I decided to use a qualitative research method to carry out my research. I used informal interviews to gain a valid picture about how British Muslims feel about their nation. To do this I had to adopt an anti-positivist view to give me more of an insight. I selected my sample from the British Muslim in my college which were mostly people I was introduced through friends or personally knew
If I had chosen a quantitative approach it may have shown a relationship between British Muslims and National Identity but it would have been brief and I wouldn’t have gained a very detailed account of reasons as to why they feel the way they do. Many people may have found addressing issues in questionnaire form to intimidating and would lie or not given a detailed account affecting the validity. By using a qualitative method I felt I captured emotions, interview as well as observe the participants body language, this helped to draw a clear and concise picture of the way participants felt. The method also helped me get more information out of my sample due to follow up questions which you cannot do in a quantitative method as research comes to and end point after each question.
I drew up some ethical guidelines, which I followed while doing my research which were firstly to make sure each interviewee was briefed about why the interview was being carried out and signed a authorization form to confirm their participation, secondly to take into account peoples feelings and also respect people wishes to not talk about certain issues and thirdly not prompt interviewee to give a certain answer this would be affecting its validity.
RESEARCH
In this section I will be analyzing the findings from my interviews regarding the relationship between national identity and Islam. The research was carried out between a two-week period where I interviewed six British Muslims aged between 17-19, a mixture of male and females. All the interviews were carried out in environments where the participants felt most at ease. I selected the sample randomly, making sure I got them to sign an agreement form.
NATIONAL IDENTITY
First foremost I started my interview asking about, what they considered their national identity to be? As to which I expected few word answers, most of the participating sample felt they identified with their religion more than their nation. Overall I had two people who felt both were equal, but they did feel that due to being marginalized they felt left out of the community at times (see subheading media).
Some topics raised about the influence they have on their national identity were September 11th, war on terror and media.
PRE/POST SEPTEMBER 11TH AND WAR ON TERROR.
Most of the sample did not suffer abuse before September 11th and thought what they did suffer was little. Although one interviewee had been hit by a bottle as he was walking because he had on the religious clothing. Although there were many different responses to after the events one participant said “I was walking down a street and a white man shouted “bastard”, this was on the day of September 11th”, I noticed he was wearing the “topi” (male religious hat) which could have distinguished from other civilians, when I asked if this had effected his national identity he replied “yes” and that it made him feel less British. Another who also wore the “hijab” (female religious garment) felt she got a few dirty looks due to the events, although never had any abuse before the events. What I did find interesting was that one participant had the name Osaama which is famously linked to the September 11th attacks, and he said when someone asked his name and replied “Osaama” the person would feel he was lying or mocking recent events. Overall some of the sample did feel closer to their religion after these events.
MEDIA
The entire sample felt that media was unjust and a false portrayal of Muslims. One of the interviewees said that media was “manipulative” and changed people views overall that was many of the samples views. Three participants said that they labeled them as “terrorists” and another comment raised was that “people should be portrayed as individuals” which raised the issue that many felt that they were put into the terrorist categories, and due to political action taken during the events a participant said it made them “neglect their British identity”. Another thing mentioned by an interviewee that media show was “Muslim man with a beard is seen as a extremist, but a Christian or a Jew are practicing their faith, a Muslim women covering herself is being oppressed, a nun is seen to be practicing her faith”, this had made the individual loose sense of belonging to society and feel secularized. One also went on to say that now it feels as though “British and Muslim has become two separate thing” which showed the distance media had influenced between Islam and national identity.
CAN CHANGES BE MADE?
I asked all the participants can changes be made to improve relationships between religion and national identity, all the participants said “yes” that all sides of stories should have been looked at basically every participant felt that all faiths should be taught more bout each other and to respect each others faith regardless of what is in media, and as one interviewee said “ all should be seen as individuals”.
