Social Problems Theory Research Articles

Morphogenesis versus structuration: on combining structure and action1

The fundamental problem of linking human agency and social structure stalks through the history of sociological theory. Basically it concerns how to develop an adequate theoretical account which deals simultaneously with men constituting society and the social formation of human agents. For any theorist, except the holist, social structure is ultimately a human product, but for any theorist, except advocates of psychologism, this product in turn shapes individuals and influences their interaction. However successive theoretical developments have tilted either towards structure or towards action, a slippage which has gathered in momentum over time. Initially this meant that one element became dominant and the other subordinate: human agency had become pale and ghostly in mid-century functionalism, whilst structure betook an evanescent fragility in the re-flowering of phenomenology. Eventually certain schools of thought repressed the second element almost completely. On the one hand structuralist Marxism and normative functionalism virtually snuffed-out agency-the acting subject became increasingly lifeless whilst the structural or cultural components enjoyed a life of their own, self-propelling or self-maintaining. On the other hand interpretative sociology busily banished the structural to the realm of objectification and facticity-human agency became sovereign whilst social structure was reduced to supine plasticity because of its constructed nature. Although proponents of these divergent views were extremely vociferous, they were also extensively criticized and precisely on the grounds that both structure and action were indispensable in sociological explanation.2 Moreover serious efforts to re-address the problem and to re-unite structure and action had already begun from inside 'the two Sociologies',3 when they were characterized in this manichean way. These attempts emerged after the early sixties from 'general' functionalists,4 'humanistic' marxists5 and from interactionists confronting the existence of strongly patterned conduct.6 Furthermore they were joined in the same decade by a bold attempt

Typification in Society and Social Science: The Continuing Relevance of Schutz’s Social Phenomenology

This paper examines Alfred Schutz’s insights on types and typification. Beginning with a brief overview of the history and meaning of typification in interpretive sociology, the paper further addresses both the ubiquity and the necessity of typification in social life and scientific method. Schutz’s contribution itself is lacking in empirical application and grounding, but examples are provided of ongoing empirical research which advances the understanding of types and typification. As is suggested by illustrations from scholarship in the social studies of social science, studies of social identity associated with membership categorization analysis, and constructionist social problems theory, typification can be found to be central to social research whether it is taken up as a largely unacknowledged resource or whether it is addressed by different names. The overview and illustrations suggest the continuing, widespread, and indeed foundational relevance of Schutz’s insights into types and typification.

The Absolute Prohibition of Same-sex Marriages in Uganda

Before 2005, the Constitution of Uganda provided in Article 31(1) that ‘men and women of the age of eighteen years and above have the right to marry and to found a family ….’ In 2005, Article 31 was amended by inserting clause (2a) to the effect that ‘marriage between persons of the same sex is prohibited’. The author gives a historical background to Article 31(1) and shows how the Constituent Assembly treated the issue of same-sex marriages. The author also examines the circumstances leading to the absolute prohibition of same-sex marriages in the Constitution of Uganda. Drawing on social problem theory, the author argues that the absolute prohibition of same-sex marriages in Uganda could be explained by the perceived threat to the established cultural norms from emerging humanitarian norms.

On the Social Construction of Social Problems and Social Problems Theory: A Contribution to the Legacy of John Kitsuse

As is well known, John Kitsuse played a prominent and indispensable role in both founding and advancing the social constructionist approach to social problems theorizing. He did so in explicit opposition to structural functionalist approaches to theorizing social problems (Spector and Kitsuse 2001; Schneider 1985a). Whereas functionalist theorists have tended to regard social problems more or less as Durkheimian social facts that occur independently of the ways in which they are perceived by members of society, Kitsuse insisted that social problems cannot be separated from the perceptions and practical activities undertaken by members of the social worlds menaced by those problems. In observing that the very reality of social problems depends on the ways they are perceived and managed by members of historically and culturally specific constituencies, Kitsuse brought social problems research to an unprecedented level of epistemological depth and subtlety. Furthermore, through the use of constructionist insights he and his social constructionist students and colleagues have illuminated an extensive domain of hitherto unexplored directions for sociological research. For example, constructionist theory has enabled social problems researchers to more effectively examine the social processes through which phenomena are construed as problematic, through which they are constituted as public rather than private problems, and through which prospective remedies for them are socially produced, implemented, evaluated, revised, combined, replaced, forgotten, and so on. In each of these ways constructionists have taken important theoretical strides beyond the limitations that had attended prior approaches to theorizing social problems. Attention to what Spector and Kitsuse (2001) once called the “subjective component” of social problems production and amelioration has indeed yielded a vast catalogue of empirical studies that demonstrate how social problems as various as AIDS (Epstein 1996), alcoholism (Schneider 1978; Wiener Am Soc (2009) 40:61–78 DOI 10.1007/s12108-008-9059-5

