Today, 'Social Problems' is considered a sub-discipline of Sociology. Sociology is a very vast field, encompassing such sub-disciplines as the sociology of family, sociology of crime and delinquency, sociology of education, sociology of environment, etc.
Drug abuse, alcoholism, ageing, population explosion, corruption, AIDS, inequality, child abuse, terrorism, pollution, poverty, environmental degradation, unemployment and crime against women are not individual problems but affect the society at large. An individual problem is one which affects one individual or one group. Its resolution lies within the immediate milieu of the individual/group. Against this, a societal issue is one which affects the society as a whole, or the larger part of society. The sociologist's job is to understand the complexity of these problems and their relatedness to social structure, to study the operation of varied patterns of interrelationships in the society and how people are affected by them, and observe how social systems need to be reorganized and restructured in dealing with them.
The Concept of Social Problem
A social problem is a condition or set of events that some people in society view as being undesirable. A social problem has been defined as "a situation confronting a group or a section of society which inflicts injurious conse quences that can be handled only collectively". Thus, no one individual or a few individuals are responsible for the appearance of a socially problematic situation, and the control of this situation is also beyond the ability of one person or a few persons. This responsibility is placed upon society at large. Walsh and Furfey (1961: 1) have defined a social problem as a "deviation from the social ideal remediable by group effort". Two elements are important in this definition: (i) a situation which is less than ideal, that is, which is undesirable or abnormal; and (ii) one which is remediable by collective effort. Though it is not easy to determine which situation is ideal and which is not, and there is no definite standard which could be used to judge it, yet it is clear that a social ideal is not something arbitrary and the term 'social problem' is applied only to that 'issue' which social ethics (which describes human conduct as right and wrong in group relations), and society (which is concerned with the promotion of the common good or the welfare of its members and the preservation of public order) consider as unfavourable The 'issue' should also be such as is beyond an individual to handle it by himself. If an individual wants a job and has to compete with others for getting it, then it is merely an individual problem. Likewise, if an individual has become addicted to drugs and has to seek admission to a psychiatric institute or a community centre for deaddiction, that is his/her personal problem. On the other hand, if 35 million persons are unemployed in villages and cities in a country, and no single individual can do anything effective about it, what is needed to solve the problem is an organized group or social effort. Thus, a problem may be an individual problem under one set of circumstances and a social problem under another.
But social problems change with the passage of time. What was not considered a social problem a few decades ago may become a crucial social problem today or two decades later. For example, the population explosion in our country was not viewed as a social problem up to the late 40s of the 20th century but from the early 1950s it has come to be perceived as a very crucial socio-economic problem. Social change creates new conditions in which an issue comes to be identified as a social problem. Similarly, youth unrest in India was not a problem upto the 1940s but in the 1950s and the 1960s it became a problem and in the 1970s and the 1980s it became a very serious one and continues to be so even today.
Let us examine a few more viewpoints on the concept of 'social problem. Fuller and Myers (1941: 320) have defined a social problem as " condition which is defined by a considerable number of persons as a deviation from some social norms which they cherish". Merton and Nisbet (1971: 184) hold that a social problem is "a way of behaviour that is regarded by substantial part of a social order as being in violation of one or more generally accepted or approved norms". This definition may apply to some problems like alcoholism, corruption and communalism, but not to problems like population explosion. Some problems are created not by the abnormal and deviant behaviour of the individuals but by the normal and accepted behaviour. Raab and Selznick (1959: 32) maintain that a social problem is "a problem in human relationships which seriously threatens society or impedes the important aspirations of many people". According to Carr (1955: 306), "a social problem exists whenever we become conscious of a difficulty, a gap between our preferences and reality". Blumer (1971: 19) writes that "social problems involve actions or patterns of behaviour that are viewed by a substantial number of persons in the society as being deleterious to the society or in violation of societal norms, and about which ameliorative action is seen as both possible and desirable". Landis (1959) is of the opinion that "social problems are men's unfulfilled aspirations for welfare". Case (1976: 310) has said that "a social problem refers to any situation which attracts the attention of a considerable number of competent observers within a society and appeals to them as calling for readjustment or remedy by social (that is, collective)
action of some kind or other". Horton and Leslie (1970: 4) write that a social problem is "a condition affecting a significant number of people in ways considered undesirable, about which it is felt that something can be done through collective social action". Though this definition emphasizes that a social problem is a condition
"affecting a significant number of people" it does not give the exact number of people who must be affected. It only points out that 'enough people' should be affected so that notice is taken of it and people begin to talk and write about it. One way of 'measuring public concern' about a condition is to assess the number of articles devoted to it in popular magazines. Thus, the problem of 'environmental pollution' in India was not taken up earnestly till the beginning of the 1980s, manifested by the fact that not many articles appeared on this issue in newspapers and magazines. The appearance of numerous articles in the last twenty years or so indicates that the condition has attracted widespread consideration, and has become a social problem.
