Philippine Social Realities and Social Welfare PDF

Philippine Social Realities and Social Welfare Reality - state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. Social Reality - Anything that is actually happening in a society. Any change in environment, therefore, whether social, cultural, physical or phys...

Philippine Social Realities and Social Welfare Reality - state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. Social Reality - Anything that is actually happening in a society. Any change in environment, therefore, whether social, cultural, physical or physiological which produce stress may disturb the equilibrium. Social Analysis - practice of systematically examining a social problem, issue or trend, often with the aim of prompting changes in the situation being analyzed. Social Problem - 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. Objective - condition or behavior to be considered a social problem, it must have negative consequences for large numbers of people. Subjective - must be a perception that a condition or behavior needs to be addressed for it to be considered a social problem. SPECSEG FRAMEWORK Social - Includes crucial factors such as access to basic human needs, social networks and family support, safety against crime and violence. Political - leadership and governance, decision-making and policy development functions. This dimension is usually associated with power and dominance, as well as service delivery and community participation in development. Economic - refers to the situations including the challenges along income generation, employment, and livelihood opportunities. These situations usually affect people's ability to make choices, acquire assets of value, and manage stress Cultural - refers to the customary values and belief system held by the members of the community. Spiritual - refers to the belief and faith system of a particular community. It is the intimacy and connection to a spiritual being and also serves as a concrete foundation of a community's patterns of behavior. It is also a critical factor in influencing decision-making, among others. Environment - mainstreaming and establishing link and contribution of environment into the socio- economic situation of a particular community Gender - integrating analysis of sex and gender data. This include making relevant use and analysis of sex- disaggregated figures and analysis of data on gender-based violence Effects of Social Problems MACRO: Social Problems are the general factors that affect and damage society. MICRO: Disruption of Social Function of an individual, groups, and/or family. ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE Institution Is an established and enduring pattern of social relationships. The five traditional institutions are: family, religion, politics, economics, and education. Other social institutions: science and technology, mass media, medicine, sports and the military. Social Groups Institutions are made up of social groups – two or more people who have a common identity, interact, and form a social relationship. Can be classified as a primary or secondary group. Statuses Just as institutions consist of social groups, social groups consist of statuses. Status is a position that a person occupies within a social group. Ascribed status – is one that society assigns to an individual on the basis of factors over which the individual has no control Achieved status – assigned on the basis of some characteristics or behavior over which individual has some control Roles - set of rights, obligations, and expectations associated with status. ELEMENTS OF CULTURE Beliefs - refer to definitions and explanations about what is assumed to be true. Values - social arrangements about what is considered good and bad, right and wrong, desirable and undesirable. Norms are socially defined rules of behavior Folkways – refer to the costums, habits, and manners of society Laws – Norms that are formalized and backed by political authority Mores – norms with a moral basis Sanctions – social consequences for conforming to or violating norms (may be formal or informal) Symbol - something that represents something else. Sociological Imagination - ability to see the connections between our personal lives and the social world in which we live - Charles Wright Mills Sociological Perspective Personal troubles - refer to a problem affecting individuals that the affected individual, as well as other members of society, typically blame on the individual’s own personal and moral failings. Public issues - source lies in the social structure and culture of a society, refer to social problems affecting many individuals. Theoretical Perspectives 1. Functionalism Émile Durkheim was a founder of sociology and is largely credited with developing the functionalist perspective. social institutions—serve for the ongoing health and stability of society. Thus functionalism emphasizes the importance of social institutions such as the family, religion, and education for producing a stable society. functionalism is skeptical of rapid social change and other major social upheaval. Any sudden change in society thus threatens its stability and future. Functionalism even suggests that social problems must be functional in some ways for society, because otherwise these problems would not continue. This is certainly a controversial suggestion, but it is true that many social problems do serve important functions for our society.  Functionalist theory emphasizes the benefits of the various parts of society for ongoing social stability 2. Conflict Theory Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels were intense critics of capitalism. Their work inspired the later development of conflict theory in sociology Every society is divided into two classes based on the ownership of the means of production (tools, factories, and the like). In a capitalist society, the Bourgeoisie (ruling class) - owns the means of production Proletariat (working class)- does not own the means of production and instead is oppressed and exploited by the bourgeoisie. This difference creates an automatic conflict of interests between the two groups. Simply put, the bourgeoisie is interested in maintaining its position at the top of society, while the proletariat’s interest lies in rising up from the bottom and overthrowing the bourgeoisie to create an egalitarian society. Conflict theory favors social change to reduce inequality. 3. Symbolic interactionism Herbert Blumer - built on their writings to develop symbolic interactionism symbolic interactionists feel that people do not merely learn the roles that society has set out for them; instead they construct these roles as they interact. As they interact, they negotiate their definitions of the situations in which they find themselves and socially construct the reality of these situations. In doing so, they rely heavily on symbols such as words and gestures to reach a shared understanding of their interaction. TYPE OF POVERTIES 1. Absolute poverty - extreme poverty or abject poverty, it involves the scarcity of basic food, clean water, health, shelter, education and information. Those who belong to absolute poverty tend to struggle to live and experience a lot of child deaths from preventable diseases like malaria, cholera and water-contamination related diseases. Absolute Poverty is usually uncommon in developed countries. 2. Relative Poverty - living standard compared to the economic standards of the population living in surroundings. Hence it is a measure of income inequality. For example, a family can be considered poor if it cannot afford vacations, cannot buy presents for children at Christmas, or cannot send its young to the university. 3. Situational Poverty - temporary type of poverty based on occurrence of an adverse event like environmental disaster, job loss and severe health problem. People can help themselves even with a small assistance, as poverty comes because of unfortunate events. 4. Generational Poverty - handed over to individuals and families from one generation to the one. This is more complicated as there is no escape because the people are trapped in its cause and unable to access the tools required to get out of it. 5. Rural Poverty - occurs in rural areas with a population below 50,000. It is the area where there are less job opportunities, less access to services, less support for disabilities and quality education opportunities. People are tending to live mostly on the farming and other menial work available to the surroundings.  6. Urban Poverty - occurs in metropolitan areas with a population over 50,000. These are some major challenges faced by the Urban Poor: Limited access to health and education. Inadequate housing and services. Violent and unhealthy environment because of overcrowding. Little or no social protection mechanism. FOUR APPROACHES TO POVERTY Monetary approach - This is the traditional approach, which most people and experts hold (even if they don’t know they do). It basically defines poverty as the lack of material resources, i.e. income. That is, people are poor if they don’t have money. Capability approach - proposed by novel prize laureate Amartya Sen. It notes that material resources are not enough to guarantee well-being since their presence doesn’t entail their enjoyment. A rich person with a disease might not be able to enjoy his wealth. He may actually be greatly deprived, or, in other words, be poor. Considering this, the capability approach defines poverty as the lack of opportunities to enjoy the kind of lives people value. The approach calls these opportunities “capabilities, ” and gets its name from this concept. Social Exclusion - focuses on the processes of marginalization to specific groups. For example, some people may have good jobs, but if they are marginalized by the majority because of their race/religion/ethnicity/etc., then they cannot be said to have a good life. According to this approach, a person may be suffering poverty if he or she is being excluded by other members of society. Participatory approaches - do not bother to ask the experts what poverty is. Rather, they seek to understand poverty from the perspective of the poor. They gather the testimonies of greatly deprived people on what poverty is. Based on these testimonies, they note common themes and propose a broad conception of poverty which includes many dimensions.