There are a few points I want to make today about my biases that, looking back, I should have made a long time ago. It's something I want to address today primarily because I think I need to be reminded of it. To be sure, I've never been very good at hiding how I feel, and this blog is as opinionated, perhaps, as a blog could be. That being said, I can remember various moments in the last year, let alone during my life, when my opinions have been utterly shut down by someone who knows a lot more about what I'm talking about than I do. Expressing what I feel recklessly often results in putting my foot in my mouth over and over again. As a general rule, one should be careful about expressing strong opinions about things you know little about. You can speak with greater authority about things you understand well, but even then one must be careful to be evenhanded and acknowledge other opinions. On a side note, I have to say that I'm pretty jelly-legged when it comes to people proving me wrong, and am usually very willing to change my opinion when I consider opposing arguments. I care more about defending what is actually true than sticking with my original thought. However, that willingness to adapt to opposing evidence is no excuse for sloppy thinking. It should be expected that you consider both sides of an issue before you open your big mouth.
So, for what really might be the first time, I would like to take a moment to argue the side of those who feel negatively about religion. Now, I tend to be pretty bold about what I write down here in my journal entries. But I've been pretty open about saying it how it is from the point of view of a defender of religion and christianity, so I hope my comments from the other side of the debate can be understood in that rather honest light.
I remember when I was taking AP US Government and Politics my Junior year of high school. I took the class from what you could call a rather biased teacher - a political and religious skeptic that clearly positioned left of center. Although he was clearly opinionated, he was always open and respectful of other opinions. Okay, he was generally open and respectful of other opinions. He showed us a documentary in class called "Jesus Camp" about evangelical Christians in America. The documentary was clearly biased against evangelicals, but the footage was taken from actual religious meetings and activities with youth who participated in a week-long camp run by their church. There was some memorable footage of people speaking in tongues during meetings, declaring the absolute perfection of the Bible, and one scene where individuals prayed for George W. Bush in front of a cardboard cutout of the then-current president. Our teacher talked about how the evangelicals were radical, and how many individuals in the country felt very negatively about them. Well, for me, I could understand how many people could see that footage and feel very negatively about all religious groups. Nevertheless, it was clear that the events recorded on the documentary were fringe groups - not exactly the mainstream. Likewise, a lot of the sources that I've been finding expressing atheist viewpoints can be considered fringe groups. While these groups may have a considerable following, they still represent the views of a minority in the country. Not all atheists are offended when they see a religious symbol, and not all evangelical christians would look favorably on praying in front of a cardboard cutout of President Bush. I expect that almost all atheists and almost all evangelicals are normal, decent, non radical people.
Moreover, great enthusiasm for religion that turns to bigotry is harmful to society. While I was in Brasil, one of the fellow companionships in our house was teaching a sixteen year old who had just gotten baptized in the LDS church. He had never really participated in religion before, but the week after he entered the LDS church, he was asked to accompany his younger sister to a youth retreat sponsored by a local christian church over the weekend. According to what the other missionaries told me, while this he was there, he was shocked to be given a form asking him to check in what church he had been baptized previously. Those who had been baptized in other churches were asked later to stand up and publicly denounce the validity of their previous baptisms or religious affiliations and declare that the church sponsoring the event was the only true church. He refused, and received considerable criticism for it. The other missionaries told us that he was very emotionally traumatized by the event. Again, this church was not exactly the mainstream, but it still boasted considerable popularity in the area. Actions like these by churches, whether they are christian or not, are extremely offensive to many people, and I would imagine that most people would agree that having no religion would be better than being a member of a religion that promotes unity through peer pressure or teaches faith by excluding others.
Lastly, religious scandals in the last few decades of church leaders involving sexual abuse and financial mismanagement have not helped the image of religious institutions. In the New Testament, Jesus openly condemned the Pharisees in Jerusalem, the most openly religious individuals in Jewish society at the time. Those who were non religious and considered sinners, such as the publicans and harlots, were declared to more easily enter the kingdom of heaven than the hypocritical Pharisees, who taught one thing and did another (Matthew 21)
Clearly, there is no such thing as drawing a line between religious people and bad people. However, if it is reasonable to conclude that being religious generally infers commitment to moral values, and moral values correlate with better outcomes for society, religiosity in a society can be very good. But maybe some still disagree. Maybe people in the United Kingdom would say the opposite. Maybe the case made by atheists is justified. And even if it's not completely justified, it is a rational argument that should be addressed fairly. Otherwise my research won't be worth anything. You can't measure probability using a two-headed quarter. Or, should I say fifty pence crown?
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Journal Entry #20 - 2/27/12
So I took the Myers Briggs test today. You know? It was really fun to take. But I don't think it really taught me anything. Mostly because the answers to the questions depend far to much on the specific situations that they apply to. I found myself split right down the middle several times. Take a look at my results:
Your Type is
ENFJ -- Extraverted Intuitive Feeling Judging
You are:
moderately expressed extravert
moderately expressed intuitive personality
moderately expressed feeling personality
moderately expressed judging personality
Wow. So I am really moderate, hehe :) To be honest though, I think the test is better at measuring those who are at the extremes. However, would I be wrong to say that many people take each situation in turn and measure their reactions according to what they believe would be most effective? Being extraverted has it's benefits, as does being thoughtful and alone. Being the center of attention or working with a large group of people can be just as important as taking a side-line role or working in a small group. To me, they're just apples and oranges. Some days I like apples better than oranges. Sometimes I like bananas better than either (because they're easier to eat :). Some situations call for a hammer while others call for tweezers. As a result, it's hard to generalize how I react to each situation because the reality is I react in the way that I believe is most likely to bring about the desired result, just like a mechanic uses the tools he believes will help him fix the car.
And speaking of using the correct tools, I'm back to thinking about my research project again. There are a lot of nuances of religion in the United Kingdom that could be studied. Today I found a fascinating article on the differences in attitudes toward suicide between students in religious education and students in secular education in Turkey. As it turns out, religious students are less likely to commit suicide, but they are also more accepting of individuals who do commit suicide. That seems almost backward, but nevertheless demonstrates that those in secular education are more likely to think negatively about the decision of other people to commit suicide than their religious counterparts. It is interesting to me how some secular groups advocate the need for equality between those who express secular views and those who express religious views in a way that could be interpreted as a lack of tolerance for religion. Could the group that seems to be constantly calling for tolerance actually be more intolerant?
For example, this is is from the website of the National Secular Society (in Britain):
Secularism seeks to defend the absolute freedom of religious and other belief, and protect the right to manifest religious belief insofar as it does not impinge disproportionately on the rights and freedoms of others. Secularism ensures that the right of individuals to freedom of religion is always balanced by the right to be free from religion.
These groups don't just want atheism to be accepted, they want to remove religion and religious symbols completely from the public sphere. While those with secular views are not condemned for advocating "freedom from religion", how quickly would they condemn organizations seeking "freedom from atheism"? And why is it that while research concludes again and again that religiosity is correlated with positive social indicators (including tolerance toward those who make choices completely against the values of the religion, as in the case of the religious students in Turkey toward close friends who commit suicide), speaking openly in support of religion in the public sphere receives so much criticism?
Interesting. But, moving on to the different tools I could use while I'm doing research in London, while I was talking to Dr. Christensen on Friday, I became rather convinced that a comparison study of elite attitudes about religion to the attitudes of the masses would make a very interesting addition to the debate going on the in country between those supporting the role of religion (David Cameron and Sayeeda Warsi in particular) and those who oppose it. If the opinions expressed by elites are indeed more secular than those of the general public, such would provide considerable justification for the policies of the current British government. On the other hand, if the general public agrees with elites, more secular policies are bound to gain support in the country.
