DYNAMICS OF RELIGIOUS CULTURE: ETHOGENIC METHOD 
Mary Elizabeth Moore 
Candler School of Theology, Emory University, USA 
Introduction 
The study of religious cultures is always done with a purpose—to preserve or transform the cultures studied, to understand a misunderstood community, to address issues of particular concern to scholars or religious leaders, or to contribute to a body of research on a particular topic. What, then, is the purpose of the Ethogenic research introduced in this chapter? It can have any of the specific goals named above, but its underlying purpose is to study the dynamics of religious formation and transformation, and patterns of educational and religious practice, in culturally diverse religious communities. The concern is not so much with the qualities of a particular community at a moment in time, but with the processes by which communities construct, transmit, critique, recreate, and transform themselves and their members in relation to the larger world. The concern, further, is with diverse forms of culture—cultures shaped by ethnicity, age and generation, denomination, class, region and other cultural realities—and how these cultures teach, or shape and reshape human lives. 
The purpose of this chapter is to explicate the Ethogenic method, providing conceptual rationale and methodological detail to guide future work. In twenty years of collaboration with others, I have studied religious life and education in ethnically diverse parishes and congregations, seeking to understand processes of formation and transformation, dynamics of religious culture, and future possibilities for religious and educational action. More particularly, I have used the method to study youth ministry in diverse Christian communities, changing functions of Sunday schools, urban ministries, and educational processes within congregations struggling with controversial decisions. Studies thus far include eight congregations of six ethnic groups in the United States and one in Africa; the eight also represent five Protestant and Roman Catholic denominations and traditions (Moore, 1993; 1998a; 1998b; 2001; 2003; 2004; Moore & Moore, 1993). 
This research is challenging because religious communities are changing bodies, shaped and reshaped by cultural interactions within and beyond themselves. Some early research has simplified this task of cultural study by focusing on types and qualities of culture, or influences upon culture. Our Ethogenic studies add distinct contributions to this research. First, they contribute an emphasis on social interaction and movement to previous research on religious communities. Second, they contribute social complexity to studies of faith formation, countering individualistic and universal assumptions about developmental structures, community life, and moral principles, whether principles of justice or care. Our work focuses more on cultural particularities, recognising that some qualities are common to many cultures and some are not. Third, this research contributes to understanding and developing educational and religious practice within complex cultural and multicultural matrices. Such work is sorely needed, for cultural analysis of religion has grown slowly in the United States. In religious education, the movement toward analysing religious communities and schools has been especially slow, even when general educational literature on diversity was burgeoning (Armstrong & Barton, 1999; Banks, 1997; 2002; 2004; Banks & Banks, 1995; Beauboeuf-Lafontant & Augustine, 1996; Bowers & Flinders, 1990; Cajete, 1994; Gardner, 1993; 1999; Gay, 2000; Goldberg, 1994; hooks, 1989, 1994; Sleeter & Grant, 1987; Sleeter & McLaren, 1995; Wlodkowski & Ginsberg, 1995; Woyshner & Gelfond, 1997; Young, 1990). 
A fourth contribution of Ethogenic research is to generate further research. Our early studies need to be replicated and expanded. They also need to be compared with other religious education research, much of which focuses on diversity in relation to social and religious patterns (Andree, Bakker, & Schreiner, 1997; Conde-Frazier, Kang, & Parrett, 2004; Foster, 1997; Foster & Brelsford, 1996; Heimbrock, Scheilke, & Schreiner, 2001; Hobson & Edwards, 1999; Jackson, 1997; 2002; 2004; Moore, 2001; 2003; Wright, 2004). Other comparative research needs to focus on particular religious and cultural communities (Boys, 2000; Hess, 1997; David Ng, 1996; Donald Ng, 1988; Østberg, 2002; Schuster, 2003; Wimberly & Parker, 2002). These bodies of work, enhanced by Ethogenic research, can contribute to richer religious and educational life, enhancing cultural sensitivity and intercultural, inter-religious understanding and practice. 
