Abstract
In this study, we aimed to
investigate Americans’ ideas about cell phones and intercultural marriages in
the United States. In this way, we made a survey and we asked 229 Americans in
Texas Tech University to fill out the survey. After gathering the data, we analyzed
them through Survey Planet and Excel Software. We found out that Americans
believe in religion as a major cause of problems between couples engaged in
intercultural marriages. Moreover, Americans considered intercultural marriage
as something positive for the society and believed in the fact that children
who grow up in these kinds of families become more open minded. Interestingly,
they mostly confirmed that pastoral counseling does not cause any harm to these
relationships, which was against our initial hypothesis.
Introduction
We live today
in a multi-cultural world, where all the religions are mixed. Therefore, the
number of people who may get into a relationship with somebody with different
culture and religion is growing. According to Pew Research Center the United
States is not an exception in this regard (Wang, 2012). Even two people of similar backgrounds may
get into trouble in their marriage, which would be more risky if these two were
from different cultures and religions. Statistics show that as the number of
intermarriages is rising, at the same time a noticeable number of them get into
trouble in their married lives. Therefore, there is an immediate need for
taking action in order to know what problems may lead an intermarriage into
divorce and how this can be avoided.
Texas is a
huge state and at the same time very diverse in terms of religions and races.
Based on Texas Tech University Counseling Service, the number of students is
more than 31,000, out of whom approximately 64% are Caucasian, and the rest are
from ethnically diverse populations (Texas Tech University, 2016). Therefore,
we decided to investigate TTU students’ points of view about different aspects
of intermarriage. We were more interested in realizing if they supported this
kind of marriage for themselves or their family members. We wanted to know
their opinions about the marriages in which spouses have different races or
cultures.
Literature review
Intercultural
marriage brings an additional layer to the relationships. Without considering
the level of intimacy and love between two people from different cultures, when
it comes to marriage they should know how to merge these two cultures. Lot of
questions comes to their mind: Will our families support us? What does
religious roles say about our marriage? What are the differences between our
foods and cultural events (Intercultural marriages: is my way the right way?, n.d)
?
A report
conducted by the Pew Research Center indicates that approximately one-third of
Americans have an intermarriage in their immediate family or among close
relatives. However, Wang believes that less than two thirds of them support
this kind of marriage. Moreover, they have different ideas regarding accepting
intermarriage for their family, for themselves and for everyone (Wang, 2012).
In research conducted in 2011, white women were more likely to reject
interracial relationships for themselves but not for others, while white men
showed more eagerness to engage in relationships with women of different race
and culture, especially with Asians (Herman, 2011). However, neither white
women nor white men were very likely to actually engage in such relationships.
The research showed that whites preferred more to date interracially than to marry
out or have multiracial children.
Americans
were asked whether they believed intermarriage had been a change for the better
in the society. Only one out of ten believed that it had been a change for the
worse. The population who considered intermarriage as something positive for
the society were mostly minorities, younger adults, the college-educated, those
who believe in liberality and residents of the Northeast or the West (Wang,
2012). One of the issues that intermarriage may cause for people who are
engaged in, is the way they identify themselves. The most common items that can
determine identification among multiracial individuals are ancestry (Espiritu,
2001; Khana, 2004; Rockquemore & Brunsma, 2002), skin tone and facial
features (Herman, 2004; Kilson, 2001), their perceptions about others’ opinions
about them (Khana, 2004; Khanna, 2010), family socialization (Root 2001), socioeconomic situation or the neighborhood they live in (Campbell, 2010;
Dalmage, 2000; Herman, 2004; Qian, 2004).
Marriage is
defined by the time, place, and by the individuals who are involved in a
relationship. When it comes to marriage between two cultures, there is no right
or wrong. Every culture has its own value and identity; a special behavior
could be considered right to a culture, while being a stupid act to the other
one. Different cultural traditions may ascribe totally different meanings from
other cultures (Crabtree, 2015).
