{ United States Secondary Students’ Attitudes and Beliefs about Muslims A Grounded Theory Study. Katherine M. McKeon George Mason University EDRS 810 Dr. Sheri Berkeley December 2, 2014

 Post September 11 racism within the United States  Arab Americans perceive higher discrimination  Internal Religious Diversity needs to be taught Rationale

 The Purpose of this study is to determine what factors affect the attitudes and beliefs of U.S. Secondary School students regarding those individuals who identify themselves as Muslim. Purpose of Study

 Research Design: The Qualitative research method will be a grounded theory design (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). This design includes constant comparison throughout the study thus analyzing the data the same time it is collected. Method

 The sampling method proposed is purposeful sampling. 25 – 30 eleventh grade students who have knowledge of the events of September 11, 2001 and who identify themselves as associated with a religion other than Islam or no religion at all.  Study participants will be from a High School located in Loudoun County, Virginia. Participants

Loudoun County Public Schools

 Open Ended Interviews  Behavior observation  Instrumentation will include observer training prior to the implementation of the study. AND  Interviews will be conducted at the same time of day throughout the study  Preliminary Interviews will be done beforehand so that the interviewer will gain experience. Data Sources

 For six consecutive weeks, interviewer will take one student out of morning study hall block for a one on one open ended interview that will be video and audio recorded.  Each interview will be 30 minutes long.  Interviews will then be reviewed and coded according to grounded theory methods.  After coding, each interview will be video reviewed to look for body gestures and emic responses that emerge from the data. Procedures

 Constant comparative method  Transcription  Open coding  Axial coding  Selective coding Proposed Preliminary Data Analysis

 Glaser, B.G. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. New York, NY: Aldine De Gruyter  Moore, D. (2007). Overcoming Religious Illiteracy: A Cultural Studies Approach to the Study of Religion in Secondary Education. New York, NY: Palgrave  Asani, A. (n.d.). Ali Asani on Islamic Law Retrieved from islamic-law islamic-law islamic-law   Nassar-McMillan, S. C., Lambert, R. G., & Hakirn-Larson, J. (2011). Discrimination History, Backlash Fear, and Ethnic Identity Among Arab Americans: Post-9/11 Snapshots. Journal Of Multicultural Counseling & Development, 39(1), Works Cited