The purpose of this assignment is to focus on a controversial topic related to human sexuality that interests you and to demonstrate your expert knowledge about this topic.
The purpose of this assignment is to focus on a controversial topic related to human sexuality that interests you and to demonstrate your expert knowledge about this topic. You can get ideas for a topic from your reading of the textbook. Please make your topic as specific as possible. That means no papers that just deal with a topic in a general fashion such as “Prostitution” or “Homosexuality” or “Teenage Pregnancy”. Find some aspect of the topic to write about – an “angle”. For example, “Trafficking of under-aged sex workers in the US and Russia,” “Violence against gay people in the US and Uganda” or “Socioeconomic status and teen pregnancy rates in the US and Argentina.” Make sure the title of your paper includes the US and a comparison country. For example: “Police reactions to victims of date rape in the US and the UK.”
Identifying a topic: You are welcome to run your topic by me. Please do not just copy the topics in the sample papers. I expect you to come up with a topic on your own. Before contacting me about a possible topic, please make sure you have done your research and are confident that you have enough peer-review journal articles about your topic that relates to the US and the comparison country. It is no good if you wish to write about violence against gay people in the US and North Korea if you cannot find enough peer-review journal articles on this subject for North Korea. A common mistake students make for this assignment is that they come up with a topic where there is little information for their chosen comparison country. If you would like feedback on your topic, please email me the title of your topic together with a list of all the peer-review journal articles that you have found for the issue for the US as well as the comparison country.
Each reference on your list needs to be written out in full using the APA style. Do not send me attachments or copies of the articles. Make sure you have an equal number of articles for both countries and that you have enough information to address each component of this assignment. Again, please make sure you research your topic carefully before running it by me for approval. If you do not, I will just ask you to go back and do some research to see that you will have enough information in the scientific literature about your topic. If you do not wish to come up with a topic on your own or find that it is too difficult choosing a topic, you have the option of doing the following topic: “Treatment of young sex offenders in the US and South Africa.”
Description: Write a paper that addresses all of the following components:
1) Identify the problem/issue and explain why it interests you personally.
2) As a future health professional (or whatever your future career is), why is it important for you to know about this problem/issue.
3) What are the causes of this problem/issue (include your own personal opinion as well).
4) Describe mainstream attitudes in society about this issue/problem and state whether you think they are justified.
5) Compare this problem/issue to another country (e.g., Access to contraception in the US versus in India, Discrimination against gay people in the US versus Uganda, Sex trafficking in the US versus Russia; Attitudes toward prostitution in the US and the Netherlands). Makes sure you choose a country and not a continent. For those of you who are confused between a country and continent, Kenya is a country and Africa is a continent. Sub-Saharan Africa is not a country. It is a region. Eastern Europe is not a country. It is a region.
6) Locate one organization in the US and one in this other country that deals with this specific issue/problem. Please make sure you choose an organization that deals with this specific issue and not an organization that has a broader mandate and deals with a host of issues. Describe the goals of each organization, types of services, problems and any other information you may think relevant. Give your opinion about how the two organizations compare against each other.
7) If someone asked if you could recommend a website, movie/documentary, and a book about this issue/problem, what would you tell them. Write a brief blurb about each one, identifying the name, author/source, what it deals with specifically and what things this person would find interesting about each. You must write about all three (website, movie/documentary and book). I expect more than a sentence or two copied off the internet. I expect you to have read the website and book and viewed the movie/documentary. The more detail you can give the better. It goes without saying that you cannot choose the textbook. You need to find another book to recommend. Make sure you choose a book, website and movie that is specifically tailored to your topic and not just about human sexuality in general.
