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Module 3:  Lecture: Social Sciences & Social Problems

Social Sciences as a Basis for the Study of Social Problems 

Social science is distinct from social problem solving, but each can contribute to the other. Like the physical or biological sciences, the social sciences are intellectual subjects directed primarily toward understanding rather than action. There is a difference between extending the understanding of human behavior and society on the one hand and trying to solve a social problem on the other. During the past few years, there has been a significant shift in popular attitudes and expectations in the United States regarding social change and social problems. A renewed determination to improve certain social issues recently developed in society has emerged, along with a sense of power and confidence in their ability to do so (Riecken, 1969).

In seeking ways to implement this desire for targeted rather than accidental improvement, many society leaders have increasingly begun to turn to the social sciences. Some have wondered what social science can bring to the organization. Others have assumed that these sciences have much to contribute to a better society and that they need to be force-fed to grow faster and make a greater contribution. The social sciences contribute to social practice, but not as great a contribution as they will make if they are helped to develop properly. At this point in history, the magnitude of major social problems exceeds the capacity of social scientists to solve them.

Social scientists offered advice to the day’s progressive political and social movements in the latter part of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century. Social scientists had another try during the early years of the New Deal when economists, especially sociologists and political scientists, were invited to government and other institutions to develop programs, plans, and social devices to deal with the Great Depression. 

Another opportunity for the social sciences came during World War II when psychologists and anthropologists made significant contributions to the prosecution of the war and the government of occupied territories. Social scientists are now being offered a fourth opportunity to show what they have to offer toward solving what is now a well-standardized but incomplete list of problems: poverty, racial segregation and discrimination, urban decay and transportation bottlenecks, human and mechanical pollution of the environment, and a perceived increase in the incidence of violent crime.

Difficulties with Applying Social Sciences to Social Problems

There are several scientific difficulties in successfully applying social science to solve social problems. There are three main scientific issues (Randolph and Haynes, 1968):

1. the so-called “Hawthorne effects” or changes in behavior that result from the fact that individuals are subjects in an experimental study;

2. the inadequacy of existing data on social problems and individual behavior and the flaws of indirect data; and

3. the manipulability of social factors variable in social scientific analyses of problems.

Social Policies 

The scope of social policy is vast. It goes a long way toward defining a society. It includes most of what a community does collectively to protect its weakest members, but it also must meet the social needs of all.

Work is a central aspect of social life. One of the main purposes of social protection is to provide income, which is generally lacking. There are many concerns: different forms of employment, the distribution of work, and a perceived conflict between workers and pensioners, among others. Then there is the need to extend protection to the majority of the workers, from a global perspective, who benefit little or nothing. However, after a century of impressive progress in some countries in protecting many historically disadvantaged groups – the elderly, the less educated, the disabled – it is now possible to foresee the progressive extension of protection to the world’s poor and disadvantaged.

Governments in all countries are addressing the main topics of debate: the parameters of good social policy, social protection coverage, pension policy, and equal treatment for women, among others. These are complemented by a perspective that guides the debate on pension reform. The validity of a comprehensive global approach is illustrated by the presumed conflict between those in work and the population aging.

Since social protection, especially for the weakest, helps define a society, its absence means social failure. A low level of social protection often coincides with low income and productivity levels. The provision of social security and other forms of protection can begin even during widespread poverty; the critical issue is one of priority. Roger Beattie (2015), in his paper “Social Protection for All: But How?” states that “It is absolutely clear that a very large proportion of the population in most regions of the world do not enjoy any social protection or are only partially covered.”

Social Policy and Governance 

In the previous module, we reviewed the main problems in contemporary society. But how are today’s governments preparing to take action to address these social problems?

Traditionally, social policy has always been related to solving social problems’ legal and technical aspects. In social policy, the activity can be schematically divided into several broader areas: a) Organizational and regulatory: protection of public order, issuing prohibitions, orders, permits, issuing licenses, concessions, allocations, supervision of the implementation of rights and responsibilities, imposing fines; b) Welfare – providing benefits to citizens in the form of services, goods, money; c) Development management: measures to increase regional cohesion, support underdeveloped and peripheral areas.

Social policy is, to a large extent, connected to another area of public administration: social welfare. It represents a solution to problems and the implementation of specific goals of societies in which groups residing in cities are also increasingly dependent on work in industry and services to sustain themselves within a free-market capitalist economy (Larata, 2016).