The Making of the Chronic Addict

Inspired by social problems theory, this article analyzes the “formula story” of harm reduction in a Danish addiction-treatment context. In Denmark, very few opiate addicts are in drug-free therapeutic treatment. Instead, they are offered methadone (often on a permanent basis) accompanied by practical help in tackling the negative social, economic, and health-related consequences of their drug use. The aim of this article is to show how the formula story of harm reduction—and first and foremost the idea that opiate addiction is an incurable condition—tends to work as a self-fulfilling prophesy. Opiate addicts entering the treatment system risk being “made up” as chronic addicts regardless of how they themselves look upon their own addiction problem and notwithstanding that many of them have not given up their hope of becoming drug-free. The article is based on two types of data: (1) file records (gathered in 2007) describing the addiction problems and treatment careers of clients enrolled at outpatient treatment centers in Copenhagen, and (2) qualitative interviews (conducted in 2006) with 30 methadone-program participants at the centers. The analysis is qualitative and the empirical results cannot necessarily be generalized to other methadone-maintenance programs. Yet the theoretical message of the article is applicable to all treatment institutions and social problems work in general. Definitions and categorizations of clients are not innocent, and naming people and their problems is the same as changing them.

Space and spatiality: what the built environment needs from social theory

To foresee social outcomes from decisions about the physical and spatial form of the built environment, built environment professionals need to make use of theory-like propositions linking the two domains. In the absence of scientifically tested propositions, a shifting consensus of beliefs fills the need, and it can take decades of social costs to show the inadequacy of these beliefs. The problem of social theory and the built environment is then defined for the purposes of this paper in terms of the potential for testable propositions at the level at which one intervenes in the built environment. This is called the need for ‘design-level’ theories, defining design in the broad sense of all the choices and decisions made by built environment professionals in creating and modifying the built environment. Examining social theory under two broad headings, ‘urban sociology’ and ‘society and space’, it is noted that both approach the society–environment relation ‘society first’, in that the form of the environment is sought as the product of the spatial dimensions of social processes. This is called the ‘spatiality’ paradigm, and note that such approaches have never reached, and probably can never reach, the level of precision about the built environment which would be needed to found testable propositions at the design level. The alternative is to turn the question the other way round and through ‘environment first’ studies look for evidence of social processes in the spatial forms of the built environment. Recent work of this kind is outlined within the ‘space syntax’ paradigm and it is shown how the greater descriptive precision this brings to the built environment both permits linkages to mainline formulations in social theory and leads to testable design-level propositions. Pour prévoir les résultats sociaux de décisions relatives à la forme physique et spatiale du milieu bâti, les professionnels de ce milieu doivent utiliser des propositions de type ‘Théorie’ reliant les deux domaines. En l'absence de propositions testées sur le plan scientifique, un consensus mouvant de croyances comble cette lacune et il peut falloir des décennies de coûts sociaux pour montrer l'inadéquation de ces croyances. Le problème de la théorie sociale et du milieu bâti est ensuite défini pour les objectifs aux fins de cet article en termes de potentiel des propositions pouvant être testées au niveau auquel on intervient dans le milieu bâti. Cela s'appelle la nécessité de théorie au ‘niveau de la conception’ qui définit la conception dans le sens large de tous les choix et de toutes les décisions prises par les professionnels du milieu bâti en créant et en modifiant ce milieu. En examinant la théorie sociale sous deux grandes rubriques: ‘sociologie urbaine’ et ‘société et espace’, on note qu'elles approchent toutes deux ‘la société d'abord’ dans la relation ‘Environnement–Société’ en ce sens que la forme de l'environnement est recherchée comme le produit des dimensions spatiales des processus sociaux. C'est ce qu'on appelle le modèle ‘Spatialité’ et on note que de telles approches n'ont jamais atteint et ne pourront probablement jamais atteindre le niveau de précision concernant le milieu bâti qui serait nécessaire pour que les propositions soient soumises à tests au niveau de la conception. L'alternative est de retourner la question et par des études sur ‘l'environnement d'abord’ de rechercher la preuve de processus sociaux dans les formes spatiales du milieu bâti. De récents travaux de cette nature sont brièvement décrits dans le modèle de «syntaxe spatiale » et il est démontré que cela apporte une plus grande précision à la description du milieu bâti ce qui à la fois permet des articulations avec les formulations principales de la théorie sociale et conduit à des propositions pouvant être testées au niveau de la conception. milieu bâti, cadres conceptuels, conception, planning, théorie sociale, syntaxe spatiale, configuration spatiale, théorie spatiale, paradigme de spatialité, formulation de théories