This is a topic that is narrow, relevant, and possible to answer while I'm in London. It's an analytical question too, and I think that's best. It'll be tough work to come up with a good research design to test it, but I think it will work. My only worry is that, unlike the mechanic, this tool may not actually fix anything.
(error note: I said on an earlier post that Sayeeda Warsi was the first Muslim elected to Parliament. That's wrong on two counts. First of all, she was not elected because she is a peeress in the House of Lords. Second, she is the third Muslim elected to Parliament and the first female Muslim in Parliament. Sorry about the error there.)
Your Type is
ENFJ -- Extraverted Intuitive Feeling Judging
You are:
moderately expressed extravert
moderately expressed intuitive personality
moderately expressed feeling personality
moderately expressed judging personality
Wow. So I am really moderate, hehe :) To be honest though, I think the test is better at measuring those who are at the extremes. However, would I be wrong to say that many people take each situation in turn and measure their reactions according to what they believe would be most effective? Being extraverted has it's benefits, as does being thoughtful and alone. Being the center of attention or working with a large group of people can be just as important as taking a side-line role or working in a small group. To me, they're just apples and oranges. Some days I like apples better than oranges. Sometimes I like bananas better than either (because they're easier to eat :). Some situations call for a hammer while others call for tweezers. As a result, it's hard to generalize how I react to each situation because the reality is I react in the way that I believe is most likely to bring about the desired result, just like a mechanic uses the tools he believes will help him fix the car.
And speaking of using the correct tools, I'm back to thinking about my research project again. There are a lot of nuances of religion in the United Kingdom that could be studied. Today I found a fascinating article on the differences in attitudes toward suicide between students in religious education and students in secular education in Turkey. As it turns out, religious students are less likely to commit suicide, but they are also more accepting of individuals who do commit suicide. That seems almost backward, but nevertheless demonstrates that those in secular education are more likely to think negatively about the decision of other people to commit suicide than their religious counterparts. It is interesting to me how some secular groups advocate the need for equality between those who express secular views and those who express religious views in a way that could be interpreted as a lack of tolerance for religion. Could the group that seems to be constantly calling for tolerance actually be more intolerant?
For example, this is is from the website of the National Secular Society (in Britain):
Secularism seeks to defend the absolute freedom of religious and other belief, and protect the right to manifest religious belief insofar as it does not impinge disproportionately on the rights and freedoms of others. Secularism ensures that the right of individuals to freedom of religion is always balanced by the right to be free from religion.
These groups don't just want atheism to be accepted, they want to remove religion and religious symbols completely from the public sphere. While those with secular views are not condemned for advocating "freedom from religion", how quickly would they condemn organizations seeking "freedom from atheism"? And why is it that while research concludes again and again that religiosity is correlated with positive social indicators (including tolerance toward those who make choices completely against the values of the religion, as in the case of the religious students in Turkey toward close friends who commit suicide), speaking openly in support of religion in the public sphere receives so much criticism?
Interesting. But, moving on to the different tools I could use while I'm doing research in London, while I was talking to Dr. Christensen on Friday, I became rather convinced that a comparison study of elite attitudes about religion to the attitudes of the masses would make a very interesting addition to the debate going on the in country between those supporting the role of religion (David Cameron and Sayeeda Warsi in particular) and those who oppose it. If the opinions expressed by elites are indeed more secular than those of the general public, such would provide considerable justification for the policies of the current British government. On the other hand, if the general public agrees with elites, more secular policies are bound to gain support in the country.
This is a topic that is narrow, relevant, and possible to answer while I'm in London. It's an analytical question too, and I think that's best. It'll be tough work to come up with a good research design to test it, but I think it will work. My only worry is that, unlike the mechanic, this tool may not actually fix anything.
(error note: I said on an earlier post that Sayeeda Warsi was the first Muslim elected to Parliament. That's wrong on two counts. First of all, she was not elected because she is a peeress in the House of Lords. Second, she is the third Muslim elected to Parliament and the first female Muslim in Parliament. Sorry about the error there.)
Friday, February 24, 2012
Journal Entry #19 - 2/24/12
So this afternoon I met with Dr. Ray Christensen, my professor for Political Science 200: Political Inquiry, and told him about my project. After explaining to him a little bit of the history about the field study project and how it was the reason I decided to take Political Science 200 this semester, I told him about my research project and how I would be studying religion this summer while I'm there.
During our approximately twenty-five minute discussion, we accomplished a great deal. First of all, Dr. Christensen confirmed my observation that a descriptive study of opinions about religion would attract significantly less attention than an analytical one, and I should probably change my research question to reflect that. That, alone, is a pretty big change. He suggested that I study the difference in opinions of the elites about religion and compare those views to the opinions of the general population in England. I explained to him my concept idea for a survey that would ask Londoners to choose how many trends in the country listed on the survey they considered to have a negative effect on the nation. I would have a control group where "declining religiosity" would not be included, and a test group where it would be included. At that point, Dr. Christensen explained that surveys are extremely hard to use because it is so difficult to make them random. Call centers try to do the job by randomly calling numbers and talking to the people who answer, and although that isn't a perfect system either, it's as good as they can get. Since I can't do that, we decided that I could analyze the census data for the whole country and for London, and choose maybe three or four or five districts in London that have an ethnic, social class, and religious makeup that is fairly representative of the whole country. I could go to those districts and ask people to take the survey myself, perhaps knocking on every fifth or tenth door, or asking one man and one woman per bus, or something like that. It would be arduous work, but the payoff would be very interesting. He suggested having a research question with a dependent and independent variable - for example, the secular opinions voiced by elites in the United Kingdom have caused decreasing levels of religious affiliation in the United Kingdom in the last decade. He said I could possibly measure the opinions of elites by searching the Times for the last 5 or 10 years for all references to religious affiliation or secularism and cite how many times secular views were expressed by these elites. I suggested that I could look up comments given about religion by elites in the last year and compare how many positive statements were given as opposed to negative ones. Or, I could find a published list of "the most influential people" in the United Kingdom, or something of the sort, and then study each person on a case by case basis to see what kinds of views they have expressed about religion. Then I could compare that data to the data collected in my survey to see how the views of the elites line up with the views of the masses.
Another idea that I've had just thinking about it now would be to ask people to rate how favorably they feel about a statement made by a well-known person in society without telling them who said it, and include statements that were positive about religion and others that were negative about religion. I could compare how favorably people responded to these statements. I'll have to ask Dr. Christensen to get a better idea of how to do that though.
