Blog address changed

So I probably should have checked the Field Studies page for my own blog before but I only ever got on here to read other people's blogs. Anyway I had some issues with this blog and since like early February I have had a new address, which my facilitator knew about but I guess never got changed on the site. So, the address of my blog currently is http://colorambucano.wordpress.com/ if anyone wants to check it out.

25 Questions

1.      What are the Cultural differences between the US and Brazil in relation to the family?

2.      Climate theory and its effect on culture and family? (hotter climate = more aggressive and more active sexually)

3.      Brazil as a mainly catholic country and the US being a protestant one.

4.      Latin culture and work ethic

5.      What other factors contribute?

6.      Treatment of children

7.      Smaller middle class compared to US. What effect does that have on socioeconomic classes and interrelations

8.      Until recently people in Brail were much less likely to move, stayed in one town for generations

9.      Having more extended family nearby?

10.  What kinds of questions need to be asked?

11.  Is family more or less important there?

12.  Is media’s effect on family greater or not?

13.  Would a scale of importance of family members in different situations help?

14.  With advances of feminism in the United states how does the distribution of power and responsibilities differ in Brazilian homes?

15.  In Brazil things like sexual harassment and racism are very different. How does this effect family life?

16.  Mixed race families more or less common?

17.  Do families in Brazil have more or less children on average than in the US

18.  At first glance it appears that many couples in Brazil do not get married because of the costs, is the number of cohabitating non married couples with children higher or lower in Brazil?

19.  In the United states people list health as primary concern and family

20.  the satisfaction of family relationships, as perceived by adolescents and adults in two independent samples, is positively correlated with a sense of togetherness and negatively related to strict rules. – Is Brazil the same?

21.  How much more or less strict are rules?

22.  What 3 factors do I want to focus on? Religiosity? Strictness and enforcement of rules? Influences of and severity of media? All as related to satisfaction

2

So this weekend I have been reading over a lot of Dr. Day's articles that he sent me about his project and its all kind of overwhelming. The scope of his study is huge. I don't think I can get anywhere near that in my field study. It also seems like it is going to be much harder than I expected to adapt it to a non U.S. culture. I guess I expected it to be different as far as the relationship between family and culture. I think there are plenty of universal aspects but I am not sure how I am going to narrow it down, or if i have the expertise needed to do so. I may have to just try and develop my own scale and study that is not reliant on Dr. Day's, but again a lack of expertise is going to get in the way. I may have to be more generic...just ask questions about how family and parents work and then code them to quantify their answers.

It's also becoming more and more clear that I need to stay away from LDS families when I do my study. As i talk to more Brazilians and ask about their families I keep finding Mormon American things about their customs and traditions. I don't know if it is because american family practices and such influence a lot of what general authorities teach and is then implemented by LDS families in Brazil or if it more because of the media and such, a great deal of which comes from the United States.

Anyway This is the stuff I have been thinking about as I read and debated with myself.