Sociology and Social Policy Essay

Social policy is defined by Marshall in 1975 as actions of the government that have an impact on the welfare of the citizens either through a service or financially. Sociology has for a long time been interested in this area of life, because of the long ranging effects that social policy can have on the lives of everyone in a country, however sociology does not always focus on social problems which social policy tends to address.
Sociologists distinguish their interests into social problems and sociological problems. A social problem is defined as "something that is seen as being harmful to society in some way and needs something done in order to deal with." An example would be gun and knife controls in the UK or gang warfare. On the other hand, a sociological problem is more of a puzzle than a problem as it does not have to be a negative thing, it is defined as "a social or theoretical issue that needs explaining" an example of this could be something like why have we seen the rise of the couch potato stereotype amongst teenagers or why has there been an increase in marriages. Sociologists may focus on both aspects or one but not the other, depending on the interests the sociologist has in mind.
Another aspect that has an effect on the relationship between sociology and social policy are the factors that influence the role sociology can play, there are a number of factors that would have an impact on policy makers when looking at what social policy should be introduced by them, these range from electoral popularity, or how much support would the implementation of the policy receive, ideological preference of the government, or what the government sees as important issues to be looked at, an example of this would be a conservative government being more willing to listen to suggestions made by new right sociologists rather than Marxist sociologists because it would fit within their political agenda more cleanly. Another factor would be costs, if a sociologist did research and found that there was an easy but costly solution to a big problem, because of the opportunity cost of implementing such a policy over another, the solution might be turned away. One last aspect that may have an effect on the influence is the funding of the sociologists, sociologists often do research that is funded by a group or company, and as such the findings of the sociologists may be very different when under pressure from a company to find things that would make them happy then if the research was funded by non-biased sources.
Positivists and functionalists would see the relationship as very important because they would say that sociology can be viewed as a science and using scientific methods they could discover problems and solutions to those problems and therefore this group of sociologists would suggest that sociology's role is to provide objective scientific evidence to the state in order to provide a base for the policies that they would implement an example of this would be Durkheim's suggestions to introduce an education system based on merit rather than inherited wealth. However, this perspective was heavily criticised by Marxists because of the functionalists focusing on one issue at a time and Marxists would say that you should focus on tackling the wider issue of inequality before changes to education are made.
Another view on the relationship between sociology and social policy is provided by Marxists and feminists, these two groups are put together because they are both conflict perspectives, Marxists see society as divided by a fundamental conflict of interest between the richer ruling class (The Bourgeoisie) and the poorer working class (The Proletariat) on the other hand but at the same time quite similarly feminists see society as divided by a fundamental conflict of interest between men and women, with men holding the majority of the power. Feminist see the state a perpetuating woman's subordination and Marxists say that the state protects and serves the interest of capitalism rather than society as a whole. In this way both perspectives are very similar when it comes to their view of the relationship between sociology and social policy. However the two perspectives do vary when it comes to the role sociology has had on social policy, feminists say the impact had been really positive and has changed a lot to benefit women, especially in education, however Marxists take a negative standpoint once again as they say that any research done by sociologists is easily buried when it doesn't serve the interests of capitalism, they quote the example of the black report which was commissioned by the labour party but then was buried by Thatcher's conservative party. The criticisms of these views are somewhat similar, feminists that say that changes in law can change the position of women are criticised by Marxist and radical feminists who say that the changes need to be more far reaching than just changes in law in order to be effective, similarly Marxists are criticised by a similar perspective in the social democrats who criticise Marxists for saying that sociology has no impact on social policy as they argue that research into poverty has led to many changes and social policies being implemented.
Lastly there are two more perspectives that have a look at the relationship between sociology and social policies and that is the social democratic perspective and the post modernists, these two groups have drastically different views from each other but their views are still regards as important when looking at the relationship between sociology and social policy. The social democratic perspectives sees the state of the society as based on inequality and conflict, similarly to the Marxists however unlike them they believe that sociology is very important in influencing social policy making, the perspective believes that the effect that sociology should have on social policy is that, sociology should change the basic structure of society so that the policies that would be introduced are going to bring about more equality in the society in which they are implemented. However, the view of this perspective is criticised by Marxists who say that it does not go far enough, post modernists also criticise these views by saying that attempts by sociologists should not influence policy because knowledge produced by research is subjective an only one version of the truth.
Finally, on a different level almost to the other mainstream perspectives, the Post Modernists believe that social policies are pointless, as there is such a level of individualism within society that they are ineffective and useless, as people can now almost pick and choose which policies they wish to follow. They state that nothing is certain; Lyotard believed that there was an end to the 'Grand Narrative', whereby there is now no longer a single society that everybody lives inside their own meta-narrative, allowing themselves to choose everything they see and do (for example, which one of the hundreds of T.V. channels to view). The Post Modernists believe that, because nothing is now certain, nothing can be relied upon to be true, meaning that common definitions used by policies are incorrect, and therefore are ineffective. Therefore, to pass policies that influence society in any way, definitions must be found for common occurrences (such as crime or the family), which cannot be done, meaning social policies are pointless. However, the Post Modernists have been criticised by the fact that their view is highly vague, whereby everything has to be defined, leading to an infinite loop that cannot be stopped.
Depending upon an individual's perspective, there are many different reasons for and against the influence of sociology upon social policy, or simply how far sociology should aim to influence social policy. 










Assess the relationship between sociology and social policy.Assess the relationship between sociology and social policy.
Assess the relationship between sociology and social policy.
Assess the relationship between sociology and social policy.