Weekly Autonomous Work : Social problems: Who makes them ?

Hi everyone !

I chose to work on a subject which deals with sociology because it really interests me.
So the first part introduces what kind of social issues there are in UK and wants to define the meaning of "social" in the "social problem" sentence because it has gained a hold on the attention of people in a particular society at a particular time.

It began with the fact that other societies have a different degree of social problem (child labor, homelessness, poverty, etc.). You can transpose it to different period of times. For example, some social issues that you can find today dont attract as much as attention in the past.

According the course, there are 2 reasons for it :
- social problem changes, for example in the 19th century, homelessness wasn't considered as a social issue.
- what is perceived as a social problem may change.
So the homeless in the 19th century was perceived not as a social problem but more as a fact of life or the consequence of an individual misfortune.

The American sociologist C. Wright Mills distinguished two kinds of problem in the 1950s : personal troubles and public issues. Even there are some personal problems, they didn't emerge as a public issue and didn't get the attention of the public interest. So you need to make a distinction between individual and collective experiences. The thing that can put them together is how many people have the same problems.

So it was the first part of my courses !

Such an interesting subject Blong and if I may say so, very actual in the sense that we hear a lot about it ! I am looking forward to read your next learning about this subject ! Because you said that we have to make a distinction between individual and collective issue but that we can put them together if a lot of people have the same problems, I would like to have your point of view about different social problems : Could they be considered as personal or public for you ?
- School harassment
- Breakdown
- Burn out

I am looking forward to hear from you,

See you soon !

Hey Blong, Hey Manon,

This course seems very interesting to me, I can't wait to read on !
It is very interesting to be confronted with these societal changes.
And I would also like to know the answer to Manon's question, which I think is relevant.

Thanks for raising me, guys.

Hi everyone !

First, I will introduce my second part of my autonomous work then I will answer you questions.

So, the second lesson is about how a private issue is becoming a public issue. The example is the emergence of negative equity.  

In the early 1990s, property owners in the UK sold their property at a price below that which they paid for it. A private trouble emerged as a public issue and become the problem of 'negative equity'. It was seen as a trouble that needed a public response.

The main question in that part is to know whether a private trouble that became a public issue is a consequence of the numbers of people involved.

The numbers of people involved is just a part of the explanation why this trouble became a public issue. There are some others such as the fact that people paid less attention and concern about housing. Even if housing professionals try to place the issue as an important one, the rise in rents and the repair work of an old house were seen as a fact of lif. People needed to pay by themselves to fix their houses rather than having help through any collective effort.

But the scale is not a sufficient condition for understanding why the trouble becomes a public issue. We need to identify who the stakeholders are (government for their policies, companies, etc.), the social context in which it occurs and its links to other current issues and the problem in order to raise concern about the abuse or maltreatment of vulnerable people. Sometimes a group of people can be a problem for the society or other people.

We can identify two kinds of social problems : social justice and social order.

For social justice, people want less inequalities and help the vulnerable people such as the homeless.
For social order, "normal" people considered those homeless who live in the streets as a problem because they can spread disease.

As you can see here, social problems are really different from point of views.

Hello all !

Concerning all the issues that you quoted Manon. All of them are linked to many stakeholders such as companies, school or even medical institutions and there are many people who are suffering because of those problems. I think more and more people are aware about what is happening and they are more sensitives to issues. I think this the reason why there are more and more demonstrations. We have the example of the school headmistress in Pantin that commit a suicide not long ago because of a burnout. There was a demonstration in order to denounce what happened and to show that the education system needs help and more money.

Blong wrote:Hello all !

Concerning all the issues that you quoted Manon. All of them are linked to many stakeholders such as companies, school or even medical institutions and there are many people who are suffering because of those problems. I think more and more people are aware about what is happening and they are more sensitives to issues. I think this the reason why there are more and more demonstrations. We have the example of the school headmistress in Pantin that commit a suicide not long ago because of a burnout. There was a demonstration in order to denounce what happened and to show that the education system needs help and more money.

especially me.

Definitely John, you need psychological help and I'll take the money.