research that frustrates me

Much better than the alternative rant I could have made about a particular dissertation I was reading yesterday - the kind that makes me think the granting institution must be one of those "buy your degree online" kind of institutions, even if they claim to have status recognition by the APA and multiple campuses. And if the writing of the dissertation author itself isn't bad enough, there's content in there - quotes from the participant parents that were even approved by the participants - that make me cringe. Such as a father who tells his young teenaged daughter that if she goes out wearing provocative clothing that there is a 98% chance something will happen to her. (But, of course, it's still her choice...) Does that mean that he will direct blame at her if something does happen (even though the implied chance of molestation is far less than 98%)? And this is a family that prides themselves on having a healthy view of sexuality. One that proudly reports they provided their son with lubrication and hand towels when he reached puberty. Hunh. There's no mention of supporting their daughter's sexuality. Nope, instead they tell her that if she wears the clothes she wants to wear "something" (bad) will happen to her - and thus she is not free to engage her own sexuality.

I'm not endorsing common fashions for girls (alas, younger and younger...) that I find inappropriate and would never allow my own daughter to have in her wardrobe. But neither would I tell her it's her choice to wear them and state that if something bad happens to her it's a result of that choice. Granted, I also know from experience that you don't have to wear provocative clothing as a teen-aged female to be the object of sexual harassment. When it comes from classmates, putting them in their place and reporting it to authorities ends it pretty darn quickly.

Another father (or was it the same? it's hard to tell in this dissertation, despite only interviewing 3 couples she continues to generalize them and use vague descriptions such as "some of them") supposedly seeks to encourage tolerance (in the face of potential religious discrimination) by telling his kids that other people are small-minded and the kids/they are not. Wow.
And perhaps what is worse, in this dissertation, is that the psychology major ignores all of this stuff that she has transcribed and included in her dissertation to illustrate other things (such as how parents front-load kids in preparation of potential discrimination) and instead pushes her own analysis of discrimination even after she admits that the parents insisted religious discrimination wasn't a significant factor in their lives and the researcher similarly found little evidence of it affecting them.
And might I add, interviewing 3 couples for 2 hours, especially without any additional fieldwork and clear ignorance about relevant publications from Pagan Studies, should never ever be worthy of a doctorate degree! I'm pretty sure my undergrad students could write the same or better papers! Oh, and this was a new dissertation from 2010.

Oh well. It's not as if I could ignore it. It is related to my own research insofar as it is about Pagan parents, so to ignore it (ie, not have read it) would be poor research on my part (in my opinion) even though I now know it's not worthy of my time. I'll still make mention of it if only to say there have been others interested in this field of late - even if it's crap research. The fact that she didn't find religious discrimination to be a significant factor is inline with my own findings and does help to dispel common perceptions within the Pagan community that potential and real discrimination is of great concern. Of course, the researcher draws upon this same common perception (I should add she's a practitioner, although clearly not a well-educated one as she spells Samhain as Samhein and altar as alter) of discrimination that compelled her to speak with parents about how they deal with discrimination. Even after completing her interviews and finding that the parents had not experienced discrimination, she proceeds with writing her dissertation on the topic and trying to force it into one model - that it doesn't fit. Anyhow, despite her poor analysis, the fact that discrimination wasn't significant to these parents and the long quotes she includes from the parents discussing how they prepare (or not) their kids for misunderstandings about the religion does have some interest to me.

In other research, I was reading a different recent paper that, much to my frustration, references another thesis about second generation Pagans without challenging the (poorly conceived) conclusions of that thesis and instead using it to support the idea (desirable to the Pagan community) that the second generation of Pagans is growing significantly.

It is evident that I will be ruffling some feather with my dissertation and publications. There are a lot of people who will not like my challenges to this assumption. Certainly the researchers will not like that I take them to task on their faulty conclusions and Pagan leaders who will not like it. On the other hand, I imagine there are plenty of other researchers who will be glad to see it.

So, I suppose I should get back to that writing...