This document outlines several approaches to understanding social problems from a sociological perspective. It discusses the value-conflict approach, deviant behavior approach, labeling approach, social pathology approach, social disorganization approach, and institutional approach. For each approach, it describes the key concepts, causes, consequences, and potential solutions. It also summarizes the five main contributions sociologists can make in understanding and addressing social problems, such as measuring conditions, attitudes, applying sociological imagination, identifying interventions, and evaluating policy consequences.

2. APPROACHES TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS
CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE; APPROACHES TOWARDS
SOCIAL PROBLEMS
 The Value-Conflict Approach
 The Deviant Behaviour Approach

3. THE VALUE-CONFLICT APPROACH
 Depression and World War II (1938-1945)
 Concept:
“Some social problems may be problematic as a whole
but normal or justifiable to a particular group”
“Social problem is a condition that are incompatible with
group values”

4. THE VALUE-CONFLICT APPROACH
Causes:
 Problems occur when groups with different values meet
and compete
 Example: Landlords and Tenants
Effects:
 Consequences are costly as groups become polarized
(against each other). Higher goals are sacrificed for lower
ones *compromise)

5. THE VALUE-CONFLICT APPROACH
Suggestions:
 Conflicts to be solved by:
1. Consensus (agreement on compromise)
2. Trading (exchange)
3. Power (dominancy)
 Example: Landlords and Tenants

6. THE DEVIANT BEHAVIOUR APPROACH
Concept:
“Social Problems are created by people who deviate from
the accepted norms and are delinquents”

7. THE DEVIANT BEHAVIOUR APPROACH
Causes:
“Behaviour or conditions that are deviant from the
norms, they arise when legitimate (systematic) means of
achieving cultural goals are blocked”
Example:
Unemployment, corruption, violence

8. THE DEVIANT BEHAVIOUR APPROACH
Remedies:
 Re-socialize deviants by increasing their contacts with
accepted patterns of behaviour.
 Social systems must be less rigid, legitimate
 Opportunities and goals should be more attainable

9. APPROACHES TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS
INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE: APPROACH
TOWARDS SOCIAL PROBLEMS
 Labeling Approach

10. Labeling Approach
 Recent approach to study Social Problems
 Labelling approach are interested in explaining why
and under what conditions certain acts and situations
come to be defined as problematic or deviant
Concept:
“Social Problems are conditions in which certain
behaviour or situation become defined as social
problems”

11. Labeling Approach
Causes:
 Awareness of people about certain behaviour or
situation’s existence makes them social problems.
 Definition of social problems changes according to our
own situation, interest or by pressure group.

12. Labeling Approach
Consequences:
 People who are considered deviant and are labelled
will accept that definition and will or may adopt more
deviant acts to compliment/reinforce deviancy
For Example:
 Drug Addiction leading towards crime and life style
change as secondary deviance

13. APPROACHES TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS
FUNCTIONALIST PERSPECTIVE; APPROACHES
TOWARDS SOCIAL PROBLEMS
 Social Pathological Approach
 Social Disorganization Approach
 Institutional Approach

14. Social Pathology Approach
 Nineteenth-century American & European sociologists
Concept:
“Individuals and groups who deviate from social norms,
or institutions that do not fit with core social norms, are
“sick” or pathologic and a risk to the society's ‘health’ ”

15. Social Pathology Approach
Causes:
 Social Problems arise when either individuals or social
institutions fail to keep pace with changing conditions
and thereby disrupt the healthy operation of the social
organism (individuals or groups) such individuals or
institutions were considered “Sick” hence the term
“Social Pathology”
For Example:
 Rural Migrants who fail to adjust in urban life are
considered as a source of “sickness” or “illness”

16. Social Pathology Approach
Causes:
 Early social pathologists identify individual’s as a
source of society’s problems who could not be
properly socialized or who rejected society’s values
and beliefs because of their internal defects.
For Example: Social pathology includes: substance
abuse, violence, abuses of women and children, crime,
terrorism, corruption, criminality, discrimination,
isolation, stigmatisation and human rights violations.

17. Social Pathology Approach
Causes:
 Modern Social Pathologists focus more on defects
of society and its institution. Immoral society
produce immoral individuals.
For Example: Corruption.
Many contemporary social problems are global in
nature and are shared by many countries.

18. Social Pathology Approach
Consequences:
 Social pathologies "often lead to a flood of social,
economic and psychological problems that undermine
well-being” and therefore need to be considered in
developing a mental health policy that promotes
population mental health well-being and addresses
issues that contribute to mental illness.
 Increase the cost of maintaining social order
(terrorism)

19. Social Pathology Approach
Solutions:
 Education as a solution to social problems
 Programs to prevent the transmission of defects in
next generations

20. Social Disorganization Approach
Concept and Causes:
Society is organized by a set of expectations and rules. Social
Disorganization results when these fail and result in:
1. Normlessness (people have no rules)
2. Cultural Conflicts (people feel trapped by contradictory
set of rules)
3. Breakdown (obedience to a set of rules results in no
rewards or in punishment)
For Example:
Rapid Social Change, Job Discrimination, drug addiction,
personal, family and community disorganization

21. Social Disorganization Approach
Consequences:
Social System feels the force of disorganization
 It may change its rules
 Keep contradictory rules in force
 Breaking down
Solution:
 Reversed by isolating its causes and correcting them
 Society to make new rules and expectations

22. Institutional Approach
Concept:
“Problems in Social institutions produce patterns of
deviance or institutions must address the problems
through strategic social change”
Causes:
 Social problems are the product of the “impersonal
operation” of existing social institutions both now and
in the past.

23. Institutional Approach
Solution/Remedies:
 Engage in research and active social interventions
 Planned change or overall change in social institutions
 Emergence of new social institutions replacing
existing institutions

24. ROLE OR CONTRIBUTIONS OF SOCIOLOGISTS/SOCIAL
SCIENTISTS TO UNDERSTAND SOCIAL PROBLEMS
Five contributions of sociologists to understand
social problems:
1. Sociologists can measure objective conditions (IM;
sociologists can gather information on the number
of infant mortality in clinics and hospitals and on
how the cities and provinces vary in their access to
medical facility)
2. Sociologists can measure subjective concerns (they
can determine people’s attitudes and views about
social problems. Such information is useful in
evaluating potential policies)

25. FIVE CONTRIBUTIONS OF SOCIOLOGISTS/SOCIAL
SCIENTISTS TO UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL PROBLEMS
3. Sociologists can apply the sociological imagination; that
is, they can place social problems into their broad social
context. (family planning is related to people’s attitudes
and is also related to profound differences of opinion
about privacy, what human life is, when life begins and
ends and the role of religious institutions)
4. Sociologists can identify different ways to intervene in a
social problem. They can suggest potential social policies:
courses of action for public and private agencies,
educational programs, public awareness campaigns, and
legal changes to address a social problem

26. FIVE CONTRIBUTIONS OF SOCIOLOGISTS/SOCIAL
SCIENTISTS TO UNDERSTAND SOCIAL PROBLEMS
5. Sociologists can evaluate likely consequences of
social policies. For example, sociologists can estimate
how a proposed social policy on family planning will
affect the birth rate, population growth, crime rate,
and expenditures for welfare and education.