Assumptions 
In the light of earlier research, the challenge now is to deepen public understanding of cultural formation, entanglement, conflict, critique, and transformation. This requires honest exploration of culture, and the recognition that researchers are not clean slates as they enter cultural study. They bring assumptions grounded in their contexts and theoretical pre-judgments. Honesty about assumptions helps people hold diverse agenda together, discouraging hegemonic cultural claims and opening paths for more adequate research and deeper human understanding. It opens space for diverse researchers to influence one another in shaping religious and educational practice. Further, honest discourse counteracts tendencies to isolate cultural diversity research into a few ethnic and interest groups, obscuring its relevance to religious education at large. I have framed the following assumptions in relation to faith communities, the focus of our research to date; however, the assumptions also apply to studies of schools and other communities. 
The first assumption is that faith is understood and formed differently in diverse religious traditions, and even in diverse communities of one tradition. Such differences are often foundational, not merely superficial. Even if people worldwide have similar cognitive structures (sometimes assumed by psychologists and anthropologists), one can find what Victor Turner (1974) calls ‘wide diversities of cultural experience’ (p. 3). The assumption of diversity seems obvious, but many efforts to regularise public religious practice, or Christian practice across a denomination, reveal hegemonic assumptions. Many religious leaders develop theories about how faith is formed and apply these theories in every situation. The result is inadequate— an application of one educational approach across quite diverse communities. 
A second assumption is that differences among faith communities are as important to designing education as any generalisable features that may exist. Differences can be gifts to the broader human community, such as the emphasis in many Native American communities on revering creation, or in African-American communities on liberation. Such gifts are not cultural curiosities; neither are they the same in every community, not even in every Native and African-American community. They do reveal critical parts of the human story, however. Cross-cultural sharing reveals these gifts and their nuances, sometimes even helping people discover similar gifts within themselves. Native American reverence for creation often inspires reverence in others; Black stories of deliverance encourage others to persist in social critique and hope. 
The point of view offered in this chapter is that human nature is pluralistic. We are not all of one kind, but we do have connections with one another so that one person or culture can influence others. This idea corresponds with Raimundo Panikkar’s (1982) analysis of the archetype of the monk, or the human quality of monkness. This human quality may be found in many people, but it takes vivid and concrete form in monastic religious communities. Monks who live in these communities embody the quality of monkness, thereby awakening these qualities in others. Monks are not archetypes to be imitated, but they reveal the archetype of monk and call it forth from others. Might we similarly refer to archetypes of earth-relatedness and liberation-seeking? While Ethogenic research is not aimed at identifying or arguing for archetypes, the spirit of this question suggests an important perspective on human differences and similarities. To tap cultural uniqueness, both on the surface and deeply embedded, education needs many forms—forms that address people in their uniqueness and enable them to address one another. 
The third assumption is that faith communities are complexly related to religion and culture. Much work in modern religious education has focused on the unique lives of individuals, but studying communities uncovers larger social patterns. Such patterns are embedded in a community’s life, where beliefs, values and practices form a kaleidoscope of colour. No shape or colour can be removed without distorting the larger picture. Communities are multi-faceted; consistent with Victor Turner’s (1974) description of human imaginative and emotional life as ‘always and everywhere rich and complex’ (p. 3; cf: Ammerman, 1997). Indeed, this complexity interplays with the entire social fabric, a fact often ignored by religionists and anthropologists. Victor Turner, for example, had no early interest in religion. Then he realised that he could not understand a culture without its religious ritual: ‘Eventually, I was forced to recognise that if I wanted to know what even a segment of Ndembu culture was really about, I would have to overcome my prejudice against ritual and start to investigate it’ (Turner, 1974, p. 7). 
