Change of Plans!

Change of plans! Don't worry, I'm still going to Italy in 3 short months, BUT I am thinking very seriously about changing my research project in a somewhat dramatic way. In my field study preparation course we were explaining our projects to other students and having them ask questions. While I feel like I had a very solid grasp on my project and it's purpose, even as I was explaining it to others in a way that was logical--where my bases were covered, I felt like I was missing a step. One of my facilitators, Sarah, asked me, "Do you think you'll be able to understand what Italian marriage is after three months?" I answered honestly, "No, but I can try." The thing is, I think before I can understand Italian marriage, I must understand the Italian family, and to understand family, I must understand the value system of the Italian family. While I haven't conducted a research project on the American Family, I could tell you many of the things that are important to most families in America--or at least the part of America I've grown up in--because I'm a part of it, I've observed families, I know families, and I understand them. I want to understand the Italian family the way I understand the American family. I understand that 3 months of research can't compensate for 21 years of experience, but--with the right research method--I can be a lot more efficient in coming to understand the Italian family.

I want to understand Italian culture, not make
assumptions about it based on my
current view of the world

 

In a world of shifting values, I think it's important to ask questions, and to ask them often. Yes, there is some research out there about the Italian family. No, I haven't read up on all of it. But I do know that a lot of it is outside observation, and strong stereotypes affecting studies. While I think there is at least some truth to every stereotype, I don't want to base my knowledge off of that. I think observation while living in the country will be important to that, but even more so, I want to go straight to the source and ask the people of Italy what is important to them and WHY they feel that way?

I, of course, must consider Intergenerational Transmission which is the idea that "lifestyle" is passed on from one generation to the next, this includes beliefs (ideologies & values), behavior patterns (ways of doing things), communication (skills & handling differences), as well as emotions (intimacies & handling stress). Typically a person doesn't even realize that they have inherited certain beliefs and behavior patterns because they don't know anything different. It's like the--slightly lame--joke goes,

Fish 1: How's the water?

Fish 2: What the heck is water?

The significance of this joke/quote is that it's easy to forget, or even to be completely unaware, that our surroundings, beliefs, and practices are only normal to us because it's what we know. In a class about marriage and family, my teacher asked the question, "Which way does the toilet paper roll go on the holder?" To my surprise, it started quite the debate in class--some felt the the toilet paper should hang over the roll, while others felt it should hang under the role. Some individuals could give reasons to why their way was superior, but most had just grown up in a home where that was the way it was. This, I believe, will be the biggest challenge to my project. I may have to focus more on what Italians judge as their most important values. Most of the time individuals answer honestly on self-report questionnaires, so it's not that I think anyone would answer dishonestly...I think I can get a good understanding of Italian values through self report, I just wonder how well I'll be able to gather information on the 'why?' portion of my research question. Well, I guess if my research question was easy, it wouldn't be worth studying. :)

Why go to 1 country when you could go to 7?

I was sitting in the library talking to a friend about Italy, he was planning on going on a European study abroad where he would visit 7 countries, and just decided to apply for a different study abroad through the university--an International business trip where he would visit 7 countries! I was talking to my mom about it later that day, and she asked me, "So why did you decide to only go to one country, rather than seven?" If I hadn't been debating this question continuously in my mind for some time, my answer probably would have been something along the lines of, "I don't know...I just wanted to go to Italy--I guess I didn't think much about it." However, that was most definitely NOT my response. I chose to go to ONE country because I want to learn another language and another culture more fully--I feel like I may not be able to say that I've stepped foot in 8 countries, but I'm positive that I will have a lot more to say, and a lot more knowledge, about the one country I will spend 3 months in. I'm not saying that either study abroad experience is better than the other, but the outcome of the programs will be significantly different.

The Italian language is intricate enough,
I was surprised to learn how much
unspoken language there really is--which,
I suppose, is true of any place.

