introduction to sociology

In Milestone One you will work on the first element of your final project. In this assignment, you will identify and summarize a contemporary social issue of your choice. This social issue will become the main topic of your final project, and you will focus on the issue throughout the course as you work on your final project. You can choose a social issue from the topic list below, or you can select a social issue of your choice. After selecting your topic, provide a brief history of how the issue began, and provide an overview of the issue by answering the following questions:

• What is the impact of the issue?
• Who is affected?
• What do people think about it?
• Are there any debates surrounding the issue?

For this assignment, you may research an issue from the list provided below, an issue of interest you find in the news or media, or a social issue you have encountered in your daily life.

• Bullying
• Violent crime
• Discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality, social class, gender identity, age, or nationality
• Substance abuse (drugs or alcohol)
• Income inequality
• Inequalities in social institutions: medicine, education, the justice system, or the economy
• Social media and its effects on mental health

Now, you will narrow your focus. You cannot write a paper on drugs and alcohol, for example. This is too broad an area. It is a good place to begin thinking about your topic, but you must be more specific. For your subsequent milestones, which lead to the final project, the more specific your topic, the easier a time you will have in researching that topic. To narrow your focus, start by reviewing research about your topic from SNHUs Shapiro Library or the Pew Research Center.

If you are interested in drugs and alcohol, for example, you will need to narrow your focus. Think about all the issues that emerge from substance abuse and select one aspect, not all aspects of substance abuse, for example. Take this general topic and break it down into smaller aspects of the general subject; for example, there is an opioid epidemic, there are problems with prescription drugs and the way that they are prescribed, there are problems with alcohol abuse, and there are problems with access for different groups in terms of treatment for substance abuse. When you narrow your focus, you allow for clarity in your thinking sociologically about your subject.

Lets take this list above and see how this works for our first three thought prompts. Here are some suggested topics.

• Bullying
• Cyberbullying
• Physical bullying
• Workplace bullying
• Violent Crime
• Index crimes (murder, sexual assault, battery, robbery)
• Gang-related/organized crimes
• Inequalities and disparities in sentencing
• Hate crimes based on race, gender, sexuality
• Discrimination
• Hiring discrimination based on race
• Hiring discrimination based on gender
• Discrimination and job promotions
• Discrimination in allocation of medical information in doctor-patient exchanges
• Discrimination in mortgage applications and redlining
• Age-based discrimination
• Discrimination based on sexuality in workplace and hiring processes
• Substance Abuse
• The opioid epidemic
• Prescription drug abuse
• Legalization of marijuana
• Racial disparities in drug law enforcement
• Inequality in drug treatment resource allocation

You can choose your own topic if you communicate with your instructor, who will help you to frame your topic. Students have successfully written about childhood obesity, the correlation between social media use and mental hygiene issues for adolescents, and the lack of adequate mental health resources for communities of coloreach of these represented a real interest that the student had in the subject. Once you have chosen a specific subject, you need to apply the sociological lens to your specific topic.

After selecting your topic, explain what is happening with the social issuewhat is its impact? Who is affected? What do people think about it? Are there any debates surrounding the issue? Also, provide a brief history of how the issue began.

This milestone and your final paper are research based. You must use scholarly sources to show what research says about your topic and include in-text citations to reference the source of the information you summarize. Additional sub-topics of interest within these larger issues are included in a Supporting Resource List. You will need to refer to not only your text, but also additional supporting resources as you work on this project. SNHUs Shapiro Library and the Pew Research Center are great starting points to assist in your research. If you are selecting your topic from the provided list, reference the Supporting Resource List handout for additional research recommendations. This assignment is part of your final project, which will include a written paper and a PowerPoint presentation. As such, you should incorporate any feedback you receive from your instructor on this assignment into your final project submission. Based on the incorporation of feedback and additional elements from subsequent Milestones, you will expand upon your one-page submission in this Milestone to create a three-to-five-page paper to be submitted as part of your final project later in the course.

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

1. Topic Selection: To begin this project, you will identify and summarize the contemporary social issue you selected, citing resources to strengthen your summary. Explain what is happening in the issue and provide a brief history of how the issue began.

What to Submit

This milestone must be a minimum of 1 page in length, a Word document, and written in APA format. Use double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins. All references should be cited in APA format. For additional support with citations, refer to the resources provided in the Module Two Reading and Resources area.

I WANT TO CHOOSE THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC AS MY TOPIC