Culture also influences religious life; thus, one cannot understand a community’s religious life or religious education without understanding the broader culture, including the structures, interaction patterns, shifting movements, and values of a society. Again, Turner (1974) discovered such connections among the Ndembu people of north-western Zambia (Central Africa), for Ndembu rituals were performed in relation to social crises (see p. 10). The Isoma ritual, for example, was to help a woman with a history of miscarriages and stillbirths to bear children. Because childbirth problems were attributed to the woman’s failure to honour her deceased mother or maternal, female ancestors, the problem was understood communally; the woman had violated the social order. Rituals were performed to help the woman and to restore social relationships (see pp. 11–13). 
Another example of the social dimensions of ritual is the Ndembu twinship ritual, or Wubwang’u. Because procreation was valued in Ndembu society, twins were seen as a blessing, but milk and food were not abundant, so twins were also seen as a curse. The community, with its responsibilities for childcare, shared the blessing and misfortune. The Wubwang’u ritual thus charged the community in its role (see pp. 40–45). In so doing, the ritual acknowledged the blessing-curse contradiction and other contradictions in Ndembu life, such as male and female, matrilineal descent and patrilineal living patterns, sterility and fruitfulness, and sexual disordering forces and social order (see pp. 78–79). These examples reveal the rich textures of a community’s life and its complex relationship with religious and cultural values. 
The fourth assumption is that human beings are interconnected, mutually influential with one another and their common physical environment. Much work on education and faith formation has heretofore focused on universal qualities and processes in individuals. This is particularly true in moral and faith development research and, to some extent, in writings on spiritual formation. Similarly, many psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists have based their theoretical systems on universalist assumptions. Consider, for example, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Talcott Parsons, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Mircea Eliade. Particularly influential in religious communities have been the moral development theories of Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan and the faith development theory of James Fowler. My purpose, with the Ethogenic method, is not to assume, discover, or prove the existence of universal principles and cognitive structures. The assumption, rather, is that cultures and individuals are part of a human community linked in visible and invisible ways, thus creating mutual influence. 
To claim universal patterns or structures is misleading. It can be useful to explain why people in diverse cultures are similar, as in patterns of parental love or patterns of human growth from childhood to adulthood. The problem is that universal patterns are inevitably superimposed on all experience, and deviations are regarded as exceptions or, worse, aberrations. A more fruitful approach to human commonalities is to recognise interconnections in the human family—through procreation, migration, cultural exchange, and the sharing of similar physical qualities and a common earth. Such interconnections account for common patterns and structures without reference to universals. Indeed, the patterns and structures are often generalisable because people influence one another through historical and spatial relationships. Human commonalities are thus explained, not by eternal givens, but by the influence of dynamic, interactive relationships. 
Ethogenic Method: Listening to Stories 
In the Ethogenic method, the goal is to attend to a community’s story— the complexities of its everyday life, revealing a dynamic interplay of beliefs, values, and practices. This involves close listening and observation of community life. The method is shaped by ethnographers’ participant observation and the Ethogenic method of Rom Harré and his colleagues. In participant observation, the basic ethnographic tool of anthropologists, researchers engage in the life of a community over time, carefully describing what they see and hear. During this period of research, they generally avoid roles and relationships that impede their ability to observe community life in its fullness. Robert Bogdan (1972) defines participant observation phenomenologically as: ‘research characterised by a prolonged period of intense social interaction between the researcher and the subjects, in the milieu of the latter, during which time data, in the form of field notes, are unobtrusively and systematically collected’ (p. 3). Our research has been engaged in such intense, prolonged interaction in congregational settings, using field notes to gather observations. Further, the research involves checking and discussing our findings with communities that are studied, thus following the reciprocal ethnography of Elaine Lawless (1994) and seeking the mutual influence and empowerment that she describes (1994; 2001). 
