SOCIOL 103 Chapter 1: Sociology Chapter One
Document Summary
Social problems as harmful conditions: the objectivist outlook. Social problems: conditions that somehow harm society. Objectivist: tries to couch the definition in terms of objectively measurable characteristics of conditions. Difficulty is that conditions that might be deemed harmful aren"t always defined as social problems. There is an evenly applied objective standard for identifying what is or is not a social problem. Same condition may be identified as a social problem for very different reasons. People may disagree about why a certain condition is harmful. Very different objective standards may be used in identifying a condition as a social problem. Difficult to devise an objective definition of social problems that can distinguish between the things that people consider social problems and the things that they don"t. Social problems as topic of concern: the subjectivist look. Subjectivist approach: defines social problems in terms of people"s subjective sense that something is or isn"t a problem.
