The Evolution of SOCIAL PROBLEMS:
1916: Sociology and Social Problems. Assistant Professor Woods. The principles of sociology with special reference to the possibility of social advance; the course constitutes a general introduction to the problems of modern social life.
1926: Social Ideas and Problems in Modern Literature. Professor Bowen. This course will aim to interpret present day social movements and problems as expressed in the most important works of European and American novelists and dramatists. Special attention will be given to the most significant of the post-war writers.
1931: Cultural Lags, Trends and Problems in Modern Civilization. This course aims to describe and interpret the most significant changes, lags, trends and problems with modern culture. A large part of the material used in the course will be drawn from contemporary literature. The trends and problems studied will be those connected with the phenomena of science, of the machine and its effects, of religion, of changing moral standards, of sex and the family, and of the individual and his place in modern culture.
1946: Social Problems. This course is intended to introduce the student to some of our contemporary dynamic society. This subject matter is considered a framework of social change, cultural lag, and social disorganization. Problems of the individual are first considered, including those of adolescence, juvenile delinquency, and personal disorganization.
1952: Population Problems. Assistant Professor Merrill. This course deals with the relationships between population and society. The emphasis is placed upon the social implications of contemporary changes in the quantity and quality of population. The course opens with a discussion of the nature of population problems, the historic growth of population, and the various explanations of that growth. The second section deals with the social factors which determine the birth and death rates and includes an examination of contemporary trends therein. The third section is concerned with the composition of the population in terms of age, sex, race, and quality. The movements of population are then considered, with particular reference to mobility and migration in Europe and America. The course concludes with a study of contemporary trends in world population, with particular attention to the current situation of the United States, the Soviet Union, India and Eire.
1970: Social Problems. Associate Professor Segal. An introduction to the sociological investigation of such problems as delinquency, drug use, sexual deviance, racial conflict, suicide, homicide, mental illness, and organized crime. Although the particular problems considered will vary from year to year, the course will always expose the student to classical sociological explanations of social problems such as the theories of anomie, interaction process, functional analysis, secondary deviance, and frustration-aggression.
1970: Social Diagnosis. Professor Mullins. The process of discovery and evaluation of social problems is the focus of this course. The discovery and recognition of hidden problems by agencies, political leaders and others is a major area of concern. Students will be directed to search for a problem, an evaluation of its size and scape, a search for alternative solutions, and an evaluation of the effectiveness of solutions.
2018: Social Problems. Professor McCabe. Daily news reports direct much of our attention to social problems such as crime, poverty, prejudice and political corruption. Yet rarely are such reports accompanied by a discussion of the systematic causes of these problems. More often we become witness to an endless stream of media coverage reporting seemingly isolated incidents. Seldom are we informed of the decision-making process by which some social problems become selected for coverage, while others are ignored. The purpose of this course is to subject the coverage of modern social problems to an in-depth, critical analysis. We will attempt to answer such questions as: “how does a social problem become defined as such?” and “what are the causes or sources of various social problems?”