Social Problems

Catalog description

Majors/minors may not NOT receive credit toward major/minor). Throughout American history, social critics have perceived aspects of social life as “problematic.” Things are no different today, although what we define as “social problems” has changed. This course is designed as an introduction to the sociology of social problems with a focus on social problems within contemporary U.S. society (although some problems will be examined within a global context). Topics may include crime, rape, poverty, AIDS, drug use, eating disorders, and war, among others. Our emphasis will be on analyzing and understanding social problems (and the discourse about them) from various theoretical perspectives. The central theme of the course concerns power and inequality. We will examine how people “create” social problems by constructing and reproducing social relationships of power and domination over others, especially via race, class, and gender. We will specifically address the social construction of problems by the media and how people create a collective understanding of social problems