Reflecting on a Constructionist Approach to Social Problems

Mary Siebert

Constructionist Approach

• The Constructionist Approach is a theory that focuses on how to recognize, understand, examine, and respond to the social problems process, and how all social problems have a commonality of how they are socially constructed.
• The Constructionist Approach has been used to break down the pieces and parts of the social problems process and analyze how society uses each piece, such as the claimsmakers, the claim, the media, public reaction, policymaking, social problems work, and policy outcomes. It has provided examples to help further understand each step in the process.
• This approach was used to help readers understand how the social problems process works rather than to tell the reader what to think about different social conditions. For example, on page 338, Best writes, “By adopting a constructionist stance, we can identify interesting questions that we might ask about a set of claims. Is the problem clearly defined, or are we encouraged to understand it primarily through typifying examples?” I think this is a good example of how the constructionist approach was used because instead of just deciding if the claim/ problem affects me, I should be asking myself if I understand what the problem is first.

Reflection

• My favorite topic that we covered was policy outcomes. For that topic, we did a blog post covering three different policies including The Economic Opportunity Act, which focused on anti-poverty, The Endangered Species Act, and the McKinney-Vento Homelessness Assistance Act of 1987. I enjoyed this topic and the blog post because it was interesting to research different policies, what they did to help alleviate the social problem they were addressing, and how they weren’t as effective as they could have been.
• The most difficult topic that we covered was also policy outcomes. While doing the blog post, it was difficult to understand some of the language used in the official documents, so it took longer than expected. It also required researching additional topics within the policies themselves in order to understand them.
• A process like this helps develop my critical thinking skills by challenging me and making me question what I have been taking at face value. For example, prior to this class, most of the things that I see on social media, unless it is just totally bizarre, I believe to be true. It also has required me to really understand what the social problem is that is being presented to me. An example of this would be the media attention topic that we covered in class and did a blog post on. It made me think a lot more about how the media grasps the attention of the public. It’s interesting how many ways one message can be changed to reach all different kinds of people.
• This class has helped me think about what problems are and how they have addressed in society by understanding the social problems process more and understanding how problems are addressed. I didn’t really understand what the social problems process was until we dove into it. Now I realize that all these social problems are constantly being advertised. It’s interesting that now know if you are unhappy with something so much to make a change, YOU are the one that can make change happen. Not the people in fancy suits in corporate offices. By making a claim and drawing enough attention to it, something that you have an issue with can be brought to the attention of a lot of other people and that change can happen. An example of this would be in our blog Social Problems Process & The McDonald’s Example. In this post, we discussed how Phil Sokolof was so concerned with the heart attack that he suffered, he wanted to make a change in the fast food industry- and he did just that.

John Mason Reynolds

Constructionist Approach

• According to the text, the Constructionist Approach is justified as intellectually coherent. The Constructionist Approach is intended to give the reader some tools for recognizing, thinking about, and responding to social problems claims. This approach offers useful information for would-be claimsmakers. This book uses this approach by focusing on a general topic of the social problems process. Meaning that it has focused on the insight that the only thing the various conditions called social problems have in common is that they are socially constructed. The book provides the example of the emergence of Facebook pages as forums for claims and of news bulletins transmitted to cell phones and other portable electronic devices. This approach is used instead of others because by using this approach, it is easier to identify interesting questions that one might ask about a set of claims.

Reflection

• Throughout the semester, my blog group has completed numerous blog posts about several social problems. The thing I liked best was our fourth blog post when we talked about drunk driving. Drunk driving is a serious issue and has impacted people close to me in my life. We identified the issue, named organizations that are fighting the issue and provided awareness about the issue. The most difficult thing that we dealt with during the semester was the blog post that we did about saving our oceans. What made it difficult was finding a way to relate saving our oceans to what we did our civic engagement project on. We couldn’t go to the beach and make the example of the trash at the beach. However, we were able to go to Lake Murray and make an example of the trash found there. The process that we used this semester helped develop my critical thinking skills because I have never really had to analyze a social problem and break it down into segments before. This class allowed me the opportunity to do so, and by doing that, it strengthened my critical thinking skills. For example, the blog post we did about keeping our oceans clean allowed me to really look into the issue at hand more so than I would have before. Social Problems has helped me think about what social problems are and how they are addressed in society by opening up my eyes to what is really going on in todays world. The blog post that really opened up my eyes was the one we did on the Michigan State trainer who was convicted of sexually harassing over 100 athletes.

Naomi Killian

Constructionist Approach

• The general idea for the constructionist approach is that it is intellectually coherent. This approach is intended to give you some tools for recognizing, thinking about, and responding to social problem claims. This is used more than others because new problems are always arising and in the future there will be more claims that we will have to deal with. An example the book uses is how much technology and media that can create new claims.

