Understanding Social Problems

This chapter talks about how science and technology shape society and how they connect to broader issues like social change, inequality, and even war and terrorism. Science focuses on explaining and predicting natural and social events, while technology applies those discoveries to everyday problems. Although, new innovations often come with technological dualism , meaning they bring both positive outcomes, like more efficiency and medical advancements, but also negative ones, like job loss or environmental damage. As societies moved from mechanization in manual labor to digital and automated systems, changes sometimes happened faster than that culture could adapt to, leading to culture lag . From a sociological perspective, functionalism sees science, technology, and war as meeting certain societal needs by promoting stability, unity, and problem-solving, even if they can also create dysfunction. Conflict theory argues that these developments mainly benefit powerful groups such as ...

 This week's chapter on environmental issues talks about some of the most difficult challenges we face today, and environmental sociology helps us understand how human behavior affects and is affected by the natural world. Concepts like demography , the study of population trends, and migration , the movement of people across regions, show how population patterns relate to resource use, pollution, and sustainability. These problems also highlight specific social inequalities: environmental inequality and environmental racism reveal that low-income communities and communities of color are often the most exposed to pollution, toxic waste, and climate-related hazards. Different sociological perspectives help explain these issues in individual ways. Functionalism sees society as a system where all parts work together and views severe environmental problems as dysfunctions that disrupt social stability. Conflict theory focuses on how power and the pursuit of profit drive environ...

In chapter 8, it talks about urbanization, the shift of populations from rural areas into cities, which has shaped communities from ancient settlements like Jericho and Aleppo , both early examples of long-inhabited cities, to modern U.S. urban centers expanded through immigration , the large arrival of new citizens from other countries, and industrialization , the movement toward factory-based production that drew people to live near workplaces. Early cities struggled with limited sanitation , meaning the absence of effective systems to manage waste, which led to disease, while later cities experienced social problems such as crime , identified in the notes as one of the harms intensified by rapid urban growth. The displacement of Seneca Village , a 19th-century African American settlement removed for the construction of Central Park, reflects how urban development has reshaped communities. Contemporary issues such as gentrification , defined in the notes as neighborhood changes driv...

 In this chapter, it talks about how race , ethnicity , sex , gender , and sexuality all affect inequality in society. Race is the idea that people can be grouped based on physical traits like skin color or facial features, but scientists and sociologists say these differences don’t have a real biological meaning. Instead, race is a social construction , which means it’s something society created and gave meaning to, not something that actually defines who people are. Ethnicity is more about shared culture, history, and traditions that make groups unique, like language or social customs/norms. The chapter also explains it through the three main sociological perspectives. Functionalism sees inequality as dysfunctional because it stops society from reaching its full potential. Conflict theory says inequality happens because groups fight over power and  resources , and the dominant group tries to stay in control. Symbolic interactionism focuses on how labels and  mean...