Sometimes--mainly when I'm sitting in my accelerated Italian language course, and realizing that I'm about to go to a country alone, live with a family I don't know, in a culture I'm not familiar with, and speak a language that I am still far from mastering--I wonder what in the world I'm doing, and how I'm ever going to accomplish the things that I want to accomplish. I sometimes dream about waking up and being completely fluent in Italian, then wake up, go through my notecards, and realize that the only way to make that dream a reality is through hard work. Is it worth it? ABSOLUTELY! I just bought a Book of Mormon in Italian to read aloud, before bed--hoping that it will help improve my pronunciation. As I was purchasing this book, I ran into a friend and we started talking about learning a language. He started going off about how it will just open so many doors, and that your perspective on everything widens so much, he said:

"The Italian people have something important to say, something

 you would can know without learning the language."

It was such a simple--even obvious--thing to say, but at the same time, it was so profound. I feel like sometimes I get stuck in my American mindset where I am so used to other people being able to adapt to me and speak my language, I hope that my effort to adapt to the Italian way of life will help open the doors of understanding for me. Honestly, I feel like I could collect the most amazing quantitative data in the field, but I think the most important things to learn during my field study can't be converted to numbers and crunched. I want to know what important things the Italian people have to say. Who knows--maybe to narrow my research topic, I might have to expand it a little bit, get a better feel for what's most important to the Italian people/family, and focus my studies on that. So many possibilities, so much to think about!

I realize that this is a little tongue-in-cheek, but it's true to an extent. Everyone has something to say, and it's important that we make an effort to listen and understand them. This may be the psychology major in me, but the things people have to say are usually important, what they mean is not always obvious, but the underlying meaning and implications are worth listening in for.

Italian Hand Gestures Explained

Optical Illusion or Just a Different Perspective?

Rather than spending this week reading only research articles, I've branched out a bit and started reading some newspaper articles on the Italian family--specifically young adults who choose to live at home, with their parents, until their late twenties and thirties. Some articles claim that the young Italian adult, especially the men, are just lazy and would rather have their mom cook their meals, make their beds, and pay for their living expenses, so that they can avoid responsibilities and just have fun. Other articles claimed that these young adults had to stay living at home because of the poor economy--even if these young people did want to be independent, get married, and have a family, they wouldn't be financially prepared to support them.

It's hard for me to understand, living in the United States where independence is so important for young adults. Since the time I was in grade school, I knew that I would move out, go to college and be on my own. While there was a brief period when I was 9 that I decided I'd just build a mansion and have my parents live in one wing of it .so I never had to be separated from them, in all seriousness, as scary as independence was to think about sometimes, it was something I looked forward to and something I desired. Now, having been living independently and financially supporting myself for the past four years, I cannot imagine ever giving up that independence. It's not that I don't love my family, on the contrary, I talk to my mom and grandma on the phone almost everyday, and am meeting up for lunch with my brother in 15 minutes, but I value independence.

Old Man or Couple Kissing?

What I've realized is that I can't judge, or even study, Italian culture based on my value system. In class we did an activity where we read a short story and then had to rank order the characters in the story from best to worst. You would be shocked at this disagreement in the class. I would rank a character as good because they had certain characteristics that I valued, and thought were important, but not all of my classmates valued the same characteristics. Looks like I need to learn a bit more about what values are most important to Italians, and I don't think I'll be able to do that fully until I'm actually immersed in Italy. First bump in the road: trying to figure out how to best study a cohort of people whom I don't know. What's that quote..."stop giving roadblocks permissions to be obstacles to your goals." Thank you. Yes. Also, they say that most success springs from obstacles or failure--while it's not the most comforting thing to realize that I have to rework some of my plans, I think my project--and experience as a whole--will be so much better in the long run because of my widening perspective. It is just amazing to me how two people can look at the same thing, and have two completely different perspectives.

Duck or Rabbit?

Old Couple or Men Playing Guitar?

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Why go to Italy and do Research?

