Journal Entry #30 - 3/30/12

While I'm thinking about it, I wanted to brainstorm a few more questions that I will ask people during interviews that I will be doing with them. I had to explain my London project to a friend today, and it's funny how trying to explain your project forces you to make sense of it better than you have before.

So, previously, these the topic of my questions have considered recent statements by the two big camps in religious matters in the UK - at least in the public eye: David Cameron's "We are a Christian country" statement from his December 2011 speech, and a small paragraph published by the British Humanism Association on their website advocating a secular state and the freedom from religion. In addition, I have a question that addresses the large decrease in affiliation with Christian churches by individuals in the United Kingdom as surveyed on the British Social Attitudes survey, asking whether this trend is a positive thing or a negative thing for the country, and another question that cites various studies that have been done that connect religious belief and participation to positive social factors as well as well-known criticisms of religion--the question here will be whether the person sees the net effect of religion as positive or negative.

Now, with respect to these questions, I think some people that I will talk to will have a hard time expressing their real feelings with me. I think they'll probably be fishing around in their responses trying to see what kind of an answer I want from them. I think almost everyone knows that this topic is a pretty hot issue, and nobody really goes around without an opinion on it one way or another. They probably expect that 1) I strongly support religion, or 2) I don't support religion at all, or I support my religion but not others, etc, and they will want to color their responses according to what I seem to want to hear. If they find out I'm very religious myself (which they must if I introduce myself properly, and do not lie, which I won't....because I'm religious and don't believe in that sort of thing....) they will probably try to say things that are positive about religion and religious experience, even if they may have doubts or misgivings personally about it. When they find out that I'm religious, they'll almost definitely take that to mean that I would prefer them to say something positive about churches, or that decreasing religiosity is a bad thing. That does create a real problem, because I must admit that, to some extent, I would like them to say that decreasing religiosity is a bad thing, but I want them to say it if they are going to say it honestly. I'm perfectly alright with them saying that decreasing religiosity is good thing or a neutral thing, as long as that is their honest opinion. I really don't want them to say it's a good thing, only because they think I want them too, when they really don't feel that way at all.

Helping people express how they really feel will depend in large measure on how I conduct each interview. I've noticed that when you ask a question where the answerer feels afraid to say what they really think, they often won't say what it is they are feeling, or they may even say something they don't believe just to save face or to avoid causing offense. I have to project the feeling of someone who would gladly hear the most scandalous and terrifying opinions about religion and not get upset, as long as the person is telling the truth. That's why I've tried to include opinions from both sides of the issue in my questions. I hope that by quoting those who have publicly expressed their opinions on the subject, from both sides of the matter, people I interview will hear an opinion that resonates with them, and open up about their feelings. That's hard, and on second thought it may even be counterproductive, because if I'm trying to fit people's opinions into pre-packaged containers it's not likely that I'm going to get any original material from these interviews, and that's what they are all about. So, although I need to be balanced in my interviewing, I also need to create an environment in the interview where people will express their feelings about religion, even if it's completely different that what I've heard before. It may take some very good observation to sense when what individuals really feel isn't what they're hearing front the two camps that I'll be mentioning, and some real conversational skill to allow that person to open up about their actual feelings without feeling pressured or uncomfortable.

There's a lot of factors to consider...maybe I should practice doing more interviews before I go?

Journal Entry #29 - 3/28/12

In all my thinking about London, one element that I haven't done a wonderful job thinking out is how I'm going to be conducting my interviews. They are, after all, the heart of my project. A successful summer will hang greatly on the quality of these interviews, and on my getting at least 15 of them done.

I imagine myself visiting quite a few churches while I'm in London. The demographic that will be most interesting to me for my study will be traditional Britons--not so much newer immigrants, which there will be bound to be many. While interviewing immigrants will still be a very useful addition to my study, the individuals that I am most interested in talking to will be: 1) Church clergyman from the Church of England, the Catholic Church, and other christian churches (such as an evangelical or Methodist church). 2) Univerisity professors--especially those who are already interested in religious studies and who might be able to help me conduct my survey. 3) Government workers, such as social workers, policemen, or pubic officials.

