1) Your topic string
a. Sociology
b. Sociology of People
c. Sociology and Education
d. Sociology of Students
e. Sociology of teenagers in high school.
2) Think of two questions that you could ask about your topic
a. What are ways of talking to high school students that have no plans for the future and how can one influence them on having plans?
b. Are the minorities in high school really the ones dropping out and not going to college to pursue a higher education?
Okay, Cynthia, think about this.
ReplyDeleteSociology is your largest - okay so far.
Sociology of people - yes, that would work, although it's still incredibly broad and if you think about it. Also, what is sociology? I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, to cite to you an "official" definition: "The science or study of the origin, history, and constitution of human society." So now, the question is whether sociology, which is the study of human society, is essentially the study of people. What do you think? If so, then this isn't really smaller. It is, in fact, redundant, because if sociology is the study of people, then "sociology of people" doesn't narrow it down at all; it simply restates what is already inherent in the term sociology.
Sociology and Education, your third and central term is narrower in the sense that it embodies two concepts, albeit very large ones. Education is just as large a topic as Sociology. You've also made them parallel, which doesn't tell me that you are necessarily applying one to another, but it's definitely smaller.
Now we come to Sociology of Students and yes, this is smaller, although still very large. You basically have a subset of people, which makes it smaller.
Sociology of teenagers could be considered smaller than Sociology of Students, if you intend to study that subgroup of students, but I would have worded it a little differently in order to indicate that, namely Sociology of teenage students; otherwise, it could be interpreted as not being a smaller topic than Sociology of students. It could be interpreted as being different. Once you've decided that you want to study students, saying teenagers could mean when they are students and when they are not, making it a different topic.
Do you see the logic here?
Even with that, sociology of teenage students is still a pretty large topic and it's not particularly complex. You don't have anything particularly inherent in your topic, that is, anything you're particularly trying to find out.
Think about all this as you move forward and start using this in the catalog (if you do and if you don't decide to change your topic per my email) and, later the databases. This is one of the tougher assignments for this quarter, but should be one of the more useful assignments for your future college career.
I just want to add a point here. I see that you have actually chosen Sociology of teenagers in high school as your smaller topic, so you can ignore that part of my long comment. I don't know why the last part didn't show up when I first opened your blog, but it showed up when the screen refreshed after I posted my last comment, so good for you on that part.
ReplyDeleteYour two questions will work well, by the way. You should hang on to those for the databases searching we will do.