, an economic shock that replaces public services with private (for-profit) ones, and a third shock consisting of the intense policing of the remaining public. Klein supports her claim by quoting then-Congressman Richard Baker as saying, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” She quotes developer Joseph Canizaro as stating, “I think we have a clean sheet to start again. And with that clean sheet we have some very big opportunities.”

One clean sheet opportunity was that New Orleans began to replace public schools with charters, breaking the teachers’ union and firing all public school teachers (Mullins 2014). Public housing was seriously reduced and the poor were forced out altogether or into the suburbs far from medical and other facilities (The Advocate 2013). Finally, by relocating African Americans and changing the ratio of African Americans to whites, New Orleans changed its entire demographic makeup.

Think It Over

• Consider one of the major social movements of the twentieth century, from civil rights in the United States to Gandhi’s nonviolent protests in India. How would technology have changed it? Would change have come more quickly or more slowly? Defend your opinion.
• Discuss the digital divide in the context of modernization. Is there a real concern that poorer communities are lacking in technology? Why, or why not?
• Which theory do you think better explains the global economy: dependency theory (global inequity is due to the exploitation of peripheral and semi-peripheral nations by core nations) or modernization theory? Remember to justify your answer and provide specific examples.
• Do you think that modernization is beneficial or detrimental to societies? Explain, using examples.

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1.2 Sociological Perspectives on Social Problems

Learning objectives.

• Define the sociological imagination.
• Explain what is meant by the blaming-the-victim belief.
• Summarize the most important beliefs and assumptions of functionalism and conflict theory.
• Summarize the most important beliefs and assumptions of symbolic interactionism and exchange theory.

The sociological understanding of social problems rests heavily on the concept of the sociological imagination . We discuss this concept in some detail before turning to various theoretical perspectives that provide a further context for understanding social problems.

The Sociological Imagination

Many individuals experience one or more social problems personally. For example, many people are poor and unemployed, many are in poor health, and many have family problems, drink too much alcohol, or commit crime. When we hear about these individuals, it is easy to think that their problems are theirs alone, and that they and other individuals with the same problems are entirely to blame for their difficulties.

Sociology takes a different approach, as it stresses that individual problems are often rooted in problems stemming from aspects of society itself. This key insight informed C. Wright Mills’s (1959) (Mills, 1959) classic distinction between personal troubles and public issues . Personal troubles refer to a problem affecting individuals that the affected individual, as well as other members of society, typically blame on the individual’s own personal and moral failings. Examples include such different problems as eating disorders, divorce, and unemployment. Public issues , whose source lies in the social structure and culture of a society, refer to social problems affecting many individuals. Problems in society thus help account for problems that individuals experience. Mills felt that many problems ordinarily considered private troubles are best understood as public issues, and he coined the term sociological imagination to refer to the ability to appreciate the structural basis for individual problems.

To illustrate Mills’s viewpoint, let’s use our sociological imaginations to understand some contemporary social problems. We will start with unemployment, which Mills himself discussed. If only a few people were unemployed, Mills wrote, we could reasonably explain their unemployment by saying they were lazy, lacked good work habits, and so forth. If so, their unemployment would be their own personal trouble. But when millions of people are out of work, unemployment is best understood as a public issue because, as Mills (Mills, 1959) put it, “the very structure of opportunities has collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of possible solutions require us to consider the economic and political institutions of the society, and not merely the personal situation and character of a scatter of individuals.”

When only a few people are out of work, it is fair to say that their unemployment is their personal trouble. However, when millions of people are out of work, as has been true since the economic downturn began in 2008, this massive unemployment is more accurately viewed as a public issue. As such, its causes lie not in the unemployed individuals but rather in our society’s economic and social systems.

Rawle C. Jackman – The line of hope… – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The high US unemployment rate stemming from the severe economic downturn that began in 2008 provides a telling example of the point Mills was making. Millions of people lost their jobs through no fault of their own. While some individuals are undoubtedly unemployed because they are lazy or lack good work habits, a more structural explanation focusing on lack of opportunity is needed to explain why so many people were out of work. If so, unemployment is best understood as a public issue rather than a personal trouble.

Another social problem is eating disorders. We usually consider a person’s eating disorder to be a personal trouble that stems from a lack of control, low self-esteem, or another personal problem. This explanation may be OK as far as it goes, but it does not help us understand why so many people have the personal problems that lead to eating disorders. Perhaps more important, this belief also neglects the larger social and cultural forces that help explain such disorders. For example, most Americans with eating disorders are women, not men. This gender difference forces us to ask what it is about being a woman in American society that makes eating disorders so much more common. To begin to answer this question, we need to look to the standard of beauty for women that emphasizes a slender body (Boyd, et. al., 2011). If this cultural standard did not exist, far fewer American women would suffer from eating disorders than do now. Because it does exist, even if every girl and woman with an eating disorder were cured, others would take their places unless we could somehow change this standard. Viewed in this way, eating disorders are best understood as a public issue, not just as a personal trouble.

Picking up on Mills’s insights, William Ryan (1976) (Ryan, 1976) pointed out that Americans typically think that social problems such as poverty and unemployment stem from personal failings of the people experiencing these problems, not from structural problems in the larger society. Using Mills’s terms, Americans tend to think of social problems as personal troubles rather than public issues. As Ryan put it, they tend to believe in blaming the victim rather than blaming the system .

To help us understand a blaming-the-victim ideology, let’s consider why poor children in urban areas often learn very little in their schools. According to Ryan, a blaming-the-victim approach would say the children’s parents do not care about their learning, fail to teach them good study habits, and do not encourage them to take school seriously. This type of explanation, he wrote, may apply to some parents, but it ignores a much more important reason: the sad shape of America’s urban schools, which, he said, are overcrowded, decrepit structures housing old textbooks and out-of-date equipment. To improve the schooling of children in urban areas, he wrote, we must improve the schools themselves and not just try to “improve” the parents.

As this example suggests, a blaming-the-victim approach points to solutions to social problems such as poverty and illiteracy that are very different from those suggested by a more structural approach that blames the system. If we blame the victim, we would spend our limited dollars to address the personal failings of individuals who suffer from poverty, illiteracy, poor health, eating disorders, and other difficulties. If instead we blame the system, we would focus our attention on the various social conditions (decrepit schools, cultural standards of female beauty, and the like) that account for these difficulties. A sociological understanding suggests that the latter approach is ultimately needed to help us deal successfully with the social problems facing us today.

Theoretical Perspectives

Three theoretical perspectives guide sociological thinking on social problems: functionalist theory, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionist theory. These perspectives look at the same social problems, but they do so in different ways. Their views taken together offer a fuller understanding of social problems than any of the views can offer alone. Table 1.1 “Theory Snapshot” summarizes the three perspectives.

Table 1.1 Theory Snapshot

Functionalism

Functionalism , also known as the functionalist theory or perspective, arose out of two great revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The first was the French Revolution of 1789, whose intense violence and bloody terror shook Europe to its core. The aristocracy throughout Europe feared that revolution would spread to their own lands, and intellectuals feared that social order was crumbling.

The Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century reinforced these concerns. Starting first in Europe and then in the United States, the Industrial Revolution led to many changes, including the rise and growth of cities as people left their farms to live near factories. As the cities grew, people lived in increasingly poor, crowded, and decrepit conditions, and crime was rampant. Here was additional evidence, if European intellectuals needed it, of the breakdown of social order.

In response, the intellectuals began to write that a strong society, as exemplified by strong social bonds and rules and effective socialization, was needed to prevent social order from disintegrating. Without a strong society and effective socialization, they warned, social order breaks down, and violence and other signs of social disorder result.

This general framework reached fruition in the writings of Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), a French scholar largely responsible for the sociological perspective, as we now know it. Adopting the conservative intellectuals’ view of the need for a strong society, Durkheim felt that human beings have desires that result in chaos unless society limits them (Durkheim, 1952). It does so, he wrote, through two related social mechanisms: socialization and social integration. Socialization helps us learn society’s rules and the need to cooperate, as people end up generally agreeing on important norms and values, while social integration, or our ties to other people and to social institutions such as religion and the family, helps socialize us and integrate us into society and reinforce our respect for its rules.

Today’s functionalist perspective arises out of Durkheim’s work and that of other conservative intellectuals of the nineteenth century. It uses the human body as a model for understanding society. In the human body, our various organs and other body parts serve important functions for the ongoing health and stability of our body. Our eyes help us see, our ears help us hear, our heart circulates our blood, and so forth. Just as we can understand the body by describing and understanding the functions that its parts serve for its health and stability, so can we understand society by describing and understanding the functions that its parts—or, more accurately, its social institutions—serve for the ongoing health and stability of society. Thus functionalism emphasizes the importance of social institutions such as the family, religion, and education for producing a stable society.

Émile Durkheim was a founder of sociology and is largely credited with developing the functionalist perspective.

Marxists.org – public domain.

Similar to the view of the conservative intellectuals from which it grew, functionalism is skeptical of rapid social change and other major social upheaval. The analogy to the human body helps us understand this skepticism. In our bodies, any sudden, rapid change is a sign of danger to our health. If we break a bone in one of our legs, we have trouble walking; if we lose sight in both our eyes, we can no longer see. Slow changes, such as the growth of our hair and our nails, are fine and even normal, but sudden changes like those just described are obviously troublesome. By analogy, sudden and rapid changes in society and its social institutions are troublesome according to the functionalist perspective. If the human body evolved to its present form and functions because these made sense from an evolutionary perspective, so did society evolve to its present form and functions because these made sense. Any sudden change in society thus threatens its stability and future.

As these comments might suggest, functionalism views social problems as arising from society’s natural evolution. When a social problem does occur, it might threaten a society’s stability, but it does not mean that fundamental flaws in the society exist. Accordingly, gradual social reform should be all that is needed to address the social problem.

Functionalism even suggests that social problems must be functional in some ways for society, because otherwise these problems would not continue. This is certainly a controversial suggestion, but it is true that many social problems do serve important functions for our society. For example, crime is a major social problem, but it is also good for the economy because it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in law enforcement, courts and corrections, home security, and other sectors of the economy whose major role is to deal with crime. If crime disappeared, many people would be out of work! Similarly, poverty is also a major social problem, but one function that poverty serves is that poor people do jobs that otherwise might not get done because other people would not want to do them (Gans, 1972). Like crime, poverty also provides employment for people across the nation, such as those who work in social service agencies that help poor people.

Conflict Theory

In many ways, conflict theory is the opposite of functionalism but ironically also grew out of the Industrial Revolution, thanks largely to Karl Marx (1818–1883) and his collaborator, Friedrich Engels (1820–1895). Whereas conservative intellectuals feared the mass violence resulting from industrialization, Marx and Engels deplored the conditions they felt were responsible for the mass violence and the capitalist society they felt was responsible for these conditions. Instead of fearing the breakdown of social order that mass violence represented, they felt that revolutionary violence was needed to eliminate capitalism and the poverty and misery they saw as its inevitable results (Marx, 1906; Marx & Engels, 1962).

According to Marx and Engels, every society is divided into two classes based on the ownership of the means of production (tools, factories, and the like). In a capitalist society, the bourgeoisie , or ruling class, owns the means of production, while the proletariat , or working class, does not own the means of production and instead is oppressed and exploited by the bourgeoisie. This difference creates an automatic conflict of interests between the two groups. Simply put, the bourgeoisie is interested in maintaining its position at the top of society, while the proletariat’s interest lies in rising up from the bottom and overthrowing the bourgeoisie to create an egalitarian society.

In a capitalist society, Marx and Engels wrote, revolution is inevitable because of structural contradictions arising from the very nature of capitalism. Because profit is the main goal of capitalism, the bourgeoisie’s interest lies in maximizing profit. To do so, capitalists try to keep wages as low as possible and to spend as little money as possible on working conditions. This central fact of capitalism, said Marx and Engels, eventually prompts the rise of class consciousness , or an awareness of the reasons for their oppression, among workers. Their class consciousness in turn leads them to revolt against the bourgeoisie to eliminate the oppression and exploitation they suffer.

