What You Are Expected to Write in a Social Problems Essay

College students frequently get the task to write a social problems essay. As a rule, they are often lost for ideas what to write about as there is a wide range of topics and it is important to ensure that the chosen topic is interesting for the readers.

Read on and find out the best ideas for your essay on social problems.

7 Top Popular Social Problems Essay Topics

To ease your task of writing a paper on social problems, we have created a list of eight most interesting social problems essay topics. Hopefully, they will help you make up your mind what you would like to write an essay about.

Poverty

Poverty is definitely one of the frequently discussed social problems topics for essay writing. When you choose to write a social problems poverty essay or a social problems in education essay, you may be expected to provide a comparison and contrast between the countries that suffer from poverty or, on the other hand, compare and contrast one country of the third world with the developed country. Besides, you might write an argumentative paper on the problems that are caused by poverty in the society of a specific country.

Sample Paper:

When comparing the United States and Australia in terms of insufficient access of the poor to the education sector, it might be inferred that both of the countries have undergone recession that has resultantly led to the increased levels of unemployment and the consequent boost of poverty. Both of these countries were equally influenced by this problem as they are connected in terms of business and economic relations. In other words, when a specific problem affects one country, it also can have a deteriorating impact on the community of another country. In both countries, the strong presence of the government is particularly evident as the officials are making everything possible to tackle the problem. For example, they provide assistance to individual members of the society who need it as well as help the public in general. The governments have been involved in the provision of transportation, technology access, and other steps aimed at helping the public members get a job.

A positive aspect here that has a favorable effect on the fast improvement of the situation is that both countries are well developed and they have sufficient resources to help people in education, technology, and economy sectors.

Another fact that is similar in both countries is that the poverty problem that has arisen there mostly has a negative impact on the inner cities because of the workplace relocation. It happened because of some changes in the industry sector: the industrialization process negatively influenced business and economic stability.

Also when analyzing the poverty issue in the two countries, it is worth differentiating how the poverty line is determined. In Australia, it is determined via the application of different methods, or approaches, but there is no clearly defined measure. When it comes to the USA, the poverty line is measured by the living standards and whether there is a shortage of services and goods that the society can afford. There is also a concept of “relative poverty” in the USA within the framework of which an individual does not have the adequate supply of resources that can ensure better lifestyle and way of living. In Australia, such notion is referred to as “participation poverty.” The meaning and the sense of these two term is the same, but their names are different.

Apart from the cities that are predominantly affected by poverty, rural areas are under its negative influence as well. Such aspect has created severe inequality between the residents of large cities and the rural population, as the latter are more deprived of resources that the former.

All in all, poverty is a severe social problem that faces each region of the world. Even there are both positive and negative effects of globalization, poverty remains one of the most deteriorating factors that consequently has a deteriorating impact on many spheres of people’s lives.

Topics to Write an Essay on Social Problems in Our Society

When you are assigned a task to write an essay on social problems in our society, you may consider topics relating to racism, class inequality, domestic violence, and others.

1. Racism

Racism refers to unfair treatment of other people if they belong to racial background different from yours. As a rule, the main cause of such way of conduct and treatment of other people comes from ignorance, the lack of respect, and narrow-mindedness. People who unfairly treat others always feel more superior and better than people of other races. It has been historically established that, as a rule, white people are more prone towards racial prejudice or bias than representatives of other racial or ethnic backgrounds.

To eliminate racism, it is important to put more focus on personal values and on people’s actions rather than merely judge people based on their skin color, religion, or background. Besides, it is really important to respect customs, traditions, and laws of other nations and not to judge people if they have some superstitions or specific rules that they place importance to.

On the whole, racism impacts all people on the planet in one way or another: while one might be a victim of racist behavior, another one might be a witness of it.

2. Social problems in society: essay on class inequality

Different sociological theories have made attempts to explain why some people become involved in antisocial behavior and crime, such as corruption, drugs, alcoholism, bullying, rape, illegal immigration, domestic violence, murder, and others.

Agnew claims that crime theories view criminal activities as inseparable components of the society environment comprising of community members, family members, school groups, social groups, workplace communities, and others.

