Sacred / Profane Research: Data Points

I've adjusted the demographic data points for the new version of the survey.

Age

Sex

Highest Educational Level Attained

What University the student attends (if any)

What year the subject is in their education (if applies)

Military Service (if any)

Religious Affiliation

Religious Service Attendance

Marital Status

Home County

Home State

Frequency of Internet Access

Location of Internet Access

Socio-Economic Status

Race

First Generation College Student

The question about what university the subject attends is mostly a point that I will use to help cluster the respondents for any extra credit the subject might receive within their class but also to look for any correlation on shared values within the same social community (University).  The question of the subject's year in education (if applicable) is also an attempt to see if there is any correlation on the change in values (towards the symbolic nature of the Sacred or Profane) during their time at the University.

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For a full description of the research that I'm conducting into the nature of E. Durkhiem's original Sacred / Profane dichotomy click HERE.

Sacred-Profane: Survey 3 Demographics

Survey 3 utilized the 3-Step method (Sacred, Mundane and Profane)

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For a full description of the research that I'm conducting into the nature of E. Durkhiem's original Sacred / Profane dichotomy click HERE.

Sacred-Profane: Survey 2 Demographics

Survey 2 used E. Durkheim's original 2-Step model (Sacred or Profane).

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For a full description of the research that I'm conducting into the nature of E. Durkhiem's original Sacred / Profane dichotomy click HERE.

Sacred-Profane: Survey 1 Demographic Findings

As the respondents were predominantly taken from college students at Shawnee State University enrolled in Social Sciences courses.

So - most of the students were single, female and between 18-20 years of age.

Survey 1 uses the 5-Step Method (Sacred, Revered, Mundane, Profane and Taboo)

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For a full description of the research that I'm conducting into the nature of E. Durkhiem's original Sacred / Profane dichotomy click HERE.

Sacred / Profane Survey 1 Demographic Results

Using Survey 1 which utilized what I've termed the 5-Step method of determining the nature of an event or object's symbolic quality as being Sacred or Profane the following demographic patterns were revealed:

Code Key Table

Key Value	Age	Sex	Religious Affiliation	Religious Attendance	Highest Level of Education	Military Status	Marital Status	Symbolic Value
1	18-22	Male	Pagan / Unitarian	Never	High School Diploma or GED	Civilian	Single	Sacred
2	23-26	Female	Jewish / Buddhist / Muslim	Rarely (A)	Associates Degree	Active / Reservist	Married	Revered
3	27-32		Atheist / None	Bi Monthly	BA	Veteran	Divorced, Separated, Widowed	Mundane
4	33-40		Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran	Monthly	MA			Profane
5	41-50		Baptist, Pentecostal  Church of Christ, Protestant, LDS, Apostolic	Weekly	Ph.D			Taboo
6	51+		Non-Denom. Christian, Agnostic, Diest, Theism	Multiple Times per Week

I collapsed Pagan / Universal Unitarians into the same category as both are non-christian but also fairly 'new' on the religious landscape and are religions that people, generally, have converted to later in life. Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim were all collapsed into the same category as they are all A) non-christian, B) Well-established as a religion within various cultures and C) not expected to have many respondents. Catholic, Methodist and Lutheran religious affiliation were all collapsed into one as they represent a fairly wide-spread and are generally found in 'urban' populations. Where as Baptist (and the others) are not as wide-spread (though there are dozens of varieties of Baptist religions they are not a unified denomination) and are generally found in 'rural' populations.

This was a first-round sweep through the demographics so I knew I would end up having to go back into the data and break the categories apart later but I wanted to see if there was any clustering of the data first.

(A) Holidays and special occasions only.

Findings

Key Value	Age	Sex	Religious Affiliation	Religious Attendance	Highest Level of Education	Military Status	Marital Status
1	120	45	9	0	123	135	127
2	10	101	7	54	12	3	10
3	7		20	18	10	8	9
4	3		46	19	1
5	5		39	24	0
6	1		25	30	0

Discussion

Surveys were posted to classes offered at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio and Ohio University in Athens, Ohio to students in Social Sciences classes, specifically classes focusing on Sociology. So I expected that most respondents would fit into the basic demographic of an 18-22 year old, single, civilian who has completed at least a  high school education. (shown in red)

The sheer number of female respondents is indicative of the composition of classes, by sex, in most upper-division social sciences classes at both universities. (shown in blue)

What is interesting is the attitudes towards religion and religious service attendance.

