- SOC FPX 2000 Assessment 4 Framing an Issue From the Sociological Perspective
Framing an Issue From the Sociological Perspective
In the United Sates, issues to do with diversity are some of the most hotly debated in the political, legal and social realms. The most discussed issues are the immigration policy and same-sex marriage: both issues have led to heated debates connected to the rights of the ethnic minorities, gays, and lesbians, legal concerns, economic consequences, and religious standards. These occurrences are not only associated with the modern social conflicts, which took place in the course of the twentieth century, but are the continuation of the historical struggle for the rights of minorities and their recognition.
The purpose of this presentation is to use sociological lens to discuss, including the history, activism, and politics of it. The following are areas of focus to help understand the causes and consequences of the problem and the arguments that will shape the future of the policy. As research revealed relevant to the current period, the sociopolitical reality of the United States persists with emerging change in power relations and culture becoming influential in discussions (Smith, 2019). To that end, through this analysis, we will understand the sources, dynamics and social relationships within which this crucial field of the contemporary U. S. society is constructed.
Sociological Theory
To realize differential power relations in politics one has to analyze how social relations work in this context. Some of the sociological theories that are useful in the analysis include Conflict Theory, Power Elite Theory, and Human Capital Theory. According to Conflict Theory originating from Karl Marx’s historical articles, society is made up of groups with clashing interests and power is distributed unevenly.
This sometimes gives the leaders or those controlling the economic asset, the power to influence laws, policies, and sometimes the moral standards of a society in order to sustain their power. For instance, in the case of immigration policy, Conflict Theory would focus on the ways in which the elites in society use their power and authority to formulate policies for their gains more often than not to the detriment of other groups such as the immigrants.
The Mills’ Power Elite Theory rests with a few powerful individuals within a society everybody else has little influence. The recognized elites – politicians, businesspersons, and armed forces – can act with direct consequences affecting the mass population. When used in regard to same-sex marriage, Power Elite Theory looks at how political and religious leaders over time have influenced the attitudes and policies of society to reflect their norms and exclude the norms of homosexuals and bisexuals.
Human Capital Theory studies the differences in the levels of education, skills, and resources in order to understand the nature of power relations’ inequalities. This theory gives the notion that the more educated and resourceful one is, the more capable one is to engage relevant political systems. In immigration policy debates, Human Capital Theory applies to the understanding of why some immigrant groups can politically mobilise for their rights while others cannot.
Empirical studies have shown that these theories remain valid in the analysis the power relations in the political discourse. For example, there is literature that conveys how existing systematic discriminations of race, class, and ethnicity sustain these disparities in current political settings (Jones & Smith, 2021). The use of these sociological theories when applied in these discourse enables the assessment of power relations from a critical perspective and comprehension of the plight of inequality.
Evolution of the Social Movements
It is often in an effort to address different inherent inequities in a society that social movements are mobilized as agents of change Solving a social problem . The development of these movements demonstrates that the inequalities characteristic of the social structure remain unchanged in today’s society, but the people who defending their rights are unimaginable as well. Whether looking at the fight for marriage equality for the gay and lesbian population or the fight for immigrant rights, such movements have not existed in isolation but have been informed by and are part of the politics of our society.
Relating it to the gay liberation movement, the fight for recognition of same sex marriage was the major agenda in the late 20th and early twenty first century. The movement has its history in the previous campaigns though the widely recognized LGBT rights moment began with Stonewall Riots in 1969. And whereas in earlier decades, the movement had simply aimed at discrimination based on sexual orientation, the last movement called for marriage equality.
SOC FPX 2000 Assessment 4 Framing an Issue From the Sociological Perspective
Major events include the signing into law of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 which stated that for the purposes of federal law, marriage meant the union of one man and one woman; the ruling in the landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015 in which United States Supreme Court legalised same sex marriage across the country.
As it has been pointed out in the recent studies, the strategies which these movements have employed have shifted with change in political environment. For example, the gay right movement which campaigned for equal marriage rights was able to successful partly due to framing the issue in terms of love and family adaptable with a wide range of the American people’s beliefs (Taylor, 2020). On the other hand, the immigrant rights movement has shifted to community participation and alliances as a way of responding to racism and the implementations of policies against immigrants as seen by García (2019).
Questions that Reflect Public Perception
Question 1: “Ninety percent of illegals are on welfare. WHY are we paying welfare to non-citizens?”
Response:
This statement gives a wrong perception of the effect of the undocumented immigrants in the economy. In fact, the statistics reveal that most of the people who cross the border, and therefore are deemed as immigrants who are here unlawfully do not receive public welfare, such as social security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and the likes.
