Explanation:Approaches to the Study of Social Problems
Social Structure as the Basic Unit of Analysis
The Person-Blame Approach
People generally understand social problems as some sort of pathology experienced
by individuals. This approach to understanding social problems is what Eitzen calls
the person-blame approach.
This approach tends to assume that universal norms exist. Behavior is deviant
depending on how much it strays from these norms.
Most people define a social problem as behavior that deviates from the norms and
standards of society.
The system is not only taken for granted; it has, for most people, an aura of sacredness
because of traditions and customs they associate with the system.
From the person-blame approach, those who deviate are seen as the source of trouble.
The obvious question observers ask is, why do these people deviate from norms?
Because most people view themselves as law abiding, they feel those who deviate do
so because of some kind of unusual circumstances: accidents, illness, personal defect,
character flaw, or maladjustment. For example, a person-blamer might argue that a
poor person is poor because he or she is not bright enough to succeed. In other words,
the deviant is the cause of his or her own problem.
The following are examples of perspectives that replay on person-blame approaches.
Cultural Deprivation
Eitzen et al. (2009:16) contends that people who blame the victim often cite
cultural deprivation as the "cause" of social problems. Culture is seen as the
"cause" of the problem. In other words, people who blame the victims see the
culture of the group with the problem as inferior and deficient when compared
to the culture of the dominant group in society.
For example, kids who don't do well is school have parents who don't speak
proper English or who are uneducated.
Recidivism
How successful are Prisons in rehabilitating criminals? Not VERY! Threefourths of the released criminals are re-arrested within four years. Recidivism
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refers to ex-offenders who are arrested for another criminal offense once they
have been released from jail.
Why are recidivism rates so high? The person-blame approach might argue
that the fault lies in the characteristics of the individual. Maybe they are
greedy. Perhaps they have higher than usual levels of aggression. Personblamers may also point out the ex-criminals lack of social controls (in Eitzen
et al. 2009:16).
Social Darwinism
The discoveries of Charles Darwin had a profound impact on other branches
of scientific inquiry. Charles Darwin, of course, is famous for his Theory of
Evolution. In the world of biology the species most fit survived while those
less fit eventually became extinct.
Social Darwinism is a distorted view of Darwin's theory. Many social
scientists, most notably Herbert Spencer, attempted to apply the logic of
Charles Darwin to the social world. The essence of the social Darwinist
perspective is that races or cultures, who occupied a "superior position" in the
social world, deserved that position because they were the most socially fit
(Eitzen et al. 2009:18).
According to Spencer "the poor are poor because they are unfit." The poor are
poor because they do not have the intellectual ability to be wealthy.
Spencer argued that "poverty is nature's way of 'excreting ... unhealthy,
imbecile, slow, vacillating, faithless members' of society in order to make
room for the fit" (Eitzen and Baca-Zinn, 1994:170).
Social Darwinists, therefore, oppose social programs because, they argue,
social programs perpetuate the existence of the unfit group who would
probably disappear in the absence of social welfare.