The research is also Ethogenic. Rom Harré and others developed the Ethogenic method as an alternative to positivist research in the social sciences (Harré, 1976; 1979; Harré & Langenhove, 1999; Harré & Moghaddam, 2003; Harré & Secord, 1972; Smith, Harré, & Langenhove, 1995). Harré, a philosopher of the social sciences at Oxford University, was critical of the artificiality, supposed objectivity, and limited scope of much research in psychology and sociology. In response, he developed a research method based on the naturalistic observation approach of Niko Tinbergen (1972) and Konrad Z. Lorenz (1981; Lorenz & Leyhausen, 1973). Tinbergen and Lorenz studied animals in their natural settings (ethology), observing, describing, analysing and explaining their behaviour. Harré and others developed similar research with humans, observing people in the natural complexity of daily life situations. In addition, the Ethogenic method includes listening to people explain their behaviour, drawing upon the linguistic capacity of humans to explicate the origins and reasons for their actions. Researchers assume that ‘some insights into the genesis of that behaviour can be obtained by studying the accounts that are given by the actors themselves’ (Harré & Secord, 1972, p. 152). 
Note that the emphasis of Ethogenic method is to discover influences and origins of social behaviour and to understand the dynamics of social interaction, more than to graph the life of a people. The method thus fits within the genre of ethnography that focuses on dynamic social interaction. This is a subtle point. Although all ethnographers care about social dynamics, some who study religious communities have sought primarily to identify and essentialise enduring patterns of community life, rather than to study complex interactions and transformations over time. 
Our research is described here as Ethogenic (in the family of ethnography) because researchers focus on complexities, interactions, and transformations. The approach includes observing a community’s internal interactions and its interactions with the larger society, the earth, and the Holy. It also includes gathering accounts from individuals and groups in the community, listening to their different perspectives on community life. These accounts are gathered in various ways, including formal interviews, observations, questionnaires, and informal conversations. Then, a team negotiates the complexities and differences to discover the community’s story, with all of its diversity. Many participants offer these accounts and a few community representatives help negotiate the accounts into a whole. The Ethogenic approach can thus be described as: narrative, inter-subjective, flexible and open, unobtrusive, and self-conscious. 
Narrative 
The emphasis of our Ethogenic research is on listening to and observing people’s stories, inviting the community to be storyteller and teacher. The research team spends time in many aspects of community life, interviewing and observing as stories unfold. After each interview or observation period, the researcher records visual observations and verbal exchanges as thoroughly as possible. We use a tape recorder when we can do so without disrupting natural interactions. 
Three aspects of this narrative approach receive particular attention. One is gathering stories from many people—young and old, females and males, leaders and followers, individuals and small groups. A second aspect is observing multiple stories of community life—social interactions, symbols and liturgies, community action. A third aspect is weaving the several stories into one communal story. In so doing, researchers assume that all the accounts are true accounts, representing some part of the community’s experience or interpretation. Rather than searching for the real story behind so-called distorted accounts, we search for a communal story that represents collective truth, including diverse, sometimes conflicting, experiences and perspectives. For these reasons, representatives of each community help negotiate the overarching story before public sharing. The negotiating process is an effort to bring mounds of data into a truth-telling narrative, but not a homogenised one. The community’s story is intended to be a picture of the whole, including disputations. Further, we involve diverse people in this negotiation process to avoid domination by one person or group. Even so, the final story will only be an approximate picture of the community’s life at a moment in time, inevitably influenced by the community observed, researchers, and negotiators. When our research team analyses the ‘final’ narratives, we recognise these ambiguities. 
Inter-Subjective 
Another quality of the research is inter-subjectivity. As stated above, the effort is not to find an objective truth behind a collection of subjective stories. The attempt is rather to view every situation and person as a subject with a story to tell. Every account offers meaningful perspectives on a community’s life, though individuals construct their accounts according to their unique filters, needs and desires. Because the view of each person reflects his or her experience and understanding of reality, each story must be woven into the community’s story. Researchers attend to these various accounts, knowing that no one perspective will be true and others false. An actual event is only accessible through multiple subjective accounts, which are negotiated to yield a more adequate community account (Harré, 1976; 1986; Harré & Moghaddam, 2003; Harré & Secord, 1972; cf. Josselson & Lieblich, 1995; 1996). 