Field Research

I have a huge library across the street from my house, I go to a university everyday where I can talk to professionals in just about any academic field there is, I can get onto the internet at anytime I want and look up research articles that have been published anytime in the last 75 years from just about anywhere in the world. So why then would I travel all the way to Italy to do research? Well, there is the obvious answer: It's Italy! Ha. But it's not just that. I've spent the last 16 1/2 years of my life (which is quite significant considering the fact that I'm 21) learning in a classroom. I've learned amazing things there and I'm beyond grateful for my education, but I want to use my book smarts and apply it to the real world. I do neuro-psychology research in a great lab, and I had a great internship this past summer where I actually got to go into homes of different families and conduct interviews--I love actually interacting with people and learning about them. I think that's why I decided to major in psychology and pursue a graduate degree in Marriage and Family Therapy--people are amazing, I've never met a person that wasn't interesting. That seems like a big statement, but it's true--IF you actually take the time to get to know someone, you're going to learn something interesting about them. While that was a bit of a tangent, that's a big part of the reason I want to go to Italy--to interact with people and learn about them.

There's a lot of learning that can't be done in a class room and my favorite type (so far) is they type where I get to interact and learn about different people. I want to make sure that I'm taking full advantage of being in Italy and studying something there that I couldn't do here. My hope is that I can live with a family and do a little bit of a case study with them while I get submerged in the culture, then do some survey research early on in my study, so that I can base my interview questions off of what I learn from the surveys and get a more in depth understanding of why it is that young adults in Italy choose to stay at home, rather than live independently and what their perceptions are of marriage.

Basically I'm more excited for this field study than just about anything else--I know it's not going to be easy, I actually just got done talking with a girl who did an internship in Italy; she said she cried herself to sleep the first couple weeks because everything (the language, culture, ect) was so overwhelming. Hopefully I'm mentally prepared enough so that doesn't happen. I'll be as prepared as possible, go, and take advantage of every moment I have in the beautiful country of Italy!

Checking Boxes or Having Conversations?

So, I've got me research question (which definitely has the potential to evolve) and now my new focus in determining how exactly I'm going to study it. Sounds simple enough, but honestly, it's the aspect that I've gone back and forth with most during the process of preparing for my filed study. My two main options: quantitative (checking boxes) or qualitative (having conversations). Having conversations obviously sounds more desirable, but there are definite pros and cons to both.

Basic Rundown:
Quantitative Research: a formal, objective, systematic process in which numerical data are used to obtain information about the world. In English, what that means for my project, is that I could obtain or create a survey that I give out to as many people as possible (in the group I want to study), have them fill it out by either checking yes or no boxes, or rating their agreement or disagreement to a statement on a scale of 1-5, combine the data, and analyze it. The benefit of this is that analyzing my data could easily be down with a computer program and I could find solid correlations. The data is more "scientific."
-Questions Answered: What? Where? When?

Qualitative Research: This research's main goal is to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. The qualitative method investigates the why and how of decision making, not just what, where, when. So rather than handing out surveys and having individuals fill them out anonymously, I would conduct in-depth interviews with individuals. I feel like this is a great way to gain a deeper understanding of the culture and to get richer data, however, this method takes longer, my Italian is not at great at this point, and it's harder to analyze this data to find meaningful information that I could share by publishing a paper.
-Questions answered: Why? How?

Honestly, at this point, I'm planning on doing both. It would be great to get some hard quantitative data--and maybe even publish a paper! That said, I am going to live in Italy for 3 months--I love talking to people and plan on doing a lot of that while I'm in Italy anyway. My research topic is obviously something that I've very interested in and passionate about, so I might as well take things that I'm talking with people about anyway and use it towards research. Given, it will have to be slightly more structured than a random conversation, but an opportunity I would not want to miss out on.

Next step: find a great survey to use (and translate it!) and find more of the right questions to ask for my interviews :)

My Research Question. For Now.

Like I've mentioned before, asking the right question(s) is one of the most important things I can do to be successful in understanding more about Italian marriages and families, is to ask the right question. I've mulled over ideas in my head, jotted notes in my journal, read countless articles and the basic thing I've learned is that a big reason that adult children continue to live with their parents up to their late 20s and early 30s is because it is a part of their culture--it's expected. Not only is it expected, but it has its definite advantages including less financial burdens and less responsibility in general. However, although it is tradition and has advantages, I haven't been able to find much research on how young adults in Italy view marriage. It remains a respected institution and one that most young adults want to enter into at some point in their future, but beyond that--I'm still unsure of their specific thoughts and ideas about marriage. Because they live at home for extended periods of time, into mature adulthood, do Italians have a better perception of what their own marriage will be like? Is that why fewer marriages end in divorce there than in the United States? These are the questions I want answered.