Reflection

• In this class what I like best was the fact that we actually got to what we planned for our social problem. My group for the civic engagement I chose the topic about the oceans. For a blog post we had to talk about our experience. So my group and I went to lake Murray to clean up the trash that was on the lake. In our blog post we put up pictures of what we did and had information about how to keep the oceans clean. I think the most difficult thing was actually getting people to participate in our civic engagement. Newberry isn’t a place where a lot of students want to give up their Sunday’s to pick up trash, but we did get a few people out there. We also talked about this in a blog post we did because we had to talk about what our experience was and how we deal with the problems at hand. I think the whole process from doing the civic engagement to even listening to the things we talk about in class have improved my critical thinking skills. I realize when it comes to problem solving things aren’t black and white. There is a huge grey area. We talked about a lot of these kinds of things in class and it definitely made me thing about solving social problems differently. An example of my experience in this would be when I actually got to sit down and listen to an officer talk about police brutality. It was another groups civic engagement and I attended. The officer talked about his opinion on police brutality and how his department is trying to change that. On one of the blogs we did we talked about problem solving and what we would do to solve the problems of childhood obesity. I think this class has opened my eyes to see how as a society we solve problems. There are many steps to this process and they can be hard problems to solve if not everyone is on board. One of the blogs we did was about homelessness and what laws are associated with helping homeless people and how the laws in place might not be good ones to follow.

Taylor Garrison

Constructionist Approach

• The Constructionist Approach is a way to understand and define a social problem and its process. This process has been used when breaking down issues in the way of social media and other forms of news and information as given as an example in the reading. This specific approach makes it the most commonly used and useful because it allows you to be able to think and respond and understand social issues that are current.

Reflection

• My favorite part of the class was the actual civic engagement project my group and I did. It was really enjoyable being able to pick out a social problem we all had interest in and actually become and active part in helping voice the issue.
• The most difficult one was also our civic engagement project because we had to go through the entire social problems process and make a claim why our topic was important. It was difficult getting other students and other class members to support our opinions because they had their own.
• This developed my critical thinking skills in a way of thinking about the counter argument to my own to make sure that I am stating a good enough claim to get more support behind my beliefs. This makes me think back to the McDonald’s blog because we had the two different men with the two polar opposite opinions both trying to get the support of the people. We saw how McDonald’s used to be worse then how it is today and how the ingredients to the fries were changed to help benefit the health of the people.
• This class has helped with thinking about problems and issues when we looked at the drunk driving. We all know it is bad, but it still continues to happen so having to think about what is next and how to put a stop to it when there already has been massive amounts of awareness and support behind the issue.

Brandy Bowman

Constructionist Approach

• The constructionist approach is an intellectually coherent way of studying and analyzing social problems. The reader is able to see different parts of the issues present in society and find the best outcome to reach a solution. The constructionist approach is used in the book with looking at the news or in social media or in technology. This is the most commonly used approach because new problems are always arising in society.

Reflection

• What I liked best about this learning process was the clean up event that we did at Dreher Island. It was crazy to think that we actually got people to come out and support our cause, which is something that I’ve become very passionate about. It was a great experience to have people that actually work at the state park come up to us and tell us how awesome what we were doing really was. People just visiting the park were giving us thumbs up and telling us we were doing a good thing. Our blog regarding this experience was the most pleasant one.
• The most difficult blogs were the ones from topics in the book like policy and claims-making. The language and descriptions weren’t always easy to interpret and the questions we had to answer weren’t always straightforward.
• I think my critical thinking skills have improved because of the information we have been given in class and what I’ve learned from experience. I think the McDonald’s example we discussed at the beginning of the semester was very memorable and showed how advertising and publicity can make such a difference in fighting for a cause.
• I think that it’s easier to ignore the details and look at a problem from the big picture stand point. All of the things that we’ve learned has opened my eyes to how deep social problems go and how to analyze them. Every problem has a solution and in this class we were able to see how experts go about addressing social problems that exist in society everyday. Many topics we discussed like sexual harassment, drunk driving, assisted suicide, teachers and guns, all were very memorable and relevant to society.

Molly Chester

Constructionist Approach

• The constructionist approach is the non-traditional way of studying social problems and how to analyze them. By using the constructionist approach the reader can focus on different parts of the social problem to find the best possible way to come to an educated opinion on the social problem. This approach has been used in the book by examining any claims that are in the news or social media. Examining using the constructionist approach breaks down the thought processing; finding claims, policymaking, and the public’s opinion on the topic. On page, 336 it states, “If anything, claims are likely to spread via ever more channels as new media evolve (consider, for example, the relatively recent emergence of Facebook pages as forums for claims, and of new bulletins transmitted to cell phones and other portable electronic devices). People who pay even a minimal attention to the media can expect to spend their lives bombarded by such claims.” This statement proves that everyone is affected by social problems, whether or not they are aware of it.

Reflection

• My favorite part of learning about social problems was the social problems process and the McDonald’s example. This was my favorite because it showed that one person’s passion and drive can make a difference in the world and make changes for the better. It amazed me that with publicity, and incredible amounts of the money Sokolof had an immediate impact on chain fast food restaurants, not just McDonald’s which was his main victim. Claims making was the most difficult topic. This topic was a challenge because as a group you had to find a problem that everyone agrees on, and then after finding a problem you had to relate it to other people and why it is an issue for them. However, this blog showed us that everyone has their own particular issues that they are focused on and how one issue affects people differently. Social problems has helped me learn how to address hot topic debates and to think more clearly any social problem. It has shown me that perspective is reality and just because someone might have a differing opinion from mine does not mean they are wrong. My critical thinking skills have improved and I have found myself wanting more information, facts, and statistics when faced with a new social problem. While the claimsmaking blog was the most challenging, it was also one of the most rewarding. It forced us as a group to think from multiple perspectives and to think of ways our problem would affect others who are in different situations.