GNED 500

What Did You Learn About the Social Problem?

Now that we have explored the different parts of the triangle model, we can see how the social problem we are investigating may end up being far more complex than we initially imagined. We have a sense of how social problems are tied to other social issues that impact people. (To look at how any one social problem can intersect with other issues, jump ahead to the Social Problems Intersect with Other Issues section of this module.) We also understand how our individual experiences and perception, ideologies, and social institutions are all bound up together by structures of power, through laws and public policies. And we see how social problems are created and shaped by these forces. Finally, we explored how discourses affect how we view and respond to a social problem.

At this point, you might want to think about how researching the social problem made you engage in self-analysis. How did your research help you identify the filters that affected your perceptions of the social problem? How might these filters play a role in perpetuating the social problem?

When thinking through the complexity of the social problem, we can, of course, consider different ways to resolve or address the social problem. This is the focus of our next sub-topic.