Research Question: When did drug education first become part of our schools’ curriculums and how have changes in American culture impacted these drug education programs?
Why I think this question should be researched: When people look back on America’s cultural history, they often consider the many wars America has participated in, the Great Depression, the iconic 50s housewife, Hollywood and Marilyn Monroe, the Space Race, Woodstock, McCarthyism, the internet technology boom of the ’90s, and the revolutionary work of Steve Jobs. While all of these are important events in our history, people often fail to consider another large aspect of American culture: the struggle we continue to have even to this day over illegal drugs and their abuse, commonly referred to as the “war on drugs.” These two aspects of American life are much more closely related than one would believe. I am curious to know not only how these historical events led to the mainstream drug use, but how American education became a platform for anti-drug rhetoric for the “war against drugs.” When exactly did recreational drug usage become an epidemic severe enough that educators felt the need to include such anti-drug rhetoric in their students’ required curricula? Additionally, how have these efforts changed with time as different cultural factors and drugs have emerged into the mainstream culture? Was there a noticeable shift in focus around these educational programs when the crack cocaine epidemic hit America in the mid-80s through early ’90s, etc. In researching this question, I feel that one can learn more not only about the history of American drug culture but also about the educational politics and the resulting relationship between them. This research topic is also extremely significant as the misuse of drugs is not only a problem of the past, but one that continues to haunt American youth in the present.
Research Process:
To first begin the research for this paper, I wanted to first understand the history behind America’s pattern of drug abuse so that I might be able to pinpoint certain epidemics that might have resulted in a change in the educational methods regarding drug abuse. I began with the website for the government’s Drug Enforcement Administration (D.E.A.) which was created in 1973 and enforces controlled substance laws and regulations. There, I found useful fact sheets on different drugs that have risen and fallen in popularity throughout history such as marijuana/cannabis, cocaine, LSD, ecstasy/MDMA, heroin, and many other which have arguably risen to epidemic levels of abuse in the recent decades. Additionally, I learned from the website that the D.E.A. has a museum, whose site I also visited.
The museum’s website was also helpful for my understanding the history behind the rise of modern drug abuse.
The museum was also helpful for me to understand the rise of modern drug abuse. On the site there are also virtual exhibits, which proved useful in further understanding how small cultural changes, such as how a change in music style might influence drug use and later, drug awareness education. The museum website provides graphics, timelines, and other resources that will be helpful in fleshing out the story and link between history, drug culture, and educational practices.
Another thing I did in researching this topic was to input the phrase “drug education” into Google’s Ngram viewer, to see when people first started using this phrase regularly. The Google service suggested that the phrase wasn’t commonly used until the ’60s, and essentially peaked at around 1977. Obviously, the term “drug education” is still commonly used, but has potentially taken a hit as other terms came into fruition such as the Gates D.A.R.E. program of the 1980s.
The next thing I researched was the D.A.R.E. program itself. As I went to a parochial institution in New York, I am actually unfamiliar with this program. I first asked a friend of mine who grew up in Massachusetts about it, and then chose to Wikipedia it, for an overall summary. From the Wikipedia page alone I was able to glean interesting facts about the initiative such as the fact that it has been implemented into 75% of the nations school districts. From this page, I was able to also see potential resources related to the topic of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program that is so popular, even thirty years after its inception.
In order to transform this brief idea into an Ed 300 research proposal, you need to expand on the change/continuity over time aspect of the research question (“When and why did education reformers begin to seek fault in this approach?” is a good start, but it needs more), and demonstrate your search strategy and bibliography of sources as required by the assignment.
As we discussed, your new RQ on the rise of drug education fits the Ed 300 requirements and also, I do not recall anyone else who has done a study on this, so it’s original, too.
But you need to look further into the search strategies page for the most appropriate sources, especially those written by historians, to help you answer your RQ as fully as possible. For example, we found 9 sources with generic keyword search of “drug education” in America: History and Life, but only some of those may be relevant, and see also their recommended subject terms for further study.
Also, see WorldCat, and remember to narrow search with “history” if needed.
As you suggested, see JStor also, and be careful not to drown in generic “drug education” articles, because you especially want those that offer a long-term overview of trends.
Furthermore, as we discussed, you may need to narrow your RQ depending on the breadth of sources you find. We discussed ways of limiting the time span (eg 1950-1980) or comparing two distinct time periods (eg 1950s vs 2000s), or comparing specific drug ed programs (eg. DARE over time). All of these would be acceptable ways to narrow a large project into a more manageable one-month undergrad study.