Publisher's Synopsis
"People everywhere want to maximize the quality of their lives. There is widespread agreement that a high quality of life requires such things as a good education, freedom from fear of crime, good housing, meaningful work, and good health. A high quality of life, then, can only be attained if people deal with the social problems that detract from that quality. This text points out, a social problem is, by definition, a condition or pattern of behavior that is incompatible with people's desired quality of life. To deal with a problem, you must understand it-how it affects one's quality of life, what causes it, what tends to maintain it. Sociologists have used three theoretical perspectives to answer these questions in order to analyze and deal with social problems. This text discusses the three major perspectives and shows how to use elements from each to analyze individual problems and talks about how the problem can be attacked. We do
