The Effect of Rap Music on Society

Effect of Rap Music Lead on Delinquency Rate in Children Aged Between 11-14 Years 

This proposed research discusses the impact of rap music on children between the age of eleven and fifteen and how these effects promote the level of delinquency in children. Music plays a vital role in the socialization and interaction of adolescents and children. Music provides a form of entertainment and deviation from problems and it is one of the methods of relieving tension and killing boredom. According to Villani (2001), adolescents use some of the popular music to deal with loneliness and to take control of their mood and emotional status. Besides, music provides some background information about romance, which serves as the foundation for establishing friendships and relationships in different settings. According to researchers, most children use music for stage formation, and their preference for a particular genre of music gives them an opportunity to achieve specific group integration and identity into a particular culture of youth (Peterson et al., 2007). Besides, music preferences may reflect the degree of the turmoil of specific developmental stage among children (Martino et al., 2006).Different genres of music have a disparate impact on the development of children at their various stages of growth. Rap music is one of the types of music that has a significant impact on children, especially adolescents. 

The rap music is composed of lyrics that contain profanity and are filled with slang, which cause much concern among educators, parents, children activists, law enforcers and even legislators. Took and Weiss (1994) state that rap lyrics are usually emotionally intense, and sometimes they spin a rags-to-riches tale. This a misleading narrative which encourages laziness and criminality among teenagers by advising them that one can rise from poverty to wealth instantly, or from total obscurity to ultimate fame easily. Despite rap being a diverse genre that expresses a variety of aspirations and realities, it contains videos, which demonstrate dangerous and glamorous fantasies that may have detrimental effects on children. Teens are dragged into the imaginations of glamour, wealth, and sex appetite as portrayed in the rap videos (Johnson, 1995). 

Rap music is one of the factors that has contributed to the increase of delinquency among the adolescent. Children who listen to rap music with lyrics encouraging violence are likely to be violent. For instance, in the mid-1980s, some rap artists such as Schoolly D and N.W.A produced songs such as "PK What Does It Mean" and "Fuck Tha Police," which portrayed images of guns, gangs, sexism, and violence among other vices (Grant, 2002). Later in the 1990s, other rap music artists such as Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg, and Tupac Shakur among others produced hit songs, which depicted acts of sexual appeal, violence, and discrimination. 

These rap songs were acceptable, thus influencing the society, including teenagers in a negative way (Armstrong, 2001). The cause of violence is derived from the theory of social learning. Bandura (1978) states that children observing celebrities being rewarded for aggressive behavior can inspire violence tendencies. For example, N.W.A released a song titled ‘Fuck The Police" in the year 1988 whose lyrics expressed violence and hatred towards police officers in the United States and the song implied that all police were racists, which is not the case. Researchers argue that such lyrics promote disobedience among children, which may result to an increase in juvenile delinquencies such as truancy, staying out past curfew, and underage smoking among other petty and juvenile crimes (Took and Weiss, 1994). 

This proposed study focuses on the behavior of children concerning their tendency to commit misdemeanors, and the relationship between these misdemeanors and rap music. The hypothesis of this proposal determining whether listening to rap music increase the delinquency rate in children aged between eleven and fourteen years. 

