Research proposal topic selection PDF

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Tanisha Tanisha Kirandeep kaur Chloe Mackenzie Parveen Dhillon Forum #3 Dr. Caroline Greaves Research proposal topic selection: A Qualitative Examination of The Dangers in The Lives of Streetwalking Sex Workers.

Elements of a research proposal: Purpose of the research: We will be finding out the dangers that streetwalking sex workers face during their life. Attempts to understand this topic area have not been extensive throughout the history. Researchers need to concentrate more on the difficulties confronted by streetwalking prostitutes in their daily work life. Neither of the previous studies portray the accurate reality of the lives of sex workers. It would impact the lives of the sex workers in a positive and healthy way, they will have more access to safer life style as an outcome of the study. The study will undergo the different obstacles that have been neglected by previous studies, for example how the people they work can exploit them, take advantage of their vulnerability and coerce them into doing what they are uncomfortable with.

Reviewing the literature: The previous research on the topics demonstrates the psychological distress amongst women in prostitution. They exhibit a large amount of post-traumatic stress disorder and expose the “pretty woman” myth about the lives of female streetwalking prostitutes by different surveys, interviews and questionnaires. Data was analysed according to phenomenological descriptive analysis, results of which display detailed accounts of the lives of participants. Themes indulged are presented in three segments, including early childhood, life in the profession and potentially leaving the streets. Results show 90% of the times women performing prostitution had a negative and/or traumatic experience. Another study conducted in Washington, DC (Valera, 2000) over 60 of participants experience violence during their involvement in prostitution, 44% had been raped and 42% were found dealing with PTSD once they left the streets.

Conceptualizing and operationalization: Street prostitutes will be defined by women who had exchanged sex or sexual favours for money, drugs or other desirable or materialistic commodities. Dangers faced during the profession will be illustrated by any unwanted threat in the profession either physically or mentally. For example, violence, unwanted sexual favours, events leading to self-harm, emotional distress and lack of self-esteem and the effects of social stigma related to the occupation. Sheir et al. (2018) stated that while violence can be any act of intentionality to injure or harm the other person, it has the possibility of resulting in symbolic violence which can impact an individual culturally, socially or even psychologically. Furthermore, Leaving the streets will be the event of life where they refuse to indulge in any kind of sexual favours in return of money. Identifying the population and selecting the sample: Our aimed population will be female street sex workers based in Metro Vancouver. The participants can contact us in the intervention program, “sex worker protection society (SWPS)” which many sex workers would be interested in because it will deal with different aspects of their lives. Participation in the program will be voluntary and anonymous. Participants will be asked about their personal experience in the profession, aiming primarily at the dangers in “the game”. Women will be asked to indicate the extent of violence, self-harm, coercion faced by them in the occupation. Women will also be asked to tell about the in-depth description of the psychological effects of these events. To get a greater access to the participants, posters will be distributed to other organisations and law enforcement so that more prostitutes can contact us and make an input in our study. Another measure to reach out a larger sample would be to encourage the initial participants to get their friend and acquaintances to take a part in the study as well through snowball sampling. This sample group is aimed to generalize other street sex workers in different Canadian cities.

Ethical considerations: The interview will begin with the interviewee making the participants comfortable enough to talk about the traumatic experiences of their life. Generous amount of time will be given to the participants to develop rapport. The participants will be given a consent and confidentiality form and will be allowed to drop out whenever they want. If they are uncomfortable talking about a

particular event, they will be allowed to skip it and it will be coded. If they do not want a face to face interview, they will be free to just fill out the questionnaire. The interviews will be fairly informal, non-threatening to make the participants feel secure. All the interviews will be tape recorded and later transcribed verbatim by research assistants. Participants will be given a $25 gifts cards. At the end of the study, participants will be supplied with out-reach numbers and organization they can talk to about their experiences.

Research methodology (study design) and data collection: The study will be qualitative and will include rigorous, in depth unstructured interviews and surveys for better understanding of the complexity of their lives. Questions will be predetermined, although the length of the time spent discussing different dangers and the order in which they will be asked will vary depending on the individual and their responses. Open and closed ended questions will be used in order to get detailed analysis of the incidents. Closed ended questions will be coded by using pie charts displaying the percentage of different answers. In addition to this, open ended questions will also be asked to get more thorough information from the participants about the risks, obstacles and sufferings from their time in “the game”. We will categorise the levels of dangers faced by the prostitutes. Level 1 dangers will include the coercion of performing non-consensual sexual acts. Level 2 dangers will include the events leading to self- harm, distress, lack of self-esteem and the social stigma related to prostitution. Lastly, level 3 danger will include the symptoms of PTSD, covering recurrent intrusive memories of sexual acts, reliving the sexual acts and avoiding the situations that remind them about the past life events. This will extensively affect their life after leaving the streets and prostitution. Coding of the data will be done through MAXQDA for improved analysis and visualization of research data. MAXQDA offers many different functions for coding data such as coding words and making segments which will allow us to review all of our surveys effectively. It is a Quasi-experimental design because it is close to impossible to get a randomly assigned sample for this study....