Society for the Study of Social Problems

SOCIAL PROBLEMS THEORY

2007 


             J. William Spencer, *                                            Donileen Loseke, ***
Purdue University, West Lafayette                          University of South Florida

              James Holstein, **                                               Mitch Berbrier, **** 
                    Marquette University                              University of Alabama in Huntsville

While social problems theory comes in many varieties -- including, but not limited to the feminist, social constructionist, critical race, and post-colonial approaches -- the perspective generated from almost any version can yield insights and knowledge useful to all those who are challenging a status quo characterized by remarkable inequality in the distribution of resources and opportunities. This is because what all varieties of theorizing share is that they problematize commonly held and institutionally supported ideas about the causes, consequences, and hence potential resolutions of conditions defined as social problems. Our theorizing involves going beyond the official or taken-for-granted cultural realities in order to examine the very real and practical consequences of the ways these “realities” are constructed by people in all sorts of roles, including practical actors in daily life, academics, social movement advocates, mass media personnel, politicians, and those who make social, legal, and business policies. By critically examining and documenting the characteristics of official reality, by understanding how these realities are the result of human activity, and by offering alternative ways of seeing, social problems theory can level the political and social playing field in ways that offer marginalized and socially progressive people crucial resources to engage both their friends and their foes and to move toward a just world.

Our vision of such a just world is likely compatible with others in SSSP. Our position is that the resources that our theorizing provides can help move us toward more equitable distributions regarding both what humans need as well as regarding opportunities to achieve or acquire beyond those needs. In other words, we envision a just world as a planet in which the resources that fulfill our basic needs (such as food, sanitation, housing, health care) are available to all; where basic human dignity and rights are respected; where resources and opportunities for advancement are made available to all humans, regardless of their citizenship, gender, race/ethnicity, economic class, sexual orientation, physical abilities, or other social characteristics, and where everything on the planet, including people, animals, and the environment, are routinely treated with compassion. Given current realities, rigorous theories, which provide “alternative ways of seeing”, are simply a necessary resource for achieving those goals.

One of our Division’s missions is educational. This is important because while understandings from social problems theory have clear use on the public stages of social change, they also have the power to effect change in individual consciousness. An important mainspring of social change therefore is the college classroom. At its best, teaching provides students with examples of how to critically examine the world they confront. Excellent teaching of social problems theory encourages students to critically examine the world they confront and influences how they will participate in our social, political, and economic life.

We can also educate outside the classroom, especially by teaching others about the public value of theoretically motivated empirical research. While justice can be affected through just and compassionate policy and law, it can also be brought about through the subtle and indirect influences that individuals exert as they raise children, make decisions to hire, fire and promote, write letters to editors, or debate social issues over coffee. Encouraging rigorous thinking about alternative ways of seeing and interpreting “facts” might well stop us from plunging into future wars that are not justified by those same “facts.” We should strive to educate everybody, everyday, everywhere.

Difficulties in Pursuing the Division’s Mission
The Theory Division promotes the development of empirically supported theoretical understandings of social problems. There are three primary problems in pursuing this mission. First theory must be appreciated as something other than mere speculation or academic blather on one hand, or as mere ideology or propaganda on the other hand. Theory rather is an attempt to formulate systematically related propositions that link and explain the empirical realities of the world. We see our mission as convincing others to look carefully at what the social world actually is like, rather than as what we merely assume or wish it to be.

The second difficulty in our mission involves convincing theorists to become less insular. Theory generated within academia too often is dismissed outside academia as “merely academic and not relevant to practical concerns.” Social problems theorists themselves may encourage this dismissal when we focus our attention on issues of concern only to other theorists, when we ignore or unthinkingly criticize those who do not display a sophisticated understanding of theory, and when we write in ways understandable only to our immediate colleagues.

The third difficulty in our mission stems from the disciplinary structure of academia as well as the often-narrow interests of those exploring theoretical questions. Academics in Departments of Sociology, for example, tend to focus their attention on works written by and for sociologists; feminists tend to not stray far from literature explicitly identified as feminist, and so on.

We must overcome these problems in order to fully realize the potential impact that Social Problems Theory can have on progress toward a just world.

Suggested readings on social problems theory

Paul Burnstein and Marie Bricher, “Problem Definition and Public Policy: Congressional Committees Confront Work, Family, and Gender, 1945-1990.” Social Forces, Vol. 72, 1997, pp. 135-169.

Joel Best. “Constructionism in Context.” Pp.337-354 in Joel Best, ed., Images of Issues. Aldine de Gruyter, 1995.

Herbert Blumer. “Social Problems as Collective Behavior.” Social Problems. Vol. 18, 1971, pp.298-306.

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Murray Edelman, Political Language: Words That Succeed and Policies that Fail. New York: Academic Press, 1977.

Robert M. Emerson and Sheldon Messinger, “The Micro-Politics of Trouble,” Social Problems, Vol. 25, No. 2, December 1977, pp. 121-134.

Patricia Ewick and Susan S. Silbey. “Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales: Toward a Sociology of Narrative.” Law & Society Review, Vol. 29, 1995, pp. 197-226.

Michel Foucault. Discipline and Punish. New York: Vintage. 1979.
Erving Goffman, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1961.

Ange-Marie Hancock, The Politics of Disgust: The Public Identity of the Welfare Queen. New York: New York University Press, 2004.

James A. Holstein and Gale Miller (eds.), Challenges and Choices: Constructionist Perspectives on Social Problems. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2003.

Donileen R. Loseke. Thinking About Social Problems. Aldine de Gruyter, 2003.

Richard Quinney. The Social Reality of Crime. Boston: Little Brown. 1970.

Dorothy E. Smith. The Conceptual Practices of Power: A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990.

Malcolm Spector and John I. Kitsuse, Constructing Social Problems, New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1987.