Anyway, overall, it was an incredibly productive conversation, and I recorded most of it on my iPhone so I can go back and listen again to remember some of the things we discussed. Dr. Christensen said that although he wouldn't be able to collaborate with me for a class over the summer, he would gladly be my faculty mentor. Also, I decided while we were talking that I would do my second Research Design assignment in the class on the topic chosen for the Field Study project, and Dr. Christensen agreed that it would definitely help. I'm more excited than ever about doing this project, and even though it's still pretty frightening, I think it could really make an impact on the debate in the country if it is very well-written and has a good research design. This will be some trip to London ;)
During our approximately twenty-five minute discussion, we accomplished a great deal. First of all, Dr. Christensen confirmed my observation that a descriptive study of opinions about religion would attract significantly less attention than an analytical one, and I should probably change my research question to reflect that. That, alone, is a pretty big change. He suggested that I study the difference in opinions of the elites about religion and compare those views to the opinions of the general population in England. I explained to him my concept idea for a survey that would ask Londoners to choose how many trends in the country listed on the survey they considered to have a negative effect on the nation. I would have a control group where "declining religiosity" would not be included, and a test group where it would be included. At that point, Dr. Christensen explained that surveys are extremely hard to use because it is so difficult to make them random. Call centers try to do the job by randomly calling numbers and talking to the people who answer, and although that isn't a perfect system either, it's as good as they can get. Since I can't do that, we decided that I could analyze the census data for the whole country and for London, and choose maybe three or four or five districts in London that have an ethnic, social class, and religious makeup that is fairly representative of the whole country. I could go to those districts and ask people to take the survey myself, perhaps knocking on every fifth or tenth door, or asking one man and one woman per bus, or something like that. It would be arduous work, but the payoff would be very interesting. He suggested having a research question with a dependent and independent variable - for example, the secular opinions voiced by elites in the United Kingdom have caused decreasing levels of religious affiliation in the United Kingdom in the last decade. He said I could possibly measure the opinions of elites by searching the Times for the last 5 or 10 years for all references to religious affiliation or secularism and cite how many times secular views were expressed by these elites. I suggested that I could look up comments given about religion by elites in the last year and compare how many positive statements were given as opposed to negative ones. Or, I could find a published list of "the most influential people" in the United Kingdom, or something of the sort, and then study each person on a case by case basis to see what kinds of views they have expressed about religion. Then I could compare that data to the data collected in my survey to see how the views of the elites line up with the views of the masses.
Another idea that I've had just thinking about it now would be to ask people to rate how favorably they feel about a statement made by a well-known person in society without telling them who said it, and include statements that were positive about religion and others that were negative about religion. I could compare how favorably people responded to these statements. I'll have to ask Dr. Christensen to get a better idea of how to do that though.
Anyway, overall, it was an incredibly productive conversation, and I recorded most of it on my iPhone so I can go back and listen again to remember some of the things we discussed. Dr. Christensen said that although he wouldn't be able to collaborate with me for a class over the summer, he would gladly be my faculty mentor. Also, I decided while we were talking that I would do my second Research Design assignment in the class on the topic chosen for the Field Study project, and Dr. Christensen agreed that it would definitely help. I'm more excited than ever about doing this project, and even though it's still pretty frightening, I think it could really make an impact on the debate in the country if it is very well-written and has a good research design. This will be some trip to London ;)
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Journal Entry #18 - 2/22/12
I don't know if I've ever had a semester where I've thought as much or as hard as this semester. Going to Inquiry Conference this week has been another experience that has caused me a great deal of thought.
On a side note, all these thoughts are a good thing because they are reminders that I enjoy my major. I was frustrated for a while while I was trying to decide on a major because I felt like I liked learning about everything. That's good, and some people would say that's why I could just choose a major at random and I would end up happy regardless, but that's actually not it - I enjoy continually learning about everything, which means I needed a major that would allow me to educate myself broadly or I would get bored. So far, International Relations has been a wonderful way to learn widely about many things that I find interesting.
Back to the Inquiry Conference, today's conference lecture included a couple of presentations of students who created specific experiments and conducted them with NGO's in Uganda. I'm currently in PL SC 200, and we've been discussing the elements of a good research design. The students who gave the presentations did a great job of creating valid designs with randomization and control and treatment groups, discussions of internal and external validity, and statistical evaluations of their results. It got me really excited, but when I asked they told me that they took a research design class that taught them how to do each step correctly. Well, I really would like to know everything that they know right now, because I know it's going to be incredibly useful in England. There are at least a couple of experiments that I would like to try while I'm there that would involve randomization, control groups, and clever surveys (like the one I discussed in my last journal entry) that would clearly show attitudes toward religion in England. I have 90 days to do the work, and although that will probably end up being very short once I'm there, it's still a lot of time. I'd like to have meaningful activities every day that would be motivating and productive, and I'm a little afraid about getting there and simply not knowing how to put together the kind of brilliant surveys or experiments that would really make the experience useful.
Zooming out a little bit, I'm thinking back on my mission and the role that numbers played into our work. There were always people on both sides of the issue - those in favor of the numbers and who focused on them heavily and those who did not trust the numbers and held them more or less in disdain. In truth, both sides of the argument have some validity - 200 meaningless contacts in the streets was often much less effective than a couple hours of identifying less active members on the list and visiting them. The same argument comes up in research in the debate between the usefulness of qualitative vs. qualitative work. I agree with Professor Christensen - you have to look at your research question and see what kind of experiments would be possible in your area - quantitative and experimental, quantitative and non-experimental, and qualitative. Some areas of research simply cannot be studied quantitatively (like to what extent people agree or disagree with a certain policy - the variables aren't ordinal, they're just nominal), and some are naturally quantitative (percentage of people in a country who identify themselves as Christian, for example). In the Inquiry Conference today, David Remington talked about how many NGO or international development programs simply aren't useful at all, or do not accomplish what they set out to do (or, even more tragically, they find out that accomplishing what they set out to do would do more harm than good). The HELP International funded program lacked research and careful preparation that would have helped the program be more effective. In cases like Remington's, the research conducted by the other presenters is incredibly important. In contrast to the poorly informed program that Remington participated in last summer in India, the other presenters (Megan, Peter, and Madeleine) designed experiments to see if certain interventions (publicizing facilitating communication between NGO's for example) are actually beneficial based on statistical tests. Clearly, there are ways to use qualitative research in a meaningful way when studying the effect of certain policies. If they are beneficial in one place, they can be replicated on a large scale and be very effective.
In short - I want to use both qualitative and quantitative research on my field study. However, quantitative research takes practice and a lot of help...I'll need a great faculty mentor.
On a side note, all these thoughts are a good thing because they are reminders that I enjoy my major. I was frustrated for a while while I was trying to decide on a major because I felt like I liked learning about everything. That's good, and some people would say that's why I could just choose a major at random and I would end up happy regardless, but that's actually not it - I enjoy continually learning about everything, which means I needed a major that would allow me to educate myself broadly or I would get bored. So far, International Relations has been a wonderful way to learn widely about many things that I find interesting.
Back to the Inquiry Conference, today's conference lecture included a couple of presentations of students who created specific experiments and conducted them with NGO's in Uganda. I'm currently in PL SC 200, and we've been discussing the elements of a good research design. The students who gave the presentations did a great job of creating valid designs with randomization and control and treatment groups, discussions of internal and external validity, and statistical evaluations of their results. It got me really excited, but when I asked they told me that they took a research design class that taught them how to do each step correctly. Well, I really would like to know everything that they know right now, because I know it's going to be incredibly useful in England. There are at least a couple of experiments that I would like to try while I'm there that would involve randomization, control groups, and clever surveys (like the one I discussed in my last journal entry) that would clearly show attitudes toward religion in England. I have 90 days to do the work, and although that will probably end up being very short once I'm there, it's still a lot of time. I'd like to have meaningful activities every day that would be motivating and productive, and I'm a little afraid about getting there and simply not knowing how to put together the kind of brilliant surveys or experiments that would really make the experience useful.
Zooming out a little bit, I'm thinking back on my mission and the role that numbers played into our work. There were always people on both sides of the issue - those in favor of the numbers and who focused on them heavily and those who did not trust the numbers and held them more or less in disdain. In truth, both sides of the argument have some validity - 200 meaningless contacts in the streets was often much less effective than a couple hours of identifying less active members on the list and visiting them. The same argument comes up in research in the debate between the usefulness of qualitative vs. qualitative work. I agree with Professor Christensen - you have to look at your research question and see what kind of experiments would be possible in your area - quantitative and experimental, quantitative and non-experimental, and qualitative. Some areas of research simply cannot be studied quantitatively (like to what extent people agree or disagree with a certain policy - the variables aren't ordinal, they're just nominal), and some are naturally quantitative (percentage of people in a country who identify themselves as Christian, for example). In the Inquiry Conference today, David Remington talked about how many NGO or international development programs simply aren't useful at all, or do not accomplish what they set out to do (or, even more tragically, they find out that accomplishing what they set out to do would do more harm than good). The HELP International funded program lacked research and careful preparation that would have helped the program be more effective. In cases like Remington's, the research conducted by the other presenters is incredibly important. In contrast to the poorly informed program that Remington participated in last summer in India, the other presenters (Megan, Peter, and Madeleine) designed experiments to see if certain interventions (publicizing facilitating communication between NGO's for example) are actually beneficial based on statistical tests. Clearly, there are ways to use qualitative research in a meaningful way when studying the effect of certain policies. If they are beneficial in one place, they can be replicated on a large scale and be very effective.
