Using Social Media Networks to Conduct Questionnaire Based Research in Social Studies Case Study: Family Language Policy

Abstract

The Internet has permeated all aspects of daily life in many areas of the world. Its advancement and feasibility affects how we work, socialize, and spend our time. The advent of social media networks has greatly contributed to these changes and has become the place where people on the Internet are. In light of this new social movement, we propose that social media networks can and should be viewed as the potential way of reaching participants in social studies research. In the current paper we review Internet"s social effects research and provide an example of how the Internet and more specifically, the social media networks and other Internet tools can be utilized to perform a questionnaire based social research study in the area of Family Language Policy. We provide the "how to" guide of conducting such research by sharing the technique employed in our study.

Israel's English Speaking Immigrant Parents' Family Language Policy Management: Language in the Education Domain

“…Private English lessons funded by parents are highly common in Israel, pointing to the widespread belief and acceptance of its need and desirability for success in the educational and later professional spheres in Israel. The welcoming sentiment toward English is also exhibited in the linguistic landscape of the country, where signage including English language is present if not prevalent (for more on English in Israel please refer to Kayam and Hirsch, 2012). This inclusive and welcoming reality toward English in Israel is conducive to English as home language maintenance, at least to some degree.…”

“…By being able to reach different corners of the country during the same time frame, we have removed the temporal distortion from our data. All of the participants participated during the same 3 months and during the same season (for more on how this study was carried out see Kayam & Hirsch, 2012).…”

“…With the flow of English speaking immigrants to Israel, some of whom arrived to Israel as partners or spouses of those related to Israel in terms of heritage and/or religion (Kayam and Hirsch, 2012) there has been, as of late, an increase in establishments of English-only and bilingual English-Hebrew preschools and kindergartens in the private sector. In Tel Aviv alone, there have been numerous efforts by the new immigrants to open private childcare centers to provide alternate opportunities for their own children and for the children of other English speakers within Israel.…”

“…This paper is second in a series investigating the FLPs of the English speaking community in Israel. In the first paper we addressed the questions of who our participants are, their background and demographics, as well as their FLP practices in different relationships within the family domain and the extent and type of planning that occurred prior to the establishment of the FLP (in years prior to having children and/or in the early months of parenting) (Kayam and Hirsch, 2012 in press) The current study's research questions are directed at English speaking parents of young children in Israel. Through our research we were interested in exploring the following: 1) Availability of bilingual English-Hebrew and/or English only preschools accessible to our participants.…”

“…Participants were reached through different immigrant organization's websites and e-mail lists, as well as social media channels such as the Facebook, and others. (For a detailed description of our approach see Kayam & Hirsch, 2012).…”