1. Chapter 1 How Sociologists View Social Problems The Abortion Dilemma
Pages 3-23

2. DO NOW List some reasons why a woman might have an abortion.
List some reasons why a woman would not have an abortion.
What types of things would influence any/all of these decisions?

3. The Sociological Imagination
Our perspective of the world around us and the issues we face in our life are limited to our immediate surroundings.
We tend to forget about larger social forces that are not right in front of us.
The goal of this course is to broaden our view of the problems around us and look at them from a wider perspective.
We will learn how to connect our personal lives with the larger social context.
We will develop our social imaginations, which refers to looking at people’s behaviors and attitudes in the context of social forces that shape them.
The sociological perspective helps us to see how the larger social forces influence our personal lives.

4. Social Contexts and Locations
Our social context is the environment around us that shapes or influences our ideas, attitudes, behaviors, and even our emotions.
The social context occurs on three levels:
Broad social context: historical events such as war or terrorism
Narrow social context: gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class
Intimate social context: the relationships we share with family, friends, or co-workers
Social location refers to where you are located in society.
Includes physical places (ex. Neighborhood or city) and personal characteristics (ex. Education, sex, race, ethnicity, age, marital status)
See Table 1.1 on page 5.

5. What is a Social Problem?
Social problems – aspects of society that a large number of people are concerned about and would like to change.
Socially constructed problems, not natural problems
Social problems have two essential components:
Objective condition – some condition of society that can be measure or experienced
Ex: whether abortions are legal, who obtains them and under what circumstances.
Subjective concern – the concern that a significant number of people have about the objective condition.
Ex: Some are concerned that some women must give birth to unwanted children, which others are concerned that some women terminate their pregnancies.

6. HOMEWORK
READ PAGE 7
HAVE AN ANSWER TO THE FOLLOW QUESTIONS PREPARED FOR TOMORROW’S DISCUSSION:
What social contexts are influencing India’s decision to practice sex-selection abortion?
Do you think the U.S. Congress should pass a law against sex-selection abortion for Americans? Why or Why not?
What social contexts in America are influencing Abortion laws/activism?

7. DO NOW What is your social location?
How has it affected your view of abortion?

8. Social Problems are Dynamic
Social problems are dynamic, or they respond to changes in society.
Example: Abortion
Was illegal in the U.S. until 1973 with Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Case
This ruling transformed the social problem of abortion.
Before this, the objective conditions centered on the illegality of abortion, especially the dangerous conditions under which abortions took place.
The subjective concerns centered on people being upset that women who wanted abortions could not get them and concerns about the dangers women faced from botched abortions.
As growing numbers of people became concerned that women could not have legal abortions, they worked to change the law.
After Roe v. Wade large numbers of people became upset that abortion had become legal and wanted to, again, change the law.

9. Social Problems are Relative
What a social problem is for some is a solution to others.
What people consider to be a social problem depends on their values. (Ex. Pro-life vs. pro- choice.)
A value is a belief about whether something is good or bad.
Read page 9 for further explanation
Our society is filled with competing, contrasting, and conflicting views of life.
See page 8

10. HOMEWORK Write a 1 page essay answering the following questions:
What are some of your values?
Talk about 3 or 4 opinions/perspectives that you hold close to your heart.
How have these values shaped your view points on abortion?
Use page 9 in your textbook for some inspiration.

11. How can looking at the world through an emotional lens harm us?
DO NOW
How can looking at the world through an emotional lens harm us?

12. The Role of Sociology in Social Problems
Sociology – the systematic and objective study of human society
It is natural for humans to insert emotion into our morals and defend what we see as right or wrong.
Sociology can help give us an objective view of social problems.
Sociologists can measure objective conditions.
Gather information on the number of abortions performed, trends over time, and how states differ on making abortions accessible
Sociologists can measure subjective concerns.
Sociologists can determine people’s attitudes and views about social problems.
This can help guide potential social policies.

13. The Role of Sociology in Social Problems
Sociologist can apply the sociological imagination.
They can place social problems into their broad social context.
Abortion can relate to individual freedoms, sex roles, parenting, morality, religion, etc.
Sociologists can identify possible social policies.
To address a social problem, sociologists can suggest potential courses of action for public and private agencies, public awareness campaigns, and legal changes.
Sociologists can evaluate likely consequences of social policies.
Sociologists can estimate the social effects of a proposed social policy.
Abortion policy might effect birthrate, population, crime rate, expenditures or welfare and education, etc.
Because sociology cannot dictate that one set of values is
superior to another, it provides no basis for making value decisions.

14. Activity In groups of 2 or 3 look at the data on page 16.
Using what you know about sociologists, what kind of
things do you think they will predict from that data?
How could someone use this data when talking about public policy?
Please write down some bullet points and
be prepared to share your results with the class.

15. Methods for Studying Social Problems
Method – a way of dong research
A sociologist can choose multiple methods depending on:
1. the question they want to investigate
2. the practicality of the method
3. ethics
Most research falls into one of four research designs:
Case studies
Surveys
Experiments
Field studies

16. Methods for Studying Social Problems
Case Study
Used to gather in-depth information on some specific situation
The researcher focuses on one case (ex. an individual, event, or organization)
Pro: provides detail – Con: does not show generalized information
Survey
Focuses on a sample of the group you want to study, or the population
Samples represent the entire population
Allow researcher to generalize, or apply findings to people who belong to the group but were not in the sample
best sample is a random sample – everyone in the population has an equal chance of being included in the study

17. Methods for Studying Social Problems
Experiment
Divide people who have certain characteristics two groups
Experimental group – the half of the group that is exposed to a certain experience
How this group responds is thought to be generalizable to the people who share their characteristics
Control group – the half of the group that does not have the experience
Rare in the study of social problems because ethics does not allow researchers to create problems for people
Field Study/Participant Observation
Researchers go into a setting that they want to learn more about
Provides very detailed information

18. Methods for Gathering Information
After choosing a research design, sociologists must decide how to gather their information.
Four basic techniques:
Interview
Researcher asks people questions on the topics that are being explored
Structured interview – ask everyone the same questions
May lack in-depth feelings and perspectives
Unstructured interview – let people talk in depth about their experiences but will make sure everyone covers specific areas

19. Methods for Gathering Information
Questionnaire
Ask people to answer written questions
Open ended questions(people answer in their own words)
More in-depth comments, attitudes, and topics
closed ended (people choose from a list of prepared answers)
Easier to compare answers
Documents
Written sources or records can provide valuable data about social problems
Official records (ex. Census data or hospital records)
Informal records (ex. Journals, blogs, s, and letters)

20. Methods for Gathering Information
Observation
Observe what is occurring in some setting
Watch and listen to what is taking place and record or take field notes on people’s actions or what they say
Overt observation – identify self as a researcher
Covert observation – people in the setting are not aware that they are being studied
Sociologists often combine methods of
gathering information in one research topic.

21. Striving for Accuracy and Objectivity
When doing research, it is essential to remain objective.
It is important to ask neutral questions that do not involved the researcher’s personal opinion.
Researchers must prevent biases from influencing research.
Sample Questions
What is your opinion of abortion?
What is your opinion on forcing
a woman to have a baby when she
wants an abortion?
What is your opinion about
killing babies by abortion?
Do you favor or oppose abortion?

22. Should sociologists take sides?
The four research methods allow us to gather objective information on social problems, but they do not reveal what attitude or social policy is “correct”.
Because sociology is not equipped to make judgments about values and morality, sociology cannot tell us what side to take.
However, every sociologist is going to have their own subjective concerns about social problems.