The paper will provide a detailed research process aimed at the discovery of extent to which drug dealing has been spreading in the American society. Drug dealing is illegal business carried out by individuals and involves the transaction of illegal drugs such as bhang and others that are not within the civil laws. It has been proven by the American government as one of the threats to the lives as well as to the constitution of the United States. The following research aims at the verification of this fact with use of appropriate data collection methods, analysis and other special aspects of research methods. Methods Just like other sociological researches, the appropriate method to apply in this case will be the qualitative research methods to understand holistically the pre-determined reality and hypothesis.
Since it is a study concerned with assessment of people’s behavior, naturalistic observation (type of qualitative method) will be given an upper hand in this case. The methods are as seen below: Interviewing Interviews should be conducted on the people living around the area of study. Hospital doctors should be interviewed on the possibility of cases of drug abuse complications on their patients. The number of patients suffering from this is recorded against the regions they come from. Interviewing citizens in the areas selected is also done to come up with the number of suspected smugglers in the areas. Interview should also be done on the top government officials involved with security of the country as well as that involving the immigration department.
Security will tell whether these drugs are imported from other parts of the world or they are simply manufactured within the United States. Te number of cases of illegal drug importation is recorded in a tabular form. 2. Focus of the study The aim or rather the focus of conducting the study is to find a verification of the hypothetical claim of an increased rate of drug dealings or its existence in the United States. The end results should clearly and precisely show whether this claim is indeed a fact or it is a mere tale, that is, true or false should be the final answer to the claim after the research has been properly carried out. The possible question to ask in coming up with the focus are as follows: how do people react on the mention of drug dealing activities to them? What is their attitude towards drug dealers? Do they know of anyone in the society involved in the activity? If yes, have they shown any effort of dealing with such a person or reporting him or her to the relevant authority? Is there any relationship between drug abuse or dealing and culture of the society under the study? Role of socialization and Agents of Socialization Socialization is the act of agreement and coming together of people, mostly from diferent backgrounds or generally cultures.
Agents of socialization on the other hands, refers to the factors that do facilitate socialization within a given society. One of the roles of socialization according to the chapter two of the audio file is that it promotes understanding among the parties. The audio provides a good situation in Casablanca, Morocco when confusion took the upper hand of creating problems among the people of various cultures as they struggled to enter a hall. The person, an American in another land reined with very different cultural beliefs. He is worried ones he enters the hall. The room temperature is extremely hot reaching 110 degrees centigrade.
Despite this, the women in the church had their normal dressing styles on. Every part of their bodies covered leaving only a small space for vision in their faces. He fails to understand these people and remain watching. One of the agents of socialization is the society where we live. The story of Isabel as revealed in the audio file is quite an example of what society as well as the immediate environment. The idea of being isolated after her pregnancy by the society is a clear indication that society play one of the major roles in facilitating socialization among people.
Another factor is behavior. Behaviors that are morally accepted within a community are encouraged and anyone practicing them definitely receives high recognition and therefore becomes sociable among the people. Those that are not accepted like giving birth before marriage, as in Isabella’s case is seriously rejected and anyone associated with such is naturally isolated from the society thus socialization between such a person and others is cut short. Socialization is a great determinant of how people relate to one another in a society. Certain relationships may naturally encourage or discourage activities like drug dealing within the society.
Role of culture This is the way of life of certain group of people. Normally the racial background as well as the religion of a person determine the culture of an individual for example the idea of all the women in the hall at Morocco wearing clothes covering the entire body when the temperature is extremely hot and unbearable is because of culture brought about by religion. Culture plays great role in the well-being of an individual both psychologically and socially. An example given here whereby the researcher finds himself in another environment far from home, he is an American in an African town, Casablanca in Morocco. They are forced into the hall and the temperature is so hot beyond the normal one he had ever known.
It is 110 degrees centigrade inside the hall. Despite this, the people inside especially the women are in their normal religious dressings covering all the body parts leaving out only small spaces on their faces for vision. Culture has the following roles; it determines the language of an individual, his or her originality, the types of dishes he or she takes, his or her beliefs in marriage and relationships. It tells us what we should do and how we should think. It penetrates deep into the human mind and directs him or her towards his or her intended goals. It provides us with fundamental basis for our decision-making.
There is nothing natural about material or non-material culture. Helps us reason and doo the right things only. Culture is universal, that is each society has its own culture, a society is not complete without this component. Cultural relativism and diversity help us to appreciate other cultures and not see them as outdated ones. As explained earlier, culture of a society is the society’s way of life. In certain areas, people do have some culture, which are automatically against the civil laws.
Some people have the culture that supports drug-dealing activities thus facilitating this activity to the rampant level while others will discourage it. Role of Social Class Inequality The audio file states that very few Americans would be willing to explain what social class is unless you press on them and they will simply state it as “the poor and the rich.” However, according to sociologists, social class generally refers to those people who have the means of production and those who do not. They go further and define it as people who are different from one another in terms of property, power and prestige. Role of social class refers to the contribution or rather the importance of social class within a society.
An example is driven by the researcher from Mississippi where there are high class wealthy people living within the state where there are also quite a good number of individuals living in abject poverty with poor shelters. The lowest paid American will work for 2,800 years in order to make the average payment or income of the highest paid citizen in the same country. It is mainly experienced or determined by certain factors like Prestige, occupation, education, religion, politics and crimes. Social class has the following roles in the society; defining the cause of poverty, it increases or rather boosts the necessary political force within a nation or region.
It is also necessary in the distribution of national resources within the nation, more resources will be given to low class individuals compared to high-class counterparts. Just like other factors, social class affects drug abuse as well. People of higher classes tend to be the ones involved in the drug dealing activities. This is because the activity requires high amount of capital to venture into. The structural Strain or anomie theory of deviance would be the most appropriate in this case.
This theory explains that deviance in a society is due to the way and manner in which the society is structured. In this case, the three aspects of sociology as well as drug abuse in a society mainly do arise because of certain differences in some aspects such as wealth and power within the society. They also do arise because of political, economical or social organization of the society. This theory is therefore the best to explain the deviance. My findings in relation to my topic of study, drug dealing, I do believe I would have found quite a number of drug dealers being among the high class wealthy individuals in the society.
From my interview, I would have found that most of the people involved in the practice are almost from the same regions or are related in a way such that the practice does not look like illegal in any way according to them. It would look normal or culture according to them.
