Social Construction Essay

Environmental influences, socialization, and traditional and accepted patterns of behavior are all used by social structuralists to portray the criminal as a product of his or social environment (Siegel, 2000).

Topic: A central problem is the philosophy of medicine involves how we should define the terms ‘health’ and ‘disease’. Two prominent philosophical approaches are naturalism and normativism. Explain both naturalism and normativism when it comes to health and disease. Which do you think is the better approach and why?

There are several theories created by many thinkers of our time that believes that societal, financial, and social arrangements and/or structures as the main cause of criminal behavior. In society, depending on where you are, there are usually some unwritten norms that are expected to be followed. It can be in a business corporation, out in the streets, at home. Usually there will be two sets of norms that is expected to be followed that causes an individual to feel torn. However, the feeling of being torn is the inner battle of doing the right thing, conscience or keeping yourself alive.

In this unit, illness and health are approached as social construct wich provides a new perspective towards the common outlook on medicine. Conrad and Baker argued that culture of illness, the experience of the disease and the medical practices are shaped by society. In accordance with this view, much of our attitude towards illnesses are derived from our own social values rather than empirical science. This is reflected in my own understanding of illnesses. when I get ill, I seek medical help by taking medication or by following conventional method of healing. For instance, with a cold, I take pills, drink plenty of fluid and consume chicken noodle soup. This western remedy that I have adopted would differ from my Chinese parents, who have

Social construction is something many people may not be aware of. Our society is living in segregation dependent on your gender, race and class. Race, class and gender do not really mean anything. Social construction is how different groups of people in our society and how it privileges certain groups over others. For instance, you are a female or a male because society says you are, not because you select to be. This is that same with what race you are categorized as and what socioeconomic class you belong in. This is all just a social procedure that makes us all different between what society perceives as normal, what is normal, and what is not seen as ordinary. There are three types of social classes: upper, middle, and lower class. Everyone

Reality is not an objective thing that is imposed upon us, but is created by us. Reality does not exist externally but internally, as each individual or group interprets it, and is always changing. Due to these concepts sociologists often speak about the “social construction of reality” which is essential to understand when attempting to explain human social behavior. Since realty is the basis of people’s actions, W. I. Thomas states, “If people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”. The “social construction of reality”, human social behavior and W. I. Thomas’s statement are three concepts that fit hand in hand and are important when trying to explain one another.

There is not doubt that every culture perceives illness in a different ways. In the first scenario the patient is an 80 years old Vietnamese female with a diagnosis of colon cancer and receiving many visitors. Additionally, different kind of treatment has been explained but she refused the and medications as well. She remains quit and only want to be with her husband and son. All this behavior could be consider normal for a Vietnamese patient. To begin with, the Vietnamese have deferent perceptions on why they could be ill. They believe in spiritual causes, imbalances or caused by pathogens. The patient’s refusal of medications and treatment could be because a few believes that Vietnamese patient have towards western medicine (Dayer-Berenson,

For this assignment I want to volunteer somewhere I’m comfortable and at the same time show how different city will do different thing. During spring break, my old high school host a baseball tournament where high schools from all over Colorado come and play. As an alumni and volunteer, I had the opportunity to be apart of the field crews and collecting trash at the end of each day. When I was a player, all I have to do at the end of the game was taking care of the field. Now as a volunteer I have to help the field crews clean up the fields and the stand where crowd sit watching the game. At the end of the day, I have to take out the trash and help the concession stand. Go back to my old high school as a volunteer help me understand different social construction of each community.

All cultures throughout human history have had beliefs about the nature of disease and the means by which it originated, what it signified, and how to treat it. These definitions have evolved over the course of human existence. Nowadays, Western medicine defines disease as a consequence of a series of chemical reactions, or the opposite of a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being” ("Constitution Of WHO: Principles”), whilst in other cultures, a disease might be the result of a supernatural phenomena and a method of treatment considered sufficient is praying in order to counteract these ‘forces’. Cultural differences may affect patients’ attitude toward the available medical care and their ability to understand the nature

Stigma is a common situation which occurs in our society, it is when an individual challenged with an illness is ‘labelled’ by their issue or disease, it is often caused by the media which generalises and stereotypes those suffering from an illness as unstable or dangerous. Stigma leads to negative prejudice and sometimes discrimination to the person battling their illness. The stigma surrounding certain illnesses can lead to shame, denial, distress and an unwillingness to seek medical help and treatment.

