Understanding Social Problems

This week, we learned about three main ways sociologists look at social problems: functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. Functionalism, based on Émile Durkheim’s ideas, sees society like a living body where different parts, like family and schools, work together to keep things stable and peaceful. Functionalists think social problems happen when society is out of balance, but usually, small changes can fix these problems without shaking everything up.

Conflict theory, started by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, looks at society as a place where different groups fight over resources and power. It focuses on unfairness and says that social problems come from these inequalities, like the gap between rich and poor. Conflict theorists believe big changes are needed to fix these problems. Feminist theory is part of this view and focuses on inequality between men and women.

Symbolic interactionism is different because it looks at how people’s everyday actions and the meanings they give to things create social problems. This view says social problems depend on how people see and talk about them. For example, crime isn’t just about laws being broken but also how people learn and think about crime through their interactions with others.

For me, symbolic interactionism makes the most sense. It helps explain how people decide what’s right or wrong through their social experiences. While functionalism looks at how society stays stable and conflict theory focuses on unfairness, symbolic interactionism shows how social problems start in our daily lives. For example, with armed robbery, this perspective would study how robbers learn their behavior and how victims react, while functionalism might say crime helps create jobs, and conflict theory would say crime happens because of poverty.

Caption: Three main sociological views help us understand society and social problems in different ways.

I also checked the Gallop Poll on crim. The poll shows that many people still worry a lot about crime, even if crime rates go down. This shows the difference between the real problem and how people feel about it. Even if crime is lower, people’s fear makes crime seem like a big problem. This fits with symbolic interactionism, which says our views shape how serious we think problems are. Here is the poll link: 

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1603/crime.aspx 

In my community, there’s a nonprofit called the Community Justice Center. They work to reduce crime by helping people learn new skills, offering support for young people, and using peaceful ways to solve conflicts. Their work helps fix social problems by supporting people and helping them make better  choices. You can find out more here: 

https://communityjusticecenter.org