To gather these several accounts, the research method includes collecting life history material from several members of a congregation. Robert Bogdan (1972) recognises that the value of life history is to reflect a person’s view of the world and of his or her life. This is the principal interest of a participant observer (see p.69), as it is of an oral historian (Gluck & Patai, 1991; Ritchie, 2003). Each person, according to Bogdan, has a unique career, including social roles and definitions of self and world. The person will therefore interpret community life both through the community’s collective experience and through his or her unique career and individualised meanings. The negotiation of many meanings will give a fuller picture of the whole. 
These ideas are compatible with the symbolic interaction school in the social sciences that has influenced Ethogenic theorists, such as Harré, and phenomenological ethnographers, such as Bogdan. In both methods, attention is given to the interpretive processes that people use to describe and explain events. Since all concrete experience is filtered through an interpretive process, the interpretations or meanings that people give to a situation give access to that situation, though inevitably an incomplete access. 
To be inter-subjective, our research teams listen to many different individuals and groups in a congregation. They also listen to one another, working in multicultural and religiously diverse teams. Collaboration minimises the tendency to shape observations and analysis according to the visions and biases of one scholar. 
Though one author often serves as the primary analyst and writer of a community’s story, that person regularly tests findings and narratives with the research team and members of the community. 
Flexible and Open 
To say that the Ethogenic research method is flexible and open sounds somewhat vague, for no research is completely inflexible and closed. In fact, the purpose of research is to make new discoveries, which means that research is by definition open to new knowledge. What is important to our Ethogenic research is that the research design itself is flexible, and is sometimes changed in the process of doing a study. Indeed, this is characteristic of participant observation research in which situations are allowed to guide research method (Bogdan, 1972, see pp. 18–19; cf. Bogdan & Bicklen,1982;Taylor&Bogdan,1984).Inourresearch,wedevelopadetailedresearch design in advance, but make changes as situations shift. For example, interviews are oriented around pre-established questions, but an interviewer may change the questions or simply listen when an interviewee seems eager to share something else. 
Another example of flexibility and openness is the conscious effort of our research teams to postpone hypothesising about religion, education, and culture. This clears space to generate hypotheses and theoretical models in the field and to discover variations in community life (Bogdan, 1972; Taylor, Bogdan, & Lutfiyya, 1995). The intention is to suspend pre-conceived beliefs and categories as much as possible, and to be as open as possible to new ideas and categories as they emerge. Although the research does not begin with theories and hypotheses, it does begin by asking researchers to identify pre-conceived beliefs and attitudes regarding the subject and subjects under study. It also includes periodic checks when researchers identify and record their emerging perspectives and hypotheses. In these ways, we seek to be conscious of values, prejudices, and prejudgments, and eventually to analyse them, but not to be led by them into premature theory building. 
Unobtrusive 
The fourth quality of this research method is unobtrusiveness. As researchers, we participate in natural ways within each community, getting acquainted with people without calling unnecessary attention to ourselves. Following common guidelines for participant observation, we relate with many persons and groups, rather than identify with select groups. We usually avoid designated roles and responsibilities in the communities as well. The temptation to develop personal relationships or influence congregational life does arise, especially for a team of researchers who are teachers and ministers. We seek, however, to ‘fit comfortably into the setting’ and establish rapport without interfering with our primary function as observers (Bogdan, 1972; Bogdan & Bicklen, 1982; Taylor & Bogdan, 1984). In the rare cases when a researcher has had roles in a community (such as interim pastor), we reflect on these roles in our analysis. The primary research purpose is to observe and learn from, not to shape, these congregations. Although we know our presence will have some shaping influence, the intention is to keep our influence to a minimum during times of data collection. 
