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Example research essay topic: Sex Education Programs High School Students - 1,684 words

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Research Proposal (1) The progress of sociology, as scientific discipline, allows us to analyze the possible effects of social policies, during the process of designing them. It is crucial to be able to come up with the proper proposal of how sociological research project needs to be conducted, in order for the outcome of the research to have academic credibility. People have different opinions as to whether comprehensive sex education programs in schools have advantage over abstinence programs, when it comes to combating AIDS; however, they are rarely able to substantiate them, because they do not base their argument on the results of empirical studies. In his article AIDS: From Social History to Social Policy, Allen Brandt suggests that prevention of HIV among young people needs to be discussed within a context of socio-political factors that make teenagers susceptible to it: The reason why HIV prevention policies, in the field of public education, rarely prove as being effective, is because they are based on the assumption of statistical uniformity, as something that defines inner dynamics, within schools body (Brandt, p. 232). There can be no doubt that traditional abstinence programs lack effectiveness; however, it does not bring us closer to understanding why. At the same time, it would be wrong to suggest adopting comprehensive sex education programs, as only the option, without coming up with empirical proofs that would substantiate this point of view and which could only be obtained during the course of field study.

In this turn, it suggests that conducting a sociological research is the only proper way to address the issue, because it will allow us to discuss the obtained results as such that actually correspond to the objective reality. (2) Sociology is comparatively young science; therefore, there is no uniformity in how different authors view the methods of sociological studies. This especially applies to qualitative studies, because they involve analyzing the subject matters that can hardly be described with the mean of applying mathematical formulas, as it is the case with quantitative research. Ronald J. Chenail, in his article The Qualitative Report, suggests that researches need to be able to look at the obtained data from variety of different perspectives, because only this insures the validity of a study: One of the beauties of this qualitative research is how qualitative researchers seek out these places of character and aspect and attempt to make the events and happenings of these parcels of data come alive for the reader.

To this artistic end, qualitative researchers have to think how to create round informants instead of flat ones in their papers. Researchers have to work hard at developing the details of these plots so that their readers can have a sense of where the data was naturally occurring when it was originally encountered by the researcher (Chenail). Author views the qualitative report as something that needs to include epilogue, the storyline and conclusion, which will enable people to read it as the narrative. Other authors suggest that qualitative research cannot be considered as such that has an empirical value, unless factual data presented in it, can be described with the mean of math formulas. Therefore, they insist that researches need to present such data in form of graph.

For example, Matt Constans, in his article Qualitative Analysis as a Public Event: The Documentation of Category Development Procedures, implies that it is virtually impossible to come up with good qualitative analysis, unless author has a basic understanding of the principle of data collecting: The empirical data is collected in the field. It is up to researcher to interpret it; however, the studies that have an objective value are self-explanatory (Constans, p. 260). If we adopt authors point of view, it will enable us to think of qualitative research as actually a quantitative one, which only needs to be literary refined. It appears that, in order to obtain an objective data, at the end of a study, researcher will have to remain intellectually flexible, throughout the process of collecting such data. This is exactly what Bent Flyvbjerg suggests in his article Five Misunderstandings about Case-Study Research: If researchers wish to develop their own skills to a high level, then concrete, context-dependent experience is just as central for them as to professionals learning any other specific skills. The essence of qualitative research is not dogmatic, therefore, if such research incorporates quantities methodology, it only solidifies researchers stance (Flyvbjerg, p. 13).

