Order 1031714: The Medicalization of Society

The Medicalization of Society

You should respond to ONE question/prompt from the following choices:

1) The social construction of Medical Knowledge.

As we have explored, medical knowledge emerges from specific social processes and practices. Diseases are not so much ‘discovered’ as they are made. The task here is to focus on one disease/illness category and to investigate the processes which have given rise to a specific form of medicalization.

Examples we’ve explored in class are ‘female sexual dysfunction’ and ‘Social Anxiety Disorder’.

The project should not only be descriptive (i.e. you should not merely describe what led to the creation of a medical category), you should analyze your findings in the context of the material we’ve explored in relation to the medicalization of society. For example, you might consider why we as the public are so quick to accept new categories of sickness; or you might consider how certain ideological interests are served in the creation of a new diagnosis/treatment,etc.

2) Medicalization and Social Control

The aim of this project is to explore and demonstrate how medical discourses operate as mechanisms of social control. Examples of specific topics:

· How do popular images/ideals of health and sickness affect society?

· How has medicine usurped legal and religious institutions when it comes to defining norms/deviance?

· What are the consequences of the medicalization of deviance?

· What effects does medicalization have on individuals labeled?

· How are some medical treatments ‘enforced’ and what are the societal and individual consequences?

Guidelines

· Essays should be around 5 pages

· Essays should be typed, double-spaced and should include a reference page detailing the sources that you have used.

· Indicate on your paper which question you are addressing!

· Papers should have 5 quotes from the reading which should be explicitly cited in the paper.

· Papers should use and reference at least TWO sources (text or jounral) outside the course textbooks (one may be from the Conrad reading).

Grading

Please see “Grading Rubric”