The e-Rise and Fall of Social Problems: The Blogosphere as a Public Arena

Social problems theory has yet to fully address the impact that new communication technologies are having on the claims-making process. This article examines the emergence of the blogosphere as a cultural phenomenon that provides claims-makers with a powerful new public arena to advance social problem claims. Using Stephen Hilgartner and Charles Bosk’s (1988) public arenas model of social problem construction, blog-generated problem claims are examined to analyze how Internet driven social problems compete for public attention. Findings suggest that blogs make the claims-making process more efficient, offer expanded carrying capacity compared to traditional arenas, and provide outsider claims-makers with greater opportunity to have a voice in social problems construction. Still, only a small number of blogs have become recognized as claims-making arenas; they still rely on traditional principles of selection; and bloggers face the same competition for mainstream media attention as claims-makers using traditional arenas. Keywords: blog, blogosphere, Internet, new media, public arena. Mainstream news media maintain a gatekeeping function that serves to control the flow of information to audiences. Some claims find it harder to gain media access or to receive coverage (Jacobs 2000). In recent years, proponents of the Internet have proclaimed that new media technology will lead to a democratization of mass media (Rodman 2003). Since the deregulation of the Internet in 1995, users have quickly adapted to and become engaged in an online environment that can transmit large volumes of information in real time for relatively low cost (Plant 2004). The expansion of mass media into cyberspace has already created countless new sources for news: Web sites presented by the mainstream press and sites unique to the Internet, including search engines, message boards, and blogs, may have the potential to diffuse the gatekeeping function of traditional media, thereby altering their agenda-setting function (Williams and Delli Carpini 2004). In particular, the emergence of the blogosphere as an Internet-based claims-making arena may profoundly affect the process of social problems construction. This article expands Stephen Hilgartner and Charles L. Bosk’s (1988) public arenas model of social problems construction by exploring how the blogosphere increases the overall carrying capacity for problem claims, expands the opportunities for outsider claims-makers to promote social problems, and provides new avenues through which insider and secondary claims can be disseminated. Analysis of social problems constructed, in part, through claims made by bloggers also serves to verify the findings of Sheldon Ungar (1992) and Jerry Williams and R. S. Frey (1997) that dramatic real world events serve as focal issues that enhance audience receptiveness of problem claims. 1 Still, while blogs provide novel arenas where problem

Monetary expressions 7

This study investigates the consequences of regulation for management control and organisational change in privatised industries by means of a case study of the gas industry. It focuses particularly on the implications for regulation of accounting systems and systems of accountability, as important management control systems. Giddens’ [Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis, 1979; The Constitution of Society, 1984] structuration theory is adopted as an analytical framework for the study, due to its demonstrated capacity to take into account the interaction of agency and social structures in the production, reproduction and regulation of social order, together with its potential for an analysis of organisational change. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on the impact of regulation on privatised industries by providing a contextual analysis of management control and organisational change in the gas industry, and also by providing a critique of the change which has taken place.

