A Sociological Perspective on Social Issues.

This article focuses on a sociological perspective on social issues. Arguably, social life in these last few years of the twentieth century has reached a new level of complexity. The population continues to grow, with worrisome consequences for the environment. A larger percentage of the world population is attaining higher levels of education. While the study of social issues is at the heart of sociology, sociologists seldom reflect self-consciously on how we interact with these problems and issues. Consequently, it may be useful to consider what should be, and can be, a sociologist's stance toward current events. It seems, then, that a set of sociological theories, grand and middle range, broad and interrelated, is the sociologist's principle tool in understanding the world, one's primary approach to identifying and explaining social processes and societal events. If this is indeed the case, one must take theory very seriously, and treat the task of theorizing with great respect. One must channel most of our energies, as sociologists, into the development and testing of high quality theories.