In short - I want to use both qualitative and quantitative research on my field study. However, quantitative research takes practice and a lot of help...I'll need a great faculty mentor.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Journal Entry #17 - 2/21/12
Working on Section B of my research proposal has caused me to think hard about my project this coming summer. It is one thing just to go to class, to participate, to do some minimal research and writing on a regular basis, and then to actually submit a finalized introduction to and justification for my research in London this summer. Drafting a careful, rational argument for the research I will do pushes me into a corner a little bit and forces me to come up with more valid arguments for my research than ever before. "It means gathering yourself together into a single point rather than letting yourself be dispersed everywhere into a cloud of electronic and social input," as William Deresiewicz said in a lecture given at West Point in October, 2009 (see the full speech here). However, preparing for the proposal draft has been very helpful, and I have had a lot of thoughts (mostly scattered, as usual) that I want to keep track of because they will be useful later, so I'll put a few down here:
First of all, I don't have a faculty mentor yet. However, I think I'm going to talk to my PL SC 200 teacher Ray Christensen and see if he could be mine. Dr. Christensen is so passionate and fascinated by social science research, and I think he will really be able to help me create the kind of really effective research design that will make this summer's project incredible. For instance, last week we talked about whether our "x's" in our research could be manipulated or not (i.e. randomized). I think that mine could. Because I have a hypothesis. I believe that although citizens in the United Kingdom have shown themselves to be decreasingly religious and increasingly liberal in their attitudes toward things such as the role of religion in forming public policy (74% agree or tend to a agree that religion shouldn't affect public policy according to a Ipsos MORI survey that was released last week) or whether it is wrong for a woman to have an abortion in the legal time limit (only 20% agree that it is wrong), I think that most British citizens generally feel that the decreasing religiosity of their country is hurting their country and their society. I read about a clever study that was done in the United States that sought to discover how supportive Americans really are of a Mormon President. They placed several unrelated characteristics in a list and asked the survey takers to give the number of negative characteristics on the list (without saying which ones they thought were positive). A control group was given the list without "is a mormon" or something to that effect, on the list, and the results were compared to those who were given a list that had "is a mormon" among the other characteristics. The results showed that there were significant concerns felt by many American about having a Mormon president, because the mean number of negative characteristics on the list increased when "is a Mormon" was added to the list. So, going back to my project, I think I might be able to use the same model to find out how Englanders feel about the decreasing religiosity in their country, and I could do it one of two ways. First, I could create a list of current trends or events occurring in the UK (like devolution, keeping the British pound, involvement in Syria, etc) and ask people to list the number of positive movements in the country from the list. I would have a control group that would take the survey without "decreasing religiosity" on the list, and another group with "decreasing religiosity" included. Then I would compare the results afterward. To do it the other way around, I could ask them to list the number of negative movements or events occurring in the country and perform the same experiment, with a control group and a normal group taking the survey. I think the latter would be more convincing, since if the reported number of negative movements in the country increased among those who had "decreasing religiosity" on the list, the change could be directly attributed to the negative feelings that Britons have toward the decreasing religiosity in the country. I theorize that most British citizens are aware of the positive effects that religious beliefs have in peoples lives, and although they are increasingly irreligious, most do not view the change in a positive light. Through interviews and surveys and talking to people, I hope to evaluate the various attitudes that people have toward the trend of decreasing religiosity in the country. The results of the study could either validate or vilify the actions of government in the United Kingdom in defense of religious liberties and Christian values.
First of all, I don't have a faculty mentor yet. However, I think I'm going to talk to my PL SC 200 teacher Ray Christensen and see if he could be mine. Dr. Christensen is so passionate and fascinated by social science research, and I think he will really be able to help me create the kind of really effective research design that will make this summer's project incredible. For instance, last week we talked about whether our "x's" in our research could be manipulated or not (i.e. randomized). I think that mine could. Because I have a hypothesis. I believe that although citizens in the United Kingdom have shown themselves to be decreasingly religious and increasingly liberal in their attitudes toward things such as the role of religion in forming public policy (74% agree or tend to a agree that religion shouldn't affect public policy according to a Ipsos MORI survey that was released last week) or whether it is wrong for a woman to have an abortion in the legal time limit (only 20% agree that it is wrong), I think that most British citizens generally feel that the decreasing religiosity of their country is hurting their country and their society. I read about a clever study that was done in the United States that sought to discover how supportive Americans really are of a Mormon President. They placed several unrelated characteristics in a list and asked the survey takers to give the number of negative characteristics on the list (without saying which ones they thought were positive). A control group was given the list without "is a mormon" or something to that effect, on the list, and the results were compared to those who were given a list that had "is a mormon" among the other characteristics. The results showed that there were significant concerns felt by many American about having a Mormon president, because the mean number of negative characteristics on the list increased when "is a Mormon" was added to the list. So, going back to my project, I think I might be able to use the same model to find out how Englanders feel about the decreasing religiosity in their country, and I could do it one of two ways. First, I could create a list of current trends or events occurring in the UK (like devolution, keeping the British pound, involvement in Syria, etc) and ask people to list the number of positive movements in the country from the list. I would have a control group that would take the survey without "decreasing religiosity" on the list, and another group with "decreasing religiosity" included. Then I would compare the results afterward. To do it the other way around, I could ask them to list the number of negative movements or events occurring in the country and perform the same experiment, with a control group and a normal group taking the survey. I think the latter would be more convincing, since if the reported number of negative movements in the country increased among those who had "decreasing religiosity" on the list, the change could be directly attributed to the negative feelings that Britons have toward the decreasing religiosity in the country. I theorize that most British citizens are aware of the positive effects that religious beliefs have in peoples lives, and although they are increasingly irreligious, most do not view the change in a positive light. Through interviews and surveys and talking to people, I hope to evaluate the various attitudes that people have toward the trend of decreasing religiosity in the country. The results of the study could either validate or vilify the actions of government in the United Kingdom in defense of religious liberties and Christian values.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Journal Entry #16 - 2/17/12
So it's been fun doing more research about Christianity in the United Kingdom today. Yesterday I found a wonderfully thorough study about Christian Attitudes in the UK that appears to be at least as good as the British Social Attitudes Survey. I haven't had time to go through the entire thing yet, but what I have found is extremely interesting, and shows the same patterns of support for Christian values and beliefs that the Social Attitudes Survey found. However, this second study goes into more detail in survey questions about what Britons actually believe in terms of support for gay marriage, whether they have read the Bible or not, how often they pray, etc. It's a great resource.
