Post 4: Analysis of Oral History of 9/11

"The Chandler Challenge": Set up an analysis of some of the oral history data posted for Blog 3.  You can analyze data from one blog or several.  The point of this exercise is for you to practice the analytic process we went through in class.  Name and classify what you see in the interview; look for and describe patterns; put forward a hypothesis and test it = and see if you can come up with a theory (explanation) that accounts for the patterns and relationships you see in the data.

I have decided to look at age of the people spoke about their experience.

Coding:

• Look at all of the data and note ages/age ranges that were mentioned
• Look for emotions/ reactions in the blogs that mentioned age/age range
• Looked at the Blogs of Corrine, Josh, Kelsee, Rachel, Sara, Shana, Tshandi, Andrea, and my own (Brigit)

Classification:

• Most ages mentioned are 9 through 11
• Some ages weren't specified however some can be guessed by the mentioning of grade, school, or age difference
• The emotions talked about are confused, not understanding, shocked, upset, and afraid

Patterns:

• Almost all of the students who were about elementary school aged felt emotions such as "confused" and "not understanding"
• Many talked about noticing friends getting picked up from school 
• Some mentioned teacher's reactions
• Many talk about family member's reaction or their reaction to family members
• Beefed up security in the airports is mentioned a lot 

Hypothesis:

• Looking through the oral history and looking back at the patterns, I noticed there are a lot of similar feelings and reactions to 9/11. I also noticed that in many interviews a few topics kept popping up: like fellow students, family members, and airports. 
• Based on the data I think it would be interesting to look at age, reaction individually and then reaction upon seeing others (students, teachers, family members, etc.)
• Children who were elementary school age at the time of 9/11 were at first confused, but upon seeing the reactions of others, took those reactions up themselves.

Testing the Hypothesis:

• *Note: All names mentioned are interviewers, if they speak of a personal experience it will say "Personal Experience)
• Corrine: Too young to understand what was going on. Then saw her mom home early and her mom saw smoke, knew something was wrong. A few days later saw a girl on TV crying, it really hit her that this happened
• Josh: Mentioned not understanding and focused on getting home. Says anyone under 11 has no recollection of 9/11
• Kelsee: Event wasn't important to her until she found out one of her family members was involved and then she was shocked. Her family was consoling each other and mother was afraid to let her out of her sight. Personal Experience: she didn't understand and was happy to be out of school.
• Rachel: No one was sure what was going on, kids were picked up early (No feelings mentioned on this)
• Sara: she was confused, didn't know why everyone was upset. Was upset herself when her friends were getting picked up and not her. She didn't understand what had happened until "later on"
• Shana: Mentioned that they were both confused (interviewee and personal experience) and noticed the reactions of others, but other than that had no feelings other than confusion
• Tshandi: said that she was confused but excited to get out of school early. She then did research and cried upon reading some things that had happened. She also mentioned her family being together and watching the tv sadly together
• Andrea: said that he was too young to understand and didn't understand until later when his parents were talking about it in the Philippines

Hypothesis (Attempt 2):

• So my previous Hypothesis was wrong. Only a few hit the criteria. However my new hypothesis would be something to the effect of understanding as a young child.
• Those who experienced 9/11 at grade school age did not understand the magnitude of the event that took place that day until much later.

Testing the Hypothesis: 

• looking back at the data, this all proves true

"Theoretical Story"

• Children who were still in elementary school during 9/11 did not understand the magnitude of the event because they were too young to realize what was going on. All experienced different feelings there after, but during the event confusion seemed to be the most prevalent emotion. It is not until later do they understand the importance of such a thing happening. The ways they understood the significance is different however. Some seen it in family members, some learned it in school, some saw it in airports, and others saw it on the news. 

I'm not exactly sure if my "Theoretical Story" is what is wanted, but that is what I have gathered. 

Edit: 9/19

In class we discussed that we needed to expand on some of our points in our analysis. I realize that I need to create codes for my test. So here I shall create codes:

"elementary age"- this would represent any age that is for children that would be in elementary school at the time

"emotions"- would be the emotions that I got from children, which I can break down further

• "Confused"- any confused emotions or not understanding
• "Happy"- any happy or joyful emotions
• "Scared"- any emotions that have to do with fear or afriad (I can also break this down further into "fear for self" and "fear for others")
• "Upset"- any sad emotions

Then I would record how many times a saw each emotion. Maybe if I had done this initially I would have formed a better hypothesis.