Talking to people from these three sectors is important because the trend I am researching is focuses on church attendance among other forms of religious behavior, and who better to answer questions about people attending church, and whether it does them good or bad, than church leaders themselves? Secondly, university professors are bound to have a very different take on the role and tradition of religion in the country. Many of them may be atheist or agnostic, they might be religiously indifferent, or even highly religious themselves (the British Social Attitudes Survey confirmed that those who are highly educated and religious tend to be very religious). Since I would like to conduct my survey to college aged young adults around 18-24 years old, if possible, the best gatekeepers for that kind of project would be a university professor who already has an interest in studying religion and who may be intrigued by my research. Talking to public officials would be very interesting because of the current debate going on between those who favor PM David Cameron's assertion that the UK is a Christian country, and those who oppose him, and the role of government with respect to religion is a complex matter that may change a great deal as the country becomes more secular (or not). Thus, finding a thoughtful person in government about the trend would be very interesting indeed.

Gaining access will be a challenge for each of these three, shall we say, target demographics. I believe the easiest to penetrate would be religious leaders. Since most religious events are public, the chance of being able to go to a meeting or a religious service and then go up and talk to a preacher or religious leader afterwards about my project seems very likely to me. One thing is certain - my chance of getting an interview with one of them depends greatly on how well I can talk about my project. If it makes sense and I can make it sound relevant to their work, I may get an interview. If it doesn't sound relevant at all, they'll blow me off. The same goes for professors and government officials - they are all busy people. A whole hour of talking to me isn't something they are likely to just give away unless they feel like it is very important or useful to them too. That's the question I must ask myself: Why would talking to me about religion and religiosity be important?

Journal Entry #28 - 3/26/12

So it has been a while since I've written a journal entry here. With that fairly long-winded IRB application turned in, and an even more long-winded research proposal almost finished (I'll cut it down, don't worry), I think I can finally see the light at the end of this tunnel of field study preparation. Class Friday with Margaret was really helpful. The problem is that elements of my project keep adjusting slightly, and while the changes are reflected in some parts of the proposal, other sections are still based on old ideas. This is why you don't sew new cloth into an old garment; it makes for patchwork proposals.

I spent a lot of time on Friday thinking about the London, England experience that I'm going to have. If I do end up living with a host family, I decided it would definitely be my preference. Families are always so interesting, and I would probably gain a lot more useful contacts and learn a lot more about people in London than in a flat with other college-aged youths. Not trying rag too much the college-aged, but a family might also be a little bit of a calmer place to live, and I'm all about having a quiet place to hang out. Otherwise I'll have to find a nearby library.

After spending some time looking at the London underground maps, you really begin wishing you had a photographic memory. I'm used to the Sao Paulo metro map, which is quite a bit simpler. As it was, I only stayed on one side of that city. I may roam a little farther around London. As I was looking up tourist spots of interest in London I was fascinated by everything that goes on at the Convent Garden. Looking through the website I read about around a dozen different shows, museums, and attractions that I would be interested in seeing during my spare time (hopefully I'll have some :), and there are a few nearby churches as well. It's very close to the center of London and other famous locations like Trafalgar Square and Picadilly Circus, so I can't see myself missing it.

I also looked up a website with reviews of the different museums in London. I swear, there must be a hundred of them. Still, even if it's hard to choose, I'm all about free attractions.

So, I've been reading "The Road to Wigan Pier", by George Orwell, for my History of England since 1689 class. It's an incredible example of participant observation. Orwell spent months following around miners and working class people during the depression of the 1930s in northern England, eating their food and living in their lodging houses. (SIdenote here: I'm so pleased with my class choices this semester, because so far there has been so much overlap, including what I learned in this book). As I was reading, I noticed at least half a dozen places that I have heard of because I have seen them on the map of England on Google Maps (I've studied the map at least ten different times now), and on page 15 Orwell actually calls lunch "dinner", exactly as Kate Fox noted that many lower class people still do today. Hehe, that was really cool, as I definitely wouldn't have noticed without her help. I spent a bit of time yesterday talking to a friend from my ward who served a mission in Birmingham. His comments were that many people in the smaller towns don't have much to do during the day, and many of them have become very adept at living off the government. He also told me to never say the word "pants". Just "trousers" will do the job. I guess I pretty much just wear jeans. Hopefully just calling them "jeans" will help me not to slip up.