At the same time I've done some more research to find what influential people or institutions in the UK say about religion. I found great website called The Way, which is a completely nondenominational website that brings common Christian beliefs under a common heading. It even has a search engine for you to find any Christian church within the United Kingdom, the address, phone number, etc (except I noticed the LDS church was not listed). I watched half of one of the videos posted there outlining basic Christian doctrine and the importance of following Christ, keeping the commandments, and how to be forgiven. It was an extremely well made video and was simple and informative without being condemning. However, when I checked Youtube, the video had only about 2500 views. That seems pretty low for such a high quality video. In any case, it was very informative and I believe representative of the kind of approach Christian churches are taking in the UK. In contrast to Christian churches in Brazil, many of which are extremely enthusiastic and involve lots of loud music, loud singing and violent loyalties between the different denominations, the British model is much more laid back. However, in terms of teaching traditional values, the website was actually quite clear about what was right and wrong, although I could tell that they were careful in their choice of language to invite people instead of condemn them. This page was particularly interesting. Overall, it will be interesting to talk to leaders and members in these different churches and hear how their views about social issues and the role of religion contrasts with the opinions that these recent surveys have demonstrated are held by the majority of the population in the UK.
At the same time I've done some more research to find what influential people or institutions in the UK say about religion. I found great website called The Way, which is a completely nondenominational website that brings common Christian beliefs under a common heading. It even has a search engine for you to find any Christian church within the United Kingdom, the address, phone number, etc (except I noticed the LDS church was not listed). I watched half of one of the videos posted there outlining basic Christian doctrine and the importance of following Christ, keeping the commandments, and how to be forgiven. It was an extremely well made video and was simple and informative without being condemning. However, when I checked Youtube, the video had only about 2500 views. That seems pretty low for such a high quality video. In any case, it was very informative and I believe representative of the kind of approach Christian churches are taking in the UK. In contrast to Christian churches in Brazil, many of which are extremely enthusiastic and involve lots of loud music, loud singing and violent loyalties between the different denominations, the British model is much more laid back. However, in terms of teaching traditional values, the website was actually quite clear about what was right and wrong, although I could tell that they were careful in their choice of language to invite people instead of condemn them. This page was particularly interesting. Overall, it will be interesting to talk to leaders and members in these different churches and hear how their views about social issues and the role of religion contrasts with the opinions that these recent surveys have demonstrated are held by the majority of the population in the UK.
Journal Entry #15 - 2/16/12
So, this journal entry is really late. I was planning on doing it the normal time, but the Library Assignment due in PL SC 200 (which ended up being almost 14 pages long....whew!) took longer than expected. That being said, the Library Assignment was incredibly helpful in educating me more about databases and scholarly articles and how to make correct citations of unique documents. Quite like our source document analyses that we complete for our field study prep class, I created a research question about something I was interested in and then found numerous sources from books, articles, dissertations, government publications, and more to find out more information about the topic. For ten of the sources I wrote a summary and a description of how the source would be useful to my research. In the end, I definitely learned quite a bit about the costs and benefits of bilingual education :) However, more than learning just about my topic, I discovered that there are a huge amount of databases and research resources that I haven't even used in my research for the this field study, much of which I will have to take a closer look at during this next few weeks (in fact, sometimes I wish I could just spend an afternoon going through each database in the HBLL website just to figure out what each one is for). Still, although there are a lot of resources that can be used through the library, I have noticed that many of the articles written by researchers in the social sciences are extremely dry. While this doesn't go for all of them, sometimes I feel like these social scientists are capable of taking any topic of study and sucking the life out of it with all their theories, jargon, regressions and research models. Of all the documents that I looked at studying bilingual education, the ones that had the largest effect on me were a book written by a very passionate and talented educator and a government document written by yet another educator. The latter was personally involved in bilingual education and gave specific strategies for helping immigrant Spanish-speaking children not only to learn better but to adjust better to culture in America.
Now, I'm trying not to get too far off topic here, because this does relate to my research in this field study. In fact, this may have a lot to do with my own career, not just the field study. These last few months it has dawned upon me several times that I might write a few scholarly articles someday and present my research at a conference or get published in some sort of a journal somewhere. I've even thought of giving my field study project a more statistical basis so I could include regressions and experiments and control variables and the like in my final write-up after my project is done. I may still do that. However, I'm finding more and more that although these research articles are a wonderful way to talk to experts and specialists in the field, they're not really a great way to talk to most people. To say the least, most people don't have scholarly journals sitting on their coffee tables. Moreover, I'm not sure I see myself wanting to spend all my career writing these stiff, dry articles to experts who, at least in my observations of researchers for bilingual education and in my PL SC 200 class, seem rather disconnected from normal, everyday people.
That's why I really like what I get to do this summer. Because, you see, the point isn't just to write stiff, dry articles about a certain scholarly topic and cite all my articles correctly, dot my i's and cross my t's. I actually get to go out and talk to people. Just like the two educators who wrote passionately and personally about bilingual education, I like being able to work directly with individuals, see who they are and what challenges they face, see their personalities and those things that make them human and real. That's what's most interesting to me. I know those two educators loved their work and had great love for the children they have taught--that much was evident from their writing. Their words showed passion and love for their work and great optimism about making a actual differences in the lives of people--to me, that was more touching than all the scholarly articles I read put together. If I decide to spend my career writing journal articles and getting published, I'll probably feel very satisfied if I get thirty people to cite my articles and get a half dozen studies published in reputable journals. But how many people actually read those anyway? Bro Christensen, who teaches PL SC 200, teaches hundreds of students each year, and dozens have written back to him or visited him and told him that the class was the most useful one they took at BYU. In light of the difference he makes every day in the lives of hundreds of students, what are a few articles that he has published during the last 20 years? Well, they're sort of important, but they're not as important as the work he does with people each day.
Again, that's why I'm excited I get to work and talk with people during this field study. I may not really get to know too many people well, I still hope to talk to a fair few. Religion and spirituality play a big role in my own life, so it's something I like to talk about. As a missionary, I've talked to thousands who don't care very much about it beyond superficial affiliations passed on through their families or traditions. I've talked to others who care about nothing more than their religion and their beliefs. The English are a very different people than the Brazilians though, so I will have to be prepared to face opinions and beliefs that may be completely different than what I've experienced before. Especially since London is such a big city, and I'll be sure to run into individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, many of them not even British at all. But like the two educators who spoke passionately and powerfully about their work in bilingual education, if I'm to gain something from this experience, I hope it will include a fair amount of love and appreciation for the diverse people who live in London. If I can explain about the religious feelings of Londoners in a language suitable for scholars without losing that passion and love for the people I meet and work with in London, I believe I'll be satisfied.
Now, I'm trying not to get too far off topic here, because this does relate to my research in this field study. In fact, this may have a lot to do with my own career, not just the field study. These last few months it has dawned upon me several times that I might write a few scholarly articles someday and present my research at a conference or get published in some sort of a journal somewhere. I've even thought of giving my field study project a more statistical basis so I could include regressions and experiments and control variables and the like in my final write-up after my project is done. I may still do that. However, I'm finding more and more that although these research articles are a wonderful way to talk to experts and specialists in the field, they're not really a great way to talk to most people. To say the least, most people don't have scholarly journals sitting on their coffee tables. Moreover, I'm not sure I see myself wanting to spend all my career writing these stiff, dry articles to experts who, at least in my observations of researchers for bilingual education and in my PL SC 200 class, seem rather disconnected from normal, everyday people.
That's why I really like what I get to do this summer. Because, you see, the point isn't just to write stiff, dry articles about a certain scholarly topic and cite all my articles correctly, dot my i's and cross my t's. I actually get to go out and talk to people. Just like the two educators who wrote passionately and personally about bilingual education, I like being able to work directly with individuals, see who they are and what challenges they face, see their personalities and those things that make them human and real. That's what's most interesting to me. I know those two educators loved their work and had great love for the children they have taught--that much was evident from their writing. Their words showed passion and love for their work and great optimism about making a actual differences in the lives of people--to me, that was more touching than all the scholarly articles I read put together. If I decide to spend my career writing journal articles and getting published, I'll probably feel very satisfied if I get thirty people to cite my articles and get a half dozen studies published in reputable journals. But how many people actually read those anyway? Bro Christensen, who teaches PL SC 200, teaches hundreds of students each year, and dozens have written back to him or visited him and told him that the class was the most useful one they took at BYU. In light of the difference he makes every day in the lives of hundreds of students, what are a few articles that he has published during the last 20 years? Well, they're sort of important, but they're not as important as the work he does with people each day.
