Our second writing assignment in Sociological Imagination will be an annotated bibliography on a social stratification topic of our choosing. We were asked to share our preliminary research questions with the class. Mine is, “In what ways does the music industry discriminate against newcomers over age 40?” I explained that whenever established artists or industry executives introduce new artists they are usually in their late teens and early twenties, but you can’t convince me there aren’t equally as talented people age 40 and older who are also working to break into the industry. You can’t convince me they all give up either. Why does the mainstream music industry act as though they don’t exist? What does that say to younger people about the usefulness of older people in our society? What does that say to older people about their place in society?
During the library portion of our class we searched for scholarly articles on our topics. I will have to broaden my topic, as there were absolutely no hits in scholarly journals on that subject. But after class a classmate pulled me aside and told me she was amazed by my question, because she had never noticed how invisible older people who aren’t already established in the music industry are. It really made her think.
Even if I don’t end up choosing a different topic for this assignment, I am pleased that my message got through to someone. That’s the point.
One response to “Sometimes just asking the question is enough to make people think.”
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