Week 5 - Empirical Articles - A bit more challenging.

This week’s assignment proved to be a bit more difficult for me than I had expected it to be. I found it difficult to locate “Empirical Articles” rather than regular articles. It took me a while to find a database that allowed me to limit the articles to only empirical articles (also peer reviewed articles) but once I did, it helped me to find articles that pertained to my subject.

I found a lot of information on my research topic this week while conducting my research. The article I chose this week, “Same sex attraction, homophobic bullying and mental health of young people in Northern Ireland” had many statistics in it that showed the effects caused by homophobic bullying including drug use, alcoholism, cigarette use and becoming more sexually active. One thing this article touched on that I found interesting and would like to look into further is the fact that teachers are aware the problem is there and what they are or are not doing about it. Some statistics I found regarding teachers are 97% of teachers are aware of general bullying taking place in their school, 82% are aware of verbal homophobic bullying taking place in their school and 26% are aware of physical homophobic bullying taking place in their school. These numbers are shocking. One would assume with that many teachers aware of the problem, there would be steps taken to prevent the issue from continuing.

I feel I have chosen a great topic to research and a good research question. I see that bullying is a common problem amongst students these days, and with the awareness of homosexuality becoming stronger, so is homophobic bullying. I am not reconsidering my topic, however I would like to know more about what teachers and administration can do to help prevent the bullying from happening… another topic to research at a later date possibly.

The article I chose mentioned and reviewed the book I have chosen to use as a reference for my research topic; Homophobic Bullying. I found it nice to see that a book I have chosen to read and review was also chosen by professionals as part of their research and studies on the subject.

I feel like I am taking steps towards becoming a better researcher with the tools that have been provided to us through this course. I don’t think I would have ever found the articles I found without the knowledge I have gained in this class. Using the Leatherby Library and the databases provided has been very useful. Before learning these skills, I would have simply used google to locate websites with information. I never would have found the research and sources I have found, along with some great information I will be able to use for my research on the topic of homophobic bullying. I look forward to finding more useful information.