Marx and Engels’ view of conflict arising from unequal positions held by members of society lies at the heart of today’s conflict theory. This theory emphasizes that different groups in society have different interests stemming from their different social positions. These different interests in turn lead to different views on important social issues. Some versions of the theory root conflict in divisions based on race and ethnicity, gender, and other such differences, while other versions follow Marx and Engels in seeing conflict arising out of different positions in the economic structure. In general, however, conflict theory emphasizes that the various parts of society contribute to ongoing inequality, whereas functionalist theory, as we have seen, stresses that they contribute to the ongoing stability of society. Thus while functionalist theory emphasizes the benefits of the various parts of society for ongoing social stability, conflict theory favors social change to reduce inequality.

Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels were intense critics of capitalism. Their work inspired the later development of conflict theory in sociology.

Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

Feminist theory has developed in sociology and other disciplines since the 1970s and for our purposes will be considered a specific application of conflict theory. In this case, the conflict concerns gender inequality rather than the class inequality emphasized by Marx and Engels. Although many variations of feminist theory exist, they all emphasize that society is filled with gender inequality such that women are the subordinate sex in many dimensions of social, political, and economic life (Lorber, 2010). Liberal feminists view gender inequality as arising out of gender differences in socialization, while Marxist feminists say that this inequality is a result of the rise of capitalism, which made women dependent on men for economic support. On the other hand, radical feminists view gender inequality as present in all societies, not just capitalist ones. Several chapters in this book emphasize the perspectives of feminist sociologists and other social scientists.

Conflict theory in its various forms views social problems as arising from society’s inherent inequality. Depending on which version of conflict theory is being considered, the inequality contributing to social problems is based on social class, race and ethnicity, gender, or some other dimension of society’s hierarchy. Because any of these inequalities represents a fundamental flaw in society, conflict theory assumes that fundamental social change is needed to address society’s many social problems.

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism focuses on the interaction of individuals and on how they interpret their interaction. Its roots lie in the work of early 1900s American sociologists, social psychologists, and philosophers who were interested in human consciousness and action. Herbert Blumer (1969) (Blumer, 1969), a sociologist at the University of Chicago, built on their writings to develop symbolic interactionism, a term he coined. Drawing on Blumer’s work, symbolic interactionists feel that people do not merely learn the roles that society has set out for them; instead they construct these roles as they interact. As they interact, they negotiate their definitions of the situations in which they find themselves and socially construct the reality of these situations. In doing so, they rely heavily on symbols such as words and gestures to reach a shared understanding of their interaction.

Symbolic interactionism focuses on individuals, such as the people conversing here. Sociologists favoring this approach examine how and why individuals interact and interpret the meanings of their interaction.

An example is the familiar symbol of shaking hands. In the United States and many other societies, shaking hands is a symbol of greeting and friendship. This simple act indicates that you are a nice, polite person with whom someone should feel comfortable. To reinforce this symbol’s importance for understanding a bit of interaction, consider a situation where someone refuses to shake hands. This action is usually intended as a sign of dislike or as an insult, and the other person interprets it as such. Their understanding of the situation and subsequent interaction will be very different from those arising from the more typical shaking of hands. As the term symbolic interactionism implies, their understanding of this encounter arises from what they do when they interact and from their use and interpretation of the various symbols included in their interaction. According to symbolic interactionists, social order is possible because people learn what various symbols (such as shaking hands) mean and apply these meanings to different kinds of situations. If you visited a society where sticking your right hand out to greet someone was interpreted as a threatening gesture, you would quickly learn the value of common understandings of symbols.

Symbolic interactionism views social problems as arising from the interaction of individuals. This interaction matters in two important respects. First, socially problematic behaviors such as crime and drug use are often learned from our interaction with people who engage in these behaviors; we adopt their attitudes that justify committing these behaviors, and we learn any special techniques that might be needed to commit these behaviors. Second, we also learn our perceptions of a social problem from our interaction with other people, whose perceptions and beliefs influence our own perceptions and beliefs.

Because symbolic interactionism emphasizes the perception of social problems, it is closely aligned with the social constructionist view discussed earlier. Both perspectives emphasize the subjective nature of social problems. By doing so, they remind us that perceptions often matter at least as much as objective reality in determining whether a given condition or behavior rises to the level of a social problem and in the types of possible solutions that various parties might favor for a particular social problem.

Applying the Three Perspectives

To explain armed robbery, symbolic interactionists focus on how armed robbers decide when and where to rob a victim and on how their interactions with other criminals reinforce their own criminal tendencies.

Geoffrey Fairchild – The Robbery – CC BY 2.0.

To help you further understand the different views of these three theoretical perspectives, let’s see what they would probably say about armed robbery , a very serious form of crime, while recognizing that the three perspectives together provide a more comprehensive understanding of armed robbery than any one perspective provides by itself.

A functionalist approach might suggest that armed robbery actually serves positive functions for society, such as the job-creating function mentioned earlier for crime in general. It would still think that efforts should be made to reduce armed robbery, but it would also assume that far-reaching changes in our society would be neither wise nor necessary as part of the effort to reduce crime.

Conflict theory would take a very different approach to understanding armed robbery. It might note that most street criminals are poor and thus emphasize that armed robbery is the result of the despair and frustration of living in poverty and facing a lack of jobs and other opportunities for economic and social success. The roots of street crime, from the perspective of conflict theory, thus lie in society at least as much as they lie in the individuals committing such crime. To reduce armed robbery and other street crime, conflict theory would advocate far-reaching changes in the economic structure of society.

For its part, symbolic interactionism would focus on how armed robbers make such decisions as when and where to rob someone and on how their interactions with other criminals reinforce their own criminal tendencies. It would also investigate how victims of armed robbery behave when confronted by a robber. To reduce armed robbery, it would advocate programs that reduce the opportunities for interaction among potential criminal offenders, for example, after-school programs that keep at-risk youths busy in “conventional” activities so that they have less time to spend with youths who might help them get into trouble.

Key Takeaways

• According to C. Wright Mills, the sociological imagination involves the ability to recognize that private troubles are rooted in public issues and structural problems.
• Functionalism emphasizes the importance of social institutions for social stability and implies that far-reaching social change will be socially harmful.
• Conflict theory emphasizes social inequality and suggests that far-reaching social change is needed to achieve a just society.
• Symbolic interactionism emphasizes the social meanings and understandings that individuals derive from their social interaction.

For Your Review

• Select an example of a “private trouble” and explain how and why it may reflect a structural problem in society.
• At this point in your study of social problems, which one of the three sociological theoretical perspectives sounds most appealing to you? Why?

Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and Method . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Boyd, E. M., Reynolds, J. R., Tillman, K. H., & Martin, P. Y. (2011). Adolescent girls’ race/ethnic status, identities, and drive for thinness. Social Science Research, 40 (2), 667–684.

Durkheim, É. (1952). Suicide (J. Spaulding & G. Simpson, Trans.). New York, NY: Free Press. (Original work published 1897).

Gans, H. J. (1972). The positive functions of poverty. American Journal of Sociology, 78 , 275–289.

Lorber, J. (2010). Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics . New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Marx, K. (1906). Capital . New York, NY: Random House. (Original work published 1867).

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1962). The communist manifesto. In Marx and Engels: Selected works (Vol. 2, pp. 21–65). Moscow, Russia: Foreign Language Publishing House. (Original work published 1848).

Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination . London, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Ryan, W. (1976). Blaming the victim (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: Vintage Books.

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149 Social Issues Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best social issues topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on social issues, ⭐ simple & easy social issues essay titles, 💡 interesting topics to write about social issues, ❓ social issues questions examples.