Again, that's why I'm excited I get to work and talk with people during this field study. I may not really get to know too many people well, I still hope to talk to a fair few. Religion and spirituality play a big role in my own life, so it's something I like to talk about. As a missionary, I've talked to thousands who don't care very much about it beyond superficial affiliations passed on through their families or traditions. I've talked to others who care about nothing more than their religion and their beliefs. The English are a very different people than the Brazilians though, so I will have to be prepared to face opinions and beliefs that may be completely different than what I've experienced before. Especially since London is such a big city, and I'll be sure to run into individuals from a wide range of backgrounds, many of them not even British at all. But like the two educators who spoke passionately and powerfully about their work in bilingual education, if I'm to gain something from this experience, I hope it will include a fair amount of love and appreciation for the diverse people who live in London. If I can explain about the religious feelings of Londoners in a language suitable for scholars without losing that passion and love for the people I meet and work with in London, I believe I'll be satisfied.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Journal Entry #14
In our last class period, we analyzed our projects and our project research and identified areas where we could do more research to strengthen our understanding of our topics. I noticed that one area where my research was weak was in current opinion leaders in the United Kingdom. My only cited source taken from a current well-known leader in the UK was PM David Cameron. Last week, however, I did cite an article that reported on the plan of one well-known atheist to build a "temple to atheism", but other than Cameron's words I have not researched the views of any specific individuals whose opinions might resonate with people in the UK.
For today, I cited a speech given by Sayeeda Warsi that was given on January 20, 2011. To me, it was a remarkable speech to be given by a member of Parliament and of the current government about religion, and was cited by the 28th British Social Attitudes Survey that was published at the end of 2011. Her comments, coming from the first Muslim member of Parliament, were very bold in their condemnation of religious bigotry in the nation and the persistence of attitudes such as Islamaphobia and other stereotyping of religious groups or minorities. It's interesting to note her boldness with that of David Cameron's, for it shows how willing the current Conservative government is to express opinions about religion very openly. In the British Social Attitudes Survey made this last year, the author Lucy Lee commented that with the decreasing influence of religion in the lives of Britons, the opinions expressed by current government leaders is likely to resonate less and less with average citizens than before. I suppose it may never have been studied to what degree the opinions expressed by government leaders has an effect on the opinions of the populace. I, however, do believe that the influence of well known people in society have a significant influence on the normal members of society because they shape the debate of the country. It could be that Britons simply have thought much about their religious attitudes very much. Debating it openly may bring about a more assertive response from the populace about where their values really lie - whether they are for or against religion. It will interesting to use these comments as I ask questions to individuals while in London to discover how they feel about them.
For today, I cited a speech given by Sayeeda Warsi that was given on January 20, 2011. To me, it was a remarkable speech to be given by a member of Parliament and of the current government about religion, and was cited by the 28th British Social Attitudes Survey that was published at the end of 2011. Her comments, coming from the first Muslim member of Parliament, were very bold in their condemnation of religious bigotry in the nation and the persistence of attitudes such as Islamaphobia and other stereotyping of religious groups or minorities. It's interesting to note her boldness with that of David Cameron's, for it shows how willing the current Conservative government is to express opinions about religion very openly. In the British Social Attitudes Survey made this last year, the author Lucy Lee commented that with the decreasing influence of religion in the lives of Britons, the opinions expressed by current government leaders is likely to resonate less and less with average citizens than before. I suppose it may never have been studied to what degree the opinions expressed by government leaders has an effect on the opinions of the populace. I, however, do believe that the influence of well known people in society have a significant influence on the normal members of society because they shape the debate of the country. It could be that Britons simply have thought much about their religious attitudes very much. Debating it openly may bring about a more assertive response from the populace about where their values really lie - whether they are for or against religion. It will interesting to use these comments as I ask questions to individuals while in London to discover how they feel about them.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Journal Entry #13
As it happens, thirteen is my favorite number, and this is my thirteenth learning journal post. Bangarang.
As I've been doing research these last few days, I've been trying to look at the work I've done and the direction I'm going with this project in a more global way. My work so far has been somewhat arbitrary, as I've searched for articles and studies online, and essentially read the first ones that have come up. However, religion is something that has been heavily researched for more than fifty years, and entire journals are dedicated to the study of different aspects of religion. In order to focus my work while I'm in London, my research beforehand has to be more focused.
So I started collecting references to other papers using the research articles I have already read. A lot of the referenced articles are rather straightforward, using statistical tests and surveys to prove correlations between religiosity and attitudes about premarital sex, drug use, criminality, marriage and marital longevity, family unity, work ethic, academic performance, and physical health. Then, I created another sections for studies that have analyzed the academic strength of religious schools. The study that I cited for last class had a different unit of analysis: it analyzed academic performance and religiosity comparing the connection between individual academic performance and individual religiosity instead of the religiosity of the school and the academic performance of that entire school, which many previous studies had done. Lastly, I am creating a list of cited studies that concern religion and religious beliefs in a more general way, including how to measure religiosity.
This is all well and good, and should be very helpful in the future as I'm deciding on what research papers to study for my project. I want to have a pretty thorough understanding of what has been researched and understood by social scientists about religion and religious behavior in various contexts of life. While I'm in London, I will probably decide on a couple of aspects of religiosity to focus on in the surveys I'll be giving and the interviews I'll be conducting, but it will be very good to have an over-arching understanding of how religiosity has been shown to be a contributing factor to certain behaviors, attitudes, and social factors. It will be very interesting to see how individuals in London believe religion makes a difference in their lives and how past research has provided evidence supporting or disproving these assumptions. Since my research question focuses mainly on what Londoners believe are the positive and negative effects of decreasing religiosity, my topic allows for changes in public policy that might better inform the public about how religiosity affects individuals and society. Then again, if what they all think matches up perfectly with what has been proven to happen, that would be pretty remarkable all by itself.
As I've been doing research these last few days, I've been trying to look at the work I've done and the direction I'm going with this project in a more global way. My work so far has been somewhat arbitrary, as I've searched for articles and studies online, and essentially read the first ones that have come up. However, religion is something that has been heavily researched for more than fifty years, and entire journals are dedicated to the study of different aspects of religion. In order to focus my work while I'm in London, my research beforehand has to be more focused.
So I started collecting references to other papers using the research articles I have already read. A lot of the referenced articles are rather straightforward, using statistical tests and surveys to prove correlations between religiosity and attitudes about premarital sex, drug use, criminality, marriage and marital longevity, family unity, work ethic, academic performance, and physical health. Then, I created another sections for studies that have analyzed the academic strength of religious schools. The study that I cited for last class had a different unit of analysis: it analyzed academic performance and religiosity comparing the connection between individual academic performance and individual religiosity instead of the religiosity of the school and the academic performance of that entire school, which many previous studies had done. Lastly, I am creating a list of cited studies that concern religion and religious beliefs in a more general way, including how to measure religiosity.