The number of
Catholics who marry Jews and Muslims has risen recently. In terms of available
pastoral resources, Catholic-Muslim couples are at a loss compared to their
Catholic-Jews peers. The result is that when Catholic-Muslim couples encounter
an unusual problem there is almost no pastoral care for them to get advice from
(Tvrtkovic, 2001). However, we want to know what Americans feel about how
useful pastoral counseling can be for couples’ lives who have engaged in
intercultural marriages. In case that Americans consider pastoral counselors as
a good source of care for their marital problems, we can think about increasing
these resources for all the religions.
For an
artist, right and wrong have not been defined (Weinlick, 2012). He/she may
freely decide to pursue whatever idea comes to his/her mind. Often, his/her
idea comes from the real law of heart, mind or the physical properties of the
materials. The artistic thinking process gives him/her opportunity for trial
and error. However, a mathematician thinks more logically. He/she is engaged in
real laws and abstraction in a way that brings him/her real results. I am
interested in knowing whether different thinking processes of an artist and
someone who is engaged in hard sciences can influence their idea in approving
intercultural marriage.
It is been
said that many stable relationships have been related to interracial marriages.
These relationships have reflected many factors like higher education and
income and more importantly, stabilized life. In contrast are the people with
the same racial origin. Racial combination is another factor that can determine
the level of marital stability. Moreover, marriage resiliency has turned out to
be affected by racial prejudice. People who have open mind mentalities are
willing to accept others and cope with life problems that they encounter in
their marital life. This mentality helps them to build better relationships
with their communities and overcome problems they might face personally and
socially (Intercultural marriage, 2013).
It has been
said that children of intercultural marriages may face some problems like being
teased by other kids and getting confused about their religion. However, they
may take advantage of being bilingual and may be more adaptive to change and
different cultures. Being more open-minded is another property these kids may be
characterized with. I was curious about American’s point of view in this
regard.
Our
definition for people who have experienced intercultural marriage is those who
have married or been in a relationship with somebody with a different culture,
race or religion and people who have been raised in such families.
Hypotheses
1.
Americans who have experienced intercultural
marriages, will more likely consider religion the most difficult aspect of this
kind of marriages than people who have not gone through this experience.
2.
Americans who have experienced intercultural marriage
would most likely believe that pastoral counseling might cause more harm than
good between couples with different religions.
3.
Americans who are engaged in creative arts and design more
likely would approve intercultural marriage than those who are engaged in other
majors.
4.
Most Americans are likely to consider intercultural
marriage as something positive for the society.
5. American girls
older than 28 are more likely to be willing to sacrifice anything for love in
an intercultural marriage than their male peers.
6. Americans would
more likely characterize children of intercultural marriage more open-minded
than being ridiculed by other kids.
Methods
In English as Second Language class, the students had
different opinions about the subject. Therefore, we combined our interests
which were “Cell-Phones” and “Intercultural Marriages”. The questionnaire
consisted of three phases, all with multiple choices. The first phase of the questionnaire
concerned demographic information with 5 questions, which was shared between
both subjects of Cell-Phones and Intercultural Marriages. The second phase was
around the Cell-Phones subject with 15 specific questions; and the third phase
discussed 12 Intercultural Marriage questions. We presented both versions of
online and paper-based surveys to the participants. Moreover, we decided to
have Lubbock, Texas community as our population. We made an agreement for every
student to ask 6 female Americans, 6 male Americans, herself/himself and as
many international individuals as he/she could. Moreover, we had an agreement
to collect samples of any age group from Texas Tech community and people who
live in Lubbock, Texas. Participants could be students, professors or
neighbors, and we could go anywhere in Lubbock to gather our data. However, I
handed out most of my surveys in International Students Fellowship, which is a
gathering place for both Americans and internationals in Lubbock; the reason
being was that Americans in ISF are so warm and open to me being an
international individual. All respondents were informed about the purpose of
the study, and they were questioned separately from each other to prevent bias.
There were some demographic questions at the very beginning.
