Teenage Wasteland..

After reading the excerpt taken from Teenage Wasteland Suburbia’s Dead-End Kids written by Donna Gaines I am not sure exactly how to feel about her writing. At first I thought that this excerpt started off strong in the sense that she was Gaines was making keen observations such as “...The suicide pact in Bergenfield seemed to be a symptom of something larger, a metaphor for something more universal.” As well as asking important questions such as “What was the nature of the social bond that tied them so closely?” leading her to delve deeper into the situation she was reporting.  But then she would make statements that I felt was contradictory of her own feelings. For example, later in the excerpt she states that “Never the less, everyone pretends that everything is possible if you give it your best shot. We actually believe it.” Maybe in a way she was being empathetic towards the kids that had chosen to end their lives but I felt that her statement came across as sarcastic and almost unsympathetic in a way. Why would we as a society or even on a personal level set out to accomplish anything since we’re only pretending that goals are possible to achieve? 

I’d like to feel that there is more to her writing that I maybe didn’t grasp on my own but I couldn’t help but feel that some of her observations completely strayed from the topic. There were times while reading that I would forget or not quite understand what the point she was trying to make was. For example, when discussing in the scheme of how things really are she states “Girls get slightly different choices. They may hope to become spectacular by virtue of their talents and their beauty.” I felt that she wasn’t really explaining much but just making an observation.  Her unveiling of the reason as to “Why did they do it?” was also disappointing, I felt. Her response to such a question after conducting her extensive research was “They had bad lives.” Which, yes, I can agree with her on that point since it was expressed that the kids had terrible issues that they were dealing with at home and the fact they had also lost a friend a few months prior. In conclusion, I feel that she wasn’t able to answer her own question that she had initially sought out to answer through conducting her research.  

Maybe I am missing her point?  … What do you think?

Discussion on the reading "Association Is Not Causation"

In the first section of Chapter two, the readings express an in-depth breakdown of how Social Science research is conducted. The chapter states that there are four key elements that make up the basis of Social Science research: identifying and understanding patterns in social life; meaning that Social science researchers look to connect the link via individual behaviors, experience, and their perception to better understand social life; gathering evidence in order to find the patterns that are comparative thus conducting several forms of data; explaining how the evidence was collected and analyzed and viewing the resulting research claims as transitional knowledge. 

In the reading titled Association Is Not Causation – Alcohol and Other Drugs Do Not Cause Violence written by Richard J. Gelles and Mary M. Cavanaugh depict with enough support that alcohol and drug, use, while closely associated to violence are not the sole cause of violence in the home, towards children, women or the cause of homicides.  What I found interesting about this excerpt was that the writers mentioned that although there have been different forms of collected data whether it be from experimental laboratory evidence,  survey research, or from blood tests of men arrested for beating their wives; that regardless the definitions of violence and drugs has been consistently ambiguous. For example, the majority of studies that have been conducted have grouped all drugs into one category while each drug has a different effect on their own and different effects on each individual. The same goes for violence, there are different types of violence whether it be shoving a person or beating them within an inch of their life. So to say that drugs and alcohol have a direct effect to causing violence is a broad statement. I also found the cross-cultural research evidence interesting in the sense that drinking behavior varies from each culture. If a person has the mindset that what they are drinking will impair their personalities and actions they will feel more inclined to act out and feel that it is okay because they can blame it on the alcohol.

            I choose to read this article over the other options because I was interested in reading about how the research would be conducted to prove that alcohol and drugs were not a direct link to violence in our society since there are always news stories about these tragic events. I believe that the writers and researchers of this article were able to break down and cover all of their bases to prove the fact that violence is not a direct cause and simply an association between the two. After reading this article it opened my eyes to want to try and keep asking myself the question of “why?” I’d like to delve deeper into facts and understand that there is no simple black and white answer to questions.  
           

 

Who am I?

Who am I? My name is Jacqueline Ali and I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.  My mother is born an Irish-American woman from Brooklyn and my father hails from Cairo, Egypt. I think that at a young age traveling to Egypt to visit my father’s side of the family had an impact on me. I was exposed to different cultures and people that were very different than my own living in Brooklyn, New York. Being able to travel and immerse myself within different cultures allowed for me to learn and appreciate where I came from. When I think of a historical event the first one that comes to my mind are the events that took place on September 11th. I can remember being in school and hearing students and teachers repeating what was going on but not understanding the extent of what was exactly was happening at the time and then coming home and seeing those events being played
out on television. I am especially reminded of those events when traveling to and from school. September 11th is one of the first historical events in my lifetime that I have been either effected by or have been able to grasp the understanding of such an a matter. On some level those unfortunate events have reminded me of the mark from the recent super storm and how I am progressively watching areas in my neighborhood rebuild as Downtown once did.

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Testing..