Dissecting People and Ignoring Social Structure: An Analysis of Individualism, Public Policy, and Genetic Labeling
✍ Scribed by Marque-Luisa Miringoff
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 664 KB
- Volume
- 14
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0735-3936
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Genetic developments are examined &om the vantage point of a social problems perspective, focusing on their tendency toward reinforcing individualism and undermining social structural analyses. The special situation of children is considered, with reference to the impact of genetic assessments of anti-social behavior, illegitimacy, intelligence, and the problem of genetic labeling. A research agenda for the future is suggested which recommends a realignment of priorities between genetic and social research.
How do we think about social problems? How do we frame the questions we ask about their origins and the solutions we create to alleviate them? In this society, individualism typically dominates the analysis of social problems and public policy is generally designed to treat or change people rather than social structures. This article argues that genetics, genetic engineering, and the Genome Project will greatly compound these tendencies by providing bright new tools that appear to scientifically legitimate the location of social problems within the individual. It is argued further that children-hildren in schools-are probably more vulnerable to individualistically oriented genetic defintions or genetic labeling than any other social or demographic group.
The proliferation of genetic discoveries is a troubling phenomenon. This is not because genetics are inherently problematic. Clearly, genetic developments offer the possibility of many important contributions. The promise of diagnosis, cure, or treatment of certain diseases may someday greatly enhance the effectiveness of medicine. But genetic discoveries do not occur in a vacuum. They occur in a social context that will take these findings and use them as interpretations of reality and prescriptions for action, social as well as medical. When we can read the genetic makeup of an individual, this becomes more than medical diagnosis or scientific analysis; it also becomes data about who that person is, who that person might become, what problems he or she will encounter in life, and an explanation for that