Sociology and social policy

Positivism and functionalism

The power to define the problem

Influence of sociology on social policy

Social problems & sociological problems

The New Right

Feminism

Marxism

The social democratic perspective

Social problems:
Peter Worsley, a social problem is a piece of social behaviour that causes public friction and/or misery and calls for collective action to solve it

Electoral popularity: research findings and recommendations may point to a policy unpopular with voters

Any policy is a result of a political decision by those in power

Early positivists Comte & Durkheim see sociology as a science and want to discover the cause of social problems and scientifically based solutions - linked to the Enlightenment project e.g. Durkheim wants a meritocratic education for social cohesion

Favours major redistribution of wealth

Social policies serve the interest of capitalism:

  • provide ideological legitimation to mask capitalist exploitation, e.g. welfare give capitalism a 'human face'
  • maintain labour force for further exploitation
  • prevent revolution when class conflict intensify and capitalism stability threatened

state perpetuates women's subordination through social policies

  • family policies may assume normal is conventional nuclear family and offer benefits to this, producing a self-fulfilling prophecy encouraging this family type making it more difficult for others

Influence of New Right thinking:

  • attractive to Conservative party
  • some labour policies have some influence of new right views e.g. New Labour seeing married couple as normally best place to bring up a child
  • strong 'law and order' policy and research by right realists like Wilson and Kelling influential in zero-tolerance policies
  • research used has been questioned e.g. validity of data Murray uses for link between absent fathers and delinquency
  • new right policy proposals often use findings of politically sympathetic think tanks

Ideological and policy preferences of government: if the researches value-stance & perspective is similar to gov political ideology they stand more chance of influencing its policies

Interest groups: pressure groups that seek to influence gov policies in their own interest

Globalisation: international organisations may influence social policies of individual govs

Critical sociology: sociologists like Marxists that are critical of the state & powerful groups may be too extreme, hostile or impractical to influence policy

Cost: government may not have sufficient funds to implement an appropriate policy based on findings, or may have other spending priorities and committments

Funding sources: sociologists may tone down funding and policy recommendations to fit paymasters wishes, policymakers may recruit sociologists that share assumptions and political values, research findings may be used to justify what policymakers intended to do in the first place, similarly they may turn to a particular think tank they think will give the result they want

Social scientists ideas sometimes become part of mainstream culture and influence the way people see social problems, this can affect policies gov produce, this can make people favour policies reflecting social science-derived ideas e.g. John Bowlby idea of young children relationships with mothers being important influencing childcare policies

those in power are the ones that can define what is and isnt a problem, and what (if anything) should be done about it

Sociological problems:
Worsley, a sociological problem is any piece of behaviour that we wish to make sense of, it can be a social problem or 'normal' behaviour. Some sociologists want to discover knowledge for its own sake, others want to solve social problems.

Both see the sociologists role as providing the state objective, scientific info, investigating social polices for the state to base policies

Functionalists society is based on value consensus and free from fundamental conflicts, like positivists they see the state as social policies for the good of all, helping society

Sociologist is like a medical researcher, investigating and providing possible 'pure' by policy recommendations

Functionalists favour 'piecemeal social engineering'

Peter Townsend, sociologists should research social problems and make policy to eradicate them

The Black Report (1980):

  • on class inequalities in health
  • 37 far-reaching policy recommendations to reduce deep-routed inequalities
  • example, FSMs for all children
  • Labour gov commissioned report in 1977, completed 1980, a year after Thatcher gov but her gov refused to implement as too expensive and tried to restrict publication

Criticisms:

  • Marxists reject far reaching policies, only solution abolition of capitalism - capitalist state unlikely to introduce costly public spending policies to benefit the W/C, rational social policies fall on deaf ears
  • Postmodernists, no objective truth, sociological findings cannot be a good basis for policy-making, sociologists can only be 'interpreters' with one view, not 'legislators' (lawmakers) like functionalists and social democrats try to do

social policies sometimes provide real benefits, but gains constantly threatened by reversal by capitalism tendency to go into crises of profitability, leading to welfare cuts

research that reveals truth about social problems capitalism creates will not be used to formulate policy

only solution overthrowing of capitalism & a classless society

sociologists main role is to criticise social policy, not serve it, reveal exploitation underpinning capitalism and how ruling class use it to their advantage

Critics say this is impractical and unrealistic

  • social democrats criticise for rejecting idea research can bring progressive policies within capitalist system

impacted several policy areas e.g. education training to stop gender-bias of teachers ; most of these liberal feminist

radical feminist ideas have had some influence, regard men as oppressors, especially through family, favouring separatism

  • one policy reflecting this is refugees for women escaping domestic violence like Women's Aid Federation supporting >500 services, often with gov funding

feminist sociological research has impacted social policies in areas impacting women, partially due to broader feminist movement gaining traction since 1970s

marxist and radical feminists call for more far-reaching changes that the existing state cannot deliver

state should have minimal involvement in society, especially welfare to deal with social problems as state intervention in certain areas robs people of their freedom to make their own choices and undermines their sense of responsibility (leading to greater social problems like crime)

Charles Murray generous welfare benefits act as 'perverse incentives' that weaken the families self-reliance, encouraging growth of a dependency culture and underclass

  • need a reduction in state spending on welfare

highly critical of many existing policies, but not opposed to social policy, role of social policy to propose alternative policies that restore individuals responsibility for own welfare

Breakdown Britain:

  • a report by conservative think tank, the Social Justice Policy Group (2007)
  • new social policies aimed at family e.g. parenting classes
  • reports main trust was the give citizens responsibility for their own welfare
  • social policy should enable people to help themselves, rather than welfare state attempting and failing to do it for them