We asked them about their gender, marital status, age group, area of origin and
their major or occupation. After asking 15 questions about cell-phones, we
investigated participants’ point of view on different questions about
Intercultural Marriages. We asked them if they had experience of intercultural
marriage or relationship through growing up in one or getting married
inter-culturally. We questioned them if their parents supported intercultural
marriage. Also, we wanted to know if they would support their child’s
intercultural marriage. Moreover, we asked them whether they felt being more
supportive than their parents in this regard. We investigated their opinion
whether they believed intercultural marriage could change the society for the
better. Furthermore, we asked them about the most difficult aspect of
intercultural marriage; whether it is religion, language differences, food or
other things. The participants were asked about their level of sacrifice for
maintaining such marriage; whether they would be willing to change their food
preferences, not seeing their families as often as they would like, their
preferred town to live in, their job, having a family of a different religion,
even if they would sacrifice nothing or everything for love. Also, we sought
their opinions about the most beneficial aspects of intercultural marriage for
children being born in such families; if they would have better educations,
become more open minded, learn more about culture and travel, or other things.
We questioned participants if they thought children of intercultural marriages
could be characterized by being ridiculed or teased by other kids, or if they
would be advantaged by being bilingual, more adaptive to cultures and change or
even if they would encounter religious issues, like being confused about
religion or becoming less interested in religion. We investigated the
participants’ feelings toward pastoral resources for intercultural couples,
whether it was necessary, how often it was helpful, or even if they could cause
more problems. Our last question was for participants who were in an
intercultural marriage; we asked if they would go through the same kind of
marriage if they could come back to the past.
Results
We believed that Americans who had experienced intercultural
marriages, would more likely consider religion the most difficult aspect of
this kind of marriages than people who had not gone through this experience. In
fact, in our study, 77 out of 229 participants had experienced intercultural
marriage; among whom, 52% of participants believed that religion could be the
most difficult aspect of intercultural marriage to handle. Interestingly,
participants who had no experience of intercultural marriage gave more credit
to religion as the most challenging part of such life (65%).
We believed that Americans
who had experienced intercultural marriage would most likely believe that
pastoral counseling might cause more harm than good between couples with
different religions. Our study did not confirm this hypothesis and people who
had married inter-culturally, people who were in relationship with somebody with
different race or religion and people who had been raised in such families
mostly did not admit that pastoral counseling may be harmful for such
relationships. In fact, less than 1% of people who had experienced
intercultural marriages said consulting with pastoral resources might damage
their relationships, while approximately 27% of people who had not gone through
such relationships believed that intercultural couples talking to counseling
resources about their problems, would make the situation worse.
We thought we
would find out that Americans who were engaged in creative arts and design more
likely would approve of intercultural marriage than those who were engaged in
other majors. We found that Americans’ occupations could affect their opinion
about intercultural marriage. In other words, people who were engaged in
creative arts and design majors would approve intercultural marriage more than others.
The results demonstrate that 100% of participants who considered their major or
occupation relevant to art and design supported intercultural marriage.
However, Americans engaged in other majors rather than art and design also
approved intercultural marriages by 93%.
We believed that most
Americans were likely to consider intercultural marriage as something positive
for the society. We found that the Americans most likely believed that the
society could reap the benefits of intercultural marriage. The results proved
our statement as 54% of the Americans responded positively to this question. It
is also worth noting that 44% of the Americans believed that this phenomenon
does not make any difference in the society and only 2.2% of the respondents
considered intercultural marriage as a negative social issue.
We thought Americans would more likely characterize children
of intercultural marriage more open-minded than being ridiculed by other kids.
Our study confirmed this statement and according to our data, 27% of
respondents believed children of intercultural marriages would take advantage
of being more open minded. However, only 6% of Americans said these children
might be teased by other kids because of their parents’ intercultural
marriages.
We believed that the American girls older than 28 were more
likely to be willing to sacrifice anything for love in an intercultural
marriage than their male peers. In our study, this statement got approved and
American females with 28 years old or more showed more interest to do anything
for keeping an intercultural marriage. The results illustrated this fact by 26%
of females in contrast with 19% of males who would prefer love to anything else
in intercultural marriage.
Discussion
Religion is considered to be one of
the most challenging aspects of intercultural marriages for both experienced
and non-experienced Americans. However, non-experienced Americans gave more
credit to religion than the experienced group, with approximately 10% more.
