Sociological Paradigms A clear understanding of Donna Gaines’ Teenage Wasteland is important for the clarification of the choice of sociological paradigm in this regard. The issues and questions raised by Gaines (1990) are sensitive issues that are of great reality, even nowadays. In most cases, different reasons are raised based on how kids commit suicides, especially when they are frustrated and do not have whom to interact with to explain their pains, their wants, and their desires. Gaines ideas about the Bergenfield kids, stereotyped as Burnouts even after their death has shown that there are possibilities that the reason behind their death could be traced back to the restrictions they had in expressing their minds and pains. Gaines also identifies how teens go through a high level of boredom which results from being idle, hanging on the streets, and eventually being involved in illicit drug abuse just because home wasn’t just good enough for them, based on these critical issues, focusing on Symbolic …show more content…
Since symbolic interaction lays more emphasis on the behavioral pattern of individuals in a society, analyzing the huge rates of attempted suicide among teenagers is relatively imperative in this regard. In addition, other social problems analyzed by Gaines, such as how the poverty among teen parents, less education levels, gender inequalities, and more will be evaluated – these are social issues that emerge in a social interaction. Furthermore, the use of the Howard Becker’s theory of symbolic interaction will be applied, on the basis that social interactions can result into self-fulfilling prophecies that restrict the outcomes of an individual. Some of these include highlighted problems like labeling (Burnouts, etc), other social problems from drug epidemics, binge drinking and