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• Social Issues Related to Detroit’s Demographics: The Urban Crisis This refutes the widespread knowledge that suggests racial divides and social initiatives in the 1960s were the cause of the urban decline.
• Journal Editors’ Role Regarding Social Justice Issues Journal editors can involve professionals from social justice forums such as civil rights lawyers in their journals as well as reduce the complexity of the presentation of social justice article contents.
• Social Issue Analysis: The Trauma Lens of Police Violence It is the most visible manifestation of the struggle for justice, and the police are usually expected to support the victims of injustice.
• The Impact of Social Issues on the Development of Adolescence For example, boys have high esteem when they experience changes in their voices, while girls may feel shy due to the growth of their chest region.
• Tobacco as a Social Injustice Issue African Americans are a minority population in the U.S.singled out to endure the health challenges related to tobacco use hence a social injustice.
• Ageism and Financial Insecurity as Social Issues The two main social issues impacting the rights of older individuals are ageism and financial insecurity. Many older people are capable and eager to work beyond the standard set, but the chances are limited.
• The Review of Social Issues Film One of the most important concerns for my future life is the ability to raise and care for children properly. The issue of elderly domestic abuse is considered to be one of the most serious […]
• Race as a Social Construct: Issues of Barriers Since it occurs in the conditions of scarcity of resources essential for the survival of citizens, the varying degree of access to them can be determined on the basis of racial background.
• Social Issues in the “In Plain Sight” Art Project The artists from the In Plain Sight project are united by the goal of raising public awareness about causes such as immigrant detention and the US culture of incarceration.
• Immigration: Social Issue Feeling Analysis From the global perspective, the most influencing countries in the world use visa and other conditions of entering the country as a migration regulating tool.
• International Social Welfare Issue Analysis That is why it is very important for social workers and all socially conscious people to promote the ideas of social welfare and make people understand why it matters. To conclude, the issue of social […]
• Modern Healthcare Aspects in the United States: Managing Historical and Social Issues Today, the system is trying to manage various issues such as malnutrition among older adults that is increasing, the role of nurses and the importance of their diversity, and the growing costs of the services.
• Whistleblowing as a Social Issue in the Workplace The only hindrance to whistleblowing in society or the public is the authenticity of the information and how it will be received generally.
• Management of Obesity and Social Issues That Emerge With Its Development The article by Omole focuses on recent shift in the management of obesity and the social issues that emerge with its development, namely, the culture of fat-shaming, by considering some of the alternatives toward evaluating […]
• Key Social Issues Affecting Criminal Justice Professionals The absence of a decline in this percentage suggests that the criminal justice system has not been effective in addressing this issue. The criminal justice system has failed to decrease crime rates due to the […]
• Police Brutality: Social Issue This paper explores the issue of police brutality and seeks to shed light on the perceptions of the public, especially the black minority.
• Domestic Terrorism: Burning Social Issue In my opinion, people could be driven by some factors or they could be conditioned throughout their lives to engage in domestic terrorism. They may also say that they feel unrecognized in the management of […]
• Global Digital Divide as a Social Issue That is, if societies around the globe are able to bridge the gap between those who have and those who do not in relation to information technology, then the development problems would be minimized at […]
• J.A. McPherson and G.G. Marquez Novel’s: Urgent Social Issues The black waiter Doc and the Colonel are forced to live in a cruel world and adapt to the dominant system.
• Should Drugs Be a Health, Social Issue or a Legal, Criminal Issue? They are classified depending on the mode of action and the response induced in the body. In order to get information from the participants the following questions will be asked: What drug do you use?
• Professors and Their Views on Political or Social Issues in the Classroom He analyzes the statement issued by the American Association of University Professors’ Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, “Freedom in the Classroom,” which he says seems to defend professors against attacks by the right […]
• Social Issues in Kuwait: Immigration Workforce Among the frequently highlighted issues in the country, one is the low productivity among the local workforce due to the high influence of favoritism and nepotism in promotions and merits.
• S. Hay’s and Feagin’s Works on Social Issues The work of the Sharon Hay’s “Flat Broke with Children” was assembled in a milieu characterised by the decline of the widely hailed welfare reform policies which had seen the diminishing of welfare rolls from […]
• Should Professors Be Allowed to Advocate Their Views on Political or Social Issues in the Classroom? In the recent past, professors have been accused of several faults, and it was because of these faults that it was deemed necessary to put a cap on the extent to which professors can excise […]
• Social Stratification Issues Solving If that is not the case, we meet different forms of institutional discrimination which can take different forms such as discrimination of children, gender discrimination, race and class discrimination.
• Social Inequality Issue Analysis Thesis Social inequality is a system and systematic worked as the framework of society and its functionality. What is acknowledged to be a hierarchical social structure are essentially confined to the primary units of economic […]
• Gender Pay Gap as a Multifaceted Social Issue The gender pay gap is defined as the average gross hourly earnings of men and women who are working. Secondly, political and economic causes and outcomes of the issue have to be considered.
• Domestic Violence as a Social Issue It is one of the main factors which stimulate the study’s conduction, and among the rest, one can also mention the number of unexplored violence questions yet to be answered.
• Masculinity as a Social Norms Issue However, the advancements that occurred with the rise of the LGBT movement and the empowerment of women now challenge established ideas.
• Pollution as a Social Issue and Mass Media’s Role The reason why plastic pollution gained traction only during the 21st century is directly connected to the invention of the Internet and the technological advances in electronics.
• Community Psychology in Addressing Social Issues Based on the lecture, we learned about the disparity between the rich and the poor, a domain that is associated with marginalization and stigmatization.
• Social Issues in Education: Applying Theory In the year 2000, the Ministry of Education banned any form of corporal punishment in all schools in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• Social Issues of the Immigration Journal The authors studied the impacts of multiculturalism of the period 1980s to 1990s on institutional forms of immigrants in the Netherlands.
• Social Issues in Karl Marx’s Letter to John Mayer In your letter, it seems that those in power do not listen to you and your generation. This is one sure way of attaining power that is vital for you and your generation to change […]
• Social Issues in McMinden, Fictional Town The concepts of social stratification, division of labor, and social distance discussed in the essay appear to be connected by cause-and-effect relation.
• Socialist vs. Capitalist Approach to Social Issues Capitalism also refers to a system where the economy is independent of the state. In a Socialist economy, the intellectual property belongs to the government.
• Policy Changes and Social Issues The second step within the model is associated with the political stream, in which the previously identified problem is reviewed between communities of policy experts who possess knowledge of the problem.
• Rhetoric: Social Issues’ Influences on US Children Such an approach does not allow the readers to be 100% sure that this information is true to life and makes the statement rather weak.
• Economic and Social Issues in Japan The events of March 11 contributed to widespread changes in the Japanese society and government. In the midst of the March 11 disaster, a political reformation occurred.
• Alcoholism as a Social Issue and Its Effect on Families Such children tend to think that they are the causes of the problem, which would end up affecting them psychologically. Since children are not helped to get out of the horrifying scenarios, they end up […]
• Workplace Gender Bias: Social Injustice Issues Such situations make companies to classify its workforce based on the class systems17 that involve a consideration of the individual’s achievement and performance at the workplace.
• Social Issues in “Too Young to Wed” by Cynthia Gorney In the case of 10-year-old Ayesha who was married off to a 50-year old, the women in the family tried to stop the marriage.
• The Social Cost Issue The concept of “social cost” is applied in the economic analysis and estimation of most impacts. The writer observes the economic implications of such impacts on the social realm.
• Public Policies Addressing Social Issues in the USA The best form of policy that the US government uses to control lead poisoning in children is the increased awareness to prevent the use of lead in household paints.
• Social Issues in Self Help in Hard Times by Zinn The following are the main points from the chapter 15 of the Self Help in Hard Times book that were determined as Zinn’s main points of interest: The first main point of Zinn in this […]
• Social Issues in the “Leaving the Streets: Stories of Canadian Youth” The authors of the book are inclined to support the idea that to exit the street life successfully, the street youth should become oriented to the principles of the street disengagement and to breaking all […]
• Natural Disasters and Global Social Issues The hurricane led to a major shift in the social arrangement of the populations in the worst affected areas. This led to a significant loss of jobs in the affected areas.
• US Public Policies Social Issues In view of this, the article is useful since it provides readers with brief and structured information regarding the differences that The Affordable Care Act makes.
• Social Issues of Genital Cosmetic Surgery for Women The labia minora is the main target, and it aims at reducing the size of these lips to avoid protruding beyond the labia majora.
• Single Mothers’ Social Issues The little consideration given to single women living in poverty distorts the women and their families. The single mothers who have a heavy burden of caring for their children need help from the government.
• Intercollegiate Sports: Social and Cultural Issues A primary goal of this essay is to evaluate the impact of social and cultural issues on the ability to handle stress in the future while being a contestant of one of the intercollegiate sports.
• Social Issue of Sexual Assault: Definition and Forms Sometimes it’s not only the ordinary people that are in the dark, even the most important figures that are seen as the role models to the society happen to be in the dark about some […]
• Social Issues: Monogamy in Our Life This sort of relations is considered to be the only legal type of bond in the majority of states all over the world.
• Social Issues: Abortions Prohibition With this in mind, it is possible to say that the question of abortion is a very keen issue which sets the table for a great number of different debates. However, it is said that […]
• Social Issues: Levels of Conversation Impact The results of a conversation depending on the levels of communication between the parties that are involved. In this level of conversation, a self-fulfilling relationship may be developed particularly if the people involved in the […]
• Social Issues: Equity Among the African Demographics Combined with the problem of poverty and lack of educational resources, it takes a truly monstrous scale, affecting not only the lives of women in a number of regions of Africa, but also the entire […]
• Social Issues: Science Versus Indigenous Ways of Living The opinion of science seems to have become the only credible source of knowledge in a contemporary world, and for a good reason with the recent technological breakthrough and the advent of the era of […]
• Social Issues: “A critical Mess” by Scott Rowan In his argument, Rowan, the president of Sherpa Multimedia, explains the pains and frustrations that the Chicago community undergoes when the cyclists take to the streets demonstrating their riding skills and claiming that it is […]
• Social Issues: Child Observation in Khalifa Park It was noticed that there was a marked difference in the games boys and girls play and their reactions to winning and losing the games.
• Social Issues: Urban Livability and Sustainability In achieving this choice in the United States, for instance, the Federal and State governments should allocate resources according to the development index of the cities in the continent.
• Social Issues: Non-Mainstream Body Modification The rise of many art styles and body modifiers, the increase in tattoo parlors dealing in non-mainstream art, and the emergence of websites, books, and magazines containing body art practices led to the rise of […]
• Social Issues: Ethnicity-based Jury Nullification This was because most of the jurists were whites, and they believed that whites had the freedom to treat other races the way they pleased.
• Social Issues: Hollywood Effects on Suburban Families The actions of the people who lived in the suburbs were largely influenced by the media. On the other hand, the suburban male was the provider and the protector of the house.
• The Discussion of WikiLeaks as a Social Issue The circulation of information on the Internet with the help of the media is the characteristic feature of the developing globalization.
• Social Issues: Demographic Transition Definition Phase two is considered to be the foundation of demographic transition, where there is a quick decrease in the mortality rate.
• Social Issues: Corporal Punishment To begin with, people that support corporal punishment say they do so because they believe that a child needs spanking to learn a discipline.
• Social Issues: Teen Pregnancy Lastly, there are no good role models to teach children the importance of abstinence, and this has led them to believe that they should engage in premarital sex to become famous.
• Social Issues: Police Protection of the Ku Klux Klan The situation when the police protected the Ku Klux Klan while gassing and arresting the demonstrators can seem to be unexpected and controversial because people are often inclined to associate the Ku Klux Klan with […]
• Social Issues: Rites and Ceremonies in People Life The life of a person as the member of the group or community is associated with definite rites and ceremonies which are followed to respond to the traditions, and cultural values developed during the centuries […]
• Social Issues: The Art of Living in Solitude The status of a single person is part and parcel of the modern reality for an increasingly large number of people and at the same time the major cause for psychological and social problems for […]
• Social Issues of Human Behavior: Nature and Nurture On the other hand, the nurture view asserts that behaviors are developed and persist according to the upbringing and the environment the individual grows up in.
• Social Issues: Appropriateness of Affirmative Action Affirmative action in the sphere of education can be discussed as the appropriate approach to evaluate the admissions of college students because it can guarantee the equal access to the limited educational resources for students […]
• Social Issues: Gentrification in Harlem Thus, gentrification in Harlem during the period of 2000-2012 is characterized by changes in the community’s demographics, household income, and economy connected with the arrival of wealthier residents, increased investment, promoted economic and business activities, […]
• Social Issues: How Identities are Constructed? In modern times, many people identify themselves with their countries of birth, and this makes them eligible for citizenship rights and other social and economic privileges that are offered by their countries.
• Social Issues: Game Theory in Daily Life In effect, game theory can be said to be a basis for making rational decisions whereby the given decisions create impacts on the decision making the ability of other entities in the group, while also […]
• Social Issues: Arranged Marriages Even though research has shown that some arranged marriages result in loving and stable relationships, I think it is important to give individuals the freedom to choose their partners and decide whether they are prepared […]
• Social Issues: Common Sense and Intuition One of the most noteworthy ideas in the book was the suggestion that, in as much as people try to act or say otherwise, from a subconscious point of view, the majority is actually practicing […]
• Social Issues: Gender Segregation The Code recognizes the “inherent dignity and worth of every person and to provide for equal rights and opportunities without discrimination”.
• Social Issues in the Book “The Academic Illusion” by Ken Robinson In the introductory part of the article, the author focuses on how intelligence is measured. In the last part of the article, the author persuades human beings to change how they perceive education.
• Social Issues: Property Ownership White views nature from a different standpoint to Forster’s; while he appreciates nature and the serenity of the place, Forster view of his wood is in terms of monetary value.
• Social Issues: Alcoholism as a Mode of Addiction Every single case of alcoholic dependence described in the lecture is perfectly consistent with the existing model, each piece of evidence falling into its place and, therefore, allowing the audience to have an entire picture […]
• Social Issues: Challenges Facing Young Immigrants It is against this backdrop that this essay seeks to explore the challenges facing young immigrants in the United States and the proactive measures that can be taken to rescue this vulnerable group in transiting […]
• Social Issues: the Freak Shows Popularity This appetite is what drives freak show organizers to find persons with severe deformities to satisfy the curiosity of the public.
• Social Issues: Muslim Immigrants in the UK Since the study aims at exploring Muslim immigrants in the UK, it will focus on the struggles of Muslim immigrants in the UK, the policies the UK government uses towards Muslim immigrants, and terrorism challenges […]
• Immigration as Social Issue in Australia The research will explore the element of trans-nationalism that is likely to be the case with most of these immigrants and its impacts on their continued stay in Australia.
• Native Americans: Social Issue In addition, the references of the natives by the mainstream society have led to the under development and have prevented the evolution of the Indian Americans.
• Sufficient Justifications of the Legitimacy of Religious Positions on Social Issues Beale points towards the spiritual, historical and divine origins of the bible and utilizes this as the reinforcing factors behind his belief in the bible’s inerrancy and infallibility.
• Social Issue: The Death of the Whitney Houston In addition to giving a precise of the aforementioned story, the next discussion also elaborates the story by relating it to sociological imagination and the concept of social perspectives.
• Social Issue: Concepts of Sociological Imagination and Sociological Perspectives Sociology is a subject that offers insight into behavior of individuals and groups of people in a society and its scope covers established relationships between people in a society, the effects of such relationships on […]
• White Privilege Social Issue Due to subtle nature of the racism in the modern society, the whites perceive it as just a social factor that differentiate people into privileged and unprivileged classes in the society.
• Social and Political Issues The military has been used by the corporations and the wealthy individuals to protect the interests of the nation, which are actually the interests of the corporations and the wealthy.
• Social Issues in the “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee The phrase ‘to kill a mocking bird’ stands out as a metaphor in the book To kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
• Homelessness as a Global Social Issue In the US, homelessness is on the increase because of economic melt- down and foreclosures. Moreover, differences in perception of homelessness by liberal and conservative on homeless have increased homelessness in the US.
• Gandhi’s contribution towards contemporary social issues Gandhi appreciates the existence of difference in the name of God amongst the Muslims, Hindus and Christians. In order for the concept of non-violence to be applicable, Gandhi is of the opinion that it is […]
• Why Is It Important to Address Social Issues in the Classroom?
• What Is a Social Issue Example?
• What Are the Basic Social Issues?
• What Is the Biggest Issue in the World Today?
• Is Poverty a Social Issue?
• Is Depression a Social Issue?
• How Many Social Issues Are There?
• Is Stress a Social Problem?
• Is Mental Illness a Social Issue?
• Is Social Anxiety a Social Issue?
• What Are the Four Types of Social Problems?
• What Is an Interesting Social Issue?
• How Do You Talk About Social Issues?
• Why Do We Need to Learn Social Issues?
• What Is the Most Common Social Issue?
• How Does Social Issues Affect Society?
• What Social Issues Are Not Talked About?
• What Are the Main Causes of Social Issues?
• Is Mental Health a Social Issue?
• What Is the Conclusion of Social Issues?
• What Are the Current Social Issue?
• How Do Social Issues Affect Students?
• How Do Social Issues Affect Development?
• What Will Happen if the Social Issues Are Not Controlled on Time?
• Why Are Social Issues Difficult?
• Why Should Social Issues Be Solved Socially?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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A growing share of Americans say affordable housing is a major problem where they live

