Identify the major assumptions and bias of the drug industry that underlie drug research.
Read the article titled, “As drug industry’s influence over research grows, so does the potential for bias,” located at http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/as-drug-industrys-influence-over-research-grows-so-does-the-potential-for-bias/2012/11/24/bb64d596-1264-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_story.html.
Review the six (6) rules of critical thinking (Chapter 1) and the steps of “Doing Sociology: A Student’s Guide to Research” (Chapter 2). From the book “Discover Sociology” . See attachment for copy of book chapters.
Write a one to two (1-2) page essay in which you:
- Identify the first step in the student’s guide to research.
- Define the first step of research in your own words.
- Identify the major assumptions and bias of the drug industry that underlie drug research.
- Identify the personal bias that you, as a consumer, have on the drug industry’s influence over research.
Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:
- Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
- To keep this essay short and manageable, your only sources for the essay should be the article from The Washington Post and the sections noted in your text. For this reason, APA citations or references are not required for this assignment.
- Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required assignment page length.
The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
- Define the basic concepts used in the discipline of sociology.
- Define the various methodologies for sociological research.
- Use technology and information resources to research issues in sociology.
- Write clearly and concisely about sociology using proper writing mechanics.
2 Chapter 1: Discover Sociology
DISCOVER SOCIOLOGY1
FOR THE USE OF STRAYER UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AND FACULTY ONLY. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, SALE, OR REPRINTING.
ANY AND ALL UNAUTHORIZED USE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Copyright © 2015 by SAGE Publications, Inc.
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WHAT DO YOU THINK? 1. Can societies be studied scientifically? What does
the scientific study of societies entail?
2. What is a theory? What is the role of theories in
sociology?
3. In your opinion, what social issues or problems are
most interesting or important today? What questions
about them would you like to study?
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9 The Development of Sociological Thinking
17 Sociology: One Way of Looking at the World—or Many?
21 Principal Themes in This Text
22 Why Study Sociology?
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FOR THE USE OF STRAYER UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AND FACULTY ONLY. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, SALE, OR REPRINTING.
ANY AND ALL UNAUTHORIZED USE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Copyright © 2015 by SAGE Publications, Inc.
4 Chapter 1: Discover Sociology
A goal of this book is to take you on a sociological journey. But let’s begin with a basic question: What is sociology? First of all, sociology is a discipline of and for curious minds! Sociologists are deeply committed to answering the question, “Why?” Why are some people desperately poor and others fabulously wealthy? Why does racial segregation in housing and public education
exist, and why does it persist half a century after civil rights laws were enacted? What accounts for
the declining marriage rate among the working class and the poor in the United States? How can we
explain the fact that low-income people are more likely to be overweight or obese than their middle-
class counterparts? Why is the proportion of women entering and completing college rising while the
proportion of men has fallen? Why, in spite of this, do men as a group still earn higher incomes than
women as a group do? And how is it that social media are being simultaneously praised as instruments
of transformational activism and criticized as causes of social alienation and civic disengagement? Take
a moment now to think about some why questions you have about society and social life: As you look
around you, hear the news, and interact with other people, what strikes you as fascinating—but perhaps
difficult to understand? What are you curious about?
Sociology is an academic discipline that takes a scientific approach to answering the kinds of
questions our curious minds imagine. When we say that sociology is scientific, we mean that it is a way
of learning about the world that combines logically constructed theory and systematic observation.
The goal of sociological study and research is to base answers to questions like those above on a
careful examination of the roots of social phenomena such as poverty, segregation, and the wage gap.
Sociologists do this with research methods—surveys, interviews, observations, and archival research,
among others—which yield data that can be tested, challenged, and revised. In this text, you will see how
sociology is done—and you will learn how to do sociology yourself.
A CURIOUS MIND
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FOR THE USE OF STRAYER UNIVERSITY STUDENTS AND FACULTY ONLY. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION, SALE, OR REPRINTING.
ANY AND ALL UNAUTHORIZED USE IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Copyright © 2015 by SAGE Publications, Inc.
5The Sociological Imagination
Concisely stated, sociology is the scientific study of
human social relationships, groups, and societies. Unlike
natural sciences such as physics, chemistry, and biology,
sociology is one of several social sciences engaged in the
scientific study of human beings and the social worlds they
consciously create and inhabit. The purpose of sociology is
to understand and generate new knowledge about human
behavior, social relations, and social institutions on a larger
scale. The sociologist adheres to the principle of social
embeddedness: the idea that economic, political, and
other forms of human behavior are fundamentally shaped
by social relations. Thus, sociologists pursue studies on a
wide range of issues occurring within, between, and among
families, communities, states, nations, and the world.
Other social sciences, some of which you may be studying,
include anthropology, economics, political science, and
psychology.
Sociology is a field in which students have the
opportunity to build a broad spectrum of important skills,
ranging from gathering and analyzing information to
identifying and solving problems to effective written and
oral communication. Throughout this book, we draw your
attention to important skills you can gain through the study
of sociology and the kinds of skills employers in different
occupational fields are seeking in potential employees.
Sociology opens the door to both greater understanding of
the social world and a range of career and graduate study
possibilities.
Doing sociology requires that you build a foundation on
which the knowledge you gain will rest. Some of the key
foundations of sociology are the sociological imagination
and critical thinking. We turn to these below.
Scientific: A way of learning about the world that combines logically constructed theory and systematic observation.
Sociology: The scientific study of human social relations, groups, and societies.
Social embeddedness: The idea that economic, political, and other forms of human behavior are fundamentally shaped by social relations.
Sociological imagination: The ability to grasp the relationship between individual lives and the larger social forces that help to shape them.
THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION As we go about our daily routines, we may forget that large- scale economic, political, and cultural forces shape even the most personal aspects of our lives. When parents divorce, for example, we tend to focus on individual explanations: A father was devoted more to his work than to his family; a mother may have felt trapped in an unhappy marriage but stuck with it for the sake of young children. Yet while personal issues are inevitable parts of a breakup, they can’t tell the whole story. When so many U.S. marriages end in divorce, forces larger than incompatible personalities or marital discord are at play. But what are those greater social forces, exactly?
As sociologist C. Wright Mills (1959/2000b) suggested half a century ago, uncovering the relationship between what he called personal troubles and public issues calls for a sociologi- cal imagination. The sociological imagination is the ability to grasp the relationship between individual lives and the larger social forces that shape them—that is, to see where biography and history intersect.
In a country like the United States, where individualism is part of the national heritage, people tend to believe that each person creates his or her life’s path and to largely disregard the social context in which this happens. When we cannot get a job, fail to earn enough to support a family, or experience marital separation, for example, we tend to see it as a personal trouble. We do not necessarily see it as a public issue. The sociological imagination, however, invites us to make the connection and to step away from the vantage point of a single life experience to see how powerful social forces—for instance, changes in social norms, ethnic or sex discrimination, large shifts in the economy,
Unemployment is not equally distributed among U.S. demographic groups; those without a high school diploma or college degree have been hit hard by the loss of well-paying jobs in manufacturing since the late1970s. The cost of not getting an education increas- ingly includes not just higher rates of unemployment but also diminished earning power.
Mill’s Sociological Imagination What is Sociology?