ABOUT ME
Harvey Abrams
and
How to do Research
&
How to identify Bias in research
I am an Olympic Games and Sport historian by training. My short biography can be read here. Briefly: I am a health and physical education teacher with a BS, MAT and Ph.D/abd. I have not completed my doctoral dissertation, so I am not "Doctor." The "abd" above stands for "all but dissertation." My background includes a wide variety of fields including art and architecture, history, photography, psychology, business, law and others. I am a retired athlete (freestyle wrestling) and wrestled in college (Penn State) and tried out for four US Olympic Wrestling teams (1972-1984). I have also been a wrestling coach and referee.
I originally hosted these pages on my book business web site (Harvey Abrams-BOOKS) as an educational service to the public. I am the founder of the IISOH and transferred these pages to the IISOH in January 2016 to be permanently part of the Institute's educational mission. In the near future the IISOH research staff will be responsible for the regular maintenance, revisions and corrections to these pages. The staff and volunteer researchers will be recognized and their names will be added as contributors.
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It is important to me -- and to you -- that I (and all future researchers for the IISOH) remain neutral in preparing information for worldwide use. Many factors can cause a bias in the preparation of material. Knowing this can help you to be a better researcher. Knowing about the writer(s) can help you to understand, and hopefully avoid, any bias.
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For example: if you read about the 1972 Munich Olympic Games from an American history book you will have a certain perspective or point of view. You may find a very different version of the same events if you read a German, French or Chinese book -- assuming that you can read those languages. The more controversial a subject becomes -- the more bias you will find in different sources of information. Each party that writes will have some type of bias - so you should always use multiple sources of information in order to determine accuracy and truth.
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When studying the Olympic Games you will find that several major forces have influenced events. From the first Olympics in Athens in 1896 to the current selection of host cities and the addition of new sports -- the Olympic Games are influenced by politics, economics, history, culture, bias and prejudice.
For example -- if you study the taking of athletes from Israel as hostages (and their eventual death) at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games -- you will find differing accounts of what happened and different perceptions on the after-effects. Should the Games have been cancelled? Should the Germans have had more sharpshooters at the airport? Did the Germans allow or prohibit Israeli agents from assisting? What was the reaction in the Muslim world? Should there be memorials or a "moment of silence" in memory of the dead athletes at every Olympic Games? After fifty years these questions are still being asked and strong emotions are still expressed by different parties.
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Keep in mind that I am American -- so I bring a certain bias from my own nationality. We Americans -- as a nation -- are less formal than many European and Asian cultures. We are perceived as "child-like" or "immature" by some observers. Americans tend to have a "silly smile" much of the time, and are usually very friendly, informal and outgoing. Compare this to the reserved British personality, the pursed Prussian (German) lip or the formality of Oriental society.
Americans are aggressive -- they/we -- like to fight. The entire world watches -- and usually enjoys -- American television and film, much of which is action-oriented and violent; car chases, fighting, shootouts and blood all over the place, lol. And gun-happy, everyone owns a gun! No, not true, about 33% of Americans own guns.
Americans are generally very conservative -- there are very few nude beaches like the ones on the French Riviera. Many people are afraid to be naked in a sports facility taking a shower. In a nation of over 330 million people, there cannot be more than a dozen adults who have had the courage to talk to their children about sex. You will never find a naked lady on the cover of an American magazine, but if you shop in Germany or France there are dozens of naked images on popular magazines.
Americans are a nation of spectators with a growing obesity problem. Our professional sports of baseball, football, basketball and hockey dominate the sports pages which are filled-in with college football, basketball and some local school news. But you will rarely read about soccer -- the most popular sport in the rest of the world. It would be difficult to find a partner to kick around a soccer ball.
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And Americans are rich -- at least everyone thinks so! Americans are always trying to make more money. But there is a significant American population that is very poor. There is a huge middle class dividing the extremely wealthy from the extremely poor. And the extreme wealthy - well, they are usually famous like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and Donald Trump. Athletes make millions and sometimes tens of millions of dollars. The salary of some athletes is staggering. However the reality is that this is a dream for most people, and unfulfilled dream. We are a nation of incredible diversity and basically no-one on earth really understands Americans. Not everyone is rich or fat or violent or riding a horse.
As a teacher I have lived in Germany for five years and I found the perception of German 8th graders to be very enlightening. They widely believed that every American had a big house, 2 cars in the garage and a horse. This is news to almost all Americans - especially about the horse. In reality there are about seven million horses in the USA, with over 330 million people. Yet the vast majority of horses are owned by less than two million Americans, so actually 1 out of 165 Americans own a horse. In reality - most Americans have never even seen a real horse except on television like those German kids. Understand that "perception" can be different than "reality."
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Be aware that I have allowed my sense of humor (that's humour for you British Commonwealth people) -- to creep into some of my comments -- usually about the English language. Also, we Americans can be self-deprecating - it is part of our sense of humor/humour. I have tried to keep my sentences simple so communication would be easy. Misunderstandings happen when communication fails. SO - you should learn to read and speak proper English the Philadelphia way - we "tawk right" and you "tawk funny," lol.
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Throughout my career I have been a physical education teacher, freestyle wrestler, coach, referee, graphic artist, photographer, researcher, writer, consultant, and publisher. I speak more than one language and have lived in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida and West Berlin, Germany and Vienna, Austria. Since 2016 I am living in both the USA and central Europe, dividing my time between Vienna and other cities such as Berlin and Prague.
To conclude, in preparing these pages for your research use -- I have tried to be neutral (I call it being "more Swiss than the Swiss"). I gather information from the best possible sources to be used on these pages. Rarely will a personal web page make it here -- I prefer first hand sources such as Olympic committee, government, university and other scholarly sites.
I examine all sources and links myself and only include those that I consider to be excellent. This is my opinion -- you might disagree. Permission to disagree with me is GRANTED -- however -- there is a penalty! If you disagree with me... then you will be fined and owe me a tin of chocolate cookies, delivered to me via the IISOH address.  .
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If you wish to contact me or the staff at the IISOH -- please send an email to this address:
email: HAbrams@iisoh.org
My advice --
Be very cautious when you surf the world wide web for your information and projects-- there is a lot of garbage out there!
Additional Sources:
- Readings from different educators on bias in research; Using Primary Sources...more
- Video on YouTube about historical Bias
- Video on YouTube about how Germans perceive Americans
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Pennsylvania --
speaks English with a funny accent. :)