Prospective homebuyers and renters across the United States have seen prices surge and supply plummet during the coronavirus pandemic . Amid these circumstances, about half of Americans (49%) say the availability of affordable housing in their local community is a major problem, up 10 percentage points from early 2018, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October 2021.

This Pew Research Center analysis about the levels of concern among Americans about the affordability of housing draws from a Center survey designed to understand Americans’ views and preferences for where they live.

The survey of 9,676 U.S. adults was conducted from Oct. 18 to 24, 2021. Everyone who took part is a member of Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the  ATP’s methodology .

Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology .

References to White, Black and Asian adults include only those who are not Hispanic and identify as only one race. Hispanics are of any race.

“Middle income” is defined here as two-thirds to double the median annual family income for panelists on the American Trends Panel. “Lower income” falls below that range; “upper income” falls above it. Read the  methodology  for more details.

References to respondents who live in urban, suburban or rural communities are based on respondents’ answer to the following question: “How would you describe the community where you currently live? (1) urban, (2) suburban, (3) rural.”

Another 36% of U.S. adults said in the fall that affordable housing availability is a minor problem in their community, while just 14% said it is not a problem.

Americans’ concerns about the availability of affordable housing have outpaced worries about other local issues. The percentage of adults who say this is a major problem where they live is larger than the shares who say the same about drug addiction (35%), the economic and health impacts of COVID-19 (34% and 26%, respectively) and crime (22%).

Opinions on the question of housing affordability differ by a variety of demographic factors, including income, race and ethnicity, and age. A majority of adults living in lower-income households (57%) say availability of affordable housing is a major issue in their community, larger than the shares of those in middle- (47%) or upper-income households (42%) who say it is a major problem.

Fewer than half of White adults (44%) say that availability of affordable housing is a major problem where they live – lower than the shares of Black (57%), Hispanic and Asian American adults (both 55%) who say the same.

Adults under 50 are more likely than their older counterparts to say affordable housing availability is a major problem locally. More than half of adults ages 18 to 29 and 30 to 49 say this (55% in both age groups), compared with smaller shares of those 50 to 64 and those 65 and older (44% and 39%, respectively).

Americans’ perceptions of this issue also vary based on where they live. About six-in-ten U.S. adults living in urban areas (63%) say that the availability of affordable housing in their community is a major problem, compared with 46% of suburban residents and 40% of those living in rural areas.

Regardless of income level, city dwellers generally tend to view affordable housing availability as a bigger issue than those living in the suburbs or rural areas. Two-thirds of urban adults with lower household incomes (66%) say affordable housing in their area is a major problem, compared with 56% of suburban dwellers with lower incomes and 52% of those with lower incomes living in rural areas. Among upper-income adults, 58% of those living in urban areas say housing affordability is a major problem, compared with 43% of upper-income Americans living in suburban places and 25% of upper-income rural residents.

There are also regional differences. Around seven-in-ten Americans living in the West (69%) say affordable housing availability is a major problem locally. This compares with 49% of Northeasterners, 44% of Americans in the South and 33% of those living in the Midwest.

Since 2018, there have been increases across demographic groups in the shares who say that the availability of affordable housing in their community is a major problem. For example, 55% of adults under 30 now say this is a major problem – a 16 percentage point rise from the 39% who said so in 2018. The share of adults ages 30 to 49 who hold this view has also risen from 42% in 2018 to 55% last year.

About six-in-ten Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party (59%) said in 2021 that affordable housing availability is a major problem in their community, compared with 36% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.

These partisan differences remain when looking separately at those who live in urban, suburban and rural communities. Among urban residents, two-thirds of Democrats (67%) see the availability of affordable housing locally as a major problem, compared with 54% of Republicans in urban areas. In suburban or rural communities, smaller majorities of Democrats hold this view (56% in the suburbs and 54% in rural places), compared with around a third of Republicans in those areas (35% and 31%, respectively).

Note: Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its methodology .

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Katherine Schaeffer is a research analyst at Pew Research Center

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A List of 470 Powerful Social Issues Essay Topics

In modern societies, people do everything to live peacefully. Still, tensions often arise. We call them social issues when they start negatively impacting a specific group of people. Poverty, discrimination, and addiction are examples of such problems. We need to confront them to ensure equal treatment for everyone.

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

Our professional custom writing team created this article to help you write a social issues essay. This comprehensive social issues topics list covers various current problems in America and in the world. Choose among 450 social topics, and get down to writing!

• 🔝 Top 10 Topics

✅ How to Write About Social Issues

• 🌐 Social Media Issues Topics
• 🏥 Health-Related Issues
• 🌳 Environmental Issues
• 🔫 War & Violence
• 🚓 Police & Criminal Justice
• 👨👩 Gender-Related Issues
• 🧔🏿 Racism Topics
• ✈️ Migration & Refugees
• ⚖️ Human Rights Topics
• 🗽 Social Issues in America

🔝 Top 10 Social Issues Topics

• Types of prisoner rights violations.
• Can vaccinations be mandatory?
• What makes overpopulation a threat?
• Online education as a cause of obesity.
• The economic effect of rising sea levels.
• The effects of Gender Pay Gap on economy.
• Ways to stop racial discrimination in schools.
• Can increase of employment help reduce poverty?
• Women empowerment and social development.
• Can mobile clinics make healthcare more accessible?

Writing on topics related to social issues involves thorough research. It also requires sympathy and tact. Following this guide will help you not to step on anybody’s toes.

• Research papers call for an in-depth analysis. Make sure to reference several sources to back up your claims.
• Essays revolve around your opinion. Here, good arguments are crucial.
• Pick the topic . It can be either contemporary or historical. It’s better to choose something you’re interested in. If nothing comes to mind right away, use a writing topic generator .
• Do research . Consult encyclopedias, find books on the topic. It will help you formulate ideas and outline the first draft.
• Consider your audience . How much do they know about your subject? How invested are they? Understanding your readers will help you be more considerate.
• Even if you have strong feelings about your subject, keep your tone neutral. Make sure not to condemn those who hold opposite views.
• Highlight what you personally think is right. Remember that you can’t control how other people will react.
• Be frank. Ask yourself: who am I? How do my experiences fit into my topic? Your honest answers will add unique insights to your paper.
• Double-check your paper. Does everything you wrote logically flow? Does your argumentative structure make sense? Does it support your thesis? If possible, let your assignment sit for a day. You can edit it later with a fresh perspective.

These are the basics you need if you want to write about social issues. Now you can start your research! The first step is to pick one of the excellent topics about social problems from the list below.

🌐 Social Issues Essay Topics Related to Social Media

• Security issues of social media .
• Should Instagram be age-restricted?
• Social networks’ impact on friendships.
• Disadvantages of being an influencer .
• Is there freedom of speech in social media?
• Should social media ban fake information?
• How harmful is social media dependency?
• Should employers check employees’ accounts?
• Online ethics and business Facebook accounts.
• The effect of the cancel culture on mental health.
• Cyberbullying: victim and abuser in the online environment.
• Should children be allowed to have social media accounts?
• Your opinion on memorial pages on social networks for the deceased.
• Ways to stay safe on the internet.

• How should social media websites deal with hate speech ?
• Is removing abusive content censorship?
• Explore the correlation between social media and mental disorders.
• Does Instagram change the way we perceive our lives?
• Is modern society forcing us to participate in social networking ?
• What is identity theft ?
• Personal isolation and technology in communication.
• The risks of microtransactions in online gaming .
• How does your digital presence influence your real life?
• Why do some people become dependent on social media ?
• Are online networks promoting stalking ?
• Discuss the digital divide in Washington.
• Is Twitter’s cancel culture doing more harm than good?
• How do marginalized groups benefit from social media?
• How important is data safety?
• Are people on social media more aggressive than in real life?
• Does the internet shorten our attention span ?
• Ways in which social media impacts your interactions with other people.
• Marketing, social media, and you: how do influencers impact your buying behavior?
• Explore the effect of the internet on students’ lives.
• Is Reddit right to allow outrageous content under the principle of free speech ?
• Politics and Twitter: the consequences of Donald Trump’s tweets .
• Does banning online networks from the workplace increase productivity?
• What basic ethical principles go overboard on the Internet ?
• In how far do social media trends reflect on the general public?
• Social media and youth: does it make puberty harder?
• The influence of social media platforms on democracy.
• What would happen if we could rate everyone online? (Think Community ’s episode “App Development and Condiments”)
• Does Instagram inspire a healthy lifestyle ?
• Why are likes so important?
• Debate the effects of speaking out in online communities.
• Are Facebook’s profile picture frames a good way of showing support?
• Debate social media policies and code of conduct.
• Is YouTube spreading propaganda?
• Did you ever do something because you’ve read about it on the internet?
• Are Twitter hashtags skewing the political discourse?
• Examine the gendered experiences of people on the internet.
• How do you make yourself heard on social media?
• Evaluate the usefulness of Facebook’s Safety Check feature.
• Discuss the pros and cons of TikTok challenges.
• How does participating in Instagram challenges for social justice help?

🏥 Health-Related Social Issues Topics to Write About

Our health largely depends on the social security system. With access to good healthcare services, we are less likely to develop preventable diseases. Unfortunately, issues are common in the health sector. These interesting essay writing prompts will help you explore social problems related to health:

• Are employers not paying enough attention to their employees’ mental health ?
• What should a person do if they can’t afford medical treatment?
• Why do some countries have higher obesity rates than others?
• Should abortion be legal or illegal?
• Debate whether a ban on tobacco advertising would help decrease smoking.
• What makes Americans start doing drugs ?
• Compare projects that help people overcome their addictions .
• What is the worst substance to be addicted to?
• Who should care for the elders ?
• Should hospices be free?
• Examine why HIV in seniors remains widely unrecognized.
• Should we change the drinking age limit?
• Whose health is mostly affected by pollution ?
• Should parents avoid vaccinating their children?
• What does it mean to die with dignity ?
• Should women get extra vacation days at work because of their periods?
• Explore the origins of the pro-life movement .
• Should non-smokers receive additional break time?
• Ways to make navigating easier for visually impaired people .
• Discuss stigma against mentally challenged individuals.
• The benefits of over-the-counter contraception.
• Must women who breastfeed in public cover themselves up?
• Psychoactive drugs in the treatment of psychological diseases.
• Disabilities and stigmatization: how does being disabled affect one’s social status?
• Does gender play an important role in one’s health?
• What health issues are affecting African Americans and Hispanics?
• Expectations and motherhood: being a childfree woman in a kid-centered society.
• How does being malnourished affect a child’s psyche in the long run?
• Investigate suicide rates in Pakistan.
• Discuss the social acceptance of autism spectrum disorders .
• Sociology and psychological diseases: the relationship between circumstance and mental health.
• Write about fad diets and their impact.
• How does the society you live in discriminate against older adults?
• Why is access to quality healthcare unevenly distributed?
• Who should decide when to stop life-prolonging treatments?
• Is homeopathic treatment for children acceptable?
• Describe why going to psychotherapy is widely stigmatized.
• What are the social determinants of health?
• Why is access to healthcare in rural areas so scarce?
• Is the propagation of mindfulness and self-care on social media improving our health?

