David Lander Gender

Most criminological research focuses on communities, where some assume and think that small towns are quite safe and crime-free environments. Meanwhile, using methamphetamine has become surrounded in rural parts of the country. In her book Methamphetamine: A Love Story, Rashi K. Shukla focused and enlightened on the understudied of poverty and drug abuse. Through her journey, she proves emotionally how meth has become the spotlight to the lives of some residents. In the process of uncovering how and why she participated in their drug using careers, Shukla tells how the lifestyle surrounding meth use becomes as addicting as the drug itself and highlights the unsustainability of meth addiction and the struggles

It is a well-known fact that ageing is an inevitable process in the course of the human lifespan and that it is being perceived differently across diverse cultures in different eras. Many social actions and responsibilities come with certain age milestones but they all vary in different cultures and what is seemingly normal in one culture regarding age might be considered absurd in another. This essay will explore how different these ideas about age are and what cross cultural examples can tell us about age.

First, the forms of aging and life course structures depend on the nature of the society in which individuals participate. Second, while social interaction is seen as having the greatest formative influence in the early part of life, such interaction retains crucial importance throughout the life course. Third, that social forces exert regular influences on individuals of all ages at any given point in time” (Theories of Aging. (n.d.)). The movie portrays aging being more about living the rest of life rather than dyeing in them.

Predominantly, the idea of addiction falls under the sociological concept of deviance. Research has identified drug use predominantly as a problem of young males, whereas prescription drug use is principally a problem of middle-aged and older women (Adrian, 2003). According to the sociological idea of conformity, individuals who are around others who misuse substances or use them illegally will eventually give in and follow the norm their social group has initiated and partake in addictive substance use. Hence, because of sociological research, it is evident that drug use and abuse and addictions are a deviant behavior that individuals have learned through the idea of conformity and following an idea popular in an individual’s culture or

Role theory is one of the earliest theories to address how people adjust as they go through the aging process (Hooyman & Kiyak, 2005/2011). Roles refer to the social behaviors and transitions an individual experiences throughout the life course, such as child, wife, caretaker and businesswoman (Hooyman & Kiyak, 2005/2011; (Hutchison, 2008). The individual is defined through the adopted role, which is normally associated either with the different stages of life and/or with different ages. In addition, society and culture typically assign roles usually referred to as “age norms” which

Another supporter of changing the way aging is conveyed is author, Margaret Cruiksbank, of the book, Learning to be Old. In her book she is a proponent of changing the way the aging process is described. Her position is that the underlying meaning of popular terms to describe aging weakens its value. She denotes that the term “successful aging” is a false phrase for the elderly as it “masks both the wish to continue mid-life indefinitely and the white, Middle-class, Western values of researchers, causing them to emphasize productivity, effectiveness and independence” (Cruiksbank, 2009, p. 2). She also concludes that the term “productive” aging symbolizes “economic usefulness and social conformity” (Cruiksbank, 2009, p. 2), especially for the female gender. More importantly, these terms can be used to measure. This ability to measure is subjective to the questioner and an individual’s self-worth. She suggests the term “aging comfortably” as it signifies easiness, and a “faint hint” of pleasurable self-indulgence which may not have been possible in younger years (Cruiksbank, 2009, p. 3).

Social aging is referring to the changes in individual’s roles and relationship in the society as they age. There are many different theories concerning sociological aging. Social theories on aging examine the relationship between individual experiences and social institutions e.g., aging and retirement; aging and institutional care; aging and government policy etc (Barkan 2012). All have limitations, and some can be considered more than others when attempting to understand social changes in aging. Also individuals move through life surrounded by social support system. Some theories of aging such as, role theory, activity theory, modernization, etc. consist of different ways older adults transition through life such as, networks of relatives, friends, and organization that help provide emotional support and help in managing activities in daily living.