Extending Hate Crime Legislation to Include Gender: Explicating an Analogical Method of Advocacy

This paper examines expert testimony advocating the inclusion, in proposed hate-crime legislation, of crimes motivated by gender bias. The design and rhetoric of such testimony evidences formal properties. Precisely because these properties are formal properties, not limited to specific cases or issues, their explication will contribute not only to the understanding of hate crimes discourse, but to social problems research and theory more broadly. Arguments for the expansion of rights to previously unprotected categories (1) can be designed with an emphasis on generic or formal principles, which allow for the inclusion of previously unprotected groups whose victimization constitutes additional social problems not yet institutionally recognized. Such arguments (2) can emphasize parallelism between protected categories and unprotected categories, and between recognized social problems and as-yet-unrecognized social problems, making similar institutional treatment seem rational, and making disparate treatment seem unjustifiable or insensitive. And such arguments (3) can propose limits to the desired expansion of rights, as a means of pre-empting “floodgate” arguments against expanding the scope of existing protections. More generally, membership categorization analysis is employed to study social identity and inter-group relations as these are constituted in social problems discourse. Special reference is made in this case to “hate crimes” and how they might be addressed by membership categorization analysis in the context of constructionist social problems analysis and qualitative sociolegal studies.

"That's How We Do Things Here: Local Culture and the Construction of Sweatshops and Anti-Sweatshop Activism in Two Campus Communities"*

This paper uses data from campus newspapers at two large Midwestern universities to examine local claimsmaking about the problem of sweatshops and anti-sweatshop activism on each campus. Although student activists at both schools sought to solve the same problem (i.e., the manufacture of university-licensed apparel by sweatshop labor) with the same solution (i.e., convincing their university administrations to join the Workers’ Rights Consortium, a sweatshop monitoring organization), what was ostensibly the same issue was constructed in very different ways in the claims found in the two newspapers. Drawing on the concept of “local culture,” our analysis illustrates how claimsmakers at each campus used locally and situationally embedded interpretive resources both to establish the problem of sweatshops and to present solutions to this problem. We use these findings to draw implications for both social problems theory and the study of social movements.

Referral to rehabilitation following traumatic brain injury: practitioners and the process of decision-making

The study aimed to examine the factors influencing referral to rehabilitation following traumatic brain injury (TBI) by using social problems theory as a conceptual model to focus on practitioners and the process of decision-making in two Australian hospitals. The research design involved semi-structured interviews with 18 practitioners and observations of 10 team meetings, and was part of a larger study on factors influencing referral to rehabilitation in the same settings. Analysis revealed that referral decisions were influenced primarily by practitioners’ selection and their interpretation of clinical and non-clinical patient factors. Further, practitioners generally considered patient factors concurrently during an ongoing process of decision-making, with the combinations and interactions of these factors forming the basis for interpretations of problems and referral justifications. Key patient factors considered in referral decisions included functional and tracheostomy status, time since injury, age, family, place of residence and Indigenous status. However, rate and extent of progress, recovery potential, safety and burden of care, potential for independence and capacity to cope were five interpretative themes, which emerged as the justifications for referral decisions. The subsequent negotiation of referral based on patient factors was in turn shaped by the involvement of practitioners. While multi-disciplinary processes of decision-making were the norm, allied health professionals occupied a central role in referral to rehabilitation, and involvement of medical, nursing and allied health practitioners varied. Finally, the organizational pressures and resource constraints, combined with practitioners’ assimilation of the broader efficiency agenda were central factors shaping referral.

Les problèmes sociaux comme comportements collectifs

Social Problems as Collective Behavior Herbert Blumer (paper introduced by Laurent Riot) This paper presents to a French audience a major text in sociology of social problems : H. Blumer's text "Social Problems as Collective Behavior". For Blumer, social problems have their existence in a process of collective behavior. This process determines whether social problems will arise, whether they become legitimized, how they are reconstituted in putting planned action into effect. According to Blumer, sociological theory and study of social problems should respect this process.