The terms illness and disease can often be used incorrectly when describing a medical condition. This is because illness and disease have several similarities; however, they are two different terms that describe different ideas. For instance, illness is socially and culturally influenced. Illness is the perception that the sick person and other social networks have as well as how they live with and deal with symptoms and or disabilities (Kleinman, 1988). Illness also includes illness problems, which are the difficulties and challenges that symptoms create in life, and language of complaints, which are both verbal and nonverbal complaints that families bring to the practitioner (ibid). On the other hand, disease is not socially influenced and focuses more on the biomedical model. Disease is a change in functioning or biological structure and it is the problem that is seen from the practitioner’s view (ibid).

On 10-09-2015 at approximately 1859 hours I Officer Hildebrand and Sgt Hard responded to rail yard of MRL( Montana Rail Link) property for a report of individuals climbing on top of the buildings. RP had stated that he noticed three individuals, one with yellow shirt and the other two wearing dark clothing climbing on top of MRL buildings at approximately 704 East Gallatin St. I drove into the rail yard off of N C St towards the shop buildings an attempt to locate the individuals.

From a sociological point of view, the disease can be seen as a form of social rejection, in which the individual takes on a specific role. The doctor’s visit can be seen as the recognition of the patient’s inability to solve the problem on his/her own and the faith in the competence of a physician. The state of the disease leads to the dysfunctional social system since a person cannot perform the necessary social responsibilities and this has a negative impact on the social system as a whole. The interaction of the doctor and the patient is directed to solving the general problem: the return of the sick back into the social system, which thus regains the equilibrium, disturbed by the exclusion of a patient from the general community due to the disease (Frank, 2013). This concept refers to the sick role, developed by Parsons, that a patient takes on once he/she is identified as ill. The sick role has four key characteristics: a patient

Therefore care and treatment should be only delivered by trained medical specialist and health professionals. Alternative and complementary medicine cannot challenge the dominance of biomedicine. As was summarised by Barry (2011) study of Illich (1993) stated that there are also harmful consequences of medical intervention. These implications of the power of medicine are referred to the term of Iatrogenesis, which implicates that without the medical intervention no harm would be done. Medical errors, negligence and adverse effect of drugs can affect patients’ health. Furthermore in some cases health professionals sometimes neglect patients’ right to inform about their health, which can play a major role in their process of recovery from illness. Illich (1993) also uses a term of medicalization of life where medical professionals, pharmaceutical companies promote sickness of society for their interest to gain power over society (ibid). Nettleton (2013) described medical model in the way that it is only aiming to restore body from disease to the normal state of being, free form any form or symptoms of disease. This matter is rather personal for individuals, what is ‘normal’ and what is not tends to be subjective. Furthermore according to Walsh (2004) the biomedical model has been criticised and challenges since 1960 for only focusing on biological causes of illness. The critique is based on fact that this model is neglecting the impact of environmental, sociological and psychological aspects on health and illness. Famous study by McKeown (1979) provides another criticism of medical science by questioning their validity. McKeown thesis stated that growth of population in Western societies was mainly due to economic conditions, better nutrition and improvements of personal hygiene rather than improvements of

Definitions about what a healthy person is and what illness is have changed significantly over time. The World Health Organisation states that ‘’Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’’. Whilst this definition has not changed since 1946, the understandings of what constitutes an illness has greatly. For example, at the time of this definitions publication, homosexuality was seen as deviant or an illness to be cured, whereas in modern western society it is no longer considered as such. Similarly, menstruating women are often diagnosed with PMS, which is now medically considered an illness but was overlooked in the past. In modern western societies, health and illness is often understood using a primarily biological approach, called the biomedical model, which holds a strong focus on finding cures for various diseases and allowing people to survive for longer. However, over the last two centuries sociologists have challenged the model, often arguing that a biological approach cannot be entirely sufficient for understanding health and illness. This essay will explore the evolution biological approach and social theoretical critiques including the existence of health inequalities and the over reliance on surgical and other invasive procedures in order to determine whether it is solely sufficient in understanding health and illness. It will discuss how the social construction of health and illness