The Sociological Perspective Of Violence Against The Homeless

The human desire to understand the social world and our positions in it has fascinated mankind for centuries. Initially, early psychologists equated our behaviors to our own mental state and completely disregarded how our upbringing as a certain race or gender in a particular social class affected our perspective of the world. By broadening our understanding of how various societal phenomena affect our thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes, we have the ability to explain some of the behaviors that occur among diverse groups of people. One of the more prevalent yet disregarded societal issues affecting our country regards that of violence against the homeless; specifically, groups of teenagers blatantly and unjustifiably abusing destitute individuals.
They ultimately rely on the sociological perspective to help understand a plethora of issues driven by humanity. By exploring broader concepts, sociologists can look at how social locations, specifically race, gender, age, ethnicity, education, class, and employment, heavily affect the people within them. For instance, the sociological perspective identifies why the attitudes, values, and beliefs of a white, male individual raised in an upper-class community almost entirely differ from those of a black, female individual living in poverty. The implication of the sociological perspective throughout issues such as violent actions against the homeless will help to further explain why teenagers continue to demonstrate abusive
Growing up, our parents teach us a certain stigmatism about anyone living on the streets; their desolate, impoverished nature serves as an example of what will happen if we fail to obtain a proper education and strive for failure rather than success. They reside below us on the social ladder, and therefore, individuals with even a miniscule amount of wealth see the homeless as lesser beings. Consequentially, the adolescent abusers see the poverty-stricken individuals as objects rather than people and treat them as such. In a society where wealth and power heavily coincide, more and more people become conscious of their social class in comparison to others; as a result, an increasing number of individuals believe that they can morally justify their distain towards those without as many