SOCIOLOGY
OF ISLAM
Sociology
419,
University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Spring 2010
Research Project
This page was last updated on January 8, 2010.
The central research project for this
course is to design survey-based
research projects on the subject of Americans' views of Islam and
Muslims' views of America. The course has a Graduate Research
Consultant to help with the construction of the survey and a Writing
Consultant to run writing workshops on various stages of the article
that you will write as your term project. This page offers details on
the project and the
stages of its preparation.
Each student will conduct 12
interviews over Spring Break and submit the results before class on
March 16 in a Microsoft Excel data file, which is worth 12 points.
Students will analyze this survey, or other surveys of
American and
Muslim attitudes that we will make available to you, using the SPSS
statistical software in the basement computer lab at the Odum Institute for
Research in Social Science.
Based on this data, students will write a statistical article,
approximately 2,000 words in length, worth 20 points and due before the
final class session on April 27. This paper should be submitted in a
Microsoft Word file.
Each of the preliminary assignments for this research project is worth
2 points. For full credit, the assignment will need to be completedly
fully and thoughtfully.
February 2: Thematic interests
Assignment due: Submit rank-ordered
list of 3 thematic
interests in the
study of American and Muslim attitudes. Describe the interests in 1
sentence
each.
These thematic interests could be things like American fears of Islamic
threats, or Muslim views on democracy, or American knowledgeability
about Islam, or Muslim views on American foreign policy, etc. The
instructors will use your lists to form small groups of 4
students each who have expressed interest in related subjects. That
subject will form the basis
for your research project throughout the semester. These small groups
will meet
regularly in class to assist each other's research projects and to
provide feedback on each other's ideas and writing.
February
9: CITI Online Course
Assignment due: Take CITI
Online Course (Social and Behavioral Research Modules).
Click on the link labeled "Direct to CITI Online Course." This
course is required of all researchers at UNC who work with human
subjects. It is intended to sensitize researchers to the history of
abuse that research participants have sometimes been subjected to, and
the steps that universities and other research organizations have taken
to prevent abuse. The course takes about 1-2 hours and includes an
on-line test that you must pass in order to get credit for the unit.
Please e-mail your certificate number to your teaching assistant after
you have passed the test.
February
16: Bibliography
Assignment due: Submit bibliography of 4 scholarly articles.
These articles should all revolve around a single issue related to
American attitudes toward Islam and Muslims or Muslims' attitudes
(toward America, toward democracy, or toward some other subject). This
issue will form the basis for your research project throughout
the semester. The articles should offer contrasting perspectives on
this issue, so that you can write your final paper using survey data to
"adjudicate" among these perspectives. The articles must be scholarly
-- that is, they must
appear in a academic journal, with a credentialed author, drawing on
original empirical research. To locate these items, you may wish to
start with databases such Google
Scholar, Ingenta, JSTOR,
Project
Muse, or Web
of Science. You will be allowed to add or delete items from this
list as the semester goes on and your research continues.
February
23: Survey questions
Assignment due: Draft survey questions
for thematic group.
What questions would you like to see on our class's survey of American
attitudes about Islam and Muslims? Please suggest four questions for
the survey, two drawn from previous surveys and two new questions.
Previous surveys include:
American attitudes toward Islam and
Muslims:
UNC-CH "Sociology of Islam" survey,
March
2006.
Global attitudes, including Muslim
attitudes:
March
2: Literature review
Assignment due: Submit first-draft literature review to thematic group.
A successful literature review will:
- summarize the evidence presented
in each paper on the bibliography that you submitted on February
16 (as approved or amended by your instructors).
- summarize each paper's conclusions.
- organize the literature
review by contrasting the perspectives of the four papers. Later in the
semester, you will test these differences in perspective with your data
analysis.
March
16: Survey results
Assignment due: Submit survey results.
Over Spring Break, please conduct 12 in-person interviews. Try to
select interviewees who are varied in age (at least six interviewees
over college age), gender (try to maintain an even gender balance),
and educational attainment.
March
23: Select survey questions
Assignment due: Select survey questions to analyze.
From our class's survey and/or the Pew or World Values Surveys, select
questions that you would like to analyze for your term paper. These
questions should address the differences in perspective in your
literature review. That is, your analysis will "adjudicate" the
differing expectations generated by the paper in your literature review
-- each of these papers will lead us to expect certain findings in the
survey(s), and your analysis will examine whether or not these
expectations are confirmed or disconfirmed. The instructors will create
SPSS datasets with the questions that you request.
March
30: Revised literature review
Assignment due: Submit revised literature review to thematic group.
Based on the feedback that you received from your classmates, go
back to your earlier literature review and modify it to focus
more clearly on the differences in perspective that you are able to
address with your data, now that you have selected questions for
analysis. At this point, you may not know what your data analysis will
reveal -- that is a good thing! Asking a question to which you don't
know the answer is one of the ways in which research is exciting.
April
6: Data analysis
Assignment due: Submit data analysis to thematic group.
To analyze your dataset, please use the SPSS statistical software, a
user-friendly package
that allows you to choose to perform basic analyses like cross-tabs.
This software is loaded on the machines in the basement computer lab
(Manning Hall Room 01) at the Odum
Institute for
Research in Social Science.
Please note that the lab's hours of operation are:
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: 9 a.m. to 6
p.m.
Tuesday, Thursday: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Sunday: 1-5 p.m.
For this stage, please create
four statistical tables. Paste the tables into a Microsoft
Word file
and add several sentences for each table that refer to the data and
indicate what is
interesting about the findings. "Interesting" means that the findings
confirm or disconfirm expectations from the literature review and are
unexpected or counterintuitive in some way.
April
13: Complete draft of article
Assignment due: Submit complete draft to thematic group.
The article should have the following parts, clearly delineated with
subheadings:
1. Title (1 point)
2. Summary (about 100 words). (2 points) Use this space to
summarize
the rest of the paper, including the data analysis and conclusion.
3. Literature review (about 600 words). (6 points). Updated version of
your earlier drafts.
4. Description of dataset(s) analyzed in the paper (about 100 words).
(2 points) When the survey was conducted, who conducted the survey, how
many people were surveyed, who the respondents are supposed to
"represent"?
5. Data analysis (about 3-4 statistical tables plus 600 words of text).
(6 points) What is "interesting" about these your findings; how they
confirm or disconfirm the expectations generated in your literature
review?
6. Conclusion (about 100 words). (3 points) Which paper(s) in your
literature review were supported by the data analysis, and which were
not? Explain.
April
20: Comments on drafts
Assignment due: Write comments to all members of thematic group on
their draft papers.
Please write e-mails to each of your group members with at least
three helpful, supportive, politely worded suggestions for the
improvement of their papers. That is three suggestions for each group member.
April
27: Final draft
Assignment due: Submit final draft of paper.