This is all well and good, and should be very helpful in the future as I'm deciding on what research papers to study for my project. I want to have a pretty thorough understanding of what has been researched and understood by social scientists about religion and religious behavior in various contexts of life. While I'm in London, I will probably decide on a couple of aspects of religiosity to focus on in the surveys I'll be giving and the interviews I'll be conducting, but it will be very good to have an over-arching understanding of how religiosity has been shown to be a contributing factor to certain behaviors, attitudes, and social factors. It will be very interesting to see how individuals in London believe religion makes a difference in their lives and how past research has provided evidence supporting or disproving these assumptions. Since my research question focuses mainly on what Londoners believe are the positive and negative effects of decreasing religiosity, my topic allows for changes in public policy that might better inform the public about how religiosity affects individuals and society. Then again, if what they all think matches up perfectly with what has been proven to happen, that would be pretty remarkable all by itself.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Journal Entry #12
I have to say, the IAS 360 Field Study Prep class has been incredibly helpful so far. I remember being very excited about the whole idea of the Field Study when I first learned about it and made the decision to sign up. Then came the preparation interviews, the paperwork (purposefully signing my life away), and the class. Jumping through the hoops was all well and good until this point, but during the last few weeks I started thinking seriously about my day to day in London, and the reality of this ninety day adventure actually happening at the end of this semester actually started hitting home. At the same time though, the discussions in class and the research sources that I've been looking up and writing about three times a week have had a bracing effect. I can say that I'm more excited about going to London today than I have ever been. I feel more confident about my research topic, the methods I'll be using and the activities I'll be doing on a day-to-day basis while I'm there. The semester has been extremely busy with Political Science 200 and huge papers to turn in on an almost weekly basis. I enjoy learning about the topic I'm researching in London this summer I could spend hours and hours reading articles, poring over maps of the underground, and watching Youtube videos of different bus routes :)
At the same time, however, so man of the things I've been involved in have been helpful as I've prepared and thought about this summer. First of all, PL SC 200 is exactly the kind of rigorous writing and research preparation that I need in order to do this project effectively. My job as a sales person at Bluehost 20 hours a week has given me opportunities to talk to people from London, England several times this semester already, and I've told almost all of them about how I'm going there this summer. One of them even gave me his number and email and gave me some tips about where to get a place to live and places to go visit. He told me to call him if I needed to ask some questions while I'm there. That's sweet :D Studying in my History of England class has been incredible as I've been refreshing my memory of English history that I learned when I took AP European History as well as the study of the political system in the UK when I took AP Comparative Politics. Since HIST 323 is a class that focuses only on the history since 1689, I've been able to understand the history in a lot more detail than I have before.
There are still a lot of variables that I don't understand and haven't thought about. However, I'm feeling really good about it all :)
At the same time, however, so man of the things I've been involved in have been helpful as I've prepared and thought about this summer. First of all, PL SC 200 is exactly the kind of rigorous writing and research preparation that I need in order to do this project effectively. My job as a sales person at Bluehost 20 hours a week has given me opportunities to talk to people from London, England several times this semester already, and I've told almost all of them about how I'm going there this summer. One of them even gave me his number and email and gave me some tips about where to get a place to live and places to go visit. He told me to call him if I needed to ask some questions while I'm there. That's sweet :D Studying in my History of England class has been incredible as I've been refreshing my memory of English history that I learned when I took AP European History as well as the study of the political system in the UK when I took AP Comparative Politics. Since HIST 323 is a class that focuses only on the history since 1689, I've been able to understand the history in a lot more detail than I have before.
There are still a lot of variables that I don't understand and haven't thought about. However, I'm feeling really good about it all :)
Monday, February 6, 2012
Journal Entry #11
So I really like our last reading assignment. It discussed participant observation, and although the writing was a bit exhaustive about how to do it, what to pay attention to, and how to think about the situations that you are placed in, I think I'm getting used to these sorts of texts, because I still really liked it.
And just a side note her, but I'm pretty sure that people who do participant observation studies for a living all put "Invisibility Cloak" on their Christmas lists as kids. To be sure, turning invisible would be the most convenient thing in the world when you're observing a certain situation. I went to a play at the Hale Center Theatre for my participant observation experience, and it there were multiple times when I wished I could leave my seat to observe from a different angle. I'm sure all anthropologists feel the same way. At the same time, it's hard not to feel a little uncomfortable about the idea of doing similar studies while I'm in London. I go with the hope that I will be able to make friends with most Londoners, and here we are learning how to sit and observe them. It's like London is this giant glass habitat that I'm going to go visit so I can observe all the insects...erm...people that live there. How would I like it if people visited Provo to do the same thing to us? There they'd be, those foreign chinese students, staking out a spot on the hill behind the Maeser building with their binoculars, observing us as we leave the testing center...it would be pretty weird.
Then again, there's simply no way one can learn about how other people and cultures and organizations work without actually being there. If you go be a part of something, you'll know how it works a million times better than if you had just read or heard about it. Since I'm going to be studying religion, I'm probably going to be staking out cathedrals and churches a few times, just to notice what people do when they're inside. Participant observation in this sense will be pretty uninvolved, but spending a few hours at different times during the week inside churches in England might give me a good idea about what motivates people to go to church and what they do when they go. Sigh...still, it would be a lot less awkward if I had an invisibility cloak.
And just a side note her, but I'm pretty sure that people who do participant observation studies for a living all put "Invisibility Cloak" on their Christmas lists as kids. To be sure, turning invisible would be the most convenient thing in the world when you're observing a certain situation. I went to a play at the Hale Center Theatre for my participant observation experience, and it there were multiple times when I wished I could leave my seat to observe from a different angle. I'm sure all anthropologists feel the same way. At the same time, it's hard not to feel a little uncomfortable about the idea of doing similar studies while I'm in London. I go with the hope that I will be able to make friends with most Londoners, and here we are learning how to sit and observe them. It's like London is this giant glass habitat that I'm going to go visit so I can observe all the insects...erm...people that live there. How would I like it if people visited Provo to do the same thing to us? There they'd be, those foreign chinese students, staking out a spot on the hill behind the Maeser building with their binoculars, observing us as we leave the testing center...it would be pretty weird.
Then again, there's simply no way one can learn about how other people and cultures and organizations work without actually being there. If you go be a part of something, you'll know how it works a million times better than if you had just read or heard about it. Since I'm going to be studying religion, I'm probably going to be staking out cathedrals and churches a few times, just to notice what people do when they're inside. Participant observation in this sense will be pretty uninvolved, but spending a few hours at different times during the week inside churches in England might give me a good idea about what motivates people to go to church and what they do when they go. Sigh...still, it would be a lot less awkward if I had an invisibility cloak.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Journal Entry #10
My thoughts are a little scattered today, but there are a few common threads among them as I have been thinking about my project these last couple days.
Another member of the field studies program, whose blog you can find here, made a wonderful and truthful comment that made me realize my lack of open-mindedness when it comes to religion in society. I do have a bias, and recognizing that is good, but her comment was important because I really haven't been doing much in my research aimed at understanding secular points of view. I believe that I understand secular arguments on the surface, but perhaps I have an underlying tendency to demonize those contrary to religious activity, and that tendency is out of place. After all, there are a great number of principled people in the world, and to characterize all those without religion as unprincipled is extremely unfair and untrue. So, I've made it a goal to understand secular viewpoints more thoroughly. Just as living in Brasil made me aware of many unfortunate and uncomfortable realities about the country, in two years living there I was able to look beyond those deficiencies and appreciate the heart of a people that I find very loving, spirited, and creative. In only ninety days in London, I will have to move quickly to understand the English as a people--much faster than I did as a missionary. When I was in Brasil, it took six months to a year just to begin to understand and appreciate the brazilian people with any real depth, although that time was compounded by the fact that I also had to learn the language. In England, I won't have to learn the language entirely, but in part there will still be so much to learn about the people, the customs, habits, and mindsets that I may find myself hard-pressed to comprehend it in just ninety days. And just as living in Brasil meant coming to accept (if not agree) with the drug dealers that lived in the favelas down the road, the less-than-trustworthy policeman driving the streets, and the blasting of "funk" music on the next block that continued ceaselessly all night during weekends; living in London will mean living with realities far different than what I've gotten used to here at BYU for a few months. I hope I can look beyond that though, and see the heart of the people behind some aspects that might be easily visible in the streets, on billboards, or on "the tube". In the same way, I hope I can see beyond the opinions of people that might make them openly unreligious or anti-religion to their human hearts and lives that are much more than a statistic. I don't want to misunderstand the people I'll be studying about, and I do want to produce useful results from my study there. To be sure, I'm learning a methodology, a pattern, and a skill that will be useful later in life as I go into business or social research later on. But whatever I end up doing, I hope I don't do it to the detriment of the people about whom I do research, or with whom I do business.
