ABSTRACT
This section explains the snowball sampling selection of our interview sample consisting of various religious and community leaders, political leaders, professors, teachers, parents, and students (high school and postsecondary). As two non-Georgians, the authors looked to the support of the Religious Freedom Center (RFC) to engage with potential interviewees at the beginning of our research in the Atlanta area. In central Georgia, we began with interviews of faculty members in the religion department at Mercer College, prominent White and African-American pastors, and contacted leaders of local Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu congregations. After our first and second trips to Georgia, we began to seek potential interviewees by email based on their relevant work and research interests, or by an introduction from previous interviewees. The interviews were largely conducted one-on-one or with a member of the 3Rs team present. On one or two occasions, interviews were conducted in a group format with three to five interviewees. Each conversation was recorded and then transcribed for textual and thematic analysis. As the 3Rs team and we were concerned with tailoring religious literacy programs to fit the Georgia context, we selected interviewees from five communities in different parts of Georgia strategically. This ensured a relative balance between urban and rural voices, White and non-White voices, and a variety of religious and non-religious perspectives in our data collection across five trips to Georgia from October 2017–September 2019. While maintaining appropriate brevity, we will aim to present the advantages as well as the limitations of our sample selection.