According to structural strain theory, people are motivated to involve in criminal activities because of specific social structures. The theorists of this approach identified a structural strain that shows how different processed on the societal level affect the way citizens perceive their needs. Further, there is an individual strain which denoted pain and struggle experienced by an individual when he/ she is looking for ways of satisfying the needs.

The social reaction theory, aka labeling theory, was put forward by H. Becker who identified that deviant behavior actually does not entail the quality of a specific act. According to Becker, the main focus of deviance is on labelling those individuals who do not conform to the generally accepted norms. In other words, it refers more to the linguistic labeling.

All in all social inequality is one of the major social issues facing the world nowadays that should be curbed in order to ensure people live harmony lives.

Essay about social problems among youth

The problem is deeply rooted in the educational sector. Here education refers to more than just education given at schools and colleges. First and foremost, proper level of basic education should be given in families. Even before going to school, a child should know and realize the basics of respect, kindness, and adequate treatment as well as know what differentiates harm from virtues.

3. Domestic violence

Domestic violence belongs to the current social problems 2017 that negatively affects not only a family as the whole unit but also its separate members, including children and youths. Therefore, if you want to write an essay about social problems about youth, you may take this topic into consideration.

Actually, the issue of domestic violence is rarely discussed in the society. People who are its victims are afraid to voice their opinions and to tell anyone that their family member is an offender. Actually, for a long time it has been regarded as a forbidden issue that has no right to be discussed publicly.

An interesting fact about domestic violence is that it is often hard to identify who has this problem at home. A family may seem happy in front of the public, but as soon as they have stepped over the porch of the house, the hell begins. What is even scarier is that nobody can be sure that he/ she won’t become a victim of this cruel and unfair treatment. It has been estimated that many women became victims of abuse because of some obesity issues.

Sometimes, their husbands abused them when forced them to make an abortion if the future child was undesirable for the man. This type of violence provides a detrimental effect on health and may even cause a severe psychological disorder. Many victims seek doctors’ help in treating disease cases that appeared as a result of this misconduct.

4. Homelessness

Homelessness is also a product of globalization process. It is interesting to note than many people do not refer social problems to the globalization process – as a rule, they have only one association – global warming, pollution, climate change, diseases, political instability, and other similar issues. However, the problem still persists and there are more and more homeless people.

With the adoption of some specific laws and bills, not all people can get governmental support in terms of housing. As such. Many of them cannot lead a normal way of life as a consequence.

5. Prostitution as the topic for an essay about teenagers social problems

According to the UN Convention, prostitution is regarded as one of the crimes that are also affecting children and teenagers. In particular, it is regarded as a severe form of sexual exploitation and a form of slavery. Nowadays, prostitution is a kind of business and often people get involved in it for commercial purposes (i.e. pornography).

Besides, many cases of kidnapping are connected to children prostitution, whereby children are kidnapped and taken into sexual slavery. Some children get remuneration for these types of activities, while the others are just exploited. Urgent solution to this problem is required and the majority of government officials and corporate institutions should put some more stringent measures as such child abuse is unacceptable. We are all humans and certain control should be applied to issues that put personal dignity at risk.

6. Homophobia

A true homophobe will never accept that he/ she is homophobic. These people who do not accept LGBT communities, gay marriages, and other adjacent issues base their beliefs on stereotypes and biases. Most often, such behavior may not be considered as totally “their own” but imposed by the society. Actually, as in cases of other “-phobes,” the core feeling or emotion that lies behind is the fear of the unknown. Just observe in the world around you how hard it may become for a person who always conforms to rules to reach a consensus with the one who is more open-minded and creative. The same is the case with homosexuals – many people do not understand them because they have other views, feelings, and other nature on the whole.

7. The topic of cyberbullying may be regarded as the best topic for problems with social media essay

ith the fast-growing tendency for social media usage, the cases of cyberbullying have significantly increased. Parents should be aware how much time their children spend on social media platforms. It is also equally important to maintain adequate level of mutual trust so that children could seek help from parents in case they have become victims of cyber-bullying. This is a serious problems nowadays that causes many problems and troubles for children. Their psyche is not yet formed and they are very susceptible to others’ opinions and are really vulnerable to peer pressure and critique overall. As such, it is really important to put the problem of cyber bullying to the forefront and make sure that the government authorities as well as the school councils do something about it.