Final Summary/Reaction

After getting the results back from my survey, I found it really interesting how people have so many different opinions on family and marriage. I asked the people who took my surveys to evaluate their view of family and marriage. The survey questions were meant for the people (mostly girls between the age of 16 and 17) to evaluate their own family lives; whether parents are married or divorced. It was interesting to see how the girls with the divorced parents looked at the questions I asked like, "what do you consider a truly successful family and marriage?", with a more pessimistic view than girls with parents who are married and who valued the importance of in-tact family and marriage. My survey and evaluation of my own family conveyed opinions  about family and marriage that varied based on a person's family status right now and what they believed to be important in their lives.

Revised Summary/Plan/Update

I revised my plan to asking survey questions to between 5-10 friends and myself about family life and marriage.  It was too challenging and broad to try and get answer from all family members therefore I made the questions more specific about family life getting the results of one's view on an in-tact family and marriage.  After receiving some of the surveys back I have found various answers to all the questions showing how people's views of a successful in-tact family and marriage can vary. My friends are able to evaluate their relationships with their parents and the parent to parent relationships in their families and convey it to me through the survey questions.

Strategy and Plan for Research

I am planning on giving a survey to my family and two other families; my best friend's family and my cousin's family. The survey will be general for all members of the immediate family (siblings and both parents).  Examples of questions I will ask on the survey are as follows: who is the dominant person in the family? who makes most decisions in the family? what is everyone's roles? do you feel in control of your children's  lives? do you think it is necessary to be a whole family unit rather than separated or divorced? etc. Then I will use that data from the three families and observe my own family and compare and contrast the families to see what is similar and what is different. The survey will  help me get some background information on what the families' think occurs, and then I will actually observe the daily events of a family and the relationships between parent and child. I predict that the families are going to vary in how they interact within their family. I also predict that it my observations will show it is important to have two "in-tact" parents when growing up.