This means that religious people would go through a lot of problems if they
choose a religious spouse with a religion different from themselves. Moreover,
pastoral counseling seems not to be harmful for intercultural marriages and
almost all the people who had experience of intercultural marriages admitted
this fact. Therefore, there is a need for pastoral counseling specifically for
guiding people who have been engaged in intercultural marriages. Furthermore,
one's field of work or study can affect his perspective toward intercultural
marriage. Engaging in creative arts and design can make people more open to
accepting such facts. Given the fact that we are in an intercultural world,
where the number of intercultural marriages is rising, we should elevate the
level of acceptance in the society. One way to gain this goal is encouraging
people to be engaged in creative arts regardless of their main field of work.
In this way, more art organizations should be established and more art
galleries should be held in communities. Approximately half of the Americans
believe that intercultural marriages can be positive for the society. Also,
they characterize children of such families to be more open minded than being
teased by others. This shows that our respondents did not see teasing as a
problem. American girls older than 28 years old showed more interest in sacrificing
anything for the sake of love in intercultural marriages than their male peers.
It is interesting since it is well documented that girls give more credit to
love than boys when it comes to marriage. Our study showed that this fact is
true even after the age of 28, when girls are supposed to decide more logically
than emotionally.
It is probable that my country,
Iran, is different from the United States of America in terms of intercultural
marriage. The reason is that the USA has a more multi-cultural population than
my country has. This can affect people's perceptions toward intercultural
marriages, since the number of intercultural marriages is very low in my
country and there is almost no concern about how to deal with that in society or
in marital lives. However, there is a need for more researches in this area in
the USA, since there is growing number of immigrants and students coming to
this country, who may go through an intercultural marriage.
The bias for this method is that
participants chose to do the survey voluntarily. This means that they were
predisposed to the subject of intercultural marriage, which could affect the
result. However, if they were paid for attending in the survey, there would not
be any bias in this regard. I did most of my surveys in the International
Student Fellowship, which is a gathering place for both Americans and
internationals in Lubbock. The bias for this way of gathering data is that
these Americans are likely to respond more positively to intercultural marriage
questions, because they already have chosen to spend their time with
internationals in one place. However, this is true for just 12 questionnaires
that I was responsible for. Considering the fact that we were free to go
anywhere to gather our data, it is probable that other students have gathered
their data from a more heterogeneous population.
We can improve our questionnaire by
separating two parts of "cell phones" and "intercultural
marriage". The reason being is that participants get confused from the
beginning of the survey as to whether there is any relationship between cell
phones and intercultural marriages. Also, there is no gap between these parts
in the questionnaire, which makes them even more confused. Moreover, the number
of questions are too much as two subjects are combined. Considering the point
that 13 questions are recommended for surveys, our questionnaire with 32
questions was out of participants' patience. It may have affected participants'
responses to the intercultural marriage questions, which came in the second
part after the cell-phone questions. In future studies, it is recommended to
have a separate set of questionnaires for each subject.
Conclusion
This study was a pilot study for an
ESL class, through which we practiced the process of writing a paper. However,
the number of people engaged in intercultural marriage in the United States is
increasing day by day, and the method we used in this paper can be developed in
future studies in order to explore this issue in more detail. We found that people in Texas in general have
faith in pastoral counseling as being useful.
However, it could be discussed that couples who are in an intercultural
marriage may need their own kind of counselors. Therefore, in future studies,
researchers can investigate what kind of training is needed for pastors who are
supposed to help these couples effectively to solve their religious conflicts.
Any view point about
intercultural marriage is worth noticing since intercultural relationships can
turn into marriages. In this day and age, we are witnessing more openness
towards this issue and at the same time more conflict. People tend to interact
with others with different race and religion, although there are some fears and
prejudices inside them that may prevent them from having a deep and good
relationship. However, there should be a good understanding about other
religions and races, not only in terms of marriage but also in work places and
in educational environments. Future studies can investigate the perceptions of
Americans towards people with different race and religion in their society.
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