Sociological Research

Sociology, the study of social behavior, can shed light on many aspects of everyday life. Things that many people assume may be deemed false by sociological research. Sometimes these facts can even be unsettling and inconvenient. Many aspects of life and human behavior can be studied by sociologists and confirmed by sociological research. However, there are many aspects that affect the research that is discovered. The society in which we all live is constantly changing and yet it is stable. As society evolves, people adopt to these changes yet they follow general patterns of behavior. The context of society, “the institutions and culture that surround us, shapes what we do and think” (Anderson, Taylor, Logio, 2015:p.4). When pondering a research

Twenty point seven percent of births in Mississippi were to women under twenty in 1997. Just as I suggested earlier, the Southern states may have the highest rate due to social factors. As stated by Sociology: The Essentials, “...all human behavior occurs in a social context. The context, the institutions and culture that surround us, shapes what people do and think” (Anderson, Taylor, Logio, 2015:p.26). The behavior of humans in society is formed by institutions such as families, religion, marriage, government, and the economy. All of these affect the way people live their lives. To put in perspective, the teen birth rate in Mississippi might be higher than any other state because social institutions, such as family and marriage, maybe looked at differently. For example, if Mississippi has had a long term record of high teen birth rates it makes sense for why they remain on the top of the list. For families shape the way young people think, what they do, and how they live. So if many teens are growing up with parents who were pregnant as young people, those teens are highly more likely to see being pregnant a normal occurrence. As a result, those teens see nothing wrong with getting pregnant and end up in the same position as their parents. Therefore, continuing the high teen birth rates in

Teens between the ages fifteen and nineteen are either in their first year of college or are in high school. When considering the situation in which most teens might be in when they find out they are pregnant, it is clear that these young women are in tough situations. Many teens who find out they are pregnant are less likely to finish high school and or go onto college. “Teen parents face chronic unemployment and are less likely to complete high school than those who delay childbearing” (Anderson, Taylor, Logio, 2015:p.299). It is interesting to analyze then the data collected concerning both teen births and the population per state with a college degree. Although the data does not match up perfectly, it is important to note that teen parents are less likely to have a strong education. In addition, the teens who are in college or have plans to go to college are less likely to get pregnant. Finally, states that have more population with a college degree are less likely to have a high rate of teen births, as well as, the states that have a high rate of births to teens are less likely to have a high population with people who have college