A majority of respondents reported that they follow a Catholic, Methodist or Lutheran religious system with the next most common cluster following Baptist, Pentecostal, Church of Christ, Protestant, LDS, Apostolic.

Additionally, a majority of respondents reported attending religious services only on important events such as holidays. However the next most common cluster reported that they attend religious services multiple times per week.

What does this mean?

I went back into the data to separate the Religious Affiliation category.

Religious Affiliation

Catholic	34
Methodist	14
Lutheran	4
Baptist	32
Pentecostal	3
Church of Christ	1
Protestant	1
LDS	1
Apostolic	1

So of the clusters in Religious Affiliation it was the Catholics (for Key Code 4) and the Baptists (for Key Code 5).

So this directed me to look at the responses for those people who were A) Catholic or Baptist and B) Attending religious services either at holidays only or multiple times per week.

I'm curious if this will be the same with the other two surveys since they were given, essentially, to the same type of respondent.

More later,
-Tom

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For a full description of the research that I'm conducting into the nature of E. Durkhiem's original Sacred / Profane dichotomy click HERE.

Regional Sacred / Profane Survey

With the assistance of Dr. Amy Rock, Visiting Professor of Geography of Ohio University's Department of Geography, I am expanding the focus of the original research on the nature of E. Durkheim's work on the Sacred and the Profane to incorporate region and frequency of access to the internet as contributing factors to how one sees events and objects in the world as either Sacred, Revered, Mundane, Profane or Taboo.

This is an elaboration of my 5-Step model that will (hopefully) be distributed to several four-year universities throughout the Ohio Appalachian region (shown above in blue).

We will be examining the impact of A) internet access on the concepts of the Sacred as well as B) region (county and state).

The Survey Model, linked here, will go live in July for a test run before being implemented at as many of the 4-year universities as possible.

This would expand the demographic data points to the following:

Age

Sex

Highest Educational Level Attained

Military Service (if any)

Religious Affiliation

Religious Service Attendance

Marital Status

Home County

Home State

Frequency of Internet Access

Location of Internet Access

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As always, if you have any questions about my research please feel free to contact me through Shawnee State at my Email Address linked here.

Neotribal Zombies

I was recently asked to present at lecture on the changing nature of society in the wake of a society-ending event.

Yup, that's right, I was asked to present at the Zombie Education Defense meeting on campus.

Click here for the power point file that I'll be using for the discussion.

Survey Versions

Sacred Profane Surveys:

Version 1 (click here) (Sacred, Revered, Mundane, Profane, Taboo)

Version 2 (click here) (Sacred, Profane)

Version 3 (click here) (Sacred, Mundane, Profane)

Images

Mask Theory

Theory Brief

The 'Mask' is the combined fascet of the Status and Role(s) that one possesses as an element of their personal identity. Masks 'fit' on the exterior of one's sense of Self. The identity of an individual is, then, the combination of the Self and the multitude of Masks that a person wears. Depending on what type of interaction we engage in, we will switch between various masks to best accomodate the nature of the interaction.

Definitions:

• Status: The honor or prestige attached to one's position in society (one's social position). It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc.
• Role: A set of connected behaviours, rights and obligations as conceptualised by actors in a social situation.
• Identity:  The portion of an individual's self-concept derived from perceived membership in a relevant social group.
• Self:  A multi-dimensional construct that refers to an individual's perception of "self" in relation to any number of characteristics, such as academics (and nonacademics), gender roles and sexuality, racial identity, and many others.

Sacred & Profane (CUP)

More information on the Sacred and Profane Research

So in survey version 2 (using only Sacred and Profane as options), I began to tear into the 'Cup' variable.

Of the 87 respondents:

Profane: 70
Sacred: 17

So I looked into what demographic factors may have influenced their response.

Of the 17 Sacred responses the demographics that had statistically relevent clusters were:

Age:
Female: 9/61 (15%)
Male: 8/26 (31%)

Attend:
Never: 2/17 (12%)
Rarely: 6/17 (35%)
Occasionally: 2/17 (12%)
Sometimes: 1/17 (6%)
Routinely: 4/17 (24%)
Constantly: 2/17  (12%)

So why would more men than women consider a cup to be a "Sacred" item?