When a girl even experiments with drugs, the innocent and nurturing gender norms which were socially constructed for her go completely out the window. As a result, she is now considered a person of primary deviance, meaning one of her actions is harmful for her identity and current reputation. The fact overall can be connected to the conflict perspective. The past theory that men should have more power and privilege than women pertains to the norms of groups allowable to use drugs. Males being encouraged to smoke marijuana may be detrimental to women who enjoy the behavior but are severely shunned from it. In this situation, the resource is the drug and the groups are the genders. While they may not be interested, males automatically have power over females due to drugs being more often offered and advertised for them. For those who do decide to do drugs, the cultural transmission theory is a possibility for as to why they do so. This theory insists deviant behavior is learned in the

Who openly within the presents of his peers opens a bag of various drugs and puts a pill in her mouth which he had created from various drugs himself and it turns out to be a depressant (similar to Valium or Xanax) which doesn’t kick in till later. The impact on the social pattern and cultural practices of young people’s consumption of drugs and alcohol usage has been due to recent changes in the socio-economic policies, which created a new level of choice and market freedom (Blackman, 2009 p. 272). Which is interesting in comparison towards those who had grew up and raised within the 1960’s had a similar drug usage percentage, freedom within market and outcome however, those merely who had been involved within this culture merely were also playing a part within the political movement (Risch, 2005 p. 566). This counter-culture inspired movement consists of protests against American actions in Vietnam and against university administrations and the materialism of post-industrial society in North America and Western Europe in 1968, the 'year of the barricades (Risch, 2005 p.

Throughout this semester we have come across many psychological and social theories. From Vaillant’s aging well, to Erikson’s life stages, to Leont’ev’s activity theory, there is a lot to learn and to understand. For the purpose of this paper, I am going to focus on the Activity Theory of aging. After some thorough research on this topic I was able to come up with some great information about

Whereas a structured interview follows a standardised format, in an unstructured interview the interviewer has complete freedom to vary the interview. Supporters argue that this brings a number of important advantages. Such as, rapport and sensitivity, the interviewee's views are clearer, the ability to check understanding, flexibility and the ability for the interviewer to explore unfamiliar topics. However, there are multiple disadvantages to using unstructured interviews in sociological research. Such as, practical problems, which include, time and sample size, training, and interpersonal skills, there are also issues with representativeness, reliability, quantification and validity.

In social science research, research methods are an essential part of any project because they determine its validity, reliability and success. For qualitative researchers, interviewing is the most widely employed means for generating information (Holstein & Gubrium, 2004). It is claimed by Cohen (et al., 2007) that interviewing is valuable because it not only reports detailed views of interviewees, but also enables participants to speak in their own voice and express their own feelings and experiences (Berg, 2007). However, qualitative methods, especially interviewing, differ from quantitative approaches that many practical and ethical issues might arise in the process of interviews. Although the literature provides words of advice and caution on conducting qualitative interviews, only engaging in the interview could make people realize they made mistakes that limited the voice of their participants in favor of their own. In this article, I will describe the successes and barriers that arose upon reflection of my initial interviewing experience. As a novice, my analysis will focus more on the difficulties and mistakes because this might be more insightful and helpful to my development.

There are some potential limitations of this study. Firstly, given the qualitative approach was used in the research, the data was based on the interviewees’ and observer’s subjective social construction. It helps to understand interviewees’ experience in specific situation, however, it needs caution when interpreting the findings and generalizing findings. Observations were employed at the beginning of data collection. Because of limited time and quantity, it is treated as supplementation of interviews and provides limited information. Semi-structure interviews as major data collection method rely heavily on the interviewees’ memory and stories happened at some point before. It would benefit future study if multi-method and longitudinal methods are used.

Data and method needs some more careful details and discussion. First, there is no clear discussion how the sample of qualitative interviews was selected. This is very critical for implications of the study and its limitations.

The decision to use interviews was motivated by the need to complement questionnaires. Additionally, they gave the researcher the opportunity to probe the respondent and thereby getting more reliable information. This probing also ensured that the validity and reliability of information was upheld.