Quiz 1 terms - Lecture notes 1 PDF

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Study guide for Quiz 1, covering Lecture 1 and Chapter 1-2 of the textbook Social Problems by Joel Best. SOC 1020 is taught by Professor Lijun Song....

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QUIZ 1 prep Terms to know SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION Sociological imagination: ability to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society - Defined by its function/promise - A lens through which we can understand the world and social problems by connecting personal troubles with public issues CHAPTER 1 Objectivist approach: social condition or pattern of behavior that has negative consequences for individuals, our social world, or physical world - Measure characteristics of harmful social condition → statistics, numbers, quantitative data Problems: 1. Harmful conditions not always identified as social problems 2. Use of different/contradictory objective standards/claims in identifying condition as social problem 3. Vague definitions to cover diverse social problems Subjectivist approach: conditions are viewed as problems not in terms of objective standards but in terms of people’s subjective perceptions, reactions, judgements - Focuses not on conditions, but on claims about conditions - Social problems not a condition, but process of responding to social conditions Social construction: ways people assign meaning to the world → language is important Social problems process: study of social problems should focus on how and why particular conditions come to be constructed as social problems Constructionism: asking the why/how questions about origins of particular phenomena Claimsmaking: someone brings a topic to the attention of others by making a claim there is a condition that should be recognized as troubling/needs to be addressed - All social problems have claimsmaking in common Claimsmakers: the people who make claims, seek to convince others something is wrong and something should be done about it - Can be activists or experts Troubling conditions: conditions that become subjects of claims; troubling is subjective Natural history: sequence of stages that tends to appear in lots of different cases

Six stages: 1. Claimsmaking 2. Media coverage 3. Public reaction 4. Policymaking 5. Social problems work 6. Policy outcomes Policymaking: social policies are the means that society adopts to address troubling conditions, and such policies can be made in various ways Social problems work: enforcing policies, carried out by social problems workers in communities Policy outcomes: reactions to the social problems process; can be varied Resources: actors in social problems process are not equal; some have more power, status, contacts, education, money than others; resources can make it easier to influence every stage in social problems process Rhetoric: study of persuasion; rhetoric allows troubling conditions to be reconstructed to fit concerns of actors involved in any stage of the social problems process Feedback: feedback processes can occur at every stage of social problems process bc actors at various stages don’t just act but also pay attention to how others react CHAPTER 2 Grounds: a claim’s grounds are usually assertions of fact; argue the condition exists and offer supporting evidence 1. Typifying example: description of particular instance of the condition chosen bc it is especially extreme, dramatic, disturbing, or memorable 2. Name: transforms an occurrence from an incident to an instance; naming is not the same as defining 3. Statistic: number that suggests scope of problem, can be misleading Warrants: claim’s warrants justify doing something about troubling condition; explain why something ought to be done; invokes values and emotions Conclusions: statements that specify what should be done, what action should be taken to address social problem Audience: those whom the claim is meant to persuade Valence issues: issues that have broad consensus

Position issues/contested issues: issues that have lots of discourse/disagreement; claimsmakers know they cannot persuade everyone Social problems marketplace: at any given moment, countless claimsmakers struggle to get their particular claims heard Societalization: claims that achieve widespread recognition, attracting attention to what becomes known as a national issue, engaging nation’s policymakers and major media Domain expansion: method for building additional claims on the foundation of an original claim that has gained acceptance - Sometimes accomplished through piggybacking a new troubling condition on a wellestablished problem Counterclaims: arguments in direct opposition to original claims Ideologies: coherent sets of beliefs or specific religious doctrines Social problems clusters: sets of claimsmakers who take similar positions regarding related social problems Cultural resources: claims must draw on larger culture and be consistent w people’s understandings of how world works → claims should exploit cultural resources...