Another element in the definition which needs attention is "in ways considered undesirable". The custom of sati in India was not a social problem as long as most people thought it was desirable. When Raja Ram Mohan Roy took initiative and a considerable number of people came to support him and started criticizing the practice as harmful and awful, only then did the custom turn into a social problem. In recent times, it was only after the incident of Roop Kanwar, a 21-year-old Rajput girl, who committed sati on the funeral pyre of her husband in Deorala in Sikar district in Rajasthan in September 1987 that this practice came to be condemned, and an Act was passed in February 1988 in the state of Rajasthan prescribing serious penalty for persons forcing a woman to commit sati.
A social problem, thus, involves a value judgement, a feeling that a condition is detrimental and requires change, Political corruption came to be viewed as a social problem only after the 1970s, though it was prevalent in our country earlier too. Issues like wife battering and child abuse are yet to be accepted as serious social problems.
Conditions that cannot be changed or evaded are also not accepted as social problems. Thus, famine was not considered a social problem until recently because of the widespread belief that the scantiness of rains was the result of the wrath of the rain-god. Today, famine in states like Rajasthan is viewed as a social problem and is seen to be the result of the failure on the part of government to complete the Rajasthan Canal because of the scarcity of economic resources and such similar reasons. The scarcity of drinking water became a social problem only when it was realized that it was not a misfortune to be endured but "something could be done to remove this scarcity. Thus, it is the belief and hope in the possibility of prevention and treatment that causes people to consider situation as a social problem.
The last portion in the definition of Horton and Leslie is 'collective action'. A social problem cannot be solved by an individual or a few individuals. All social problems are social in treatment, that is, it is believed that they can be tackled only by public concern, discussion, opinion formation and pressure.
According to Weinberg (1960: 4), social problems are "behaviour patterns or conditions which arise from social processes and are considered so objec tionable or undesirable by many members of a society that they recognize that corrective policies, programmes and services are necessary to cope with them" Weinberg gives six characteristics of social problems as under:
- Social problems arise by being collectively defined as objectionable by many members of the community. Thus, adverse conditions not defined by the community as reprehensible are not considered as social problems. For example, if taking alcohol is not regarded as objectionable by society, it is not considered a social problem. But as society recognizes and discusses the problems inherent in alcohol consumption, studies its consequences and devises a plan of corrective action to control it, it comes to be defined as a social problem even though the original situation may not have changed.
- Social problems change when the concerned behavioural patterns are interpreted differently. For example, till a few decades ago, mental illness was viewed as insanity and it was considered so disgraceful that the families kept the member's mental illness a secret. Now, the behaviour of a mentally-ill person is seen only as one type of 'deviant behaviour which requires psychiatric and social treatment. Thus, the problem of mental illness today is met more realistically and effectively.
- Mass media (newspapers, internet, television, radio, movies) play an important role in creating awareness about the scope and urgency of social problems.
- Social problems have to be viewed in the context of society's values and institutions; for example, the problem of racial conflict in the United
- States is different from the problem of untouchability in India. 5. Social problems need to be analysed in terms of the influences upon them by group processes and social relationships.
- Since social problems vary historically, contemporary social problems are the society's concern, that is, the problem of refugee settlement in India in 1947-48 was different from the problem of settling refugees from Assam in 1968, or the Tamils from Sri Lanka in 1988-89, or the Indians from Kuwait and Iraq in September 1990. Similarly, the problem of immigrants in the United Kingdom in 1988 was different than it was in 1967 or 1947.
Characteristics of Social Problems
On the basis of the above definitions, we can identify the following character- istics of social problems:
- All social problems are situations which have injurious consequences for society.
- All social problems are deviations from the 'ideal' situation.
- All social problems have some common basis of origin.
- All social problems are social in origin.
- All social problems are caused by pathological social conditions.
- All social problems are interconnected.
- All social problems are social in their results, that is, they affect all sections of society.
- The responsibility for social problems is social, that is, they require a collective approach for their solution.
- All social problems occur in all societies.
Reactions to Social Problems
Different people react differently to social problems. The differences may be explained in terms of the following four factors:
(i) An attitude of unconcern: Many people remain indifferent to a problem thinking that it does not affect them. Sometimes their own individual problems like family tensions and job pressures keep them so
Social Problem in India