So, as of now, my overall research question is:

What perceptions about marriage do young adults in Italy hold, and are those perceptions accurate?

I'm Going to Italy! Now What?

I don't think I can adequately put into words how excited I am to travel to Italy and to be immersed in the culture--to experience life as an Italian does. I'm currently enrolled in an accelerated Italian class and am already realizing that this trip will be amazing, but not without challenges--my mastery of the language being the first. I have spent the last four years studying psychology and am excited to enter into a Marriage and Family Therapy program in the fall. The structure and function of the family unit intrigues me and I cannot wait to learn more about the Italian family.

When I first began working on my proposal for my field study, I wanted to learn more about premarital perceptions and how those affect marriage outcomes. I have always wanted to go to Italy and when I looked further into research on marriage in Italy, I was blown away by how low their cohabitation and divorce rates were. I wanted to know what about their marriages were different than marriages in the United States that made them more successful (in terms of longevity). Having taking classes of marriage, I knew that misperceptions about marriage can often lead to problems and difficulty in marriage; I decided to research what perceptions about marriage young adults in Italy had and if they were more accurate than their American cohort. I believe that these perceptions may be a factor in marriage success.

However I have also realized that while I want to see if there is any correlation concerning marriage perceptions, I would be missing out on so much of the culture about Italian Marriage if I made my research only about the young adult individuals, and not about the Italian family. I want to see if Italians have an accurate perception of marriage during their single years, but to know that--I must first have an accurate perception of the Italian marriage, and how that fits into the Italian family, the Italian community, and the Italian  culture. Luckily for me, I have over 3 months to mold my research into a project and to become capable of asking the right questions. I've heard that if you don't ask the right questions, you won't get the right answers.


My New Goal: Find the RIGHT questions!

The Countdown to Italia Begins!

I sometimes find my mind drifting into the place I've only seen in textbooks, on website, and--yes--through my growing collection of pinterest pins: the beautiful country of Italia. I've heard before that you should never give up on something you can't go a day without thinking about. Well, I've been thinking about Italia just about everyday for my last three years of college. After my freshman year, I decided to go on a study abroad to Italia--a travel destination that has been on top of my bucket list since I can remember. Due to a series of events and circumstances, I decided to withdraw from the program. Although I believe that I made the right decision for myself, at that time in my life, I can't help but wonder how my life might have been affected if I had gone. Rather than always wondering, and asking myself "what if..?" for years to come, I've decided to pursue one of my dreams: traveling to Italia!

During high school I had the opportunity to travel to England and Amsterdam; I have some amazing memories, photographs, and a few realizations about other cultures, to show for it. While the experience was wonderful, in retrospect, I have realized that a two week trip to another country--where I got by on the three phrases I knew in that language, and a American facilitator directing me through the tourist sites--did not give me a true or deep understanding of those countries and cultures. I want more than a fun trip and cute Facebook pictures out of my travel experiences. I want to go to Italia to learn the language, to know the people, to understand their culture and to experience Italia as they do. When I heard about a full-immersion field study program in Italia, I knew I had found my jackpot.

"Why Italia?" you may ask. Well, to be honest, when I started looking into study programs my freshman year, it was because it sounded...cool. I loved learning about the history of Italia in my humanities classes and had a burning desire to see sites like the Colosseum and the Leaning Tower of Pisa in real life. It wasn't until I progressed further into my studies of psychology and began preparing for Marriage and Family Therapy graduate school, that I began developing an interest in  (and maybe the beginnings of a love for) the Italian people and their culture. I have become so interested in the Italian family--their strong ties and their concern for interdependence over independence. I have read research article after research article on the low cohabitation rates in Italia--it is actually a common thing for children to live with their parents until they are in their late twenties or early thirties! Along with their low cohabitation rates, Italians also have extremely low divorce rates in comparison to other countries. I can deduce why this might be--based on the research I have done--but I have come to realize that research articles can only take me so far, and that if I truly want to learn about the Italian people and their culture, I must experience it--firsthand. So, come April 2010, I'M GOING TO ITALIA!