Method 

Sample 

Children between the ages of 11-14 years is considered as the target population for sampling. A sample (N=2000) consisting of 400 adolescents comprising of equal number of boys and girls. The participants will be distributed in different groups such as 11-12 years (N=150 out of 750), 12-13 years (N=100 out of 500), and 13-14 years (N=150 out of 750). The children will be selected randomly from different schools in various states of the U.S, who coming from different social backgrounds. The representative sample to base on four sampling layers, which include age, gender, ethnicity, and place of residence. Researchers will request teachers to help in identifying the best groups from which the participants should be selected randomly. The welfare of adolescents is the overriding consideration; the experience of the interview must not harm or disturb the children. Researchers will obtain consent from parents for all young participants. Parents or guardians of the students who would have met the initial criteria to take part in the survey will be notified with letters of explanation. The participants in this study will sign assent forms and researchers will guarantee them a sense of confidentiality be ensuring that their names are removed from the interviews before the data is processed and shared out. Concerning this, the participants' names will be scraped off and replaced with number codes. Researchers and other interviewers who are involved in the project must be safeguarded against misunderstandings or probable allegations of misconduct that may arise from their interactions with the young people taking part in that project (Gillham, 2005). Besides, the public and authorities should be assured that all the research carried out with adolescents is conducted to the highest standards, and they should rule out any possibility of abuse of the young people involved. Mails and phone calls will be used as a median of communication with parents and guardians. 

Procedure 

The interview will be conducted randomly to children regardless of their preferences for music. The adolescents will be interviewed at individual levels in school at private locations. The participants will be grouped according to their ages, which are 11-12 years, 12-13 years, 13-14 years. The interview will focus on the type of music an individual child listens to, their passion in life, how they spend their leisure time, how frequent their parents or guardians punish them as well as establish their performance in class. Interviewers will be allocated randomly to adolescents across the age groups. The method of allocation will make sure that each interviewer handles an equivalent number of participants by gender, ethnicity, and place of residence. 

Measures 

This proposal focuses on the impact of the different types of music on children based on various parameters such as age, gender, place of residence, family status, and ethnicity. The research will measure how different types of music affect the behavioral change in adolescents. Interviewers will use some data collection techniques such as questionnaires. 

The genre of music children listen to: Children have different preferences for music, though they often have similar choices as their friends or peers do. Sometimes adolescents use music as the safest way of rebelling against their parents or foster parents and try to develop their own different identity (Blair, 1993). In most cases, such acts of rebellion lead to generational conflicts as opposed to the healthy way of growing. The type of music children choose to listen to has significant effect on their state of mind. The research will try to establish how some form of music such as rap is associated with antisocial behavior and criminal activities among children (Levine and Munsch, 2014).On the other hand, some music genres such as pop, jazz, classical, country music and folk music among others have less association with crime. 

Duration: Children will be asked about the amount of time they spend listening to music. Much interest will be on the variation of the period based on gender, age, ethnicity and family status among other parameters. The research will also be focusing on the causes of the upward trend of the time that adolescents spend listening to music. The study also aims to determine the difference in duration children spend listening to different genres of music the purpose of establishing some of the most addictive music to children. The impact of technology on the duration of children spend on music shall also be determined. Wolfson and Montgomery-Downs (2013) note that teens spend an average of nine hours a day listening to music. 

Adolescent's leisure time and passion: Information about the way the children spend their leisure time will be gathered. The focus will be on children whose preference is rap music and whether they allocate their free time engaging in constructive activities or community work. The research will also evaluate children's passion in life and match this information with their preferred music genres. 

Delinquencies resulting from music genres: Interviewers will keep track of any criminal activities their participants would have been involved. The delinquencies will be booked according to their frequencies and magnitude. The delinquencies will then be matched against the children age, gender, ethnicity and family status. Researchers argue that American adolescents who spend much of their time watching and listening to sexualized rap music end up engaging themselves in sexually risky behavior and they can influence their peers too. Rap music also discusses violence among other criminal activities as part of dangerous and exciting lifestyle. Such violent lyrics and images have detrimental effects on children mental status. 

School heads will help in providing information about student performance, and their academic records will be traced over a period of three years to establish any changes resulting from the shift in preference a particular music genre to another. 

Results: Proposed Data Analyses 

Comprehensive analyses will be done to establish the relationship that exists between musical genre and behavioral change among the adolescents. The preliminary studies will focus on the association of rap music and misdemeanors among children. 

The hypothesis is that rap music leads to delinquency rate in children aged between eleven and fourteen years. The findings of the research will be analyzed using multiple regression. Separate regression analyses will be performed every year after significant changes in music preferences. 

