For your research proposal, you will need to choose a substantive area from which to narrow your interests in to a cohesive research question. These areas are very wide and will require you to condense your interests to a specific topic/question. You may choose from the following:
Aging in the Family
Disability in the Family
Gender Roles and Work
Parenting or Parent-Child Relationships
Impact of Socioeconomic Status on (pick one):
Parenting
Children
Marriage
Impacts of Rapid Social Change on Family and Relationships
(think digital technology, medical advances such as precision medicine and genetic testing, or other kinds of fast-paced technology that is impacting the family)
First Generation Immigrant Families (Undocumented or Documented)
Foster or Adoptive Families
NonTraditional Families (families that vary from the “SNAF” – think LGBTQ, childfree, grandparent families, multi-species families)
Governmental Policy on the American Family (SNAP, TANF, Medicaid/Medicare, etc.)
Please try to avoid proposals that discuss divorce. Papers on this topic in the past have tended to drift towards psychology and child development and I would prefer that you remain structural in nature with your work. If you think you have a sociological question related to divorce that you would like to explore, check in with me during office hours to discuss.
Once you have chosen and area and narrowed your interests down to a specific question, you will need to address the following:
1) TOPIC – The topic you have decided to explore and why (what about this topic intrigues you and what do you hope to gain in understanding?).
2) RESEARCH QUESTION – What is your narrowed, primary research question? About what specifically are you working to learn more?
3) GOALS – What is your goal with this project? Why do you feel that this topic is important for the sociological study of family in the United States? How would learning more about this topic contribute to your broader understanding of social, cultural, or historical issues related to family in the United States?
Each question should comprise its own section of your proposal and have headings that match each item above. Please do not double space twice between sections (that is, create a total of 4 lines between sections).
You must double space your proposal and use Times New Roman font in 12-pitch, page numbering, one-inch margins, ASA formatting (not MLA, APA, Chicago, etc. no exceptions) and in .doc or .docx format. Please do not include name, course info, or anything else at the top of your proposal other than a title. Your paper should be 2 pages in length. Please submit your research project proposal here in either .doc or .docx format.
