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- Between weeks 8 and 12, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date.
- What data did you collect?
- What is your initial impression of the data?
- How have the data you have collected this week changed/progressed your thinking about your research project?
- What challenges did you encounter while collecting the data?
- What are your next steps?
- As I have done a bit more research I have started to make strides in terms of finding direction in my paper, but still feel like it is apt to change. I think that one of the most important components of my paper will be addressing the stigma that exists around marijuana. My perception is that weed usage is seen in a more negative connotation than alcohol use. While this research is not a comparison of weed and alcohol, per se, from a personal standpoint, I find myself going back to that as one of the reasons I am interested in doing research on this. As far as identifying the stigma goes, from a Washington Post publication, I was linked to a survey conducted by Marist College and Yahoo News titled “Weed & the American Family.” This survey provides data collected from 1,122 adults in March of 2017 who were selected through random digit dialing. Data is broken up so as to show answers among all Americans, but also answers among those who consider themselves Marijuana users. On top of that, and what I found particularly of interest, was the data which had results broken up based on generation. Certain results confirmed my own expectation of how the stigma might look, but as Mills reminds us in the Sociological Imagination, the results do not tell us “Why?” My research will hopefully take steps in the direction of answering the “Why?” and identifying what the “why” might mean for millennial generation. I have also began to think a bit more about how I am going to incorporate intersecting identities into my research and how I will organize it within the paper. Because I am focused on millennials, age is an obvious identifier, but I expect that difference/similarities between relationships with the substance based on gender, socioeconomic status, race, etc. within this generation will be important for this paper – finding out how I am going to organize that will come next week hopefully.
- This week I began reading the book, Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs. The book traces a history of marijuana beginning with its introduction to the Americas in the 1500s to Mexico prohibiting the plant in the 1920s. This book will be useful because it provides a platform for identifying the role that history plays in this research and what it will mean for the paper. Part of the “promise” of sociology as we learn from Mills is being able to use and make sense of history as a way to inform current social circumstances. This book is saturated with history, so while I will need to be selective about what I end up including, this particular book is important because it identifies an origin and gives us a place to start to identify how racial differences will be important in research.
Lydia,
Let me allay your major concern right now: It makes complete sense that you would compare the (de)stigmatization of alcohol to that of marijuana. Even if you do not write a comparison paper between the two, I would encourage you to read some of that literature to generate questions of your own that you might pursue for the project. Your project should evolve (absolutely!), and I look forward to where this project takes you.
I would also encourage you to talk with Beth Hoppe in the library for sources into how these issues are studied sociologically. There is much to be said in the literature, and i feel that this will also help you narrow down the questions you may have pertaining to this project.
I am interested in understanding a bit more about what data you will use to explore this question. I recognize that your exploration is a bit broad, but considering what you want to get out of this project will help you narrow things down.