The Importance Of Social Issues In Canadian Today
Canadians today are facing many social issues which consequently impact their daily lives. For the last few years the nation has developed a very progressive attitude, proudly claiming a spot as global leader in human rights and similar issues. For many Canadians, this has become a definitive part of their national identity, something they believe distinguishes them from the other nations of North America.
Social issues are issues which some bunch of people in the community view as being undesirable which adversely affects the society. Some of the social issues which is also known as social problems are racial discrimination, prostitution, human trafficking, health, education, poverty, suicide, etc. Social issues distinguish from economic issues
although some issues have both social and economic characteristics, an example is the immigration. The people mostly affected by social issues are the elderly, the poor, minorities, women, the disabled and others from areas that are underrepresented in government which often arise due to racial discrimination and inequality in both social and economic opportunities. In this part of the paper I will be discussing racism as one of the social issues pervading the canadian society. And I will also discuss the persistent nature of racism using the critical race theory.
Race is the distinct feature which differentiates a group of people from another due to their physical or genetic traits. The issue of “Race” has been in existence since centuries ago, cited from Satzewich & Liodakis book “Race” and Ethnicity in Canada. “race” has been historically defined in terms of physical or genetic characteristics, or as an ascriptive characteristic. Furthermore, according to Banton (1987: xi) prior to late nineteenth century, the term “race” meant lineage, or line of descent, and it was attributed to social groups with common history but was later changed in meaning due to historical colonialism and science. Race was rather used to explain physical, social, moral and intellectual variation among people by the European scientists. In a bid to explain human differences the scientists went into social evaluation of the presumed differences and the problem of racial classification became intimately tied to the issue of racism (Satzewich & Liodakis, 2013):13.
Social issues are issues which some bunch of people in the community view as being undesirable which adversely affects the society. Some of the social issues which is also known as social problems are racial discrimination, prostitution, human trafficking, health, education, poverty, suicide, etc. Social issues distinguish from economic issues
although some issues have both social and economic characteristics, an example is the immigration. The people mostly affected by social issues are the elderly, the poor, minorities, women, the disabled and others from areas that are underrepresented in government which often arise due to racial discrimination and inequality in both social and economic opportunities. In this part of the paper I will be discussing racism as one of the social issues pervading the canadian society. And I will also discuss the persistent nature of racism using the critical race theory.
Race is the distinct feature which differentiates a group of people from another due to their physical or genetic traits. The issue of “Race” has been in existence since centuries ago, cited from Satzewich & Liodakis book “Race” and Ethnicity in Canada. “race” has been historically defined in terms of physical or genetic characteristics, or as an ascriptive characteristic. Furthermore, according to Banton (1987: xi) prior to late nineteenth century, the term “race” meant lineage, or line of descent, and it was attributed to social groups with common history but was later changed in meaning due to historical colonialism and science. Race was rather used to explain physical, social, moral and intellectual variation among people by the European scientists. In a bid to explain human differences the scientists went into social evaluation of the presumed differences and the problem of racial classification became intimately tied to the issue of racism (Satzewich & Liodakis, 2013):13.