Another member of the field studies program, whose blog you can find here, made a wonderful and truthful comment that made me realize my lack of open-mindedness when it comes to religion in society. I do have a bias, and recognizing that is good, but her comment was important because I really haven't been doing much in my research aimed at understanding secular points of view. I believe that I understand secular arguments on the surface, but perhaps I have an underlying tendency to demonize those contrary to religious activity, and that tendency is out of place. After all, there are a great number of principled people in the world, and to characterize all those without religion as unprincipled is extremely unfair and untrue. So, I've made it a goal to understand secular viewpoints more thoroughly. Just as living in Brasil made me aware of many unfortunate and uncomfortable realities about the country, in two years living there I was able to look beyond those deficiencies and appreciate the heart of a people that I find very loving, spirited, and creative. In only ninety days in London, I will have to move quickly to understand the English as a people--much faster than I did as a missionary. When I was in Brasil, it took six months to a year just to begin to understand and appreciate the brazilian people with any real depth, although that time was compounded by the fact that I also had to learn the language. In England, I won't have to learn the language entirely, but in part there will still be so much to learn about the people, the customs, habits, and mindsets that I may find myself hard-pressed to comprehend it in just ninety days. And just as living in Brasil meant coming to accept (if not agree) with the drug dealers that lived in the favelas down the road, the less-than-trustworthy policeman driving the streets, and the blasting of "funk" music on the next block that continued ceaselessly all night during weekends; living in London will mean living with realities far different than what I've gotten used to here at BYU for a few months. I hope I can look beyond that though, and see the heart of the people behind some aspects that might be easily visible in the streets, on billboards, or on "the tube". In the same way, I hope I can see beyond the opinions of people that might make them openly unreligious or anti-religion to their human hearts and lives that are much more than a statistic. I don't want to misunderstand the people I'll be studying about, and I do want to produce useful results from my study there. To be sure, I'm learning a methodology, a pattern, and a skill that will be useful later in life as I go into business or social research later on. But whatever I end up doing, I hope I don't do it to the detriment of the people about whom I do research, or with whom I do business.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Journal Entry #9
I have been repenting during the last two days, and I have gone back and read the four articles assigned during class that I neglected to review during the bustle of the last two weeks. They were extremely helpful and very well chosen, and while I was reading them I took some notes about some of the main points. Most important to me were the sections taken from Babbie's book and the article "Monochronic and Polychronic Time" by Hall. And just as a disclaimer, I apologize for my thoughts being somewhat scattered here.
Comments on "Reading and Writing Social Research":
I must create an organized study of the previous literature concerning my topic of study in Great Britain. I am concerned that my study be "an extension of what has previously been learned about a particular topic".
-In doing so, I must create a list of key concepts that I would like to study.
-Read cited sources on papers or articles that I find useful. This is the "snowball sampling" technique.
-Study the "Evaluations of Research Reports" in thinking about my research project in England. My project needs to be good.
Comments on "Qualitative Field Research and Research Design":
I must decide what the focus of my project will be: to explore, to describe, or to explain.
I need to decide how I will go about my study and research, and I must do it in the next few weeks. I have to prepare that research proposal...
A good place to start for the research proposal would be to outline what questions I'll be studying and how I will go about answering them. I can create a framework for my research by coming up with statements that I want to be able to make when my research is complete.
After that, I need to clarify what I mean by the concept of religiosity.
How tightly structured will my research be? At this point, I see my research as being somewhat open-ended. The idea is to discover the "different dimensions, aspects, or nuances" about my topic (declining religiosity in the UK). As is said by Babbie in ch. four of her text, "the research itself may uncover and report aspects of social life that were not evident at the outset of the project". That's what I want to do.
Comments on "Monochronic and Polychronic Time":
We talked a lot about these concepts in class on Monday, and I have to say it really helped me synthesize my experience in Brazil as an LDS missionary. Truly, the brazilian people work on a polychronic sense of time, and only the very elite and highly educated do not. I noticed that the concept of getting home by 9:30 because it was a mission rule was hard to understand (or, at least very easy to gloss over) for many church members, native missionaries, and normal brazilians that we taught. If there was an important lesson or event going on, the 9:30 M-time rule didn't seem to matter any more. The longer I was there, the more I came to adopt the P-time way of "doing everything at once", and I can honestly say that I really enjoy it. Maybe P-time is more common in our day and age of texting, reading newspapers, doing homework, and managing a dozen open tabs on our web browsers all at the same time. Still, regardless of how much P-time slips in, the clock-in, clock-out of M-time still governs our society, and I personally love being able to put aside time for one specific activity. Compartmentalizing can also be a solution for sanity.
Comments on "Reading and Writing Social Research":
I must create an organized study of the previous literature concerning my topic of study in Great Britain. I am concerned that my study be "an extension of what has previously been learned about a particular topic".
-In doing so, I must create a list of key concepts that I would like to study.
-Read cited sources on papers or articles that I find useful. This is the "snowball sampling" technique.
-Study the "Evaluations of Research Reports" in thinking about my research project in England. My project needs to be good.
Comments on "Qualitative Field Research and Research Design":
I must decide what the focus of my project will be: to explore, to describe, or to explain.
I need to decide how I will go about my study and research, and I must do it in the next few weeks. I have to prepare that research proposal...
A good place to start for the research proposal would be to outline what questions I'll be studying and how I will go about answering them. I can create a framework for my research by coming up with statements that I want to be able to make when my research is complete.
After that, I need to clarify what I mean by the concept of religiosity.
How tightly structured will my research be? At this point, I see my research as being somewhat open-ended. The idea is to discover the "different dimensions, aspects, or nuances" about my topic (declining religiosity in the UK). As is said by Babbie in ch. four of her text, "the research itself may uncover and report aspects of social life that were not evident at the outset of the project". That's what I want to do.
Comments on "Monochronic and Polychronic Time":
We talked a lot about these concepts in class on Monday, and I have to say it really helped me synthesize my experience in Brazil as an LDS missionary. Truly, the brazilian people work on a polychronic sense of time, and only the very elite and highly educated do not. I noticed that the concept of getting home by 9:30 because it was a mission rule was hard to understand (or, at least very easy to gloss over) for many church members, native missionaries, and normal brazilians that we taught. If there was an important lesson or event going on, the 9:30 M-time rule didn't seem to matter any more. The longer I was there, the more I came to adopt the P-time way of "doing everything at once", and I can honestly say that I really enjoy it. Maybe P-time is more common in our day and age of texting, reading newspapers, doing homework, and managing a dozen open tabs on our web browsers all at the same time. Still, regardless of how much P-time slips in, the clock-in, clock-out of M-time still governs our society, and I personally love being able to put aside time for one specific activity. Compartmentalizing can also be a solution for sanity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)