Sociology as a social policy Flashcards
What are social problems?
Described by Worsley as something which causes public friction/private misery and needs some collective action to solve it: social policy
- Someway harmful to society
What are sociological problems
Theoretical issues that need explaining
- may not be practical/useful but for knowledge for knowledges sake
What’s a clear distinction between social and sociological problems?
All social problems are sociological but not all sociological problems are social
- eg: improvement in girls educational achievement - not a social problem
What is an example of sociological problems?
Simmel, who looked at universal characteristics of social relationships, work place, families and even bus queues
Does sociological research make a difference?
- Sociological research into poverty, health, education and crime has a huge influence on government policy
- Government bodies often hire sociologists to research these areas for them
- eg: the institute of public policy research
What makes research?
- Research findings might highlight areas the electorate like: if people are behind it and it becomes widely accepted then it could also influence policy
- Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation: importance of relationships between young child-mom, became widely accepted and influenced policy
What makes it as research?
- Ideological preferences
- Interest groups
- Globalization
- Critical sociology
- Cost
- Funding sources
What is meant by ideological preferences (IP) and Interest groups (IG)?
IP: If the government and research share the same perspective on research = high chance of success
IG: Pressure groups seek to further own interests through government policy
What about positivism and functionalism in social policy?
- Use the enlightenment project to improve society
- sociologists could influence social policy by showing objective, scientifically collected facts (causal relationships) in society and using social policy to better them
- Functionalists favor tackling one social problem at a time, called the piecemeal approach
What is meant by globalization (G) and critical sociology (CS)?
- G: international policies (IMF: international monetary fund) structural readjustment programmes have require criteria to be met by developing countries that sociologists have warned against
- CS: critical perspectives like Marxism are seen as too extreme to influence policy
What is meant by cost (C) and funding sources (FS)?
- C: government likes the research findings but might not have the funds
- FS: think tanks for research can have political perspectives and so politicians are more likely to use the ones that will provide the research the want
What’s an example of positivism in social policy?
Durkheim’s analysis lead him to propose a meritocratic education system and the abolition of inherited wealth to make society fairer
Why do marxists critique the piecemeal approach?
- Ignores wider social issues that require the basis of society to change rather than the individual issue they’re targeting
- eg: targeting the improvement of education ignores the wider issues of poverty causing material deprivation
What is the social democratic?
Approach wants a major reshuffle of the structure of society, to redistribute wealth from rich to poor
Who talks for the social democratic?
Townsend
The Black Report
What did Townsend say and do?
- Argues sociologists should be involved in researching social problems and making policies to fix them
- Researched poverty and influenced welfare policies
What did the Black Report do?
Announced 37 far reaching recommendations for policy, including free school meals and improving working conditions
What about the new right and social policy?
- Believe that the state should have only minimal involvement in society
- opposed to using state provision of welfare to deal with social problems
- state intervention in areas as family life, income support, education and health care jobs of their independence and especially the freedom to make their own choices
What else do the new right think?
- Undermines their sense of personal responsibility and leads to greater social problems such as crime and delinquency
- New right heavily critical of many existing government social policies
- Government social policies should enable people to stand on their own 2 feet and help themselves
What about marxism and social policy?
- See society as divided by a fundamental conflict of interest = ruling capitalist class exploit the labor of the working class
- Don’t see the state and its social policies as benefiting all members of society
- the state representing the ruling class and its social policies serve the interests of capitalism, not those of society as a whole
What are the reasons for Marxists seeing social policy as problematic?
1) Social policies hide capitalist exploitation
2) Social policies maintain the labor force ready for exploitation
3) Social policies are a means of preventing revolution
What is meant by the first reason in marxism and social policy?
The social policies that make up the welfare state gives capitalism a ‘human face’, making it appear that the system cares about the poor, sick and old
What is meant by the second reason in marxism and social policy?
The social policy that resulted in the NHS serves capitalism by keeping workers fit enough to work
What is meant by the third reason in marxism and social policy?
Marxists see the polices that create the welfare state after the WW2 as a way of buying off working class opposition to capitalism
What are critiques to the marxism approach to social policy?
- Impractical and unrealistic
- Social democrats criticize them for rejecting the idea that sociological research can help bring about progressive policies within the existing capitalist system
- Point out that poverty researchers have had some very positive impacts on social policy aimed at helping the poor
What is the feminist approach to social policy?
- See society as based on conflict, fundamentally between genders
- patriarchal society benefits men at women’s expense
- state perpetuates women’s subordination through social policy
- may produce a self fulfilling prophecy (idea that mothers should reenter the workforce asap or men should be awarded custody of children)
- things may be resisted by social policy makers thus reinforcing traditional patriarchal relationships
What is an example of patriarchal social policies?
Family policies may be based on the assumptions that women are better at looking after children’s than men
How have feminist research affected the government?
Education, learning materials, especially in maths and science, have been changed to promote more positive images of females
- teacher training aimed at sensitizing teachers to the need to avoid gender bias and to promote inclusiveness for both sexes
What’s the postmodernist approach to social policy?
- Sociology has no contribution to make to policy
- Role of sociology: simply to allow people to seek out an understanding of their personal lives within a specific social content
- Reject the modernist idea of ‘progress’ - social policy cannot be used to usher in the ‘good society’
How have radical feminists influenced social policy?
Analysis of domestic violence has led to establishment of women’s refuges often with funding from local and central government
- recently austerity cuts have resulted in many refuges closing down
- EG: Women’s Aid Federation supports a national network of over 500 such service
What else about the postmodernist approach?
- Postmodernists argue there’s no such thing as an ‘orderly society to be discovered by rational scientific methods’
- Sociology: simply an academic discipline and it’s findings shouldn’t be used to inform government social policy
- Shouldn’t be a relationship between sociology and social policy
