Critical Research Proposal - Angel Brakorenko

By -

 In what ways do adolescents get impacted by societal norms and expectations?

  1. Do these pressures have their own benefits?
  2. How do these expectations affect adolescents later in life? Careers? Families?
  3. Are some pressures necessary and if so, when?
  4. How much responsibility can be placed on society itself?
  5. Has the norm and expectations changed over time? Are there less or more of them?
  6. How do these expectations/norms tie in with bullying between adolescents?
I'm sure everyone has been impacted by societal standards whether it be beauty, education, family dynamics. Being raised in a Slavic household, I myself have faced a lot of pressure to do good in school while helping in the house and raising my three younger brothers. Attending church and other religious pressures have been a part of that as well. Most of the time, you are just expected to give up your mental and physical well-being just to please your family, teachers, friends, and even the general public as well. It becomes a lot. Since nearly everyone can relate to this feeling and I have strong feelings about it as well, that is the reason I chose to address this topic. 

Some books that could relate to my research: 

Hollow Beauty
Tease 
Straight A's
By the Time You Read This, I'll be Dead
This is Not a Love Letter

I plan to use surveys and data taken about how adolescents feel about what society demands on them. I also will try to use one of the books I mentioned above since a couple really caught my attention. I would also love to add on to my research with personal experiences and feelings since I am, after all, still an adolescent myself and have a lot of insight on the topic. 

One problem I will definitely run into is staying strong and composed enough to be able to address some of the aspects of my topic. I don't think I will have too much trouble with finding sources but finding the specific things I am looking for might take a bit since there is a lot to sort through. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Speak and the Symbolism of Nature

By Anonymous -
   Laurie Halse Anderson's,  Speak , dives into the murky, muddy waters of adolescent rape culture. When the book was published in 1999, rape was not a comfortable topic to discuss with adults, let alone teenagers. Anderson writes about Melinda Sordino and her freshman high school experience which is turning out to be rather negative. Soriano stands as a thriving young role model for struggling teenage girls all over the world. Although she isn't an outstanding student or have plenty of friends to juggle, through Melinda, other young women can see that it's completely normal and okay to struggle in high school not only academically, but socially and emotionally. One of my favorite parts of the novel isn't a super obvious quality. Throughout the novel, Melinda's attitude changes and grows with the coming of spring and through nature and art, she learns to move past her troubling end of summer experience and once again find the importance of her voice.    Melinda st
Read more