Paper Example on Sociological Theory Assessment

Introduction

Ideally, people experience social problems personally. For instance, some people may be unemployed, have poor health, family problems, or even commit a crime. In these aspects, sociology uses different approaches by stressing that individual issues are rooted in difficulties, which stream from societal elements. Personal problems may come about due to own and personal failings of an individual. These comprise of unemployment issues, divorce, and eating disorders. On the other hand, public problems arise from the culture and social structure of a given society. This paper will focus on the social problem of unemployment and use functionalist and conflict, and symbolic interactionist theories to explain it while providing the possible solutions.

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The Aspect of The Problem That the Theory Will Focus and Causal Factors

In the social problem of unemployment, the theory will focus majorly on macro-structure/ perspectives. However, the micro perspective of symbolic interactionist will also come into play. As sociologists study the human society, they tend to include human behaviour in a range of social contexts like social institutions, interaction, as well as social organization. Due to the various social circumstances that sociologists study, the thrive on unemployment (Loseke 12). Among the employed and unemployed individuals, conflict is evident in different areas such as gender, race, age, and disability. Sociologists affirm that unemployment can be studied through functionalist theory and conflict theory. The sociological perspective touches upon results of unemployment in different societies and institutions like government, family, health, and education. When one is employed, they have some amount of power both in the work environment and own life. Once they get unemployed, a person would become powerless and desperate for a source of income (Wallace 21). Importantly, functionalists argue that unemployment fulfils vital roles in the society. However, unemployment may cause human misery and increase individual stratification in society. The issue is important in the creation of work for the welfare agencies, as well as linking of counselors and staff. As such, people are available to undertake menial work that other people are not interested in undertaking.

Additionally, sociologists use conflict theory to express their arguments about the issue of unemployment. Karl Marx uses the conflict theory to explain the societal aspects. In his theory, he asserts that social stratification and conflict over power and use of resources distort social order. In essence, individuals in power tend to misuse the least powerful people in the society. As the unemployed lose power, they depend on the government as their sole income provider (Wallace 25). Ideally, the symbolic interactionist theory explains how employment gives meaning, as well as self-worth to people. In most cases, friends have more positive views towards unemployed individuals than their families and employers. Based on this theory, the duration of unemployment moderates the effects of appraisal on the self-worth of an individual.

What Might Be Considered Solutions

The problem of unemployment can be solved by improving the methods used to accumulate and disseminate information on the available jobs. Through this, people will identify the potential job centers and database thereby reducing the time spent on the unemployment roll. Provision of education and training programs to the young people with the focus on vocational skills will equip the youth with the expertise to fit in the job market (Loseke 18). Regarding the structural solution, government spending should be labour intensive while taxing needs to target capital-intensive products and sectors. As such, more hours will be used for production that creates many job opportunities for the unemployed.

Works Cited

Loseke, Donileen. Thinking about social problems: An introduction to constructionist perspectives. London: Routledge, 2017.

Wallace, Walter. Sociological theory. London: Routledge, 2017.