PROJECT PAPER ASSIGNMENTS
1st Assignment Literature Review Final Paper
1st Assignment:
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE HEALTHY? WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ILL?
Ground Rules for writing the paper (due *third* class session):
A. Do not include or reiterate a dictionary definition of health, illness, or
disease.
B. Be autobiographical. Draw on your own experiences and feelings about the
topics of health and illness.
C. Write a reflective essay that is about 3-5 pages in length (typed and
double-spaced).
When writing the paper, be sure to address the following questions:
1) What does it mean to be healthy? What does it mean to be ill?
2) In general, do you see yourself as healthy or unhealthy? Why? That is, what
makes you a healthy or unhealthy person?
3) How are your images and experiences of health (or illness) influenced by
social factors?
Quotes that may (or may not) be helpful to you in thinking about health and
illness:
Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not
merely the absence of disease or infirmity. --World Health Organization
Illnesses represent human judgments of conditions that exist in the natural
world. They are essentially social constructions -- products of our own
creation. Illness is a social designation, by no means given by the nature of
medical fact. The fact that there is high agreement on what constitutes an
illness does not change this. The high degree of consensus on what “objectively”
is disease is not independent of the social consensus that constructs these
“facts” and renders them “important.” --Joseph Schneider and Peter Conrad
[H]ealth remains an elusive concept. For despite the veritable army of
professionals and amateurs who are in the health promotion and maintenance
business, health is still defined essentially by what it isn’t. If an individual
is not sick or diseased, given whatever criteria are currently employed in his
case, that person is considered healthy. But if health is essentially the
absence of disease, in recent times it has become increasingly difficult to be
healthy because of innumerable changes in the criteria of disease. The widening
of the definitional umbrella of pathology and dysfunction has embraced an
ever-larger segment of society. The same person who ten years earlier would have
been deemed healthy, now may be considered obese, alcoholic, hypertensive,
hypercholestremic, or at high risk to develop disease, owing only to the
changing norms that constitute the modern criteria of illness. --Charles Edgley and Dennis Brissett
To say that a person’s mind is sick is like saying the economy is sick or that a
joke is sick. When metaphor is mistaken for reality and then used for social
purposes, then we have the makings of a myth. I hold that the concepts of mental
health and mental illness are mythological concepts, used strategically to
advance some social interests and retard others, much as national and religious
myths have been used in the past.
--Thomas Szasz, M.D.
Write an introduction and literature review on the illness (e.g., diabetes, cancer, depression) you have chosen as the topic for your final paper. Be sure that this paper is at least 5 pages (typed and double-spaced) in length and that it includes a description of:
* The nature of the illness you are studying
* The social construction (or meanings) of this illness
* The demographics of the illness (i.e., the demographic profile of those who suffer from it)
* The typical trajectory of the illness.
When quoting or paraphrasing a
research source, such as a book, journal article, or web site, be sure to use
the ASA
citation format. For examples of this format, refer to the Adam and Sears article ("In the Beginning") or the articles in the Medical Sociology reader. Below are
two examples from the Adam and Sears article:
HIV testing became part of a process of seeking out information in order to take
control of one's health (Levine and Bayer 1989).
Kent Sandstrom (1990:190-191) argues that people living with HIV may develop the
idea of "special mission" which provides them with "a sense of mastery and
self-worth by giving their condition a more positive or redemptive meaning."
If you want to cite a book that doesn't have an author, such as the World
Almanac, you would include its title in the citation -- e.g., (World Almanac
2001).
FINAL PROJECT PAPER
DUE: LAST DAY OF CLASS
For your final assignment for this course, you will be required to interview
someone who is chronically or seriously ill (for one to two hours) and to
analyze the “data” you collect sociologically. In completing this assignment, be
sure that you do the following:
1. Turn in the audiotape of your interview. (If you did the
interview "on line," you should turn in a copy of the entire transcript of the
interview.)
2. Turn in *at least* 10 CODED pages of your interview transcript.
3. Write an introduction and literature review that describes the
nature of the illness affecting your interviewee, the social construction (or
meanings) of the illness, the typical trajectory of the illness, and the
trajectory experienced by your interviewee thus far. Your introduction should be
at least 5 pages in length.
4. Write a "findings and results" section of the paper that highlights at least
THREE of the key themes that emerged in the interview (e.g., the challenges to
self and relationships provoked by the illness and/or the forms of "illness
work" the interviewee engaged in as s/he tried to address these challenges).
5. When quoting or paraphrasing a book or article, be sure to use the ASA
citation format. For examples of this format, refer to the articles in the Medical Sociology reader. Below are
two examples of proper citation:
HIV testing became part of a process of seeking out information in order to take
control of one's health (Levine and Bayer 1989).
Kent Sandstrom (1990:190-191) argues that people living with HIV may develop the
idea of "special mission" which provides them with "a sense of mastery and
self-worth by giving their condition a more positive or redemptive meaning."
If you want to cite a book that doesn't have an author, such as the World
Almanac, you would include its title in the citation -- e.g., (World Almanac
2001).
Finally, your papers should address
AT LEAST five of the following sets of questions:
1. What illness does your “interviewee” suffer from? How is this illness
socially constructed? What images of “health” influence these constructions? How
are these images informed by larger cultural, political, or economic conditions?
2. What social and moral meanings are associated with your interviewee’s
illness? How and why have these meanings become associated with it? What
implications do these meanings have for the person you’re interviewing and for
their caregivers and associates?
3. How does your interviewee define his or her illness? What does he or she see
as its most troubling consequences? How does he or she attempt to cope with
these consequences? Does the illness evoke a sense of stigma or a diminished
sense of self? If so, what strategies does your interviewee use to manage stigma
and sustain a valued and vital self?
4. How does your interviewee’s race, class, gender, sexuality, and/or social
relationships shape his or her illness experience?
5. How is your interviewee defined, treated, and responded to by doctors and
other medical specialists? Have their definitions of and responses to his or her
illness changed over time? If so, how and why have they changed?
6. Have doctors or other medical staff served as agents of social control in
treating your interviewee’s illness? If so, how? Based on what you understand
about this illness, what recommendations would you make about how it (and those
who suffer from it) should be “treated?” Do you see the illness as primarily a
medical problem? Why or why not? What changes in the prevailing medical response
to it would you encourage? Why?
7. Based on the interview you conducted and your overall experience in this
course, what are the most important things that you have learned about health
and illness? Have your conceptions of health, illness, and/or medicine changed
in any way? If so, how? What course-related readings or discussions have been
most helpful or interesting to you in understanding the nature of health and
illness? Finally, how would you define health and illness now (i.e., at the end
of this course)? Do you think that you will be able to experience and sustain
“health” as you understand it? Why or why not?