165 SEVENTEEN The Contested Construction of Social Problems Stephen Pfohl All responses to social problems are mediated by the contexts in which they are socially constructed. Effective social constructions bestow a taken- for- granted character upon the stories they tell about why problems occur and what to do about them. This can make certain approaches to social problems appear commonsensical, blessing particular viewpoints on social trouble while cursing others. As such, both social problems and strategies aimed at their amelioration are forever
Designed to address practical questions, applied ethics is one of the most exciting areas in contemporary philosophy. Yet the relevance of ethical theories to social policy has been under-explored. Until now.
In “Applied ethics and social problems” Tony Fitzpatrick presents introductions to the three most influential moral philosophies: Consequentialism, Kantianism and Virtue Ethics. He then relates these to some of the most urgent questions in contemporary public debates about the future of welfare services. These include taxing unhealthy habits, drug legalisation, parental choice in education, abortion, euthanasia and migration & cultural diversity.
In each case he asks a perennial question: what are the legitimate boundaries of state action and individual liberty?
Never before has there been such a rigorous overview of the topic offered to social policy students, academics and professionals, as well as those interested in public policy, politics and social science. A user-friendly intervention into these key debates “Applied ethics and social problems” will set the agenda for years to come.
This chapter returns to Jamrozik and Nocella’s (1998) theory of the residualisation of social problems into technical and personal concerns, locating the evolution of purportedly ‘advanced’ child support systems within Li’s (2007) process of ‘rendering technical’. The purpose is to identify how the social problems that child support purportedly solves are translated into a series of technical criteria, procedures and formulae that draw attention away from the issues at hand. At the same time, it is women as recipients of child support who have to enact
As the chapters in this volume reveal, the COVID-19 pandemic is related to a wide array of what are routinely described as social problems ; they describe ways the disease makes many existing problems worse, even as it creates some new ones. These chapters focus narrowly on their various topics. This chapter adopts a broader perspective that seeks to synthesize sociologists’ thinking about the epidemic; it offers a theoretical framework for thinking about the many social problems of COVID-19. Sociologists sometimes use the term social problems loosely, to
social problems involves social processes where human actors assign meaning to troubling conditions, what many have called the social constructionist stance toward social issues. 4 It emphasizes the creation and distribution of meanings that assign trouble to conditions. Understanding social problems during the culture wars involves accounting for the multitude of ways that people produce, distribute, and consume claims. 5 Producers cannot just create any claim. Audiences need to legitimate those claims. These audiences include people who occupy positions in
Written by a highly respected team of authors brought together by the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), this book provides accessible insights into pressing social problems in the United States in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and proposes public policy responses for victims and justice, precarious populations, employment dilemmas and health and well-being.
The COVID-19 pandemic is having far-reaching political and social consequences across the globe. Published in collaboration with the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), this book addresses the greatest social challenges facing the world as a result of the pandemic.
The authors propose public policy solutions to help refugees, migrant workers, victims of human trafficking, indigenous populations and the invisible poor of the Global South.
5 2 ‘social evils’ and ‘social problems’ in Britain since 1904 Jose Harris Definitions of ‘social evil’ What is meant by a ‘social evil’, and how does it differ from the more familiar and less dramatic concept of a ‘social problem’? A working definition might be that a ‘social problem’ suggests an undesirable state of affairs for which people hope to find a practical cure. A ‘social evil’, by contrast, suggests something more complex, menacing and indefinable, and may imply a degree of scepticism, realism or despair about whether any remedy can be found
1 ONE Introduction: the construction of teenage pregnancy as a social problem Anne Daguerre with Corinne Nativel The title of this volume, When children become parents, is deliberately provocative. Indeed, in the US, this slogan has been used to render teenage pregnancy a key social concern (Pearce, 1993; Maynard, 1997). The phrase implicitly denies teenagers the capacity to make autonomous choices since young people are not considered as adults (Pearce, 1993, p 46). The main reason why this phenomenon has become a public issue is because successive governments
77 Critical and Radical Social Work • vol 2 • no 1 • 77–92 • © Policy Press 2014 • #CRSW Print ISSN 2049 8608 • Online ISSN 2049 8675 • http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/204986014X13912564145726 article ‘Life is about choices, but external factors often affect outcomes’: social work students’ reasoning about the origins of social problems Guy Kirk, guy.kirk@northumbria.ac.uk Robbie Duschinsky, robert.duschinsky@northumbria.ac.uk Northumbria University, UK It has been suggested that the emerging generation of social workers tend to be motivated primarily by a
