Category: Essays on Controversial Topics
Browse our collection of essays on controversial topics. Each topic in this category represents a controversial issue and thus is a good choice if you are looking for argumentative or persuasive essay topics. When writing an argumentative essay or a persuasive essay you should focus on picking a topic that is current and relevant to society and can be argued logically.
While a strong interest in a topic is important, it’s not enough to be interested. You have to consider what position you can back up with reasoning and evidence. It’s one thing to have a strong belief, but when shaping an argument you’ll have to explain why your belief is reasonable and logical. As you explore the topics, make a mental list of points you could use as evidence for or against an issue.
The study of inequality lies at the heart of the sociology of social problems. No matter what the social problem might be, different forms of inequality influence the generation of the problem, the consequences of the problem for diverse groups, the societal reaction to the problem, and the …
Infant mortality is the death of an infant less than 1 year old. It is commonly described by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is calculated by dividing the number of newborns dying at under a year of age by the number of live births during the year …
Simply defined, inflation is a persistent increase in the average price level of goods, commodities, and services. Typically measured as an annual percentage rate of change on an index number, in the United States, the inflation rate finds common expression using the consumer price index (CPI), a time-series …
Social problems related to industrialization, immigration, criminality, and poverty were initially perceived as problems of the city in its entirety and were later associated more with the inner city. With the rapid post-World War II expansion of a distinctive suburban realm, the concept of “inner city” achieved wide …
Inner-ring suburbs, or what some call “first” suburbs, are communities that developed just outside of central cities during the period following World War II. Initially these suburbs were bedroom communities for mostly affluent, white residents who commuted back and forth, often by streetcar, from work in the urban …
The Innocence Project is a nonprofit legal clinic that originally focused only on cases where postconviction DNA testing of evidence could demonstrate an individual’s innocence. The Innocence Project was started by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld in 1992 at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where students …
Institutional ethnography is an alternative sociology that examines social relations and social institutions from the standpoint of the experiences of particular, active subjects. It is distinct from other sociological modes of investigation in that it is not under the direction or conceptual control of any sociological theory; rather, …
Intergenerational mobility refers to the movement of individuals and groups away from the station of their parents or other forebears. Intergenerational movements across socioeconomic class boundaries are the hallmark of open societies and a central concern among social scientists. Open societies, sometimes referred to as class societies, are …
Applied to a pair or small group of organizations, interlocking directorates are instances of persons serving on the board of directors of multiple organizations, constituting an overlap in membership among the boards of those organizations. Applied to a population of organizations, the term interlocking directorates refers to a …
Intermarriage is the marriage between spouses of different races or different ethnicities and is therefore either inter-racial or interethnic. Marriage between a white and a black is an inter-racial marriage, while a marriage between a Japanese and a Chinese is an interethnic marriage. The difference between race and …
The concepts of “internal colonies” and “internal colonization” embrace expansive interdisciplinary efforts to explain economic, class, cultural, and racial domination and subordination of groups and geographies within the boundaries of a single society. Internal colonies refer to geographic sites that are often spatially controlled, dominated, and destabilized cultural …
Ernest W. Burgess and other Chicago School sociologists developed the concept of “invasion-succession” in the 1920s to describe land use in the expanding U.S. industrial cities. Borrowing ecological concepts from natural science, Burgess saw the city’s land use as a mosaic resulting from market forces plus the cultural …
Intelligence quotient (IQ) testing is scientifically controversial and has a varied history. Most IQ tests consist of verbal and performance test items that result in a score with a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15. As such, the majority of the population (84 percent) lies in …
The evolution of religion and its relationship to the rest of society was a major topic of early sociological theory. One of its earliest and most persistent propositions—reaffirmed by many contemporary theorists of the sociology of religion—is that religion, like any other institution, is a dynamic entity and …
Jim Crow is the name associated with a system of white supremacy that required racial subordination and exploitation. Essentially, Jim Crow laws divested blacks of their citizenship rights. After the demise of Reconstruction in 1876 and passage of a new state constitution in 1890, Mississippi became the first …
Job satisfaction refers to an individual’s subjective well-being at work. Because of its subjective nature, job satisfaction has not received much attention by mainstream economists in the United States. However, job satisfaction has long been a primary concern of industrial and organizational psychologists and sociologists. Interest in job …
Judicial discretion refers to that area of law that empowers a trial court judge to make a decision in a legal matter that has no absolute answer in the written law. It describes the power of a court to make a choice from among two or more legally …
A fundamental concept in human society, the topic of justice, could take volumes to explore. This entry briefly examines three contexts in which justice applies today: civil or distributive justice; criminal or corrective justice; and international justice. Justice functions as both an ideal and a practical standard, so …
Prior to 1899, the concept of delinquency—the idea that juvenile crime is something different than crime committed by adults—was nonexistent. When youth violated laws at that time, most people regarded their actions as crimes worthy of the same court processing and punishments (even prison and the death penalty) …
The first institution created solely for “wayward,” poor, and orphaned children was the House of Refuge in New York City in the late 1800s; most states soon followed New York’s lead with their own institutions. The creation of these types of institutions marked the beginning of a shift …