Self-Conscious 
No research method is devoid of researcher bias, for people have expectations about what they will discover, as well as preconceived ideas and categories. Further, their participation inevitably affects the situation and their observations of it. Thus, our methodprovidestwowaystoheightenself-consciousness.First,wefollowthestandard participant observation technique of recording observers’ comments in field notes, bracketed and designated with [OC: …]. This allows us to acknowledge reactions, responses and hypotheses for the sake of honesty and also for later exploration and testing. After all, the researcher is part of the situation and needs to observe herself or himself as well as others. Sometimes one’s own reactions lead to insight into the situation. Second, we work in a research team, which includes a time to identify preconceived beliefs, as described above. We continue this process periodically during and after data collection in each community. We ask one another what beliefs we have about religion, education, and the ethnic group(s) we are studying, as well as what hypotheses are emerging. We record these conversations in field notes, both to heighten self-consciousness and to be a part of the data that we later analyse. 
In sum, the basic research method is characterised by narrativity, inter-subjectivity, flexibility and openness, unobtrusiveness, and self-consciousness. These guide the specific methodological steps to which we now turn. 
Gathering Many Stories Into One 
The method is divided into six phases—preparation, story collecting, analysis, storytelling, interpretation and theory building, and proposals for practice. The purpose of the preparation phase is to form a research plan with a selected community(ies) and to prepare the research team with background on the ethnic group and research method. The purpose of the story collecting phase is to listen, watch and record. In the analytic phase, we seek and interpret patterns in the collected stories, and, in the storytelling phase, we gather the many stories and analytic discoveries into one collective story. The fifth phase—interpretation and theory building—is designed to contribute to theological, social scientific, and educational theory. The concluding phase—proposals for practice—is a movement back into practice at the conclusion of analysis and interpretation. 
Preparation 
The first part of preparation is the practical process of arranging the research with a community. This involves: (1) contacting the community through a pastor or major leader; (2) presenting the project and requesting permission from the community or administrative body, using consent forms for individuals and for the community as a whole; (3) collecting written documents (such as congregational histories, newsletters, service bulletins, and annual reports); and (4) collecting information about upcoming events and people to interview, as well as suggestions for what to include in the study. In these early contacts, researchers record field notes, which become part of the data. The second part of preparation is for the research team. This includes gathering socio-historical background of the cultural group(s) being studied (through selecting readings related to the subject of research); training in the research method; and reflection on pre-conceived ideas and hypotheses (discussed above). 
Story Collecting 
Preparation leads into story collecting—listening, watching, recording. Several methods are employed here, the order being adjusted for the congregation’s convenience. The research team does seek to complete several observations in the community before beginning the interviews, thus becoming familiar with and to the community. 
One method is to do field observations in community life, especially in worship, study and fellowship gatherings, business meetings, and settings suggested by community members. Field notes include attention to the building and grounds, symbols, use of space, and special places. Observations are also made of the patterns of relationship during these gatherings, during informal times, and in diverse locations and contexts. 
In observing community rituals, researchers have several questions in mind: what are the ritual events, when and where do they take place, who is involved with what roles, what emotions are displayed, what symbols are used, and how do participants interpret them. These questions are consistent with concerns of Turner (1974), especially in regard to the dual importance of observing and translating rituals. Turner tried, for example, ‘to discover ‘the Ndembu inside view’, how the Ndembu themselves felt and thought about their rituals’ (p. 11, cf. 15). Exegeting rituals with community members can uncover subtle meanings that observers easily miss. Our research team seeks to get inside views of communal rituals and practices, even familiar ones. 
In addition to observations, we conduct several interviews. One interview is with an administrative body, focusing on the community’s mission, strengths, central values, needs, and hopes for the future. We also interview an education committee, inquiring about educational purposes, areas of satisfaction and dissatisfaction, understandings of faith, and approaches to faith formation. Finally, we interview a group of staff and lay leaders, preferably after participating in a staff meeting as a quiet observer. The questions for this group include: demographic data (gender, age, social class, occupations and education levels); significant events in the congregation’s history and in the larger community (collected on a timeline); significant places, symbols, and stories of the congregation; descriptions of the congregation’s beliefs, values, and practices; and the leaders’ roles. Other sources of demographic and historical data are also used (such as annual reports), but a leadership team is usually a reliable source for general data for faith communities smaller than 400 members (Carroll, Dudley, and McKinney, 1986). 
