Narrowing Down Our Research Question

Ditto Irina's Blog:

After much stress and confusion, Shirley and I feel that we have narrowed down our ideas into something that is researchable online before the trip and will be researchable within Amsterdam and surrounding areas. Aside from conducting interviews, we also hope to find locations that are saturated with certain immigrant populations so that we can observe their habits in public locations. Below is our general research question followed by our methods. Enjoy!

Does assimilation in Amsterdam discourage immigrants from openly discussing the issues of oppression and lack of access to equal opportunity while attempting to integrate them into society? It will be an attempt to probe into the views of the “less accepted” surrounding the way society deals with internal issues. Do people of non-Dutch descent feel that they are truly accepted into society or are they made to believe so for the benefit of the society?

The three ethnic groups that we are most interested in studying are: Moroccans, Turks, and Surinamesse. (They may/not be associated with the Islamic religion). We would like to have one group not associated with the religion, or even a family with multiple views. We hope to find them at Ethnic cultural centers, or find them prior to departure through contacts provided by Julie and Clifford. It would be most interesting to find a family that has worked themselves out of the lower class status, integrating into society with less oppression. To narrow the scope of our interests, we are most interested in the interpersonal relationships (psychological, social) between natives and immigrants. We would also have a viewpoint from the immigrants about their struggles and successes in integrating into society. Within the interviews process, we are also interested in seeing what the effect of new immigration policies are having on currently successful immigrants.