What is a social problem and how do you define it?

You are walking down a street downtown one day and see an entire block, maybe longer, of homeless people asking for money. You wonder to yourself how something like this can even exist. Well, it’s a social problem (or social issue) that hasn’t been solved yet.

A social problem is a condition or societal behaviour that negatively affects people (i.e. poverty and homelessness) and that needs to be addressed and repaired. However, there are two requirements that need to be met before a condition is constituted as a social problem.

The first requirement, which is called the objective component, is that the condition must affect large amounts of people in a damaging way. The second requirement, which is called the subjective component, is that the condition needs to have a perception that it has to be addressed.

6 Must Know Sociological Concepts

Sociology is a complex social science. There are a lot of ideas in and it can get confusing. But, to make things easier, here are 6 concepts to introduce you to it.

On Everything Sociology, we've gone over many concepts. 

And since the holidays are here, I thought I'd make a (half) year in review so you can pick and choose what you want to re-read during the lonely, cold days of your break. 

So without further to do, here are the 6 must-know sociological concepts from Introduction to Sociology:

Sociology of Social Stratification

(Karl Marx)

Social stratification is society's way of ranking people based on a hierarchal system of property, prestige, and/or power.

There are two different types of stratification. The caste system and the class system. Caste ranks people based on whose family they were born into, while class ranks people based on both birth and a person's achievements.

What is the Sociology of Religion?

The sociology of religion looks at the sacred, awe-inspiring beliefs and practices of a community. 

Sociologists tend to look at how the procedures of fundamentalism and secularization are influenced by religious pluralism -- a system where more than one religion is accepted in a society.

They also investigate why people join religions, why certain religions are more widespread, and how religion affects people's behaviour, to name a few areas that they study.

What is the Sociology of Family?

The Sociology of Family is the study of the different types of families. It investigates how a person enters each and how this can affect society. 

A family is defined as a group of two or more people who are related -- and consider themselves as such -- by blood, marriage or adoption.

When studying families, sociologists like to look at demographics, social class, ideology, domain, and interaction.  They research these areas to learn why certain beliefs and/or lifestyles, for instance, are more prevalent in certain areas (or societies) over others.

The 4 Paradigms of Sociology

Emile Durkheim

For this week's article, I will take a very textbook approach. What I mean by this is that I will simply give you the definition of the sociological concept and a short example. The reason being is that these ideas are very broad, as they are tools used by sociologists to analyze issues of social institutions. 

So rather than giving you an in-depth, descriptive example of each paradigm, I will save it for when I write about the sociology of family or the sociology of religion.

My goal with this article is to get you to be familiar with the four major schools/ideologies of sociology so that you can start thinking about it, and maybe even applying it to the real world. So without further to do, let's get started:

1) Functionalism (Macro sociological)

Functionalism is the relationship and interdependency between all social groups, big and small. When a change occurs to one, other institutions will be affected as well.

An example of this would be the relationship between the economy and recent grads. Back in 2008, when the economy was hit with the financial crash, many new grads weren't able to find professional employment because companies were trying to cut costs by lowering the number of people working for them.

Functionalism is also broken into three sub-groups:

• Manifest Function - The intended result.
• Latent Function - The unintended result.
• Dysfunction - The harmful result.

2) Conflict Theory (Macro sociological)

Conflict theory looks at the inequalities of life/society.

An example would be the narrative of some very wealthy people using their money and status to persuade the government into creating policies that are beneficial for the rich but are (the majority of the time) detrimental to the middle class and the poor.

3) Symbolic Interaction (Micro sociological)

W.I. Thomas

Symbolic interaction looks at how individuals interact with one another. Symbolic interactionists believe that society, or people's social reality, is created as people interact with one another, and not something that has been predetermined.

For example, if we, as a group, were to collectively view immigrants as a negative element of society, then immigrants will be a negative element of society because this is the definition that we have developed for them in our minds. The root of this example is based on the Thomas Theorem.

4) Feminists Perspective (Macro and micro-sociological)

The feminists perspective looks at the inequality among the genders, due to the dominance of men in major social institutions, such as education and work. It also looks at the efforts of women in overcoming discrimination.

An example of this would be the pay gap between men and women. If one male and one female with the same looking resume and same personality traits were to work at the same job and complete the same amount of work, the man would have higher pay than the woman, according to studies. This is why many women challenge big corporations and fight for equal pay.

RELATED: Sociologist's Tools

So there it is. These are the four paradigms of society. So now that you have an understanding of the theories and a gist of how society works, which paradigm do you think best describes your society? Is it just one, or a combination? Write your thoughts in the comments section.

P.S. Do you want to learn more about sociology? Check out my book,  SOCI 001: The Armchair Sociologist’s Guide to Sociology, on Amazon. It's a clear and concise guide with descriptive examples to help you better understand this social science. Click here to learn more about it.