Journal Entry #27 - 3/21/12

Reading about pubs and language class codes in "Watching the English" today was incredibly interesting to me. I find it interesting that the words in films (the most obvious being Harry Potter, of course) are clear distinctions between social class that I was unaware of when I first watched the films and read the books. For example, Ron calls his mother "mum" while Malfoy calls his dad "my father", which Fox clearly points out are words that determines your social class (lower class for the former, upper class for the latter). I'm sure there are a whole lot more of them but I've just never noticed them. I think I've overestimated the cultural differences between Britons and Americans for most of my life. I know we like to joke with their accents, and I have always admired them for their generally large and interesting vocabularies (for example, the first Harry Potter was NOT called "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" in the United States. It would only be marketable with "Sorcerer's Stone", even though the original legendary rock of immortality was called the "Philosopher's Stone". Count on us Americans not to know that...hehe), the book "Watching the English" really brings to life the fact that the UK is a completely unique and separate nation and culture. I was watching the third episode of "Sherlock" yesterday and I was surprised by how many slang words I really didn't understand, although "really good nick", however you spell it, seemed to mean that something was in good condition (they were analyzing a pair of shoes". But there must be dozens of these words that I don't know, and I counted at least three in the episode yesterday that I had no idea what they meant.

Then there's this whole idea of a pub. I mean, I'm already as awkward as can be when it comes to alcohol, and drinking alcohol is exactly what pubs are for. And two-thirds of the population frequent one. And they are, apparently, the one place where people are prone to open up. What am I going to do? Walk in and just start off the conversation awkwardly with "Yeah, I don't drink - can I get a soda?" So much for making an easy impression on people. Hehe, I'll have to talk to one of my mission companions - he lived in England for three years until he was 17, and then he moved to Florida. He'll probably know how to do it.

Journal Entry #26 - 3/16/12

Watching this 26 minute video from the "7 Billion Others" project website really made me think a lot about people. I watched the video because I wanted to see and hear more about how normal, everyday people think and believe about God. I've been doing so much reading lately, and a lot of my sources have been printed sources. However, focusing only on what is printed about his topic - attitudes toward religion, and it positively or negatively affects people's lives - does have a strong selection bias. Only the inteligencia puts their thoughts to print. What about the old man next door, the woman in South Sudan, the young man from China? Well, the young man in China might have a blog, but I don't think the old man will (unless he's an outlier, haha). While I am sure these people think deeply about religion and their belief in God, rarely do we get to hear it. I suppose there's not much of a demand for that kind of material, and only organizations like the Goodplanet Foundation that create projects like 7 Billion others actually provide it. That being said, it was remarkable to watch the movie because the voice of the person asking the question is never heard. The camera is often placed so close to the face of the person, and if feels like they are speaking right to you.

I'm the kind of person who likes--too much--to interject, to ask additional questions, to clarify certain points, and to direct a train of thought. I know that I cannot do that while I'm in London interviewing people about how they feel about religion and how it affects them and society, and how increasing secularization might be affecting them, for good or for worse. Religion is a very sensitive topic, with strong feelings and fervent beliefs. I will have to learn to listen more. I'll have to become good at those silent prompts and repeating what others say instead of trying to direct them a certain way. The results are more natural that way, I think; I imagine the opinion-coloring influence that I might have, as an interviewer, on their responses will be lessened if can just hear each person out.

Journal Entry #25 - 3/14/12

I am so impressed with the quality of the documents that we get to read for this class. I have to say I was very entertained by Lee's "Eating Christmas in the Kalahari", with his first-hand narrative that had a tone that sounded just like he were telling the story to a group of friends. It reminded me of my experience in Brasil when I had just arrived. All the sisters in the ward would be so concerned that we missionaries weren't eating enough, and they would constantly tell us "Eat more Elder, eat more!" as if we were purposely holding ourselves back from eating as much as we really wanted to. The truth was quite the opposite. I don't consider myself a man with a monstrous appetite either, so being told to eat more when I was quite full already was very uncomfortable. It was months before I had learned how to respond properly, and by that time my body had adjusted to a very large midday meal anyway, and I became rather proud of my ability to put food away at lunch time. (Alas, I have lost the ability) And it's funny to me now how I reacted with irritation when I would hear the same thing, day after day, from Brazilians that were members and nonmembers, male or female, old or young, that same phrase "Eat more Elder, eat more!!". What kind of cultural phenomenon could make an entire people obsessed with making their lunch guests overstuffed and sleepy every day at 2 pm? It took about a year to figure out that it was simply an expression of high regard for their guests to treat us this way. However, the truth was if our hosts hadn't cared much about two dressed-up missionaries eating lunch in their house, they wouldn't have thought twice to mention that we should eat more. By telling us to "make yourselves at home", and "eat just like you would in your own house" (i.e. eat A LOT), they were just telling us how pleased they were that we had come to their home for lunch. Once I realized the sentiment behind the practice, I became much more determined to eat my fill at lunch time. Eating a lot was a form of gratitude for the food they had made (and to be perfectly honest, the food was incredible, so I had no complaints about eating a lot). And, since we didn't have much time in the mornings to eat breakfast, the raging appetite that I had by lunchtime only made being polite even easier.

