Abstract

In order to find the important social problems in current Korean society, 336 items pertaining to social problems were developed from free responses and the checklist was administered to the stratified national sample of 1182 college srudents and their parents in 5 regional areas. Subjects were asked to check the important social problems based upon their subjective judgment with the number of checked items unlimited. The results showed that the most important social problems are①environmental pollution, ②injustice and corruption of the politicians, ③traffic problems, ④educational problems, ⑤crime, ⑥relative deprivation, ⑦rural problems, ⑧adolescent and nonconformity, among others. It was also found that there were age, sex and regional differences in perceived social problems. The main findings were compared with the previous studies of 1980's and 1990's and the changes in social problems during that period were discussed.