Executive functioning and theory of mind in children clinically referred for attention and behavior problems

The present study examined the interrelations of the theory of mind (ToM), executive functioning, and social problems in children referred to an outpatient clinic for attention and behavior problems. ToM tasks consisted of mistaken identity and contents tasks, two versions of unintended transfer tasks, and an emotional false-belief task. Attention problems were assessed using parent and teacher reports of behavior and child omission errors on the Continuous Performance Test (CPT). Auditory working memory was assessed using two subtests of the Woodcock–Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery—Revised. Impulsivity was assessed using parent and teacher reports of behavior, the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS), commission errors on the CPT, and Luria's Hand Game (LHG). Controlling for age, language, and socioeconomic status (SES), ToM was significantly related to aggregate scores for attention problems, memory, impulsivity, and an overall executive functioning aggregate of all three components. In addition, parent and teacher ratings of social problems were negatively related to both ToM and overall executive functioning. Executive functioning and ToM may be indicators of metacognitive deficits that underlie social problems in clinical samples of children with disruptive behavior and attention problems.

A structuration analysis of accounting systems and systems of accountability in the privatised gas industry

This study investigates the consequences of regulation for management control and organisational change in privatised industries by means of a case study of the gas industry. It focuses particularly on the implications for regulation of accounting systems and systems of accountability, as important management control systems. Giddens’ [Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis, 1979; The Constitution of Society, 1984] structuration theory is adopted as an analytical framework for the study, due to its demonstrated capacity to take into account the interaction of agency and social structures in the production, reproduction and regulation of social order, together with its potential for an analysis of organisational change. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on the impact of regulation on privatised industries by providing a contextual analysis of management control and organisational change in the gas industry, and also by providing a critique of the change which has taken place.

Referral to rehabilitation following traumatic brain injury: a model for understanding inequities in access

Identifying inequities in access to health care requires critical scrutiny of the patterns and processes of care decisions. This paper describes a conceptual model, derived from social problems theory, which is proposed as a useful framework for explaining patterns of post-acute care referral and in particular, individual variations in referral to rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury (TBI). The model is based on three main components: (1) characteristics of the individual with TBI, (2) activities of health care professionals and the processes of referral, and (3) the contexts of care. The central argument is that access to rehabilitation following TBI is a dynamic phenomenon concerning the interpretations and negotiations of health care professionals, which in turn are shaped by the organisational and broader health care contexts. The model developed in this paper provides opportunity to develop a complex analysis of post-acute care referral based on patient factors, contextual factors and decision-making processes. It is anticipated that this framework will have utility in other areas examining and understanding patterns of access to health care.

Personhood, Agency, and Mortuary Ritual: A Case Study from the Ancient Maya

The archaeological identification of individuals has been an important component of both processual attempts to characterize social organization by the treatment of individuals in mortuary ritual and more recent agency theory applications to studies of political economy and social change. Both approaches have been critiqued for failing to adequately define the individual, instead applying the Western concept of the individual to other societies. These shortcomings are shown to be part of a larger problem in social theory: the continuing polarization between individualism and holism. They point to the need for renewed interest in the anthropological analysis of the “person”—a socially shaped construct—in order to better understand social relationships and recognize the collective aspects of agency. A case study from the Classic Maya civilization illustrates how emphasis on the individual, as represented in mortuary events, artistic depictions, and texts, has resulted in interpretive difficulties that can be avoided by viewing these data from the perspective of the social collectivity from which personhood was derived. Maya corporate kin-based groups, known as “houses,” were a major source of the social identities expressed in political action and represented in mortuary ritual and monumental imagery.

The Foundations of Eclecticism

The heated debates between proponents of rational-choice, culturalist, and structuralist (or historical institutionalist) analysis over method and substance derive from differences over philosophical issues. This article relates these differences between ideal-typical rationalist, culturalist and structuralist analysis to their positions on two fundamental problems in social theory: (i) the epistemological significance of structural principles vis-a-vis agency; and (ii) the relative significance of the material and ideal dimensions of social processes. This suggests that many recent efforts at `synthesis' (e.g. through `analytic narratives') end up being rhetorical gestures since the fundamental assumptions identified with a given approach are not significantly relaxed. A more pragmatic position has been outlined in `structurationist' perspectives that build on Weber's social theory. Such perspectives are consciously agnostic about epistemological first principles in order to permit more question-driven analysis. Structurationism does not represent a novel paradigm for comparative analysis, but its epistemological flexibility makes it an ideal foundation for eclectic scholarship intended to transcend and engage the debates among rationalist, culturalist, and structuralist analysis.