I don't know how the English act around mealtimes, or what startling cultural practices I may observe while I'm there, I do know that the faster you can learn them, the faster you can fit in among them. The Brazilian people love to speak with their hands, and they have all sorts of signs and gestures that they use to express certain feelings or meanings. What's so funny about it is that only very few Brazilians actually notice it about themselves. After about a year in Sao Paulo, I started memorizing different gestures and their meanings and doing demonstrations at lunchtimes as entertainment. I can remember one family in particular, rolling with laughter at the two dozen or so gestures I had memorized, not just because the signs and gestures were commonly used, but because here was this funny-accented American doing them all. It was a great way to help Brazilians feel like we were, if not one of them, close enough to be very good friends.

That being said, it still feels a little strange walking into London and just finding a place to stay and building up connections and friendships from what will be, essentially, nothing. It's also exciting though, and even though I'll only have three months, hopefully I'll be observant enough to catch on to little nuances that will help me get along well with Londoners while I'm there, and every time I go back and visit :)

Journal Entry #24 - 3/12/12

What an interesting week it has been. I feel like it has been one of the very best weeks for the development of my project; with all this meeting with professors and filling out course contracts in addition to all the work on the proposal and the IRB application. I feel like my plans are a little bit firmer now, and I'm throwing out the idea of measuring elite opinions. I think I'll be able to do that better by interviewing people anyway. If I can spend more of my time visiting religious meetings, conferences, and churches, and trying to talk to religious leaders, I'll probably be able to find very relevant information from individuals who deal with the religiousness or non religiousness of the people every day. On the other hand, I may be able to find well known individuals such as university professors or leaders from secular societies who would gladly explain their views in an interview. The kind of answers they would give would be more detailed anyway, and then I can decide what questions to ask (which could be good and bad...but mostly good). As for the survey, I'm determined to find out how good a survey conducted by me could get, and if I'm not satisfied, I'll content myself with small scale stuff - a survey of whites in a certain neighborhood, surveys handed out in museums or parks, or a case study of pub owners in highly religious and highly secular parts of London. I don't know, really, but those are a few ideas.

I feel like my proposal has improved a lot though, and although it still needs a bit more work I find it easier to articulate what I want to do now that I've spent time explaining the project to several different people, each with different areas of expertise and levels of experience. The more I do research on religion the more multi-faceted the issue becomes. I thought I had a handle on it when I read my very first source, the 28th British Social Attitudes Survey from 2011, but now I realize how much more there is to understand. History, popular culture, modern entertainment and distractions, the influence of science and liberal attitudes, influential writers and published books, theories, foreign wars, and economic performance--all of these seem to have an influence on religion in some way. In the end, though, it's good to know and appreciate, even if it will all only give me a better context within which to conduct my interviews and case studies.

Journal Entry #23 - 3/6/12

So I just finished watching the first forty minutes of a 2010 debate between former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and renowned writer and journalist Christopher Hitchens. I have been giving in to persuasion recently that I really don't know enough about various atheist positions to really understand their viewpoints very well. It's a heated issue, but the highly viewed debate (it's more than two hours long and still has almost 250,000 views) was very well organized. The topic, "Is religion a force for good in the world?", is the central question that many individuals argue very passionately about. I say individuals because it is probably true that most people don't go around thinking about the question all day. Nevertheless, in the United Kingdom especially, the debate about religion among thinking people is especially strong. It was interesting to notice the makeup of the crowd in the audience. The debate was held in Toronto, Canada, and 57% of audience members actually disagreed with the premise of the debate. That's interesting given only about seventeen percent of Canadians consider themselves of no religion, according to the 2001 census. That the crowd generally agreed with Christopher Hitchens arguments was abundantly clear in the amount of cheering and applause that he received. Listening to Christopher Hitchens speak, I got the feeling that many who agree with or sympathize with atheist or agnostic positions are pragmatists. They don't fancy themselves people who oppose being good or promoting effective change in society. It seemed, however, that Hitchens was convinced of the role that government has in intervening in society in positive ways. In contrast, Tony Blair praised the work of many thousands of religious based organizations for their charitable work and involvement in countries around the world. Blair made the point that many who are religious are extremely motivated by their faith to give, and that that motivation stemming from their religious beliefs is crucial evidence that religion is a positive force in the world. At the same time, Hitchens makes the point that some of the most violent (if not the most violent) regions of the world are continually in conflict because of conflicts based on religious grounds. He points especially to the conflict in Palestine and the Middle East to support this statement.