Adding to the group interviews, we conduct individual interviews with representative children, youth, and adults of varying ages, genders, and life situations. In these interviews, we ask questions regarding the individual’s faith journey, including significant people and life events. We also inquire how the person experiences the community and describes the community’s beliefs, values, and practices. 
Finally, data collection includes the community’s written documents—histories and at least six months of newsletters and bulletins. These materials are used particularly to discern the beliefs, values, practices, and issues of the community over time. 
In all observations and interviews, researchers record field notes soon after the event. The team does not read and discuss the collected notes, however, until data collection is well underway. This gives time for concentrated listening before the active work of analysis begins. In addition to regular field notes, researchers keep a record of words and phrases that are used frequently or in novel ways (Bogdan, 1972). The glossary is used later as data regarding the community’s language. 
Analysis 
We turn next to analysis, where our purpose is to discern and interpret patterns in the collected stories. As described earlier, we make notes on insights as they emerge, but we do not study these until we have done several observations. Then we proceed through primary, secondary, and concluding stages of analysis. 
Primary: Analysis begins formally when the research team studies a collection of field notes to identify elements and patterns, proceeding until all data are taken into account. This analysis asks five questions of the data: (1) frequent words and phrases; (2) symbols; (3) frequent actions and activities; (4) patterns of interaction; and (5) themes. The first three are first-order analyses, and the last two build upon them. Thus, the team asks the questions in order, but moves back and forth as they make new discoveries. 
After each analytic session, someone on the research team collates the results. The team then reviews field notes in order to discuss and alter the analyses in subsequent meetings, considering new data as it is collected. Out of this process, a list of community patterns and themes emerges, which includes points of commonality, difference and disputation within the community. These reflect all of the data gathered, which, in turn, reflect a particular time period in the life of a complex, ever-changing community. 
Secondary: Where relevant to research purposes, the research team also asks supplementary questions of the data. We may ask, for example, what educational approaches and assumptions people identify explicitly or embody implicitly, or what approaches to youth ministry they practice. We sometimes add questions corresponding to the four dimensions of Carroll, Dudley, and McKinney (1986)— program, process, social context, and identity. The Carroll team found that analysis along traditional disciplinary lines was less fruitful than analysis focused on these dimensions (see pp. 9–14). Typical of these questions are the following, varied according to the purposes of a study: 

1	What are the structures and activities by which faith is supported, nurtured, and formed or transformed? 
2	How do the community’s interactions contribute to the formation and transformation of faith, and to educational and religious practice? 
3	How does the social context contribute to the same? 
4	What is the identity of this community, and how does that identity help shape individual persons and the community’s beliefs, values and actions? 

In the study of schools and communities of mixed religious traditions, such questions are worded more generally, such as: What are the structures and activities by which people learn about religion and values? The use and choice of supplementary questions is determined by the purpose and context of a particular study. 
Concluding: The final step of analysis is grouping themes and patterns discovered in the earlier steps. This stage prepares researchers to gather data into a communal story and, later, to engage in more thorough interpretation and theory-building. 
Storytelling 
The integrative phase of research is storytelling. The purpose is to re-present the life of each community in a way that authentically reveals its life, bringing together the collected accounts. The assumption is that no story ever exhausts the religious experience or linguistic accounts of that experience; however, storytelling is an appropriate way to express the life of a community as a complex whole. Since religious experience is always larger than what is conscious, and since people never even have access to the whole of consciousness, our hope is not to tell the community’s story, but to tell an authentic story of that community. 
Analysis done in the previous phase is the source of this story, yet the story form preserves the narrative quality of community life—a complex of relationships within a particular place and period of time. The Ethogenic method thus draws narrative from critical inquiry, seeking to re-integrate the parts with each other and with place and time. This resembles the approach of Carroll, Dudley, and McKinney (1986), who describe narrative as a way to convey the human drama, and critical inquiry as a way to decrease self-deception (see p. 46; cf. Josselson & Lieblich, 1995; 1996). 
