"The Mormon Effect"...

[Hannah Rebekah]

I just want to share my son's very interesting thesis. He just graduated with honors from Northwestern University near Chicago and his thesis took top honors out of all of the others in the soft sciences verses the hard sciences. His degree was in Education and Social Policy. Northwestern is considered a very progressive (liberal) university and his advisors (non-Mormons) were the ones who encouraged him with his research and even with the title of his thesis.

"The Mormon Effect: Exploring Religion, Family, and Class Influences on Human Capital in an Energy Industry Dependent Community" https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BybUFkZxoHtdTFVzblZGRzZKX1U/edit

I hope you find it as interesting as I did and it will be great to see everyone’s feedback.

Edited July 24, 2013 by Hannah Rebekah

[Darren10]

It cannot display on my end.

[Hannah Rebekah]

Maybe this will help...not sure: https://docs.google....lZGRzZKX1U/edit

[Storm Rider]

Sorry Hannah, but neither link worked for me.

[Calm]

Both worked for me.

I used Safari if that makes a difference...

[Darren10]

OK. Both links worked for me using Mozilla. And my return key works on Mozilla as wel!!!

Edited July 24, 2013 by Darren10

[Robert F. Smith]

Very nice, Hannah Rebekah.

[CV75]

I just want to share my son's very interesting thesis. He just graduated with honors from Northwestern University near Chicago and his thesis took top honors out of all of the others in the soft sciences verses the hard sciences. His degree was in Education and Social Policy. Northwestern is considered a very progressive (liberal) university and his advisors (non-Mormons) were the ones who encouraged him with his research and even with the title of his thesis.

"The Mormon Effect: Exploring Religion, Family, and Class Influences on Human Capital in an Energy Industry Dependent Community" https://docs.google....lZGRzZKX1U/edit

I hope you find it as interesting as I did and it will be great to see everyone’s feedback.

Very interesting, and a good comment to make on the thread about "best books."

[bu11fr0g]

Well written, soundly researched. Including only men in the study creates biases that were not discussed. I would expect that working in the oilfield would decrease activity in the church vis-a-vis attending college (or maybe the opposite phenomenon would occur) which would in turn bias the results.

Superlative work from someone below PhD level. This is the type of valuable research that Mormon Studies should go after, in my opinion.

His resume is on line -- quite an accomplished young man. Winning an award as the hardest working wrestler at a big-ten school is impressive.

[Calm]

I am going to pass this on to FAIR as possibly a useful reference for our LDS and Education pages.

[Hannah Rebekah]

Very interesting, and a good comment to make on the thread about "best books."

That thread is what inspired me to post this although this is about higher education. I thought the research on Mormons and our kids was very interesting. Traditional Christian denominations seem not to stress higher education as much because they don't want their children going to large universities where they might become secularized and prefer to send them to seminary schools or church sponsored schools. Yet, Mormons don't worry about that and in so many ways encourage higher education and they still have the ability to not become secularized and are even more active. Interesting about the family and how much the influence of a mother had on her children to go on to college.

[Hannah Rebekah]

Well written, soundly researched. Including only men in the study creates biases that were not discussed. I would expect that working in the oilfield would decrease activity in the church vis-a-vis attending college (or maybe the opposite phenomenon would occur) which would in turn bias the results.

Superlative work from someone below PhD level. This is the type of valuable research that Mormon Studies should go after, in my opinion.

His resume is on line -- quite an accomplished young man. Winning an award as the hardest working wrestler at a big-ten school is impressive.

Thanks, I will have to tell Levi that I posted his thesis here and maybe he will want to answer about the perceived biases. Maybe, it's because in the oilfield it mostly men who are hired. Ashley Valley (Vernal, UT) is about 80% LDS so it's not a typical oilfield area. The Dean, others and his advisors have really stressed to him to get his PhD. BTW, he did all of this while wrestling, was the Institute President, was married, which is very rare for college kids back east and they also had two babies with his wife finishing her degree last year. The University did several stories on him: "The Undergrad Dad"

and http://dailynorthwestern.com/2011/01/25/sports/in-focus-nu-wrestler-balances-parenthood-sport/ Then a staff reporter, Kara Spak, for the Chicago Sun Times saw the video and did an interview for an article:

Married on campus: ‘Life is so much more stable’ So Levi and Shanna have also been a great example of Mormonism while at Northwestern and were very much respected.

[Hannah Rebekah]

I am going to pass this on to FAIR as possibly a useful reference for our LDS and Education pages.

That's great, thanks...there were some really interesting things I learned about us (Mormons) about education in Levi's paper.

[CV75]

Yet, Mormons don't worry about that and in so many ways encourage higher education and they still have the ability to not become secularized and are even more active.

I think this is also a good comment to post on the "problematic history" threads -- when learners come across history they haven't been exposed to before, the same discipline and appreciation for arriving at the truth would help them the same as with any other secular knowledge.