A social issue is any condition or behavior that has negative consequences for large numbers of people and that is generally recognized as a condition or behavior that needs to be addressed.

Multiple factors contribute to the complexity of social issues. A social issue emerges when a social change group successfully calls attention to a condition or behavior that it considers serious, like the protest in figure 5.3. Typically the solution to the problem needs to be systemic in nature; in other words, it cannot be solved by any one individual. This definition has both an objective component and a subjective component.

Objectivity and Social Issues

The objective component of a social issue is this: for any condition or behavior to be considered a social issue, it must have negative consequences for large numbers of people. How do we know if a social issue has negative consequences? Reasonable people can disagree on whether such consequences exist and, if so, on their extent and seriousness. However, ordinarily a body of data accumulates—based on work by academic researchers, government agencies, and other sources—that strongly points to extensive and severe consequences. The reasons for these consequences are sometimes debated.

Let us look at two examples of trends that could be considered social problems: climate change and (activation warning) sexual assault or violence. Climate change, to simplify a complex scientific concept, refers to changes in the earth’s climate due to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Although the overwhelming majority of climate scientists say that climate change is severe and accurate, the percentage of Americans who agree with scientists is lower. In a 2011 poll, 64 percent said they “think that global warming is happening” (Leiserowitz et al., 2011). While most Americans in 2020 believed that climate change is a social problem, there is still a discrepancy between the scientific community’s and the public’s views (Tyson & Kennedy, 2020).

Social identity and location influence viewpoints. Gallup polls have found that people in the West and Northeast, as well as younger adults, are more likely to believe that climate change is at least partially caused by human behavior and needs to be addressed (Reinhardt, 2018; McCarthy, 2019). Part of the issue is that the facts become subjective. How is this possible?

The social problem of sexual assault is, unfortunately, extremely common, especially among women. Sexual assault is defined as nonconsensual sexual touch according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (n.d.). However, sexual violence is experienced in different ways by different genders. According to a national study in 2018 completed by a non-profit Stop Street Harassment (SSH), 81% of women report some kind of sexual assault or harassment in their lifetime, and 43% of men reported some kind of sexual assault or harassment in their lifetime. SSH “is a volunteer-run nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting and ending gender-based street harassment worldwide through public education and community mobilization.”

When looking at numbers alone, you can see that this is an issue that has a significant impact on a large number of people in this country. Resources must be dedicated to prevention, recovery, and repairing the trust of individuals who have been impacted directly and society as a whole. It has to consider consequences, if any, for the person for the sexual violence that was committed reported is made and the survivors are believed.

Subjectivity and Social Problems

The dispute over climate change points to the subjective component of social issues. There must be a perception that the condition or behavior needs to be addressed for it to be considered a social issue, and this viewpoint can change over time and location.

This component lies at the heart of viewing social issues as a social construction, which is something that can change over time and based on location (Rubington & Weinberg, 2010). In the social constructivist view, society must agree and develop a shared understanding that the problem, in this case climate change, actually needs intervention. We can see that multiple factors contribute to climate change and that if indeed it is to be solved, it will need a systemic solution.

An example of how perceptions of social issues can change over time can be seen in the history of attention given to (activation warning) rape and sexual assault or violence in the United States before and after the 1970s. Acts of sexual violence against womxn were common in the United States before the 1970s. Although men (most common people who committed assaults) were sometimes arrested and prosecuted for, sexual violence it otherwise ignored by legal policymakers. It was perceived as an individual problem.

Sexual assault received little attention in college textbooks and the news media, and many people thought that rape and sexual assault were just something that happened (Allison & Wrightsman, 1993). Thus, although sexual violence existed, it was not considered a social issue but more of a moral or a person’s failure. This was a systemic way of blaming the victim and reinforcing patriarchy, sexism, and misogyny, with no room for empathy, accountability, or healing.

When the contemporary womxn’s movement was recognized in the late 1970s, it soon focused on rape and other forms of sexual assault and violence as serious crimes and as manifestations of womxn’s inequality, as in the protest depicted in figure 5.4. Thanks to this focus, rape and sexual assault eventually entered the public consciousness. Views of these crimes began to change, and legal policy makers started to give them more attention. In short, sexual violence against womxn became a social issue.

In more recent years, with the #MeToo movement in 2017, many more women have come forward—and even some men—to tell their stories of suffering from sexual assault and violence at the hands of some prominent Hollywood studio people who can and have impacted many people’s careers. Tarana Burke began the #MeToo movement in 2007, long before Hollywood (and, to be specific, white Hollywood) took up the hashtag. This made worldwide news and caused many to have serious conversations about consent in spaces that had not been open to it before. This does not mean that everything has changed; it is only that, as providers, we have seen societal shifts in ways we had not in years past. What other movements do we need to give more voice to?

The social constructionist view raises an interesting question: When is a social issue a social issue? According to some sociologists who adopt this view, negative conditions and behaviors are not a social issue unless they are recognized as such by policymakers, large numbers of lay citizens, or other segments of our society. These sociologists would say that rape and sexual assault before the 1970s were not social issues because our society as a whole paid them little attention. We must consider that overall, men have more power in society than do women, and that this may affect the perception of rape as a social issue. The power differential is one of the multiple factors that affect this problem.

Other sociologists say that negative conditions and behaviors should be considered a social issue even if they receive little or no attention. These sociologists would say that rape and sexual assault before the 1970s were in fact social problems.

This type of debate is akin to the age-old question: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? This thought experiment reinforces one of the key beliefs of the social constructionist view: perception matters at least as much as reality, and sometimes more so. Social constructionism emphasizes the idea that citizens, interest groups, policymakers, and other parties often compete to influence popular perceptions of many types of conditions and behaviors. They try to influence news media coverage and popular views of the nature and extent of any negative consequences that may occur, the reasons underlying the condition or behavior in question, and possible solutions to the problem.

We have an ethical duty to bring issues that impact marginalized communities to light when we are part of dominant systems. We need to start pushing back on the social construction of these definitions that do not benefit most or all of us, because when we uplift one group of people—the most marginalized groups—we uplift everyone. We cannot wait for things to be dire before taking action. Prevention is where we need to do work.

Social Problems and Human Services

You may be wondering what these large-scale problems have to do with the field of human services. There are several answers to this question. In Chapter 1, we discussed the macro, mezzo, and micro levels of human services work. Addressing these social problems would certainly be macro work. Helping to change the country’s dynamics related to climate change or to rape and sexual assault would contribute to the well-being of many people. But social issues also impact humans on the mezzo and the micro scales, and many human services professionals will work with individuals who are experiencing these social problems along with overlapping personal troubles.

As a human services professional, you must be able to see the structural aspects of any problem that an individual is experiencing and avoid blaming the person as if there were a personal failing. Reviewing the criteria for what makes something a social issue can help workers understand the overarching nature of the problem: it affects large numbers of people, it is perceived to be a problem by many, there are multiple factors that contribute to it, and it needs a systemic solution.

Licenses and Attributions

“What Is a Social Problem” by Elizabeth B. Pearce is adapted from “What Is a Social Problem” by Anonymous in Social Problems: Continuity and Change and is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Adaptations: Edited for clarity and succinctness; updated research and data related to climate change; revised glossary. Revised by Martha Ochoa-Leyva.

Figure 5.3. “Financing Climate Change” by Itzafineday is licensed CC BY 2.0.

Figure 5.4. “Placards at the Rally To Take Rape Seriously” by Women’s e News is licensed CC BY 2.0.