• Examine the connection between poverty and health problems.
• Where does our society’s general obsession with weight come from?
• Do cultural norms promote drinking alcohol to an unhealthy extent?
• Is coffee a drug?
• How does the depiction of drug use in the media influence the youth?

🌳 Environmental Social Issues Essay Topics

Environmentalism is not just about saving nature. A damaged environment has adverse effects on humanity and its future. Changing weather and frequent natural disasters affect millions of people. Many are forced to flee their homes. Essays on this subject can cover activism or sustainability.

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• Is Extinction Rebellion’s form of protest too radical?
• What to avoid when traveling in the age of climate change.
• How can we ensure global access to drinking water ?
• The impact of bottled water on the environment.
• Water conservation methods in sub-Saharan Africa.
• The influence of tourism on cultural heritage sites.
• How does society need to change in the future to slow down climate change?
• What caused the rise in climate activism in recent years?
• Innovation vs. tradition: getting traditional farmers to implement new sustainable technology.
• Describe the importance of waste reduction for our ecosystems.
• How can we use our natural resources responsibly?
• Discuss what a sustainable diet is like.
• The role of packaging in marketing, food safety, and environment.
• Why do people deny human-made climate change ?
• Why should sociologists study the environment?
• What made us reliant on single-use plastic products?
• Discuss green infrastructure in water management.
• Debate how Greenpeace influences political decision making.
• In your opinion, what’s the best environmental organization to donate to?
• How successful is PETA in helping animals?
• Should mandatory volunteer work substitute compulsory military service?
• Urban gardening as a means to ensure food security .
• The effect of self-driving electric vehicles on urban environments.
• Compare types of sustainable futuristic cities in literature.
• How does global warming impact indigenous peoples in South America?
• What effects does a deteriorating environment have on labor conditions?
• Explain what Oxfam does.
• How does globalization impact sustainable agriculture?
• What are the most significant achievements of environmental activists in recent years?
• What makes politicians hesitant to take action against climate change ?
• Investigate what happened to the population of Isle de Jean Charles.
• Climate refugees: examine the disasters that cause people to flee their homes.
• What are the unintentional consequences of climate-related relocation projects?
• Explore the connection between nature and religion.
• Ecology and economics: ways to find a balance.
• Communities and health: how the way we handle the environment impacts the spread of disease.
• Investigate methods for responsible consumption.
• Why is sustainable development important for societies?

• Contrast the methods of various environmentalist movements.
• The world’s overpopulation: causes and effects.
• Why can it be difficult to convince older generations to take action against climate change ?
• What are the best things everyone can do to protect the environment ?
• The role of zoos in wildlife endangerment.
• How do changing weather patterns impact our homes?
• What caused the increase in natural disasters over the last decade?

🔫 Social Issues Topics: War & Violence

Scientists still debate if violence is a part of human nature. Wars and terrorist attacks are disastrous events that traumatize millions of people. Still, it’s crucial not to forget about more subtle forms of violence. These include emotional neglect, bullying, and brutality in medical care.

• What are the main reasons for nations to wage war?
• Mental disorders and vulnerability to homicidal death.
• The restoration of Germany after the Second World War.
• Domestic violence in 20th century Canada.
• Describe the most common types of violence against teenagers.
• How does a country’s political situation impact domestic violence ?
• Do splatter movies promote violent behavior ?
• Should girls dress modestly to avoid being abused?
• What is the use of war monuments?
• The issue of girl education in India.
• How does war influence the development of children?
• Analyze the accuracy of the events depicted in Sam Mendes’ film 1917 .
• Everything Quiet on the Western Front and the youth’s attitude towards fighting.
• The treatment of veterans in your community.
• Why do people join the army?
• Connection between school bullying and problems in adult life.
• What are the most common reasons for murder ?
• How can a family move on after their child has been kidnapped?
• Why are veterans more likely to commit suicide than average citizens?
• Is human trafficking modern-day slavery?
• Investigate how citizens of Cape Town deal with the high crime rate in their city.
• What events can lead to an increase in crime?
• Explain the socio-economic aftermaths of the Afghanistan war .
• Examine the success of Columbia’s DESEPAZ program.
• What is the origin of domestic violence?
• Do schools in your country work effectively to discourage abusive behavior towards girls?
• Why do men tend not to report domestic violence ?
• How does emotional neglect impact children?
• What are the best ways to prevent street violence?
• Is there a connection between the strictness of gun laws and homicide rates ?
• Why do women hesitate to report rape cases?
• Rape and sexual harassment in the military .
• An overview of Japanese mafia culture.
• The connection between education and violence.
• Who profits from war?
• Are the US military expenses justified?
• What does the “guns vs. butter” model describe?
• Give examples of cultural norms justifying violence.
• In how far has globalization impacted violent behavior ?
• What triggers aggression against healthcare workers?
• Ways to manage verbal abuse in social care.
• Examine the Chinese phenomenon of Yi Nao.
• Investigate the recent decriminalization of domestic abuse in Russia.
• What was the impact of the #metoo movement ?
• Bullying and sexual harassment at workplace.

🚓 Police & Criminal Justice Topics to Write About

Everyone should feel safe in their community. That’s what a country’s criminal justice system is for. But humans can make mistakes and be biased. Not everyone feels protected by the current system. What can we do to change that? Explore this question in one of the following creative topics:

• What does the phrase “ defund the police ” mean?
• What makes you feel safe in your community?
• Describe the social standing of police officers in your country.
• Examine if there’s evidence of structural racism in the police.
• Is it possible to achieve true equality ?
• Are all professions in criminal justice equally prestigious?
• Discuss the concept of juvenile crimes.
• Debate castration as a punishment for sexual offenders.
• The influence of the internet on human trafficking .
• What could the police be substituted with?
• How does racial profiling work?
• Should people who abuse drugs go to jail?
• How do people become homeless in big cities?
• Discuss the legitimization of prostitution.
• What causes governments to oppose gay marriage ?
• The safest ways to deescalate riots.
• What are the best methods to discourage people from committing crimes ?
• Define civil disobedience and its goals.
• Victimology and traditional justice system alternatives.
• What makes white-collar crimes more socially acceptable than others?
• Reintroducing prisoners to society: obstacles and consequences.
• Would society profit from the abolition of prisons?
• What are the advantages of community services ?

• How does crime differ in various social classes?
• Justice for women: the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
• How do prejudices influence criminal justice mechanics?
• Human services issues from the point of income inequality.
• Why was the Hong Kong national security law installed?
• How did legalizing all drugs affect Portuguese society?
• What are the prominent civil rights issues in your country?
• The Captain of Köpenick : the psychological effect of uniforms.
• Why was racial segregation widely accepted in America?
• How do witness protection programs work?
• The right to privacy vs. safety: a case for surveillance cameras.
• How can one save their reputation after committing a crime?
• Compare the four deviance theories in sociology .
• To what extent can biology explain criminal behavior ?
• Do police officers need guns?
• Should law enforcers need to request permission before using firearms ?
• How did dismantling the police department in Camden, NJ impact crime?
• Explore the connection between militarization and police violence.
• What does the principle of qualified immunity entail?
• Debate the use of body cameras by police officers .
• Police violence and subterfuge.
• What are the social benefits of jury duty?

👨👩 Gender-Related Social Issues Essay Topics

Even today, a lot of people are systematically disadvantaged because of their gender. This problem manifests itself not only in the infamous gender pay gap. For example, in the US, transgender people are banned from serving in the army. And in some countries, women are still denied fundamental rights. If you want to get to the heart of contemporary controversial issues, this section is for you.

• Why is the number of women in positions of power still low?
• Are quotas the only way to guarantee equal hiring processes?
• Pros and cons of unisex bathrooms.
• Why are matriarchal societies rare?
• Describe how the patriarchy holds back women.
• Conflicting theories: gay marriage and feminism.
• Does feminism need to be radical?
• How does gendered marketing affect child development ?
• Should insurance companies pay for sex reassignment therapy?
• Reasons why some people have problems with they/them pronouns.
• What does it mean to be non-binary?
• Investigate the treatment of women in Saudi Arabian society .
• What makes a profession traditionally female?
• Should women be more encouraged to join the military ?
• Why is it more challenging for men to get full custody ?
• Find historical examples of women who made a change in their society.
• Should professors be required to include more women authors in their reading material?
• Examine the treatment of the transgender community in healthcare.
• Is gender a purely social construct?
• What can a woman do to become more empowered ?
• Can a patriarchal society ever achieve true gender equality ?
• Are Disney princesses good role models?
• Examine the representation of gender variety in popular TV shows.
• Gender identity: promotion of equality for sexual orientation.
• Discuss the connection between gender-biased language and oppression.
• Why are sexist marketing practices still legal?
• Should girls capitalize on their attractive looks?
• Define the term “gender blindness.”
• Do school uniforms promote gender inequality?
• Bibiana Steinhaus: a female referee.
• Discuss how the battle of the sexes impacted society.
• Should men be entitled to more extended paternity leave ?
• Can religion ensure equality?
• How do stereotypes against women decrease their chances of getting hired?
• Why do millions of women still have to choose between having a family or a career?
• Explain the gender dynamics in development.
• Should men and women play and compete in mixed sports teams?
• What do beauty pageants teach girls?
• Debate the importance of LGBT studies.
• What causes gender dysphoria?
• Do blockbuster films have the responsibility to advocate for equality?
• Does society need gender roles to function properly?
• What makes same-sex marriage a controversial topic in many countries?
• Examine adoption laws for gay couples.
• Compare gender-based violence in the UK vs. Iran.

🧔🏿 Social Topics for Essays on Racism

Slavery is abolished everywhere in the world. Still, it didn’t put an end to racism. There’s a lot of racial bias fueled by insecurity and ignorance. Because of this, ethnic minorities rarely enjoy equal opportunities. An essay on racism can raise awareness of the problem by shedding light on racial injustice.

• How has racism changed over the past hundred years?
• Queer of color: history and theory.
• Who were the Khmer Rouge ?
• Trace the development of anti-discrimination laws in your country.
• What caused populist groups to gain popularity in recent years?
• Did Donald Trump’s presidency increase racism towards Latin Americans?
• What socio-economic issues do African American families face?
• Is there a connection between racism and social progress?
• Would there be no racism without colonialism ?
• Discuss subtle forms of everyday racism.
• Should women in teaching positions be allowed to wear hijabs ?
• Nelson Mandela and the fight against apartheid .
• What makes people scared of minorities ?
• Who benefits from structural racism ?
• Find out how racism manifests itself in your native language.
• Compare the types of social segmentation.
• Is the use of the n-word in hip hop empowering?
• How did imperialism impact Okonkwo’s life in Things Fall Apart ?
• In which areas of life are black Americans institutionally disadvantaged?
• Is it appropriate for white people to wear hoop earrings?
• The best ways to educate children about race.
• How does cultural appropriation become harmful?
• Racial prejudice in the movie industry.

