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The Social Context of Social Problems

To learn about social problems, how they develop, and how people work together to deal with them, it is important to understand their context: the essential features of the societies in which they arise:

1.A major aspect of social structure is social stratification, which refers to inequality among people with regard to important social factors including access to education, income, property, power, and prestige.For example, a child born into a family in the wealthiest one percent of the population is likely to be educated in private high schools where tuition and fees often equal or exceed the cost of attending America's top universities.A social institution is a continuing pattern of social relationships intended to fulfill people's basic needs and aspirations and carry out functions essential to the operation of society.Conditions generated by institutions may become social problems.2.3.4.

The Social Context of Social Problems

To learn about social problems, how they develop, and how people work together to deal with them, it is important to understand their context: the essential features of the societies in which they arise:

1. 
   

   Social structure is the expression for relatively stable patterns of social behavior and relationships among people. It means how a society is organized.

   
   


2. 
   

   A social institution is a continuing pattern of social relationships intended to fulfill people's basic needs and aspirations and carry out functions essential to the operation of society. The most important institutions include the family, education, the economy, politics and government, health care, organized religion, and the communications media. Within these broad institutions, others exist to carry out specialized functions, such as the criminal justice system within government. Conditions generated by institutions may become social problems.

   
   


3. 
   

   A major aspect of social structure is social stratification, which refers to inequality among people with regard to important social factors including access to education, income, property, power, and prestige. For example, a child born into a family in the wealthiest one percent of the population is likely to be educated in private high schools where tuition and fees often equal or exceed the cost of attending America's top universities.

   
   

Cullure

Social stratification can be a major source of social problems if inequality of access becomes too great.

4. Culture refers to the knowledge, ways of thinking, shared understandings of behavior, and physical objects that characterize a people's way of life. The elements of culture particularly important for understanding social problems are values, norms, beliefs, and symbols. Values, which define what is good, desirable, beautiful, and worth working for, are the goals that culture gives people to strive to achieve in life and, in so doing, feel fulfilled and good about themselves.