Some questions to ask:

• Does something represent a problem (does it have undesirable consequences)? What is the problem?
• Is it social? Does it affect a large number of people? Can we make predictions about which groups are most likely affected?
• What are the possible causes? Do they involve:
  • Groups? Organizations? Systems? Societies? Governments?
  • Who do we shoot (metaphorically)? 
• What are the consequences? 
  • Groups of people can be hurt (e.g., cutting welfare programs disproportionately affects the poor, people of color disproportionately live in poverty, are disproportionately incarcerated, victimized by crime),
  • but also institutions (the role of money in US elections may distort public access to information about candidates, issues, affecting democratic institutions)
  • What about tax cuts and government services?
• Who benefits (e.g., from poverty just FYI from another class)?
• Framing: Who has the ability, the power, the money, to influence public debates about a particular social problem? In other words, how are problems ‘framed‘ for public consumption? Who has access to media to frame them?
  • Example of a fossil fuel:
    • clean coal, coal,
    • mountaintop removal
    • Covid-19 pandemic: Jobs vs health? Origins vs govt. response? Politicians vs public health professionals? ‘Medical freedom’ vs public safety?
  • The tobacco industry–keeping the public health wolves at bay
    • Keeping public opinion on links between smoking and cancer in the ‘uncertain’ category, framing potentially harmful products as important to people’s freedoms (take ’em back!)
    • discrediting science, changing the subject, paying scientists with a reputation
    • when TV advertising is banned (except for Blu! or Venus), try product placements (of course, ads targeting minors? Still okay!). And then …. this (the full ad).
    • And … health impacts
    • Persuasion, reflecting cultural values (‘personal responsibility’–it’s simply a personal choice)
    • Waste issues? Try re-framing litter (not that kind) and pollution (funded by the packaging industry).
  • From the world of high finance (the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008):
    • OWS principles
    • Davis and Moore article, and inequality framed as a necessity for ensuring societies reward based on human capital investment and achievement/merit (a meritocracy of sorts);
    • A different perspective (from a documentary, post-mortem)
• Who should do something about the social problem, and what? e.g., government, individuals, businesses, institutions (education, health care, defense, telecommunications). Role of science/research?

Some examples:

• Divorce and
• marriage
  • marriage and parenthood
  • age and gender
• Crime
• Homelessness
• Domestic violence
• Terrorism
• C. Wright Mills and ‘sociological imagination’ … the times we live in, and the processes that define them, matter, if we’re going to understand the relationship of individuals to the broader society and social processes that play out slowly but relentlessly, like a river.

From 2016 (Brookings Institute):

Who is more likely to achieve social mobility? The best explanations involve race, ethnicity, gender and education (itself correlated with race).

Some considerations

• What do we know, and how do we know it?
• Science and supporting evidence — who has credibility?

• Structural versus individual explanations
• Process–social problems, societal perceptions of them, change over time (civil rights, gender, environment, race), and are complex enough that they’re hard to predict (like the stock market’s ups and downs)
• ‘Social construction’–perceptions of social problems can differ dramatically between people, groups–there is no ‘official’ social problem definition locked in a vault somewhere… and people’s views may be influenced heavily by their choices of media sources.
• Complexity–There are no easy answers–beware of simple explanations, simple solutions!
• Mills and ‘private’ versus ‘public’ issues (e.g., divorce, unemployment)

Back to inequality

• Davis and Moore’s 1945 article: A certain measure of inequality is ‘functional’
  • What level?
  • Functional for whom?
  • Other societies and inequalities–the US is ‘exceptional’
  • Individual explanations of inequality–some people are more motivated, ‘deserving’
  • Structural explanations–not all success is self-made; the playing field is not level, more accurate to predict wealth based on structural factors.
  • The ‘Matthew Effect’:
    • For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken even that which he hath (25:29).
    • Seems to help explain even differences in ….. hockey players’ birthdates?? (‘cumulative advantage’)
    • Inequality as ‘taboo’ subject in the US (along with things like discussion of salaries, wages)
• Inequality and other social variables
  • Some measures:
  • Inequality
  • distribution
  • taxes
  • executive pay
  • over time
  • public perceptions
• Health
  • the last 200 years …
• Geography
• History–is rising inequality destiny, smarts, politics . . . ?

Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore. 1945. Some principles of stratification. American Sociological Review 10(2):242-49.