• Your position on companies renaming well-known brands to avoid claims of racism.
• Discuss the problem of racism at institutional and interactional levels.
• Will racism ever end?
• Is “All lives matter” a racist statement?
• How does environmental racism affect the living conditions of minorities?
• Investigate the historical persecution of the Romani people.
• What makes people racist nowadays?
• The internet’s contribution to alleviating racism.
• Cultivation of racism in the American society.
• How much of a problem is reverse discrimination?
• Trace the history of lynching and mob violence against blacks in the American South.
• Who was Leo Frank?
• How does discrimination differ in rich vs. developing countries?
• Racism as a barrier to educational opportunities.
• Does social media help fight racist bias?
• How to responsibly handle classic movies and literature with racial prejudices .
• What constitutes a healthy national identity ?
• How does modern television portray minorities ?
• Does your country’s healthcare system disadvantage minorities ?
• Investigate what happens to the Rohingya people in Malaysia.
• Is antisemitism still a problem in your country?
• Does nationalism always lead to racism?

✈️ Social Awareness Topics on Migration & Refugees

Migration can have a beneficial effect on a host country’s economy. For instance, migrants can provide vital additional workforce. But an overflow of newcomers can also lead to problems. Most notably, it affects a nations’ cultural and social landscapes. “How should we deal with refugees?” is one of the most challenging political questions today.

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• How has migration changed over the past 20 years?
• Mexican immigration as a political controversy.
• Why do migrants from the Middle East face more prejudice than those from Central Europe?
• Describe the types of events that can cause major forced displacement .
• How should governments plan for migration?
• Why do many people in Europe have a negative attitude towards refugees ?
• Why are foreign workers important to every nation’s economy?
• Effective ways to integrate displaced people.
• Critique Arizona’s new immigration laws.
• Have refugee camps ever been a solution to the problem?
• What drives people to immigrate illegally ?
• Should the US’ sanctuary cities be dissolved?
• Describe the notion of ecological migration.
• Should Europe take in more refugees ?
• Compare resettlement models in Canada vs. Australia.
• What’s the difference between expats and migrants?
• What factors make illegal immigration undesirable?
• Has the public perception of migrants changed over the past years?
• How important is it that immigrants speak their host country’s language?
• What does social integration ideally consist of?
• Discuss Chinese settlement patterns in America.
• The advantages of dropping visa restrictions.
• How did 9/11 affect the public’s perception of the global movement?
• Is it morally right to marry someone just for their passport?
• Do illegal immigrants negatively impact their host country’s society?
• Does migration cause destabilization?
• What does the claim “no one is illegal” advocate?
• How does the American green card lottery work?
• Should a child born in a foreign country automatically receive citizenship ?
• American society wouldn’t exist without immigration . Why is it still so hostile towards foreigners?
• Explore the link between global movement and the spread of diseases.
• Should the government use taxpayer money to upskill refugees ?
• Immigrants in Toronto: social and economic challenges.
• Can expats from a distinct cultural background ever integrate into a country that doesn’t share their norms?
• Discuss the importance of diversity to society.
• Is there a connection between immigration rates and crime?
• Should expats be eligible for welfare programs ?
• Where’s the line between cultural appropriation and integration?
• Can binational relationships work?
• How do you become a stateless person?
• What rights do asylum seekers have in your country?
• Is immigration from developing countries a threat to wealthier nations?
• Explore moral panics associated with other ethnicities.
• What makes Europe attractive to expats?
• Describe the common prejudices refugees have to face in Australia.

⚖️ Social Justice Essay Topics on Human Rights

You probably agree that every human deserves access to fundamental rights. Unfortunately, these are continually under threat. And it doesn’t always happen far away from you. Women, the LGBT community, and many others fight for their rights every single day.

• Are limitations of human rights during crises justified?
• Should we strive to achieve the same rights globally?
• Is male circumcision shortly after birth a violation of human rights?
• How do you prevent low-income families from sending their children to work ?
• Capital punishment vs. the right to live.
• Can dictatorships ensure human rights ?

• Is using sensitive language incriminating our freedom of speech?
• Describe the achievements of Amnesty International.
• Should Europe stop business interactions with countries that violate human rights ?
• Examine effective ways to combat food shortages in the Global South.
• How can governments secure freedom of speech ?
• Should access to the internet be included as a fundamental human right?
• Are restrictive laws concerning hijabs violating religious freedom ?
• Charlie Hebdo and its Muhammad cartoons: did they go too far?
• When does satire become harmful?
• Examine how human rights are treated in the pornography industry.
• Why are LGBT people around the world not granted the same rights as everyone else?
• Balancing labor conditions and demand: human rights in the economy.
• Who protects stateless persons?
• What has changed since the first declaration of human rights?
• How was slavery justified back in the day?
• Why do women in many countries still not have the same rights as men?
• The Handmaid’s Tale : how is the society in Gilead structured?
• Discuss how vital the rights to freedom of thought and expression are.
• To which rights should prisoners have access to?
• Debate the fairness of the utilitarian approach.
• How do NGOs help to ensure human rights in Somalia?
• Human rights and the Bible : how does the church get away with violations?
• Define different perspectives on what constitutes freedom .
• What are the most significant human rights issues today?
• Ethics and the media: exploiting personal tragedies for attention.
• Prisoners are humans, too: rights violations in Guantanamo.
• Is combating climate change a human rights issue?
• Are cruel traditions such as honor killings justified if they are socially accepted?
• How successful is the European Commission of Human Rights?
• Is the death penalty a justified measure nowadays?
• Should pets have the same rights as humans?
• Define the difference between civil and human rights.
• If there’s gay pride, why shouldn’t there be straight pride?
• Unequal privilege: legal, religious, and social factors.
• What would happen if education were free and accessible to everyone?
• State terrorism vs. critical terrorism.
• Did globalization make us freer?
• Is the wellbeing of the majority more important than the wellbeing of a minority?
• When, if ever, should men and women have different rights?

🗽 Current Social Issues Topics in America

With its variety of races and cultures, America faces many social issues. Its deeply divided political parties add more fuel to the fire. African American rights and police brutality are some of the most pressing issues in the US today.

• Consequences of fortifying the American-Mexican border wall.
• Should illegal immigrants always be deported when found?
• Is the democratic system in the US in need of reform?
• What are the social causes of obesity in the USA?
• Negative side effects of the war on drugs .
• How important is bipartisan cooperation?
• What difference does it make if Russia meddled in the 2016 elections?
• Police brutality: reasons and countermeasures.
• Discuss the importance of reducing medical costs.
• Racism and the police: is it an institutional problem?
• What are the strictest cultural taboos in American society?
• Are there enough women in American leadership positions?
• Is sexism a significant problem in the States?
• Describe the consequences of voter fraud.
• Should schools teach students to be more patriotic ?
• Discuss prescription drug abuse in America.
• College student debt : is it a fair price to pay for a good education?
• Will police presence in schools help curb violence?
• What drugs should be legalized vs. remain illegal?
• Debate the quality of political education in your state.
• Is fake news a severe problem?
• Financial literacy as a compulsory subject in high school.
• How do you destigmatize taboo topics in society?
• Why do conversations about periods make people feel uncomfortable?
• Social causes of eating disorders in adults.
• Discuss how various religions can live together peacefully.
• Describe the NIMBY phenomenon.
• What are the benefits and limitations of needle exchange programs?
• Find reasons why peaceful protests turn into violent riots.
• Are students in the US nowadays under too much stress ?
• What are the harmful effects of urban sprawl ?
• Can your vote make a difference?
• Do American schools need to offer better sex education classes?
• What makes people believe the Earth is flat ?
• Why do conspiracy theories spread so quickly nowadays?
• Traffic in California: reasons to invest in public transport.
• Are charter schools better than public schools?
• Compare the most prominent social movements currently active in America.
• The legacy of Occupy Wall Street.
• Describe the pros and cons of the Green New Deal.
• How successful is special education in the US?
• What causes gentrification in American cities?
• Is immigration a strain on the American job market ?
• Tackle the problem of prison overcrowding.
• Investigate the effects of ableism in the States.

That’s all we’ve got for you. We hope this article was helpful. Good luck with your essay writing!

You might also be interested in:

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🔍 References

• Lifestyles & Social Issues: Encyclopedia Britannica
• Controversial/Contemporary Issues: How to Write a Research Paper: Campbell University
• 3 Insights Into Writing about Social Issues: Jane Friedman
• Key Issues: eSafety Commissioner
• Top 10 Most Common Health Issues: University of Rochester Medical Center
• Top 10 Most Important Environmental Issues: Iberdrola.com
• War: Social Problems: University of Minnesota
• Violence: a Global Public Health Problem: WHO
• What Are the Biggest Problems Women Face Today?: Politico Magazine
• Issues: National Center for Transgender Equality
• List of Issues about Racism: The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
• Potential implications of Increasing Significance of Migration: EU
• The Biggest Issues Facing Migrants Today — and What We Can Do to Solve Them: World Economic Forum
• How Americans See Major National Issues: Pew Research Center
• Social Issues and Human Rights: United Nations Environment
• Crime & Criminal Justice: Brookings
• Social Problems: Oxford Academic Press
• Criminal Justice: ProPublica
• Structural Racism in America: Urban Institute
• Racism and Health: American Public Health Association
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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Social Media — The Impact of Social Media: Causes and Effects

The Impact of Social Media: Causes and Effects

• Categories: Effects of Social Media Social Media

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Words: 1226 |

Published: Feb 7, 2024

Words: 1226 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, cause 1: increased connectivity and communication, cause 2: promotion of self-expression and individuality, cause 3: access to information and awareness, effect 1: impacts on mental health, effect 2: influence on societal norms and values, effect 3: privacy and security concerns.

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Essay on Social Issues in India (causes, effects and solutions)

Category: Essays and Paragraphs , Social Issues in India On February 2, 2019 By Team Work

Social Issues in India 

Introduction .

Every society has some problems, and these are commonly termed as social issues . It is a problem that is affecting a considerable percentage of a nation’s or global population or society.

Social issues (also social problem, social evil, and social conflict) refers to any undesirable condition that is opposed either by the whole society or by a section of the society. It is an unwanted social condition, often objectionable, the continuance of which is harmful for the society.

Social issues are caused by some factors that are beyond the control of a single individual and cause a lot of conflict on the moral grounds.

There are some common characteristics of all social problems. This include:

• Social problems are those situations that have bad and injurious consequences for society.
• Social problems arise when there is a deviation of the people or the nature of society from the ideal situation.
• Almost all social problems have some common origin.
• Many of the social issues are interconnected, and if one is solved, then others also get solved.
• Social problems have a huge impact on society and may affect any section of the society.
• Social issues need a collective approach to be solved.
• Almost all societies in this world have social issues.

India is facing a large number of social issues such as caste system, child labour, illiteracy, gender inequality, superstitions, religious conflicts, and many more. It is high time that the society gets relief from these undesirable social evils.

Major Social Issues:  We have prepared a list of major social issues in India. They are briefly discussed below in the following order:

• Caste system
• Child labour
• Child marriage
• Low status of women
• Gender inequality at work
• Dowry system
• Sati practice
• Superstition
• Sanitation and cleanliness
• Religious conflicts
• Juvenile delinquency

1. Caste system

Introduction: Caste system is a system of defining class or assigning status to individuals from the time of birth. In India, the caste system is mainly profession based. India has been a victim of caste system since ages.

The causes, effects and solutions of Caste system in India are discussed below:

Causes: The main reason behind the growth of Caste system in India is the assignment of caste based on job specialization. There were different types of jobs in the society which were done by the people based on their capability. This division of job based on specialization resulted into caste system.

Four classes of Caste system: The four classes includes:

• The Brahmins – the priestly class. They were mainly engaged in religious and priestly activities. They were also appointed as advisors to the Kings.
• The Kshatriyas – the warrior and ruler class. They were mainly engaged in warfare activities.
• The Vaishyas – the trader class. They were mainly engaged in business, agriculture, and trading activities.
• The Sudras – the lowest of the four traditional class engaged as domestic servants and laborers, etc.