In all, I would estimate that most people agree that religious teachings motivate many people to do good things. I would also suppose that a majority or at least a plurality of organizations that exist in the world whose sole purpose is to promote the welfare of other people have some sort of religious foundation. I would love to see the actual statistic for that actually. On the other hand, as Hitchens said, I would say that almost everyone would agree with the statement that people know what is right and wrong without religion having to tell them. I would really like know how publicized statements critical of religion are in the United Kingdom. If statements critical of religion and religious belief are common in the public conversations in the United Kingdom, could it be that the entire nation has shifted away from religious affiliation as a result? In Britain, as perhaps in any country, the tradition has always been to follow the lead of the elite. Are they but following the elite opinion away from religion today?

Journal Entry #22 - 3/2/12

So I have been going over in my head how I'm going to approach people about my surveys while I'm in London. The good thing about the survey is that it is only one question. It will not be not clear from the survey itself exactly what we are measuring, since each survey will just include a list of current trends in the United Kingdom and will ask the person taking the survey to list how many of the given trends are troubling. Survey takers won't have to say which of the trends they believe are negative, which means they will probably be more honest about what they report.

And, just for the record, I finally found the article that describes this research method, and you can take a look at it here. This section, however, does a good job of explaining the idea:

Research­ers have re­cently found an­oth­er way to go about this, one that is even more sensitive to respondents who might want to hide bias and does not rely on proxy concerns or coded issues. In the late 1990s, a pair of Harvard po­lit­ical sci­entists prob­ing opin­ions about affirmative action worried that few people would hon­estly answer a pollster’s questions on such a del­icate subject. In­stead, the research­ers turned their sur­veys into an experi­ment, randomly di­viding their sample into two groups. Each group of subjects was pro­vided with a list of state­ments and asked merely to identi­fy how many they agree with, rather than having to weigh in on spe­cif­ic state­ments di­rectly. One group’s list would include an extra, “tar­get” item—“I don’t approve of affirmative action,” say. Then research­ers would com­pare the respons­es of each group, and attribute the differ­ence in the number of state­ments cho­sen to the pres­ence of the tar­get item.

The author of the article also mentions this about the validity of the research methodology:

Aca­demics have lodged minor method­o­logical quarrels with the list-experi­ment technique, noting that the process can confuse respondents and requires the sur­vey-taker to per­fectly calibrate a list of items where most people will agree to some, but not all of them. If it is all or none, respondents could feel that their views on the tar­get item are no longer masked.

To me, this method is a good way of getting around the problem of the Hawthorne Effect. People who know that their opinions or responses are being measured are likely to act or respond differently than they would under normal circumstances. Thus, the idea is either to gain the trust of these people or ask them questions in a way that does not make them wary or unsure about what answer to give.

Nevertheless, this doesn't solve the problem that many of the people I run into in London simply won't want to take the survey. Most surveys these days are taken through phones. It's incredibly difficult to get a truly random sample of a population, and randomly making phone calls and asking individuals what they believe is the easiest and most random method surveyors have come up with so far. I, on the hand, don't have the ability to do even that. My best bet is to find three or four districts in London that, together, are fairly representative of the entire country. Then I have to randomly talk to people from those districts and ask them to take the survey. In addition, I have to randomly assign people to a control group and a test group (one survey with say, five trends including the trend of declining religiosity, and the other with only four, without declining religiosity on the list).

I fear that I won't be able to find a random sample. I would guess that asking people on a bus (however awkward that sounds) to take a survey would be somewhat representative, since a majority of people in the country do take public transportation. However, if I knock on doors I will almost undoubtably talk to the people who tend to be home during the day, which probably includes mostly women. I can't exactly get into a taxi and ask a rich businessman to take my survey. And even if I could, chances are he probably would say no anyway. Should I get a phonebook and randomly call people who live in these districts and ask them the survey question for hours and hours each day? It might be extremely difficult to do that. Or at least extremely frustrating. I do have ninety days, and if I found 10 people willing to take the survey, five days a week, that would mean that after forty days of asking (or more than a month and a half, since those forty days don't include weekends and other days I don't ask) I'll have four hundred people in the study. That might be pretty good. It might be pretty tedious too though :P