Self-Harm and Black Male Teens

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Kindly note that these research and paper brainstorming ideas are not indicative of an assignment but merely notes to help and guide users.

If you are exploring this topic, you might want to dispel cultural myths with an attention getter to this effect:

When we typically think of teens who engage in self-harm, self-mutilation, and self-injurious behaviors such as cutting, burning, picking, and branding, it is common to conjure an image of a white goth female. Instead, research is now demonstrating how black urban male teens are participating in increased rates of self-harm.

Review research and form a thesis:

Many scholars correlate how acts of self-harm among black urban male teens currently serve as unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with these youths' eminent struggles to survive their tough circumstances. In this sense, research briefly explores how acts of self-harm result from the racial, social, economic, and educational factors that marginalize urban black youth and intersect with codes of the streets. Theories from Swahn, Ali, Bossarte, Van Dulmen, Crosby, Jones, & Schinka (2012) validate the rise in self-harm and suicide attempts among high-risk, urban youth in the United States. McClure, Tanski, Kingsbury, Gerrard, & Sargent (2010) also link rising rates of self-harm among black male urban teens in America with low self-esteem due to exposure to neighborhood crime and violence, family abuse, as well as a myriad of risk factors. Finally, my research then also offers some solutions and interventions to rectify this serious problem by citing a clinical model from La Roche& Tawa (2011) as well as Finigan-Carr, Cheng, Gielen, Haynie, & Simons-Morton's (2015) theory of planned behavior.

You might offer a review of literature:

First, some causes of increased black urban male teens' self-harm are explored. Valois, Zullig, & Hunter (2015) confirm how suicide ideation for black males is linked to reduced emotional self-efficacy (237). In context with code of the street implications, Valois, Zullig, & Hunter (2015) also show that urban hardships "experienced by many black youth can precipitate suicidality" (p. 244) ...