Negative effects of Caste system: Caste system has many disadvantages such as:

• Encourages untouchability,
• Promotes Inequality,
• Undemocratic in nature,
• Fake differentiation in superiority and inferiority.
• Increases gap between upper and lower caste people.

People are victimized by caste. There is discrimination which divides the society, and anti-social elements take advantage of this. Caste system is also a danger towards the National integration of the country. Caste system is a major cause for many inhuman and immoral social practices such as untouchability, child marriage, sati system (sati pratha), etc.

• Education will help the people to become aware of the disadvantages of Caste system.
• There is a need for widespread social change in favor of equality of human-beings. Caste system can be discouraged through social education in rural areas.
• There should be special classes at schools that imparts value and moral education to the children.
• Superstitious people are extremely fearful and discourage any change in social norms. Education will help shed away superstition, which in turn, will help shed casteism as well.
• With better education and economic progress, people belonging to diverse caste get opportunity to mix and work together. Many of them become friends while working together on a project.

Introduction: Poverty refers to a situation when people’s basic needs are not fulfilled. When people doesn’t have the necessary food to eat or clothes to wear or shelter to stay then its called poverty. Life becomes very difficult for people with income is below the poverty line (BPL).

Poverty is a vicious circle and is the lack of money or material possessions. Social, political, as well as economic elements, contribute to poverty. It leads to a lack of basic life necessities and comfort. Illiteracy is a major cause and effect of poverty. These people have a low standard of living and poverty is the cause of many social evils.

The causes, effects and solutions for poverty in India are discussed below:

Causes: The major reasons or causes of poverty are:

• People don’t get proper education which leads to poverty. People are poor because they are illiterate, and they are illiterate because they cannot afford education. Illiteracy and poverty stays side-by-side. They both are the cause and effect of each other.
• In case where the resources and opportunities are limited and the population is high, there arises a situation of joblessness which ultimately leads to poverty.
• When a large number of people live in poverty, there is limited scope for the development of country’s economy.
• Some natural and environmental problems such as lack of rainfall, drought, etc. often lead to poverty. There are many other reasons also like caste system, unemployment, etc.

Effects: The negative effects of poverty are mentioned below:

• Poor people will always have to depend on others to survive.
• Low quality foods may leads to bad nutrition.
• Poor people have less liberty for the choice of profession.
• Poverty may affect the moral and self-esteem of people living in extreme hardship.
• Poverty also results in building stress which ultimately affects the relationship of people.
• The low standard of living prevails among poor people.

Solutions: The solutions for poverty are discussed below:

• Poverty can be checked by increasing job opportunities. It will decrease the rate of unemployment which ultimately results in decrease of poverty in economy.
• Government should take more steps towards charity, trusts and have some transparency while spending money in those social institutions.
• There is a need for initiatives of paid leave to the workers.
• The education system should be reformed and initiatives should be taken to bring more children to schools.

3. Child labour

Introduction: Child labour is a system of involving children in any economic activity. Children at the age of playing engage themselves into economic activity for their family. Child labour can be seen throughout the country in a wide way.

Child labour means getting children who are minors of age to do work. Even if children are paid for the labour that they perform, child labour is still deeply wrong.

The causes, effects and solution of Child labour are briefly mentioned below:

Causes : The major causes of child labour in India are:

• Unemployment,
• Illiteracy, and
• Low standard of living.

If the above problems can be resolved from the Indian society, then the country will have less social issues.

When a family is poor, they often have no choice but to send their children out to work. If the child’s parents or other relatives are sick, or poor, more pressure will be put on children to go out to work to provide for themselves and their families.

Due to unemployment of the parents, children do not get proper education and are forced to get involved in child labour. Educated people are less likely to engage their child as child labours. In general, educated people want to keep up a certain level of standard and live a respectable life. On the contrary, illiterate people are not even aware of the evil effects of child labour.

Effects: The negative effects or major disadvantages of child labour include:

• Child labour is an inhuman practice. The mental growth of the children engaged in child labour is checked.
• Children get less time and opportunity to go to school. They are unable to participate fully in education. They are deprived from education which makes them illiterate.
• Child labour obstructs personal growth. The standard of living of people remains low.
• Child labour destroys their childhood. Child labour does not only limit children’s ability to grow emotionally and to relish a period of carefree innocence before they are launched into adulthood.
• Child Labour deprives children of the ability to play, to make friends, to daydream, to relax, and to enjoy all of the key aspects of a normal, desirable childhood.
• Children are the future pillars of the economy and involving them into child labour will only make those pillars weak. Ultimately, child labour affects the country’s growth.

Solution: The main solution to child labour is:

• Imparting education and knowledge to children.
• If incomes of the parents can be increased then it is possible for the children’s to get education.
• Government will have to take more steps towards proper enforcement of labour laws.
• People who are employed and are above the poverty line should take steps towards replacing child workers with adult workers. It will benefit not only the society, but the country at large.

Child labour is an extremely sad and worrying phenomenon that unfortunately still needs to be eradicated in many parts of the world, including India.

4. Child marriage

Introduction: Child marriage refers to the marriage of individuals below the prescribed limit of age. Marriage is to be considered legal as per the Indian Law, when the groom’s age is 21 and above and bride’s age is 18 and above.

Though, child marriage has caused problems to both and boys and girls, the most severe victims of the evil practice are the girls.

The causes, effects and solutions for the social problem of child marriage are given below:

Causes: The causes or the main reason behind the child marriage is the poor economic condition of the family of the marriage parties.

Besides there are other reasons also for child marriage like illiteracy, providing security to their daughters by marrying them to secured person, child trafficking, etc.

Negative effects of child marriage: The negative effects of child marriage include the following:

• Due to child marriage, the girls become pregnant at an early age. Since their bodies are not properly developed to have kids, it may lead to early maternal death. In many of the cases, the infant baby’s health doesn’t seem good.
• Child marriage also leads to illiteracy and poverty. A girl who is married at an early age is deprived of opportunities for education and personal growth.
• Due to less compatibility and understanding, relationship between the couples hampers.

Solution: Education is the only and the best way to stop child marriage. Educated people from society should raise voice against child marriage.

Gender equality and women education  is very important to stop the evil practice of child marriage. The girls become extremely dependent upon her parents because of lack of education. As such, she is not in a position to speak against the will of her parents. If a girl gets equal opportunity to get educated, then she will be in a better position to decide, what that is best for her future.

Government should take steps to enforce the laws on child marriage. The problem of child marriage can be solved by raising awareness about the disadvantages of child marriage.

5. Illiteracy

Introduction: Illiteracy refers to the inability to read and/or write. The problem of illiteracy is a major social issue in India. The problem has spread through-out the country in a wide way. It is one of the most dangerous obstacles in the economy’s growth. People with no education find it difficult to get jobs and remain poor. They are at risk of poor diet, manual jobs, worse physical and mental health. It impacts their social situations too.

The major causes, negative effects and solutions of the problem of Illiteracy in India are discussed below:

Reason: The major reasons of illiteracy in India are discussed below:

• Since many adults in India are illiterate, they don’t understand the importance of getting education for their children.
• Due to the problem of unemployment and poverty, children get little opportunity for proper education.
• Many people stay illiterate due to some physical or mental disabilities.
• Other social evils like caste system, gender inequality also cause illiteracy.

Negative effects/ Disadvantages:

• One of the major cause for crimes is illiteracy. Due to illiteracy issue, rates of crime are gradually increasing and health, productivity and growth of the country is gradually decreasing.
• Most illiterate people are unaware of the benefits of maintaining cleanliness and hygiene.
• Illiterate people find it very difficulty to secure a good job and earn livelihood. If a person is looking for a means to earn and work, but is not getting it then it is known as unemployment. This social problem leads to frustration.
• Overpopulation is a huge increase in the number of people, and it is caused by some factors out of which illiteracy is a major one.

Solution: The only and the best way to eradicate illiteracy from the society are by education.

The scheme for mid-day meals at schools is a welcome step.

Government should take steps to promote free education for the backward class of the society in government schools.

Government also look at the matter that people get fair payment for their work. Appropriate steps should be taken to create more employment opportunities for adults, so that they can educate their children by sending them to school.

6. Low status of women

Introduction: Low status of women refers to the inferior position of women (in comparison to men) in the society. This reflects the narrow mindset of the society. It is seen all over the country, but widely prevalent in the backward areas.

The causes, negative impact, and solutions of the problem of low status of women are briefly discussed below:

Causes: Narrow mindset of the society is the main reasons behind this problem. Women in India are considered inferior than men since ages. A large part of the society believes that men are more capable to earn more than their women. It is widely seen that the male members of the family try to control the activities of the female members, which leads to the low status of women.

Negative impact: The negative impact of the lower status of women are:

• Women do not get the adequate chance to do something to contribute to the society.
• Since the status of women in society is low, people want a boy child instead of a girl child. This intensifies the problem of female foeticide.

Solution: The solution to the problem is:

• The empowerment of women is of utmost importance for solving the problem.
• Awareness must be created to change the narrow mindset of the society. Campaigns must be launched to acknowledge the role and contribution of women in the society.
• Education can also help to solve the problem of low status of women in the society.
• Mass-media campaigns should be promoted.

7. Gender inequality at work:

Introduction: Inequality at work refers to any type of discrimination in working environment based on caste, gender, race, color, etc. But gender inequality at work means discrimination or unequal treatment between male and female workers.

Causes: The main reason behind the issue of gender inequality at work is the mindset and culture.

The ego of male members prevents the female members to enjoy equal position at work places. People also do this because of un-awareness.

Impact and effects: The main impact of gender inequality at work is that society gets shrink and deprived of the minds of the female worker. It also gives rise to low status of women issue in the society.

Solution: The solution for social issue of gender inequality at work is in the hands of people themselves. People should start training and impart proper education for gender equality.

People should also change their perception that women will get less salary in comparison to men. For that, people should introduce successful business women as the role model at their workplaces.

8. Dowry system

Introduction: Dowry is one of the most evil practices that are prevalent in the Indian society. Dowry system is actually the transfer of money, property and other valuable assets of bride’s family to the groom’s family on the eve of marriage.

Reason: There are several reasons of prevailing dowry system in the society like:

• Tradition of asking for dowry at the time of marriage.
• The greed among the family of groom for quick and easy money.
• People also ask for dowry for maintaining status.

Disadvantages: The major disadvantages of Dowry system in the society is:

• The bride’s family who generally belong to middle and low-class has to face the bitter-side of it. Bride’s family spend lavishly during the marriage. Because of this social evil, some families lose huge money.
• Parents often take loan for their daughter’s marriage.
• In many cases, by watching the poor situation of their parents, bride becomes mentally affected.
• Sometimes, the mental torture due to dowry leads to suicidal tendencies.
• Many cases of dowry deaths have been seen in past years.
• Emotional torture and divorce are other evil effects of dowry system.

Solution: The solution to stop the practice of this evil system is in our hands only.

• People should stop discrimination between a boy and a girl.
• Girls should also be allowed to have their education and proper knowledge.
• Awareness must be created and for these people with the help of media.
• Last, but not the least, parents should change the thoughts of dowry from their mind and children should stand against their family for doing this.

9. Sati System (Sati Practice)

Introduction: Sati system or pratha is one of the cruelest, evil, inhuman and immoral social practices prevailing in our country.

Sati system refers to the act of committing suicide by the widowed women on the funeral pyre of his husband.  This is an inhuman act.

In 1987, Roop Kanwar committed sati at the age of 18. After this incident, both the State and the Central Government enacted acts to abolish the Sati system.

Disadvantages: The main disadvantages are:

• Sati System in itself is an inhuman practice.
• Women are deprived of their basic right to live their life.
• Sati system also shows the domination of men over the women.
• Sati system reduces the self-respect of women and brings down the status of women in the society.