The storytelling phase takes account of as much data as possible, offering the kind of ‘thick description’ described by Clifford Geertz (1973, p. 12; cf. 1983). This means taking account of different perspectives on faith, formation, transformation, and community. No attempt is made to reconcile all accounts, or to reconcile the several congregational stories into a homogenous whole. In fact, pluralistic versions of faith and community life are expected. We assume a world in which pluralistic perspectives always exist and in which one perspective is not necessarily truer than another. The philosopher Nelson Goodman (1972) echoes the earlier discussion on this point: ‘There are very many different equally true descriptions of the world…None of them tells us the way the world is, but each of them tells us a way the world is’ (pp. 30–31). Storytelling in this research is an attempt to describe a community’s multiplicity and commonality. This is why representatives help read and revise their community story. We want these to be their stories and to represent the fullness of their communal life. 
In writing these stories, researchers are aware of the possible salutary benefits for the participating communities. Stories can be important to a community’s self-understanding and future action, as recognised by others who study religion in community life. Elaine Lawless (2001) recognises the empowering potential of narrative. Carroll, Dudley, and McKinney (1986) emphasise how a congregation’s story encourages identity formation. And Cornel West, a neo-pragmatic philosopher, describes the role of narrative in metaphysical reflection and its pragmatic results: ‘Acceptable forms of metaphysical reflections are those of synoptic narratives and overarching vocabularies that provide enhancing self-images and enabling coping techniques for living’ (West, 1986, p. 56). The hope of this project is that participating communities and readers will experience such benefits. 
Interpretation and Theory Building 
The fifth phase of research is to interpret and construct theory, drawing theoretical constructs from the communities’ lives. This work offers insights and questions for revising and constructing larger theories, and it poses hypotheses for further research. For example, one of our theoretical insights has been that historical patterns continue to influence the beliefs and values of a religious community over time, both consciously and unconsciously. This insight is supported by the communities we studied, and can be compared with research on cultural carry-overs, as found in studies of the African diaspora. Such comparisons lead naturally into further research and reflection. 
The process of interpretation and theorising includes many elements, selected according to the purposes of a particular study. These often include: comparative study with literature in the field; critical dialogue with existing theories of education, ethics, and theology; and evaluative interpretation of the communities (e.g., their life-giving, dangerous, and context-related qualities). In all of these forms, theory-building is marked by mutually critical dialogue with the social sciences, education, and theology, by probing the empirical insights and normative questions raised in the community stories, and by opening doors for further study. 
Proposals for Practice 
The final phase of Ethogenic research is to draw out proposals for practice. In a real sense, this entire research method is a circle of practice, beginning with the study of practice in communities and cultures, and ending with proposals for practice. This last phase is when educational, ethical, and religious prescriptions are appropriate. These prescriptions may be drawn from theoretical insights of the previous phase, or directly from the community stories. Drawing from the theoretical insight named above, a practical proposal is for communities to explore their historical patterns, both to discern actions that fit their communal heritage and to critique their community’s natural patterns. Drawing from the community stories, a practical proposal is to search the communal narratives for models, inspiration, or warnings. In studies of religious education, this includes proposals for teaching, for structuring learning communities, and for engaging religious and cultural diversity, whether within one tradition or across diverse traditions. 
Conclusion 
Presenting the Ethogenic method in this chapter has value for readers who wish to replicate or evaluate the research. It is also valuable for religious or educational communities who wish to study themselves. Ethogenic method is one that allows researchers, educators, and religious leaders to see into the dynamics of community life. The storytelling, theorising, and practical propositions can then contribute to constructive reflection with living communities. The discourse itself will be a source of wisdom, from which significant ideas and actions can be generated for the wellbeing of the larger human community. The idealistic hope is that the stories, ideas and actions that emerge will guide religious and educational leaders toward fuller understanding of diverse communities and cultures and toward life-giving action. 
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