Social policy is also the implementation of organizational and regulatory activities. When labor market regulations were first introduced in the 19th century to respond to the emerging problems of the labor market that was established at that time and banned child labor and reduced the length of the working day, labor inspection was implemented. Its purpose was and is currently to monitor, supervise and enforce labor standards. This developed significantly in the 20th century and is reflected at the international level with more than 180 conventions of the International Labor Organization.

Social policy has much in common with development policy, specifically with redistribution and support for underdeveloped and marginalized areas. The common thread of social policy is, first and foremost, social welfare: a response to the problems that became common in the industrial age. A characteristic feature of social welfare is that it is provided on legal grounds and within the scope of the law. Citizens entitled to social welfare are not obliged to pay for it or may pay a part of it. They come mainly from direct, indirect, general, or specific taxes, compulsory contributions, and other similar fees. This also indicates that planning has a significant meaning in welfare management: how much is to be provided and to whom? How much will it cost the whole society, the region, and the local community? A typical example of social welfare is medical care (including medical rehabilitation and provision of rehabilitation equipment) and education (Polsce, 2010).

What is Considered a Contemporary Social Problem? 

Contemporary social problems are the result of social evolution. At the end of the 20th century, a list of social problems could include poverty, homelessness, child abuse, unhappy youth and school absences, school discipline, treatment of vulnerable people in institutional care, vandalism, road rage, lone parenting, and divorce. Some of these may still be problems, some may have disappeared, while new problems may have attracted attention. This makes them problems of our times or contemporary.

While some societies may be preoccupied with these problems, others may be preoccupied with other problems: what attracts public attention in Germany, the United States, or China is likely to be different in at least some aspects from a current social problem in the United Kingdom. In the late 19th century, poverty, child abuse, and divorce were discussed as social problems, but others on the list did not attract much attention. There are two possible explanations for such differences. One is that social problems change. The second reason is that what is perceived as a social problem may change. Thus, there may have been homeless people in the late 19th century. Still, their situation was not perceived as a social problem but rather as a “fact of life” or as the consequence of mere individual misfortune, neither of which would make it a social problem.

In the 1950s, the American sociologist C. Wright Mills (1959) distinguished “personal problems” and “public problems.” He suggested that, although there were many “problems” or “troubles” that individuals experience in their lives, not all of these arose as “public problems” that demanded public interest and attention or were not seen as requiring public responses.

Whether social problems arise as social justice or order issues, they are generally associated with the idea that “something must be done.” Social problems represent conditions that should not be allowed to continue because they are perceived as problems for society. It requires society to react to them and find remedies.

Injustices Embodied in Contemporary Social Policies 

Reviewing the list of major contemporary social problems (see Figure 3.1), the ideas about the natural basis of society or the social problems within society refer to affirmations about the universal laws of biology or evolution that determine how human beings behave. Such ideas often emphasize competition, conflict, and struggles for evolutionary success (the “survival of the fittest”). Similarly, they seek to justify implementing policies that rely on an unfair basis for their application. 

Key Contemporary Social Problems

Fig. 3.1 Summary of the main contemporary social problems in today’s society

· Voting rights

· Climate justice

· Healthcare

· Refugee crisis

· Racial injustice

· Income gap

· Armed violence

· Hunger and food insecurity

· Equality

· Animal rights

· Civil rights

· Education

· Gay rights

· Domestic violence

Biological attributes are often presented as explanations for social patterns in statements about the natural. Thus, biological differences between men and women are exploited to justify differences in social behavior or patterns of social inequality. Women’s biological ability to bear children has been responsible for several social patterns. For example, excluding women from education for many years was justified because they did not need to know anything beyond being a wife and mothers. After all, brain stimulation would drain energy that should be devoted to reproductive tasks. Similarly, men’s behavior has been interpreted as the product of biological forces and impulses. For example, biologists have developed a “parental investment theory” approach to explaining why women are monogamous homebuilders while men are philanthropic adulterers. (Barash, 1981; Wilson, 1981).

Where social constructs that focus on “nature” tend to resist change, social constructs that focus on “social” conditions and the causes of social problems imply the possibility of change, reform, or improvement. An emphasis on the social character of social arrangements suggests that such patterns could be reorganized. Thus, if some forms of undesirable behavior, such as delinquent behavior by young men, are defined as the result of following bad examples, this construct implies that providing better role models would lead to better behavior. On the contrary, “natural” constructs would draw attention to such behavior’s biological or genetic basis – “boys will be boys” – indicating little hope for intervention or change.

