Social problems such as unemployment, poverty and drug addiction are a fact of life in industrialised societies. This book examines the sociology of social problems from interesting and challenging perspectives. It analyses how social problems emerge and are defined as such, who takes responsibility for them, who is threatened by them and how they are managed, solved or ignored. The authors examine and critique existing theories of social problems before developing their own theoretical framework. Their 'theory of residualist conversion of social problems' explains how certain social problems threaten legitimate power structures, so that problems of a social or political nature are transformed into personal problems, and the 'helping professions' are left to intervene. This book will become a key reference on class, inequality and social intervention and an important text for students in sociology and social work courses.
List of tables; List of figures; Preface and acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: theoretical perspectives on social problems; 2. Contemporary perspectives on social problems; 3. Methods of intervention in social problems; 4. Social actors in social problems; 5. Challenges of contemporary social problems; 6. Social problems in the residualist conversion perspective; 7. Inequality: the underlying universal issue in social problems; 8. The social contruction of family problems; 9. The problem of social order; 10. The theory of residualist conversion: does it meet the test?; 11. Conclusions and implications; Bibliography; Index.
