Introducing Social Analysis -- Critical Mind

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time ]

Subject: Introducing Social Analysis

Author:
Critical Mind

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 14:58:51 06/29/04 Tue

Based on the work of Paulo Friere in his classic The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and developed further by Juan Luis Segundo in The Liberation of Theology, an approach to solving social problems has emerged that has four identifiable "moments" in a continually upward spiral:

awareness
analysis (social)
reflection (theological)
action (pastoral)
These four steps, when applied to any social problem, whether homeless persons on the street or children whose nightmares stem from television images, provide a method of interpretation that asks: Why are things the way they are? Do they have to be this way?

Often simply called "social analysis" by the social justice community, this method differs from academic social investigation (known as �cultural studies�) by focusing on personal action or planning for change rather than simply understanding the scope of a problem in a detached and abstract manner.

Social analysis requires, in effect, that we "do our homework" to examine the causes and connections of social problems. And going further, to ask ourselves what is demanded of us as members of society or people of faith.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Framework for Social Analysis	coralseadreaming	15:01:36 06/29/04 Tue