It is hard to disagree with the author, especially within a context of discussing the effectiveness of different sex education techniques. Thus, even though that the subject of our study are the factors that cannot be referred to as having statistical nature, it is still possible to discuss them in terms of statistics, because we can find a certain tendency about how they manifest themselves. We can refer to one more article, as such that justifies the utilization of quantitative method in our study. Alexei Matveev, in his research project The Advantages of Employing Quantitative and Qualitative Methods in Intercultural Research, suggests that qualitative method is the only appropriate one, when psychological terminology can be applied to the subject of study: Qualitative research shares the theoretical assumptions of the interpretative paradigm, which is based on the notion that social reality is created and sustained through the subjective experience of people involved in communication (Matveev). There can be no doubt that teenagers reaction to the sex education programs has the least to do with their rational understanding of such programs purpose. Thus, we will not be able to advance too far, during the course of the study, if we will choose to only operate with statistical data. (3) Since the issues related to sex education have controversial essence, we will have to adopt a causally-oriented qualitative study, as the mainframe, within which the research is to be conducted.

This is because the adoption of qualitative approach, in this respect, will allow us to understand why the issue of sex education is surrounded with controversies in the first place. It we choose in favor of quantitative study, as sociological method, it will provide us with statistical data, which would remain the subject of further interpretations. In its turn, the objective properties of the study would be significantly undermined. The American society is becoming increasingly multicultural and it is being reflected in the field of public education. As practice shows, students racial affiliation defines their attitude towards the issues of sex more than anything else does, therefore, it would be irresponsible to ignore this factor, during the course of study.

In her article Abstinence-Only Sex Education and HIV: A Deadly Combination, Betsy Illingworth points out to the fact that it is wrong to apply a conventional approach, when it comes to designing sex education programs for high school students, because such approach does not take cultural factors into consideration. Islington comes up with numerous examples of how persons ethnic affiliation defines its sexuality: Early marriage is common in many parts of the developing world. In Bangladesh, Cameroon, Mali, Mozambique, Nicaragua, and Uganda, for example, more than half of today's 20 -to- 24 -year-old women married before turning 18 (Illingston). It is a common knowledge that minority students undergo process of maturing at much higher rate than their white counterparts. However, there is no commonly accepted explanation for this fact. There can be no doubt that the key to the answer lays in whether the realm of biology or environmental sociology.

Only the empirical study can provide us with a comprehensive understanding of the mechanics of maturing process. Once we have the answer, it will significantly increase the value of our investigation, as whole. Another important issue that needs to be addressed, during the study, is going to be whether students social status affects their sexuality. In their article Sex Education in Schools, Simon Denman and Peter Gillies suggest that educators need to always keep in mind that students higher social status has always been associated with rebellious attitudes, on their part: Teenagers class affiliation is one of the factors that define their socio-political stance. The recent sociological studies also indicate the fact that majority of children, which come from rich families, have been the subjects of liberal upbringing, which makes them more open to the idea of sexual experimentation (Gillies, Denman, p. 251). Thus, we will have to include students social affiliation as one of studys variables.

It is quite impossible to talk about peoples behavior being formed, without mentioning the role of religion. It is a fact that the role of religion in American public life is slowly waning. There are good reasons to believe that it has very practical implications, especially when we talk about preventing the spread of HIV in high schools. Cathy Grossman makes a very good point, when in her article Americans get an 'F' in religion she says: Sometimes dumb sounds cute: Sixty percent of Americans cant name five of the Ten Commandments, and 50 % of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married (Grossman). There can be no doubt that the decline of popular religions nowadays, encourages young people to question the validity of abstinence programs, as such that are based on the outdated moral dogmas. We can think of it as one of the major factors that affect the effectiveness of both comprehensive sex education and abstinence education programs.

Therefore, is cannot be ignored, during the course of the study. In order for us to get a view of the full spectrum of the external factors that affect teenagers sexuality; we will need to include the analysis of Medias effects in our study. Since Medias use sexually suggestive images, in order to increase its appeal to people, we will need to define the degree, to which high school students are being influenced by such images. Michel Foucault in his book The History of Sexuality, suggest that sexuality has been the subject of commercial exploitation since the beginning of times: Sexuality can be also thought of as tool for making money.

Therefore, we can refer to this fact as...


Free research essays on topics related to: sex education programs, point of view, high school students, socio political, factors that affect

Research essay sample on Sex Education Programs High School Students

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