Causes: The causes behind the Sati system are:

• To maintain the status: As people of high caste were not allowed to marry with low-caste, so after the death of her husband, she was burned alive only to save the status
• Sati was also committed to save her sexuality with the other member of the society.
• Sati was also practiced by women to show her love and devotion towards her husband.
• In the backward areas where widows were treated as untouchables were forced to commit sati.

Solution: The solutions for the evil practice of sati are:

• Educating the people through mass communication.
• Bringing a change in the perspective of the people that a widow person cannot marry with anyone.

Government has already enacted the Sati Prevention Law. Sati Practice is illegal in India.  The evil is rapidly diminishing from the Indian Society. However, awareness has to be created to stop the sati practice completely.

10. Superstition

Introduction: Superstition refers to the irrational beliefs of supernatural forces. Superstition is one of the major social issues affecting the entire country.

It’s a belief of human beings that there are some supernatural causes behind the bad events. Science doesn’t believe in this type of supernatural causality because science always tries to give scientific explanation for every event. But, deep down inside human beings have their own belief.

There are many superstitions prevailing in the country. Human beings have the tendency to believe bad before the good.

Reason: The main reason behind superstitions is:

• Fear: Fear is the main obstacles for everything. Superstition arises due to human fear.
• Lack of Knowledge: Basically superstition arises due to lack of knowledge.
• Religion, tradition and social practices are others causes of superstition.

Disadvantages: The major disadvantages of being superstitious are:

• Fear: People start to think less broadly and always develop constant fear in mind. This fear affects not only the individual but also his family and society.
• Waste time and energy: People waste of much time and efforts.
• People stop for few seconds whenever they sneeze. All these arise due to human fear and imagination.

Solution: The main solution is to get knowledge and education because knowing nothing causes fear in mind which ultimately arise superstition.

By adjusting or gaining knowledge, mind can develop the reason behind the occurrence of superstition and one can understand very well that these things doesn’t affect anybody’s life.

Also by being always positive, one can get rid of those superstitions.

11. Sanitation and cleanliness

Introduction: Sanitation and cleanliness is a basic problem and one of the important social issues of our country. People should clean their areas and take care of personal hygiene to stay healthy and away from any diseases.

People should clean the areas of keeping food; clean their area of staying to promote cleanliness. People should maintain adequate sewage disposal system so that the public health is not put at risk.

Disadvantages: There are many casualties of not having sanitation and proper cleanliness.

• People suffer from various diseases such as diarrhea, malnutrition, dengue, malaria and many more.
• It also suffers children’s development.

Reason: The major reason behind this is the carelessness and laziness of people themselves. The people themselves create the problem of dirt and unhealthy environment.

People think of their own only and do not think of others. People do not mind to throw garbage in open areas which may negatively affect the environment.

Solution: The solution is in the hands of the people itself.

• People have to start to make their area clean and stay healthy.
• People should make a proper area for sanitation so that public health will not suffer.
• Mass awareness programmes are already initiated by different institutions, organisations and government bodies to save human race.

12. Religious conflicts

Introduction:  Religious conflicts are among the most harmful social issues of today. Sometimes violence, war, conflict, etc. arises because of religious fanaticism.

Causes: The causes are briefly discussed as follows:

• Difference in beliefs: People belonging to different religions have difference in their beliefs. This difference often leads to conflict.
• Lack of education: Illiterate people can be easily mis-guided by people who want to spread violence in the name of religion.

Negative effects: Sometimes conflicts between communities leads to violence and crimes. People become fearful and it affects the overall progress of the country. The lack of communal harmony in society leads to disunity.

Solutions: The solution for religious violence is in the hands of the people only. People should gain proper knowledge and develop better understanding. By removing the thoughts of cruelty, one can correctly judge what’s right or wrong. Awareness must be created and for this media will be very useful.

13. Beggary

Introduction: Beggary is another social problem in our country. People who are in extreme situation of need and poverty are called beggars. The state of being a beggar is called beggary.

Causes: There are many causes behind the beggary problem in India. Some of the reasons behind beggary are poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, social customs, physical disability, mental state, disease and many more.

Impacts and effects: The main disadvantages of beggary is that

• Beggars largely depend on what they get from the people and this is in fact a big problem because they start to depend totally on this and stop finding any other source of income.
• Now, they have become burden to the society and they in fact forcefully made their children to do the same.
• The cruelest part of beggary is that they sometimes allow doing anything to their own body for money. They are sometimes forced to cut their hands or legs.

Solution: Government has to take large initiatives to remove the problem of beggary from the society like providing job security, recruiting more employees in the Governmental sectors and many more. Beggary problem can also be in control if the children who are begging can be put in the Govt. schools for education because education is the main key to eradicate any social problem.

14. Juvenile delinquency

Introduction: Juvenile delinquency is also termed as Teenage Crime. Basically, juvenile delinquency refers to the crimes committed by minors. The crimes by teenage boys or girls are generally done without having proper knowledge of it as they know very little about the world.

Negative effects:   The crimes by minors affects not only the children but to the family  and the society. Children’s are the future generations of the country.  Education of the children is hampered and the status and reputation of the family also goes down. People become less secured and there is always a sense of tension and distress.

Causes: There are numerous reasons behind Juvenile delinquency, such as:

• Lack of knowledge: They know very little about the outside world. They sometimes commit crime unknowingly.
• Trauma: Trauma of any childhood or teenage incident may have negative effect on mind.
• Violent films and movies: Watching any stuff like murder, violence, etc. may again negatively affect the mind of the teenager.
• Family Disturbance also cause for the crime.

Solutions: There are many organisations who deal with the problem of Juvenile delinquency. They are established to help those children who are involved in it. They increase their thinking ability and decision-making skills. They start to understand the meaning of Juvenile delinquency and the results of it. There are rehabilitation centres and consultancies also run by the Government who treat those children and make them a good person.

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• Homelessness Essays

Homelessness as a Social Problem Essay

Homelessness is a social problem which is associated with numerous social problems. The challenges that the homeless people face in the society are mostly caused by illnesses due to poor housing facilities or coldness and overcrowding. Reports indicate that contagious and respiratory diseases have been rampant among the homeless people. Moreover, due to poor living conditions, homeless people suffer from other types of diseases caused by poor hygiene. Homelessness as a problem is however not a naturally occurring phenomenon. Although poverty has been cited as the major cause of homelessness among the people, the reality is that poverty as a problem is not caused by nature. Apart from poverty, various other factors have been associated with the problem of homelessness. Sociologists have used three theoretical perspectives to explain the causes of homelessness in the society. According to sociologists, symbolic interaction, functionalism, and conflict theory are the major causal factors to the homelessness problem. This essay will analyse how sociologists articulate these theories to the problem of homelessness. It will also try to verify whether there are any efforts by the society in trying to address the problem and whether these efforts have been successful.

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Homelessness has been defined as the lack of regular and decent housing among individuals in a society or in some parts of the society. These factors that have been associated with mental illness, drug abuse, physical or sexual abuse as well as lack of money due to poverty. In giving solutions to these problems, sociologists have pointed out on the three sociological theories. Functionalist sociologists associate the complexity of the society with the problem of poverty and lack of finances to acquire proper housing. The functionalist approach compares the evolution of the society with that of an organism, combining all parts of that organism together to make it whole. They consider the society to have evolved through such processes, making the structures function together to achieve a common goal, which is developing together (Isajiw 38). The complex nature of the society has been associated with complexity of the institutions. Building blocks of the society in the view of these sociologists are the family as well as the clan. The clan is part of the larger society, and through relationships developed by the individual people in the society, the result is strong solidarity among these people. According to the theory, the significance of an individual is not is not vested in his or her individuality, but in the status that he has accorded to his own status, his opinion in social relation patterns and the kind of behaviours associated with that particular status. Relationships developed by these structures are supposed to be the pillars in which the society is built upon. As social institutions keep on developing, people are expected to be careful about one another. As the individual cares about other people in the family, the family cares about the clan. This is the essence of the society in which all people ought to be mindful of one another. However, this is not the case altogether. Isajiw (102) observes that people are increasingly being more independent from each other, breaking the structures already set by the rules of functionalism. With the increase in individualism, more people are becoming poor. There is little assistance accorded to the poor by the rich and the able people in the society.

This has been as a result of the broken structures. The only attachment that is currently in existence in the society is the family, which is also breaking apart with time. This has increasingly alleviated the problems that people face in the society. Even the people who are supposed to be caring about their partners have grown apart, making the people poorer. The needs of the needy people increases, yet there are few available opportunities to solve them. Problems that lead to homelessness increases and consequently, people remain homeless for a long time. The emphasis of conflict theory is on the role played by coercion in bringing social order. Sociologists such as Karl Max saw the society to be fragmented into different small groups of people that try to compete with each other to acquire both social and economic resources. Social order according to Bartos and Paul (13) is brought about by the domination of one group of people to other groups. Power is in the hands of the people who have the greatest authority in the society is those who control the political, economic and social resources.

The competition that results from individuals struggling for power and control of the resources victimizes the poor people in the society. This results into conflicts and exploitation. Individuals who control the resources and means of production victimize the others. As a result of control of these resources, most of the people lack the opportunity to improve their lives. The poor thus remains poor, while the rich remains rich and gets richer.

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The disparities created by this problem lead to lack of the very basic needs by the poor people. Shelter is a basic need which every person is entitled to. However, in the event of poor distribution of resources, the poor do not have the access to these resources and means of production. However, this does not occur over night. Control of the means of production by a few individuals by a few people increases their greed. This deprives the rest of the people of these resources and creates a vicious circle of poverty. Those who have been denied the opportunities by the society are therefore regarded as poor. Due to their high levels of poverty, they cannot afford decent housing.

Symbolic interaction according to sociologists influences many areas and disciplines in the society. According to various sociologists, people act towards various things by the virtue of their meanings. These meanings are derived from socially developed interactions, which are later modified through interpretation. According to the father of the theory Max Weber, individual’s actions are determined by their interpretation of the meaning of the world. Through its analysis of the society, the theory addresses the different and yet subjective meanings that people impose on objects, events, and behaviours (Herman 88).

According to this theory, people are in a position to decide what they want and why they want that thing through their individual and personalized interpretation of the world. People thus define the term “home” differently according to this theory. While to some people a home is a symbol of unity and mutual coexistence of different individuals in a group of people, to others it is a sense of belonging. These groups do not see the meaning of having a constant place where they live in. they possess little wealth and attach little value to the things that define wealth and achievements. A house according to them has no use. The mental condition of these people is the biggest contributing factor to their definition of a home. Some of them are mad, while others are drug users. This results to their condition of homelessness. The various causes of homelessness in the society have adequately been discussed. There are efforts to reduce the number of people who are homeless in the society. These efforts have been shown by different groups in the society. Some have vested interests while others are simply concerned parties to the problem of homelessness. The government for example has developed many projects that are geared at developing housing projects for the poor at affordable prices. Due to the increased prices of mortgages, owning a home by the poor people has remained a dream due to affordability issues. To house these people, the government has implemented various housing projects for the poor.

The non-governmental organizations and the well-wishers have also chipped in their efforts in trying to address the problem of homelessness among the people. Various groups have tried to provide homes to the street people who do not have a place to stay. Even the children’s homes have tried to solve this issue. However, these problems have not been adequately addressed as more needs to be done to solve this problem.

Homelessness as discussed in this paper is a social problem. Having been caused by social structures, the problem is not regarded as individual. According to the three sociological theoretical perspectives of symbolic interaction, functionalism, and conflict theory, this problem can only be solved by addressing the contributing factors to the problem. Failure to address these factors, social structures will create more homeless conditions than those solved by the efforts extended towards solving the problem.

Works Cited

• Bartos, Otomar J, and Paul E. Wehr. Using Conflict Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.
• Herman, Nancy J. Symbolic Interaction: An Introduction to Social Psychology. Walnut Creek, CA [u.a.: AltaMira [u.a., 2003. Print.
• Isajiw, Wsevolod W. Causation and Functionalism in Sociology. New York: Schocken Books, 1968. Print.

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