Advances in generative structuralism: Structured agency and multilevel dynamics

We set out an approach to theorizing termed generative structuralism. In two stages, respectively, we address two problems in social theory ‐ agency‐structure and micro‐macro linkage ‐ in relation to a central problem in the discipline, namely, the sense of its fragmentation. The first theoretical problem is: How can we create generative models and methods that are responsive to the interpenetration of agency and structure in social practices? We show how Bourdieu's concept of habitus and Giddens's concept of structure can be articulated to generative model‐building ideas and methods. The second theoretical problem is: To what extent can we create generative multilevel models of large‐scale social system dynamics? We address this problem through a strategy illustrated by a model of emergent cultural stratification, including a study of its properties through simulation analysis. In undertaking these tasks, we both describe and illustrate the general character of generative structuralism. In doing so, we combat fragmentation by articulating connections among theoretical concepts, theoretical problems, and theoretical methods drawn from three sociological traditions, which we term, respectively, structured agency theory, network structuralism, and sociological social psychology. In a concluding metatheoretical discussion, we describe generative structuralism as an orienting strategy that can be implemented in a variety of theoretical research programs.

Managing Differences and Making Legislation: Social Movements and the Racialization, Sexualization, and Gendering of Federal Hate Crime Law in the U.S., 1985-1998

This work addresses a central question in both social problems theory and sociolegal studies: how can we understand and account for the content of legal categories that define social problems and attendant victims? It offers an empirical analysis of the emergence and evolution of federal hate crime laws—the Hate Crimes Statistics Act, the Violence Against Women Act, and the Rate Crimes Penalty Enhancement Act—that determine who is and is not eligible for hate crime victim status. By examining the legislative histories of these laws as evidence of “critical discursive moments” (Gamson 1992), I show how the substantive character of the law was shaped over time: 1 first establish a historical context for federal hate crime law: then I analyze how an important element hate crime law—the adoption of select status provisions, such as race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, and disabilities—unfolded such that some victims of discriminatory violence have been recognized as hate crime victims while others have gone unnoticed. In particular, people of color, Jews, gays and lesbians, women, and those with disabilities increasingly have been recognized as victims of hate crime, while union members, the elderly, children, and police officers, for example, have not. The findings suggest that the content of federal hate crime law was shaped by a series of temporally bound institutionally qualified processes whereby: 1) the empirical credibility of the scope of hate crime as a social problem was established by the claimsmaking of established social movement organizations; 2) a trio of core provisions for hate crime law—race, religion, and ethnicity—was cemented as the anchoring provisions of all hate crime law through discursive strategies that rendered particular types of violence empirically credible and worthy of federal attention; 3) the domain of the law expanded to include additional provisions, most notably sexual orientation and gender, in qualitatively distinct ways; and 4) the increased differentiation of legal subjects in subsequent law occurred in ways consistent with previously established and institutionalized policy pedigrees. Taken together, these findings reveal how microlevel processes of categorization work, mesolevel processes of social movement mobilization, and larger processes of institutionalization interface as political actors create and coalesce around legal meanings that define both “condition-categories” and “people-categories” (Loseke 1993).

Some Conceptual and Operational Consisderations on the Social Quality of Europe

Reading 'The Social Quality of Europe' is a challenge, partly because several authors' discussions go beyond the well-structured concepts of social policy, social security and the welfare state, and even more because the protagonists of social quality acknowledge that 'if no application is possible... it will only be used in unproblematic situations and function as a tautology.' It 'will remain an abstract and affirmative concept, of little use in theory and research of social problems in the widest sense' (Baars et al., 1997). That is why, in this article, we would like to make a contribution to the conceptual discussion, with particular reference to the issues of eventual empirical research. Due to the complexity of the concept it will not be possible to examine operationalisation in depth.