Social Problems 5 th Edition, Chapter One
A Response
Tyler Martin
620960
4/19/202
SOC103
In the first chapter of Social Problems: An introduction to Critical
Constructionism, Robert Heiner describes his sociological viewpoint, a rhetoric through
which to view what he terms “Social Problems.” This chapter, while certainly being
interesting and informative, does have some issues that jump out at me. I find myself
thrust been intermittent agreement, disagreement, and confusion at different points
during this chapter, and I feel as full an examination as I can give that in the roughly 90
minutes I have left to produce this paper is essential to delivering a proper review.
Heiner's central point in this chapter is to introduce his concept of social
problems and their relation to sociology, how it relates to more classically defined
sociological perspectives, and utilize it all to begin the first earnest examinations of
society in the book. There is a stark dichotomy in this chapter between his insistence
on crafting as objective a discipline as possible and his rather illuminating examination
of American society, which seems to tear me between two philosophical ideas he,
himself, doesn't explicitly acknowledge.
The first couple pages, as I read, I met with trepidation. He begins by describing
sociology as a field, after pointing out that the study of social problems is a
subdiscipline rather than a focus of the more broad sociology. He marks the distinction
between the natural and social sciences well. Acknowledging that social sciences are,
by their nature, less completely objective than the natural, he argues quite well that,
despite its heightened subjectivity, sociology is a valid science. An essential part of
discussing sociology as a science is first reflecting on its status compared to the hard
sciences. I completely followed him up to this point.
Where he first begins to lose me is in his definition of social problems. It starts off
well enough, with him describing how crime can benefit society. This is used to show that
value judgments of good or bad can hinder one's understanding of an issue. It's in his
definition proper of the “social problems perspective” that I begin to raise my eyebrow. “A
phenomenon,” he asserts, “does not become a social problem because of its inherent
badness.” Rather, its ascension to the status of social problem is entirely external, when
a “social movement organization” acknowledges it as such (Heiner, 4).
Now, he does source this, and it's clearly a perspective shared by a sizable portion
of the sociological community. The idea is to provide a more objective lens through which
to view sociology. However, his implementation of it deosn't ring quite true to me. The
best example is in his analysis of child abuse.
He first points out that child abuse has been around for much of human history,
and that it was largely ignored. “That is to say,” he reminds us, “it did not meet our
definition of a social problem” (Heiner, 4). An unfortunate side effect of this is that
underrepresented issues are not social problems, and therefore, implicitly, not worthy of
discussion by sociologists. I find that viewpoint rather limiting, and especially when
contrasted with the subject of child labor, it seems to downplay the significance of issues
that don't have a patron. In the pursuit of objectivity, something seems to have been lost.
Why must sociologists wait for an influential group to acknowledge an issue? A proactive
approach is seen when he describes conflict theory only a page turn later. He describes
that “many conflict theorists take on an activist role,” asserts the philosophy's objectivity
“may be compromised,” and admits that, despite this, “conflict theory is highly regarded
among sociologists” (Heiner, 8). I'm a little puzzled, therefore, he puts so much emphasis
on his concept of social issues. He's right in saying that child abuse was not considered
a social issue at the time, but in the way he earlier describes how sociologists relate to
social issues, he implicitly implies that child abuse was not worth a sociological analysis
before the 60's. This glaring limitation is one he partially resolves later in the chapter by
distinguishing issues that are not social problems as “phenomenons”, but I hope that
later in the book this discrepancy is better rectified.
This issue is further illuminated in how he describes the development of child labor
into a social issue. He does not acknowledge the radiologists he credits with highlighting
the issue may have had a moral reason to tackle child abuse and make it a social
problem. Rather, he implies the driving force behind it was “to gain more prestige within
the profession” (Heiner, 5). This is a clear generalization of the radiologists involved, and
was shocking to me to read. In the pursuit of objectivity, it seems there has been an
erasure of any moral context whatsoever.
His later critiques of capitalism all hit home, however. He seems to relax his
objectivity-obsessed stance on social issues, and the text is much the better for it. I
found myself learning quite a lot and agreeing with much that was stated. The emphasis
on mega-conglomerates' media control was incredibly important, and somewhat
reminded me of Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky.
In all, I thought the latter half of the chapter was incredibly strong and informative.
He is at his best when he worries less about objectivity, and more on presenting and
dissecting social issues. However, his focus on a staunch definition of social problems in
the first part of the chapter brings an uneasy amount of focus to objectivity over activism.
It hurts his analysis to be caught up in this caged space, which is especially clear when
comparing his analysis of child abuse to his analysis of power dynamics, which I thought
was very strong. I hope throughout the book he maintains his looser focus on objectivity
and strict definitions of social problems seen in the latter half. Either way, this chapter
was incredibly informative, and I'm excited to see what he covers in the next.
Works Cited
“An Introduction to the Sociology of Social Problems.” Social Problems: an
Introduction to Critical Constructionism, by Robert Heiner, Oxford University Press, 2016,
pp. 1–23.
