With-in each of these religions are religions and faiths to be followed and it seems that Islam which is part of the Muslim religion is by far the strictest religion; almost the entire basis of this religion is adhering to strict principles. This includes forbiddance to marrying other religions and even faiths with-in the Muslim religion it-self. This in my view is as strict as it can get.
Hinduism is in a sense strict in similar ways but not to the extent that they must obey family members as they were made to do in the Muslim Religion and still are made to do s in today’s society. 76% Hindu parents spend their time teaching their children that the right way of life would be to marry someone of the same religion as the faith explains it is the right way to continue the faith to insure that it is never forgotten, and the way forth is to marry with your own religion. If a Hindu did inter-marry the actions of the parents would not be harsh like the Muslim parents would be.
Jewish parents also have similar views to Hindu parents. 64% of the Jewish parents teach their children to marry with the Jewish faith and 72% of these children do marry someone of the same religion compared to the 36% of parents who do not put pressure on the children to marry with the Jewish faith find that above half of these children do marry into the same religion, showing that even without the teaching of right and wrong Jewish children are still aware of their religion and do follow it as it.
Christian parents do teach their children about religion but what is more important to them is that faith and traditions are followed and these can be done by people of other religions and therefore they are not strict about their children inter-marrying with other religions as research shows that more Christians have inter-married than any other religion.
My aim is to find out if these beliefs are still as strong as they used to be and to find out if today’s society has changed in any way. I chose to do a questionnaire, and have both open and closed questions. I have used closed questions as they are easy to generalise and will allow me to generalise easily my finding on the opinion of parents on their children inter-marrying with other religions. The open questions will allow me to see the views of the parents and the reason behind the opinion of the parents. Questionnaire are also quick and confidential and do not consider ethical issues. I chose to look at 40-59 years old parents as it is during these age stages their children get married and therefore I would be getting the response of parents who already have married children or are at a close age of getting married. I feel it is important that the right age group is selected as too young of parents may have not thought it through like the slightly older parents may have and that is the reason why I am going exclude any questionnaire filled in by parents that are not in this age range. (667)
Hypotheses
My hypothesis is based purely on the research collected from the books and sites visited.
- I believe that the opinion of the parents of all 4 religions will be different when generalised.
- The parents that are Muslim will have more of a problem with their child inter-marring with someone of a different religion in comparison to parents that are Hindu, Jewish and Christian.
- Christian parents will have the least problem with their children inter-marrying with other religions. (81)
Method
To collect my data I handed out questionnaires, which consisted of both opened and closed questions. The questionnaires were handed out in 3 locations across NW London. These 3 locations were Harrow, Brent cross and Watford shopping centres. These 3 locations were chosen as they are large shopping centres, quite a distant apart from each other and allocated in areas of NW London which attracts the majority of the NW population with a few exceptions. This gave me large population sample. 150 questionnaires were filled in total, 50 in each location. I chose to hand out the questionnaires on Sundays as it is a day that majority people have off and go shopping. I began handing them out at 10.00am until all 50 had been filled in.
I had to be bias when handing out the questionnaires as my aim was to get the view of parents aged 40-59 who were Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim. When selecting my participants I looked around for people of the above. I tried to distribute the questionnaires equally between the 4 religions and the sex of the parents.
When first approaching the participants I explained the purpose of the questionnaire (also stated top of questionnaire). In addition I also explained that the information would only be used for one purpose, which was to give me data to analyse for my research based area. I tried to insure that the results were reliable by informing the participants that it would be appreciated if they could be as honest as possible as demand characteristic could take place if they wanted there religion to look better or if they were trying to answer the questions in the way they through I wanted them to. (277)
Results:
To present my data I have showed it in the form of a table, which clearly shows the religion, age, sex and number of children. On a separate sheet is a summary of the other answer collected. I found it hard to generalise the results as I received a lot of different information in the open questions, however it has given me a clearer understanding of the pinion of the parents and reasons behind their decisions. Once
Reference:
The Occident and American Jewish Advocate -Volume II, No. 12
Edexcel - Religious and Spiritual Education 2002-3
- Religious Studies 2003-4
http:www.hinduwebsite.com