By definition, a social problem is different from a personal problem. To qualify as a social problem, the item needs:

Once such a social problem is identified, then it is to be looked at through various ideologies. Here are some important ones:

A- Sociology itself has 3 basic vantage points:

    1- Conflict theory. Karl Marx and Frederick Engle$. Germany in the mid 1800s. This is a conflict between the haves and the have-nots.

    2- Functionalism theory. Emile Durkheim. France in the late 1800s. Opposite of conflict, people cooperate so the society can function.

    3- Symbolic Interactionalism. George H. Mead. American in the early 1900s. The other two are macro approaches, this is a micro approach (social psychology). The interpretations people make of the symbols that are displayed create reality for the given individual.

B- Political Science recognizes political  leanings such as conservative, liberal, and radical. The Conservative wishes to maintain the status quo. The Liberal wishes to change some specific items in the status quo. The radical wishes to throw the status quo completely out and start over with a new plan.

Today we also have neoliberals and neoconservatives. "Neo" means new; a new way of looking at things. A neoliberal is more conservative than a liberal but not quite as much as a conservative. A neoconservative today leans strongly to the right, which includes groups such as the Moral Majority. But they are not as right-winged as the Traditionalists who believe the past was much better and we need to retrench.

One very right-wing group of Traditionalists is Constitutionalists who believe the government should abolish all of the Amendments to the Constitution and retrench back to exactly the way the Constitution was written.  

Libertarians want to have the smallest possible national government since individual liberties are surrendered to large central governments. In this philosophy they are similar to "state rights" advocates. However, libertarians go further and believe that the national government should only have an army (only for defensive wars) and a police force (only when an individual is threatening to another). They oppose most taxation.

C- Political Parties organize themselves around "platforms" or ideals. The two largest parties in America, the Democratic and the Republican, each revisit their platforms constantly to make changes. Although people like to simplify things and state that Republicans are conservative and Democrats are liberal, that is not always the case nor does local politics always square with national politics.

Other parties, such as the Green Party, usually do not currently expect to win positions, but feel that it is important to get issues aired that the two main parties may be neglecting (such as nvironmentalism). 

D- Governments take many forms with no country being completely one theme. The major themes include Kingdoms, Democracies, Republics, Tyrannical, and many more. For Social Problems purposes, there are two opposites that need to be understood.

    1- Socialism. This involves publicly shared property (no personal property) and the absence of making a profit. From Marx, it recognizes that the powerful usually exploit the weak (dialectic materialism). Therefore socialism tries to bring every citizen on equal grounds. Since voluntary sharing of wealth is the cornerstone, it differs greatly from Marxism or Communism which have employed force.

    2- Capitalism. This does involve personal property and the goal of making a profit, even at the expense of the workforce.

No country yet has been either all Socialist or all Capitalist. Countries blend the two ideas in unique ways, such as the way the Feds of America bail out investors when they have trouble (socialism). When things are going well, those same investors do take profits without the slightest thought of sharing them with the government (capitalism).

E- Economics bring more variations based not upon political stands, but monetary theories.

    1- Keynesian Economics. This is demand or consumer-side economics that includes the desire for government to step in as needed to stabilize the economy from time to time. It also sees welfare to people as a way of investing in the county's future.

    2- Supply-side Economics (started in the Reagan years). This stresses the self-regulation of economics (keep the government out) and cuts to the welfare state. It is based on "perfect competition."

    3- Public Choice. They have the belief that special interests groups harp until they get concessions from the government and that today there are huge numbers of such interest groups. This leads to economic ruin through budget deficits.

    4- Self-reliance. This group believes that things like the New World Order are incorrect. They believe that the economics of modern countries have very little understanding of the needs of the Third World. They suggest that all peoples must be self-reliant in their own sphere with little to no reliance on others. People, especially in the Third World, should work only to survive (without expectations of gaining what they want or need or becoming like First World Nations).

  
  In today's American society, there is a great deal of pluralism; people often see most of these ideologies as important at some point in time on some issue. Most students will find that they personally believe in parts of nearly all of these ideologies, depending on the social problem under study.