Learning Journal 21

It seems like it has been a million years since I have written a blog post (I'm not necessarily complaining), so I'm having trouble remembering exactly what the last thing we read or talked about in class was.  I thought the peer reviews were pretty helpful, it was nice to read other peoples proposals to gain a better understanding of what areas could be better and to get ideas of how to incorporate things in.  I am continuing to work on my IRB proposal right now, and then planning to get back to my actual project proposal next weekend.  I can't believe how close it's getting to the end and to Tonga.

Last week in our Tongan class, we read an article where this man talked about his opinions of Tongan culture (he was Tongan, but moved to the states in his childhood).  He made some really wonderful points, especially in talking about how he loves his culture, but he has to forsake some of his culture norms to be in harmony with the gospel standards.  It just made me think about how we don't have to adopt every single culture norm just because that's our culture, we can have our own opinions about things and have different ideas than the culture norms around us.

Learning Journal 19

We talked on Wednesday about how we will be perceived when we enter the community and how to show reciprocity.  We were asked what we would do when get dropped off at the host family's house and how we would introduce ourselves.  I think the automatic response is to say, "Hi, I'm Allyson! I'm from the U.S., specifically a small town in KY.  I am a student at BYU and came down here to do research on the family."  But, after our lesson on Wednesday I thought about how important it is to not only introduce ourselves, but to introduce ourselves by asking questions about them or making observations about things they are doing, i.e., "that pig you're cutting open looks like it will be really tasty", or "I like your chicken!"  But seriously, I think by asking questions about them or expressing interest in their lives and cultures, they will get to know us at the same time.  And by learning about them from the beginning, I think that will help them to understand that we are there to learn from them and not there to teach them, or fix them like the article last week talked about.

The lesson also made me think about how I want to bring a little scrapbook or photo album with me.  My friend went to Peru last year and she said one of the best conversation starters/relationship builders was sharing things about her life with the kids she taught.  They loved seeing her family, and pets, and friends.  She said all of the little girls loved looking at her friends and all of our prom dresses.  I think by sharing things about our lives, that will make them more comfortable to share things about their lives with us.

One last thought I had came from our culture class.  Sione was talking about how a lot of Tongans think of the "Palangi" or white people way as being superior to the Tongan way.   For some reason this made me so sad, because even though I have a lot of pride in my culture and this country, I definitely would not consider it at all superior or better than the Tongan way, or just about any other culture for that matter.  It made me think about how I'll deal with people who think like that or treat me like I'm superior to them, because I'm a palangi.  I know we aren't supposed to try to change anything about their culture, or try to be the "mother teresa" or whatever, but I know I want to make an effort to show that I really believe there is a lot of beauty in their culture.  I don't think this will change the way they view the Palangi culture, but I think it will make me feel better if nothing else.  I'd like to make an effort to show them there are many things in their culture that I admire and even find superior to the "American way."  It's funny, because one of the most annoying things to me about my culture is that a lot of us think that our culture is the best and everyone else should want to be like us.  So it's ironic that the one of the saddest things about the Tongan culture, to me, is that some of them might think our way is a better way.

Learning Journal 14

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."

Learning Journal 13

In my method's practice 2 I wrote about our experience that we had visiting the Tongan Ward.  I really loved going there and getting to spend time with the people.  It made me even more excited to go to Tonga.  It's been really stressful trying to figure out everything as far as money goes and classes, but visiting the ward reminded me why I am really going to Tonga.  It's about the people.  The other stuff is just logistics and details, but the point is the cultural experience that I'll have with the Tongan people.  I know that the research and educational aspects are very important to the Field Study experience, but I think the most important thing to me is the culture immersion.  Spending time with the Tongan people and eating their food and hearing about their lives, made me excited to gain a real experience in the actual culture.

As I continue to research about Tonga and the family, I have been thinking very hard about how I want to go about asking the questions I want to ask.  As I have read about research methods and after the methods workshop today, I am pretty sure I want to ask questions in a semi-structured interviewed setting. I am going to ask a series of very basic questions about family relationships.  I have a couple of books that are giving me some good guidelines for the types of subjects that I want to look in to and the types of questions I'd like to ask.  I think the most important thing I am trying to keep in mind right now is to make my questions narrow enough to get good, specific answers, but broad enough to gain a good assessment of the general Tongan family.  It's a hard balance, but I think it's very doable, so that gives me a lot of hope!

