Category: Essays on Controversial Topics
Browse our collection of essays on controversial topics. Each topic in this category represents a controversial issue and thus is a good choice if you are looking for argumentative or persuasive essay topics. When writing an argumentative essay or a persuasive essay you should focus on picking a topic that is current and relevant to society and can be argued logically.
While a strong interest in a topic is important, it’s not enough to be interested. You have to consider what position you can back up with reasoning and evidence. It’s one thing to have a strong belief, but when shaping an argument you’ll have to explain why your belief is reasonable and logical. As you explore the topics, make a mental list of points you could use as evidence for or against an issue.
Death from smoking remains the single most preventable cause of death in the United States today. A direct relationship exists between nearly all lung cancers and exposure to tobacco smoke, yet in 2005 an estimated 39 million Americans smoked. Smoking is currently responsible for a third of all …
Social bond theory (sometimes called “social control theory”) diverges from some theories of deviant behavior that try to explain why people deviate, as it focuses on explaining why people conform to the extent that they do. The theory assumes that without social control in effect, people would deviate …
Social capital refers to the advantage embedded in relationships that enables individuals to achieve certain desired ends through networks and unites societies through trust and shared norms and values. Unlike other forms of capital—physical (material goods, possessions), financial (investments, money) and human (skills, education)—social capital can only be …
Social change can occur throughout an entire society or within parts of a society like groups, communities, or regions. It can have a variety of causes, including the efforts of individuals and groups to address social problems. For analytic purposes, social change may be considered as any fundamental …
The ubiquitous nature of social conflict often leads to an intuitive understanding that human beings are inherently conflictive by nature. Typifying this view was Sigmund Freud. Although he noted the importance of social processes in its unfolding, Freud thought that the fundamental causes of social conflict existed in …
Social constructionist theory is a paradigm based upon uncovering the methods by which individuals and groups participate in the creation of their perceived reality. The approach involves examining how social phenomena are created, institutionalized, and made into an agreed-upon tradition. Social construction is understood as an ongoing process, …
Social control refers to all the practices that contribute to social order. More specifically, it refers to all the ways in which a society establishes and enforces its cultural standards or group expectations. The norms of a culture—that is, the “shoulds” and “should nots” that govern our behaviors—are …
Social disorganization theory refers specifically to the failure of a neighborhood’s social institutions to develop cohesion, exert social control, and diminish crime. A departure from individual explanations of crime, social disorganization theorists examine how the structural characteristics of neighborhoods— residential stability, housing quality, economic opportunity, income levels, and …
Social distance is a term that refers to the degree of social acceptance individuals give to members of other racial or ethnic groups. Sociologist Emory Bogardus (1882-1973) devised a simple measurement tool to assess the closeness (or distance) individuals find personally acceptable. Choices included acceptance by marriage into …
In recent years the term social exclusion has gained much popularity in political dialogues on social policy issues in developed countries outside the United States. In the late 20th century, the European Union adopted “social cohesion and social inclusion” as its theme; and “social exclusion” became part of …
Social institutions are organized patterns of beliefs and behavior that are centered on basic social needs. Examples of social institutions include the family, religion, the economy, education, health care, and government. Social institutions can be viewed as the locus of social problems as well as important players in …
Socialism, one of the leading ideologies of the 20th century, is a theory of social organization in which the means of production are collectively owned and managed, with goods collectively distributed. It also refers to a practice, whether a political movement or a type of governance, aspiring to …
The term socialized medicine refers to a publicly administered national health care system, also referred to as a “universal health care system.” Versions of socialized medicine systems can range from programs in which the government runs hospitals and health organizations to programs in which there is a single-payer …
In a stratified society, social mobility refers to the increase or decrease of the class or status of individuals or groups. This movement requires an open class system or social structure that provides opportunities for changing one’s relative position in the society. In the United States, the system …
Even though discussions of contemporary social problems rarely take up the topics of social movements, protest campaigns, strikes, riots, insurgencies, and other forms of collective action, in fact, a close relationship exists between these phenomena and social problems. Often precipitating riots, for example, is police violence, which is …
A social network is a style of organization of social relationships characterized by highly mobile, interconnected links between individuals or groups. Such connections may take many forms, from business relationships based on status to relationships between friends. Social networks exist in flux as new nodal connections are formed …
Social promotion refers to the practice within schools of allowing students to progress to the next grade level with their peers regardless of whether or not they have mastered the academic skills and content of the current grade level. A student may be socially promoted even if not …
Social revolutions are the most extreme forms of collective actions. Where most social movements limit themselves to changes in the social system, social revolutions seek changes of it. Because they contest economic, political, cultural, and social orders with an involvement of a large number of people hitherto excluded …
Socioeconomic status (SES) reflects one’s position in the social structure. Research clearly demonstrates that SES associates with individual behavioral, social, and psychological characteristics. Links between SES and individual mental and physical health outcomes often involve individual psychosocial and behavioral characteristics, including antisocial and health risk behaviors; marital, parental, …
The term sociopath refers to an individual who exhibits behaviors that are outside of society’s norms and expectations. Sociopaths, as well as psychopaths, fall under the psychiatric umbrella diagnosis of persons with “antisocial personality disorder,” although many in the mental health profession feel that sociopaths and psychopaths are …