Another example of social injustice is found in the concept of motherhood. The link between the biological facts of motherhood and its social expression is often taken for granted. Thus, mothers are expected to love their children, be attentive to their welfare and allow them to thrive. The label “mother” carries with it a set of social expectations so that if a mother does not behave in this way if she neglects or abuses her children, she is likely to be identified as “unnatural” and is anticipated to find something wrong with her that explains her inability to live up to expectations. What matters here, social constructionists say, is not biology but social expectations. Like the label “mother,” many other names are so well established or “taken for granted” that they are perceived as natural. From a social constructionist point of view, the appearance of the word natural (or unnatural) is often a warning that deep-seated patterns of social expectations are at play. Social arrangements’ most deeply ingrained aspects have become so “taken for granted” that it is difficult to consider the social. Instead, they are attributed to causes or forces beyond society, to the realm of nature (Burr, 1995).

Another aspect of injustice embodied in social policies is presented in the statement that the poor must prove they are poor. Systems of doing something about poverty have always involved various tests that poor people must pass to demonstrate their needs. They are “claimants,” an inferior and dependent social status, asking for something from society. Many social benefits go unclaimed because of the stigma (the social taint) of being a claimant (Larata, 2016).

Cultural and Institutional Effects of Injustice in the Form of Intolerance and Social Exclusion 

Where personal problems are matters for the individuals involved to resolve, public or social problems demand a public response. The range of possible public reactions is, of course, very wide. At one extreme, one could point out interventions intended to suppress or control social problems: locking people up, inflicting physical punishment or deprivation, and even, in the most severe form, killing them (death penalty). Such interventions aim to stop social problems by controlling people who are seen as problems (juvenile delinquents, drug addicts, thieves, terrorists). Those who seek suppression and control of social problems are often, but not always, associated with the view that social problems are a challenge or a threat to the social order. The point about “not always” is important since sometimes this type of intervention is not presented in terms of protecting society or social order, but as if they are “the best” of the person being punished or “dealt with”: they need a “little discipline,” they respect “toughness,” and so on.

Other interventions, however, are intended to remedy or ameliorate the social circumstances or conditions that cause problems. They provide greater social justice, improve social welfare, or provide a degree of social protection. Therefore, the development of welfare states in most advanced industrial societies during the 20th century was associated with attempts to remedy social problems or provide citizens with some collective protection against dangers to their economic and social well-being. These societies redefined the distinction between private and public affairs between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Many issues moved from private problems to public concerns and intervention matters in the process. Sending children to school became a matter of public compulsion rather than parents’ private choice until the mid-19th century.

Health became a focus of public finance, provision, and intervention rather than being left to private arrangements. For most of the 19th century, unemployment was seen as something that people chose (by refusing to take work). In contrast, for most of the 20th century, it has been seen as something against which collective action and defense by the state was necessary. Unemployment was not a social problem for most of the 19th century. However, the unemployed themselves were seen as a threat to the social order (being beggars, thieves, and a bad example to other workers) (Hughes and Lewis, 1998).

These discourses can be seen as ways of organizing knowledge based on intolerance and social exclusion. They define the problem; they say what is worth knowing and what can be said. They produce the “norms” against which deviance or abnormality is marked (the norm of “not being poor,” for example). Discourses shape and become institutionalized in social policies and the organizations through which they are carried out. This is not only a matter of the gran policy ideas – the pressure to “do something about poverty” – but also the thorough arrangements by which “something is done” (Dean, 1991).

Discourses in this sense are also about power relations. They organize positions and places in a field of power. Thus, concerning poverty, they empower (give power to) state agencies to monitor, evaluate or intervene in the lives of poor people. They empower some agencies to assess poor people’s “worth” or “desert” before providing benefits or services. Discourses can also, conditionally, empower or give power to poor people. Poor people can be “empowered” to seek work, take courses, receive additional benefits, and support their children if they demonstrate that they are the “right kind” of poor people (Burr, 1995).

References 

· Pathologies of Power. (2005).  Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. University of California Press.

· Pérez-Garzón, C. A. (January 2018). Unveiling the meaning of social justice.  Mexican Law Review, 10(2) 27-66.

· Thompson, N. (2002). Social movements, social justice, and social work.  The British Journal of Social Work, 32(6) 711–722.

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