Learning Journal 12

One of the most frustrating parts of doing research about Tonga is how quickly things are changing over there.  From what I have heard, it seems like the Tongan culture prides themselves on their traditional ways and on their being one of the only monarchies not to be taken over by another nation.  Even though a lot of things they do are still very traditional and have resisted westernization, they are rapidly changing some of their ways.  For example, we talked in our section about how they are moving towards democratic elections.  Anyways, the reason this is so frustrating is because even a research article that is only ten years old can be very outdated. For this reason, it's hard to know what you can trust from the article and what no longer applies to how things really are.

I read an article about Class systems in Tonga.  The article was kind of difficult to read, and used pretty technical language, but it basically said that their is not really a class system in Tonga, or atleast their is no middle class.  The author said that because of the monarchy, there is a noble class, but then everyone who isn't in that class is pretty much the same.  If this is true, and if this is how it is today, I think that's pretty great.  I think it would be a nice change from American culture to have everyone be in one class, but unfortunately in Tonga, I think that class would be a pretty impoverished class.  I'm excited to go see for my self if this is still how it is today.

Another thing that I thought about while I was reading this article was how different observational research is from experimental.  Doing observational research is wonderful and can let you see a lot more than experimental research in many cases because you aren't limiting yourself to one survey or just a few specific questions, you can see the people and the way they live and see how that would influence their answers.  But, I think one thing to take into consideration about doing research in another culture is to not apply your findings to everyone in the population.  It's important to note that the research you collected may not apply to every single person or family in the whole culture. 

Learning Journal 7: Finding a Book

I have been looking for several books to read about the Tongan culture for my book review.  I have noticed that there aren't nearly as many books about Tonga as there are about a lot of other cultures, which makes it difficult to find  a good book to read for the review.  However, I have been able to find a couple that talk about adolescents and social problems, which will hopefully be helpful and applicable to my project.  As I continue to search for articles to use for my proposal I am noticing that there are a ton on adolescents and aggression, and children and social problems, but not many on children in Tongan, especially on aggression.

As I continue to think about my project, I am wondering if I might run into problems with the topic that I am studying now. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if the topic might be sensitive among the Tongan people.  I am concerned that people might not want to talk about their parenting styles, especially to someone like me, who is likely to perceive them as harsh.  I need to look more into this and see if this is a possibility.

One last thought I have had is about my paradigm that I am looking through.  We have been talking about this in class, and I think it's important to make sure that when I am in the field, I am trying not to view the culture through my American-LDS paradigm.  It's important to look at the culture with open eyes, but that's easier said than done.  I think that will be something that will take work throughout the whole time I'm there.

Learning Journal 4: Aggression across cultures

Aggression has been researched for several decades now and is a topic that is constantly developing new results.   Childhood aggression is a topic that is relevant today because of the importance that it plays in child personality development.  Whether children are the aggressors or the ones being dominated, the influence of aggression on children can affect them for the rest of their lives. Research in the U.S. has shown that children of authoritarian parents, or parents that spank, yell, and frequently use the term "because I said so," tend to be more aggressive than children of authoritative parents.  However, I can't help to wonder if this is the case for children of all cultures. Aggression norms also tend to manifest themselves differently between genders. Typically, girls show signs of more relational aggression while boys show signs of more physical aggression.

I have chosen to study aggression norms in Tongan children to see if they show similar norms as American children.  I am feeling confident that I will be able to find results boys tend to display more physical aggression whereas girls display more relational aggression. The problem that I am running into now is figuring out if it is possible to study both gender norms as well as the kinds of parents that produce aggressive children, in the same study.  At this point in my project, I am continuing to read anything I can find about aggression and aggression studies.  I think familiarizing myself with these studies will make it easier for me to solidify my project idea and to narrow exactly what I want to study.  So the research continues. . .