Overall the views on media were negative and the sample felt that they were mis-represented by the media, this showed a distance in Islam and national identity, although I didn’t expect the amount of people to side with their faith more as I did. Similar to the YouGov survey I found a lot of people want better links between faiths. The relationship between national identity and Islam I felt was a issue that needed to be worked on and trust had been lost between Muslims and their nation due to media and attacks which made them neglect their British identity and also the way they lived and dressed seemed to make them feel like they are set aside from mainstream society and as one participant said they felt that “British and Muslims had become two separate thing”.
EVALUATION
In this section I am going to evaluate my research and see whether I could have used a different method or improved my method in any way.
For the title of my coursework I decided to have a question to research, which was, is there a relationship between Islam and national identity. Overall I felt that my research answered the question and it did not steer away from the subject matter. I feel sociology wise the subject I researched was good although it would have been better if it was not only one religion being researched but the wider population so not only to compare race and religion but also to find out how a diversity of people feel about their national identity. I used snowball sampling to find my interviewees, I feel it would have made a difference is to increase the sample, therefore the data would have been more representative of the population and generalization of the way Muslim community feels about their national identity could have been made. I used snowball sampling to find my interviewees. I decided on a qualititative method of interviewing and recording it using a tape recorder rather then using pen and paper which would have led me to miss certain points or interpreted wrong observing, or taking on a active role because it was more personal and it would be difficult to actually use observation or taking active role as the subject matter depended more on people views rather than actions I do feel though to get a full idea and to help generalize it would be better to use a quantitative method combined with a qualitative so that the data can equal out the other method lacks, for example can generalize with quantitative and by using qualititative you can personally understand the reasons behind each answers. Before I carried out my research I asked each person to sign a agreement form, I felt that was a good method although I should have briefed each person verbally to, just in case the points in the agreement form were not read or understood clearly. Another thing which I should have explained is what I mean by national identity I felt I did not operationalise this term properly to the people I interviewed because at first they were confused I also found the age group I interviewed were slightly too young to have a solid political opinion for each question therefore if I carried out the research again I would change the age group to twenty to twenty five so that they are more experienced answers from people who have socialised outside of college environment and more worldly experienced. The strength I found in my interviews was media influence and the opinions each person had on it and the weakness was people talking bout experience as many people forgot or seemed to pick out certain bits of their memories. My data can be seen as valid as it showed a true picture of the six interviewees and their feeling towards the subject matter although you cannot say it’s a true picture of the whole British Muslim population. From a sociologists point of view they may argue that some participants could have lied and therefore question the validity of the research, although an advantage was that I could see the body language of each interviewees and facial expressions. Due to my research method my research cannot be seen as reliable as many peoples experience and recollection of events could vary between each other therefore if the research was carried out again the data is most likely to be very different so to rectify the mistake if I carried the research out again or was allowed to use more then one method I would use a questionnaire as well as a interview. My research cannot also be seen as representative because the research method was more time consuming rather then a questionnaire which takes half the time therefore I could not choose a larger sample and had only 6 interviewees there for a generalization cannot be made from my data as it lacks representative ness.
As I was researching British Muslims and I am one myself so my data cane across rather subjective and as I used data to prove my point it’s showed the bias within my research. I feel overall I was good at organizing interviewees I clearly outlined my question criteria although I feel I should have found interviewees and did a time schedule for each rather then doing the interviews at random times within two weeks as it became increasingly hard to find participants. I did not encounter any ethical problems and none of the participants found it too hard to give opinions. I feel I could have addressed the issue of the research being subjective if I had longer as I would have got another interviewer who was not the same religion or race so that the participants did not feel they had to give a certain answer rather then giving their sole opinion.
Overall if I had longer and had the chance to do the research again I would definitely have a larger age scale as well as a wider range of religions, races although making sure that the amount of females and males are equal. I would also combine interviewing (qualititative method) with questionnaires (qualititative method) so that I can equal out each flaws both methods have.
