US-Egypt Workshop: Explaining the Worldviews of the Islamic Publics: Theoretical and Methodological Issues, Cairo, Egypt, December 2002

Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti MI

Investigators

Abstract

0217716 Moaddel Description: This award is to support a US-Egypt Workshop on Explaining the Worldviews of the Islamic Publics: Theoretical and Methodological Issues, to be held in Cairo, Egypt, December 2002. The organizer is Dr. Mansoor Moaddel, Professor, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan. The co-organizer is Dr. Abdel-Hamid Abdel-Latif, Professor of Sociology, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. This meeting will bring together the social scientists from the United States and Islamic countries who were involved in carrying out national surveys of the attitudes and value orientations of the Islamic publics in Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Morocco, and Pakistan. This is the first time that comprehensive comparative surveys have been carried out in several major Islamic countries, generating a sociologically important data set. The questionnaire used in these surveys was based on key batteries of the World Values Survey questionnaire, as well as a series of items that were specifically designed for Islamic countries. To advance the fundamental knowledge of Islamic societies, the participants will address in a collective fashion several methodological and theoretical concerns. These include comparison of different translations of the questionnaire, an assessment of the final sampling frame used in the study, and an analysis of the findings within varying cultural and political contexts. Scope: This meeting expands the basis of social science understanding of Islamic societies by strengthening the network among social scientists that the comparative survey has generated. It deals with a topic that is of current importance in the United States and in the Islamic countries. The project is funded jointly by the Office of International Science and Engineering and the Division of Social and Economic Sciences.