Previous research indicates that there are socioeconomic differences in the duration that children spend listening to music. Adolescents from lower-income backgrounds tend to spend more time listening to music as compared to their counterparts from high-income families. According to Levine and Munsch (2014), it is not because children from lower-income families have higher chances of using media than those from high-income families, but rather children from lower-income families listen to heavy music such as rap. 

Discussions: Potential Significance of the Findings 

The findings from the proposed project will provide vital information to parents, foster parents, and authorities among other stakeholders about the impact of the type of music on the lives and behavior of children. The research will explore how adolescents' choice of music and their interpretations of music vary with age, gender, ethnicity, culture, and family status in the society. The proposed research paper will highlight the association of rap music with high delinquencies such as truancy, drunkenness, and sexual activities among adolescents. 

The findings from researchers indicate that it is the presence of sexual images or lyrics in rap music rather than the actual music genre that instill sexual appeal among children (Zhang, Dixon, and Conrad, 2009). Besides, there is some rap music, which condemns violence and other criminal activities and even tries to propose solutions. Rap can also help teenagers to develop critical thinking skills. Therefore, a teen's interest in rap should not mark the end of parents' hopes for the success of their children. 

Before research, a degree of accuracy will be set to minimize reasons for non-participation that may result from participants' busy time schedules and lack of interest to participate. Besides, accurate details about participants' addresses will be recorded to ensure the response rate is high. 

References 

Armstrong, E. G. (2001). Gangsta misogyny: A content analysis of the portrayals of violence against women in rap music, 1987–1993.  Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture ,  8 (2), 96-126. 

Bandura, A. (1978). On paradigms and recycled ideologies.  Cognitive Therapy and research ,  2 (1), 79-103. 

Blair, M. E. (1993). Commercialization of the rap music youth subculture.  The Journal of Popular Culture ,  27 (3), 21-33. 

Gillham, B. (2005).  Research Interviewing: The range of techniques: A practical guide . McGraw-Hill Education (UK). 

Grant, E. (2002). Gangsta Rap, the War on Drugs and the Location of African-American Identity in Los Angeles, 198892.  European Journal of American Culture ,  21 (1), 4-15. 

Hofferth, S. L., & Sandberg, J. F. (2001). How American children spend their time.  Journal of Marriage and Family ,  63 (2), 295-308. 

Johnson, J. D., Adams, M. S., Ashburn, L., & Reed, W. (1995). Differential gender effects of exposure to rap music on African American adolescents' acceptance of teen dating violence.  Sex Roles ,  33 (7-8), 597-605. 

Levine, L. E., & Munsch, J. (2014).  Child development: An active learning approach .Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE. 

Martino, S. C., Collins, R. L., Elliott, M. N., Strachman, A., Kanouse, D. E., & Berry, S. H. (2006). Exposure to degrading versus nondegrading music lyrics and sexual behavior among youth. Pediatrics, 118(2), e430-e441 

Peterson, S. H., Wingood, G. M., DiClemente, R. J., Harrington, K., & Davies, S. (2007). Images of sexual stereotypes in rap videos and the health of African American female adolescents.  Journal of Women's Health ,  16 (8), 1157-1164. 

Took, K. J., & Weiss, D. S. (1994). The relationship between heavy metal and rap music and adolescent turmoil: real or artifact.  Adolescence ,  29 (115), 613. 

Villani, S. (2001). Impact of media on children and adolescents: a 10-year review of the research.  Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry ,  40 (4), 392-401. 

Wolfson, A. R., & Montgomery-Downs, H. (2013).  The Oxford handbook of infant, child, and adolescent sleep and behavior .Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Zhang, Y., Dixon, T. L., & Conrad, K. (2009). Rap music videos and African American women's body image: The moderating role of ethnic identity.  Journal of communication ,  59 (2), 262-278.