As reported by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in its current the 2020 report, the undocumented immigrants due to the federal taxes they pay contribute more than they benefit from the government’s programs. They are also subjected to pay sales taxes, property taxes in the same manner by paying their rent if they are tenants, and a form of income taxation depending on the country they reside in regardless of the minimal privileges that they might be accorded as aliens.
Question 2: “Jobs are going to Mexicans , what can be done to prevent this?”
Response:
That Mexican immigrants, or immigrants in general, are considering stealing jobs rightfully belonging to citizens who were born in America is a belief based on mercantilist logic – an economic model that assumes that there is a finite economic pie and that one person’s gain is another person’s loss.
But other research has supported the fact that immigrants actually occupy jobs that are low skilled or belong to industries with high labor turnover, jobs that the native population is not willing to do. For instance, the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found that, in 2019, the immigrants had high concentration risk to low skilled jobs, including agriculture while having low risk to high skilled jobs, thereby non substitutes for the native born workers (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019).
Evolution of Anti-Discrimination Law
Discrimination laws in the United States have undergone many changes in the decades, to answer to the needs of society and the constant fight against discrimination. Earliest, such laws were limited to colour and or gender but have evolved over time to encompass disability; sexual preferences and or gender identity. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one of the earliest anti- discrimination laws; it is a law against discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin in employment and in the use of facilities ‘available to the public,’ including places of business. It was this landmark law the set the foundation of the latter antidiscrimination measures.
The later years have however witnessed progress in the protection of the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and the transgender. The landmark decision the Supreme Court made in 2015 was Obergefell v. Hodges, where marriage between people of the same sex was legal in all the states and the discrimination of the LGBTQ+ persons was prohibited under the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision was made, then in the year 2020, Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court in its decision clarified that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 included protections for employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
It is also seen in the continuous development of antidiscrimination law in legislation including Equality Act that was passed by the House of Representatives in 2019. The goal of the Equality Act is the purported upgrading of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by adding protection of sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of prohibited categories of discrimination (Equality Act, 2019). Despite the fact that the bill has not been passed in the Senate, it is one of the largest advancements towards providing federal non-discrimination rights to homosexual population.
Effectiveness of Tactics
There are a diverse approach or approach that is used by the activists in the promotion of a given cause or as means of achieving a given aim where the efficiency of these approaches varies. Some are large scale political strategies and others are more local community mobilization oriented such as grassroots organizing . It usually engages the demography at the community level; this involves use of meetings, volunteers and action groups.
Grassroot organizing has been seen to be very effective in the Black Lives Matter movement since it has created a system that involves many localized chapters that have brought a major change to the American public debate on police brutality and racism (Clayton, 2020). (McAdam ,2019) emphases that grassroots movements can mobilise a lot of support and bring about change through social relations and collectiveness.
Another common strategy is with demonstration, protests, marching and camping among them. These demonstrations are meant to raise awareness of an issue, and push on the lawmakers. For instance, the Women’s march in Washington in January 2017 was a large protest concerning women’s rights and gender equality; by articulating grievances the protesters impacted public opinion and policy debate (Staggenborg, 2021). In large-scale public demonstrations, (Van Dyke and Soule, 2019) argue that these are effective of mobilizing media coverage, and sometimes variable at creating policy change.
Legal measures is another important strategy, whereby activists take their complains to courts as a channel of seeking compensation for the woes. The details of the rights and freedoms case law have been important in bringing policy alteration. The decision delivered by the Supreme Court in the case of Obergefell v.
Hodges signing marriage equality in the United States is perhaps one of the most well-known examples of judicial activism in the matter of enhancing the rights of LGBTQ+ people. As noted by (McCann,2019), it is most strategic legal activism to occur in concert with social movements and to look like society.
Conclusion
When observing the topic of your choice through the sociological perspective, not only do we become aware of the complex connection between movements and enactments, but also perceive the alterations in attitudes. This analysis has been useful to define how the [the chosen issue] has evolved over time, and how historical contexts and social movements have contributed to defined the current debates and policies. There are social movements that have become associated with [the chosen issue], for instance, the [LGBTQ+ rights movement or immigration rights movement] whose important landmarks and strategies have been analyzed in this research.
Through the evaluation of the different campaigns of social activism, protest methods, legal proceedings, media influence, and lobbying we have identified how these practices facilitate change for the society and policy making. Extants on such laws form an important foundation for bringing sense to present day legal and policy situations. In this way, tracing the development of these laws also allows showing how the legal precedents and legislative changes over the time did or did not respond to the inequalities experienced by minorities. This historical developments put us in a better position to understand the current state of affairs next to attempts at reform.
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