- Current section: Introduction
- Learning outcomes
- 1 The social construction of social problems
- 2 ‘What everybody knows’
- 3 Tracing the deposits
- 4 Mapping the field: competing constructions
- 5 Scepticism and social construction
- 6 The question of ideology: social interests and social constructions
- 7 Norms, truth and power: discourses of social problems
- 8 Conclusion: the view from social constructionism
- Further reading
- References
- Acknowledgements
The home of free learning
from The Open University
from The Open University
Alternatively you can skip the navigation by pressing 'Enter'.
Social Problems: Who makes them?
Hide summary
Anti-social behaviour, homelessness, drugs, mental illness: all problems in today’s society. But...
Anti-social behaviour, homelessness, drugs, mental illness: all problems in today’s society. But what makes a problem social? This unit will help you to discover how these issues are identified, defined, given meaning and acted upon. You will also look at the conflicts within social science in this area.
After studying this unit you should be able to:
- illustrate what is social about social science;
- demonstrate how certain social constructions become dominant;
- distinguish how labelling something can create expectations about behaviour and actions;
- give examples of inequalities that result from particular social constructions.
- Duration: 20 hours
- Published on: Thursday 14th July 2011
- Level: Intermediate
- Posted under: Sociology
Social Problems: Who makes them?
Introduction
Anti-social behaviour, homelessness, drugs, metal illness: all problems in today’s society. But what makes a problem social? This unit will help you to discover how these issues are identified, defined, given meaning and acted upon. You will also look at the conflicts within social science in this area.
This material is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Social Policy: Welfare, Power and Diversity (D218) which is no longer taught by The Open University. If you want to study formally with us, you may wish to explore other courses we offer in this subject area [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .
Archive content
This is an extract from an Open University course which is no longer available to new students. If you found this interesting you could explore more free Sociology course units or view the range of currently available OU Sociology courses.
Other pages You might like
Try: This Sporting Planet
Sport is a massive global phenomenon. Events and sporting heroes attract an enormous...
Try: Learning from audio visual material:...
This unit focuses provides you with a further opportunity to practise the learning from...
Study: Contemporary Wales
Explore what is distinctive about Wales and Welsh identity in terms of culture, society,...
Try: The pensions timebomb
Over the last three decades major events, scandals and regulations have shocked the...
Try: The problem with crime
This unit looks at the issues of order and disorder. Can the way these issues are...
Try: Wales: Culture and identity
Wales is a vibrant nation with its own language, musical heritage and strong cultural...
Try: Living and working in the new economy
The new ‘service economy’, is it a direct result of globalisation? This unit examines...
Try: Coping with Depression
“You just want to step out of it, to step out of the whole race, the whole business....
Try: Reading visual images
What does a picture or image tell you? This unit is an introduction to analysing and...
Try: Understanding Identity
Who are we? What shapes us into the people we are? Over the last 50 years advances in...
Try: What do we mean by "family"?
The idea of ‘family’ is very powerful in contemporary UK culture and policy. Family...
Try: Social Science
What are the Social Sciences? One definition is that they are specialised systematic...
Comments
Be the first to post a comment
Copyright & revisions
No significant updates yet
Copyright information
- Creative-Commons: The Open University is proud to release this free course under a Creative Commons licence. However, any third-party materials featured within it are used with permission and are not ours to give away. These materials are not subject to the Creative Commons licence. See terms and conditions. Full details can be found in the Acknowledgements section.
Feeds
If you enjoyed this, why not follow a feed to find out when we have new things like it? Choose an RSS feed from the list below. (Don't know what to do with RSS feeds?)
Remember, you can also make your own, personal feed by combining tags from around OpenLearn.
Alternative Formats
Tags, Ratings and Social Bookmarking
D218_1
About this site
Views
Votes
Comments
Tags
- climate change (374)
- business (278)
- diaries (194)
- food (170)
- bottom line (169)
- Rough Science (162)
- BBC Two (150)
- BBC Radio 4 (149)
- internet (145)
- BBC (136)
- listings (122)
- Scotland (121)
- points for debate (120)
- Bang goes the Theory (116)
- children (116)
- Creative Climate (116)
- English Civil War (115)
- Thinking Allowed (109)
- astronomy (108)
- religion (98)
- marketing (94)
- 20th century (94)
- Charles I (93)
- communication (92)
- evolution (91)
- research (89)
- sustainability (89)
- architecture (86)
- energy (83)
- Charles Darwin (78)
OpenLearn Links
