Here are the notes for "Critical Thinking" and the "Sociological Approach."
WARNING: CRITICAL THINKING AHEAD
Over the past few years I have found myself frustrated with teaching social problem classes. It seemed like I covered important issues, but found my students bored or uninterested in much of the material.
In an effort to energize the students in Social Problems, the department has chosen to use John J. Macionis' Social Problems. This text does not define and describe as much as it attempts to look behind the typical expectations associated with social problems. As the essentialists would contend, our text attempt to look past observable society, the descriptive level, to the causal level, which is often abstract and difficult to understand.
Students may find some of the material in this text highly controversial. They may, in fact, vehemently disagree with some of the points raised. This is GOOD! You don’t have to agree with the material. This, after all, is only a perspective - a way at looking at the social world - and we all have different and conflicting perspectives. I would hope that, in the process, students share their points of view. I would also hope that students will be open to understanding the perspectives encountered. There are seldom right or wrong answers in Sociology - only perspectives. The trick in a class like this one is to be open to multiple perspectives.
THE SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH: SOME INITIAL OBSERVATIONS
We are what we study. The student should realize that we are participants in what we study. To investigate a social problem is to become involved. We cannot be objective like the natural scientists. People create reality as they interact in society. To study a phenomenon is to alter it.
Bias is a preference or an inclination for something. Bias can inhibit impartial judgment. Realizing that we have biases is important. We have feelings and values that determine what we study. However, once we have acknowledged our biases, we cannot only report facts that we discover that support our point of view.
The study of social problems cannot be value-free. Defining the problem to be investigated allows subjectivity to creep in. To identify a phenomenon as a problem implies that it falls short of some standard.
The sociological imagination refers to the ability to see the relationship between individual experiences and the larger society. As opposed to looking at isolated events by themselves, the student of social problems is encouraged to look at social problems in relation to other aspects of society.
TOWARD A DEFINITION OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Some sociologists argue that we can judge some social problems objectively. Some social conditions are detrimental in any situation. There are conditions in society such as racism, poverty and sexism that cause material or psychological suffering for parts of the population. They prevent members of society from developing and using their full potential.
A requirement of the sociological approach to the study of social problems is that the student adapts a critical stance. It is important to note at this point that to use a critical approach is not necessarily to criticize. The critical approach calls into question existing myths, stereotypes and official dogma.
Social research is always political. There is a tendency to judge only that research that challenges the system as political. Often we hear the charge of BIAS directed only against research that finds fault with the system on behalf of the powerless. We must not automatically accept only those definitions that define social problems from the point of view of those in power.
People in power control the mass media and, therefore, control public opinion. Often relevant issues are defined by those who wield power through the media. Problems arise when the powerful, through the media, set the agenda.
1. The media may overlook conditions that are detrimental to powerless segments of society.
2. It diverts attention from what may constitute the most important social issues.
3. Attention may be diverted to specific social instances and away from the cause of many social problems.
Examples:
1. We study the criminal instead of the law or the prison system that tends to perpetuate crime.
2. We explore the culture of the poor rather than the characteristics of the rich.
3. We study the pathologies of the students rather than the inadequacies of higher education.
NORM VIOLATIONS
Norm violations assume that a standard of behavior exists. People who study norm violations are interested in society’s failures like the criminal, the mentally ill, or the school dropout. Norm violations are symptoms of social problems rather than the problem itself. Deviants, for example, are victims and should not be blamed entirely. The system in which they live should be blamed as well. Often, when one attempts to understand deviance, they will look at characteristics of the individual to explain deviance. The source of deviance is found within the social structure. Society plays a role in creating and sustaining deviance by labeling those viewed as abnormal.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE AS THE BASIC UNIT OF ANALYSIS
There is a strong tendency to blame social problems on the individual rather than on the social. For most people, the system has an aura of sacredness because of traditions and customs they associate with the system. Logically, those who deviate are the source of trouble. Because most people view themselves as law abiding, they feel those who deviate do so because of some kind of unusual circumstance: accidents, illness, personal defect or character flaw. The flaw then depends on the deviant not of societal arrangements. For example, a person-blamer may argue that a poor person is poor because he is not bright enough to succeed. In other words the deviant is the cause of his own problem.
There are consequences for blaming the individual for his own deviance.
1. Person-blame distracts attention away from institutions. It frees the government, economy and the education system from blame and ignores the strains that are caused by the inequalities within the system.
2. Person-blame makes it more difficult to institute systematic change. By excluding the existing order from blame it makes it only much harder to initiate change in economic, social, or political institutions.
3. Blaming the individual allows the government to control dissidents more easily. Deviants are sent to prisons or hospitals for rehabilitation. Such an approach directs attention away from the system.
4. Person-blame reinforces stereotypes. It tends to argue that people are placed in the system according to their ability or inability.
Sometimes individuals are the problem. Blaming the system also presents problems for social scientists as well. The system-blame approach may absolve individuals from responsibility for their actions. For example, when a robber breaks into your house, damn the problems with the system. You have problems with that particular individual.
Blaming the system tends to assume a very rigid dogmatic approach to understanding society. It tends to present a picture that people have no free will.
I tend to use the system-blame approach for a couple of reasons.
1. Sociology is concerned with societal issues and society’s institutional framework is responsible for creating many social problems.
2. Since institutions are human creations, we should change them when they no longer serve the will of the people. Accepting the system-blame approach is a necessary precondition to reconstructing society along more human needs.
Prof. Mike
