I have been thinking about my project proposal a lot this week (which is probably because it's due Friday!) and am feeling pretty good about my topic but very vague about my methods. I know that I want to get a general understanding of Tongan families, and not just about one aspect. My goal is to understand multiple aspects about the Tongan family so that I can get a general understanding of what it's like on a whole. I completely understand the point of making sure you narrow your topic to a specific enough question that you can get results, however. This is where my predicament comes in my methods area. I want to ask questions about multiple topics of family: marriage, pregnancy, child discipline, gender roles and how children are viewed. These aspects clearly narrow the general question of "what is the Tongan Family like" down to specific aspects of the family, but there are still multiple aspects to each domain listed. So I'm trying to figure out if I will be able to ask questions about each of these domains and be specific enough to get good research, and not have to spend five hours with each person I interview. . . it's a tricky situation.
On a completely different note, I was thinking about how families in Utah are VERY different from families in my community in Kentucky. It made me wonder how different families in Va'Vau are from other areas in Tonga. I was thinking if I only interview families in Va'Vau and not families in other areas or islands in Tonga, it might not be a good representation of the "TONGAN FAMILY." I don't know if it would even be possible, or feasible, for me to be able to go other places to interview, but even if it's not, I'm becoming more aware of the importance of not generalizing results. Instead of saying this is what families in Tonga are like, I'll probably want to say something more along the lines of "this is what my research showed about families in Va'vau."
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