Our Project: Religious Freedom in the U.S. and in Europe -- USFSP - SNSPA

About our research project: Religious Freedom in the U.S. and in Europe

This group research project gave students from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg (“USF” or “USFSP”) and the National School of Political Science and Public Administration of Romania (“SPSNA”) an opportunity to work together on research projects regarding the freedom of religion.

This comparative legal research project was designed to introduce students to legal research and writing, and to better understanding of the ECJ and the ECtHR in comparison to the SCOTUS.

Students utilized primary source material as well as secondary sources in relevant scholarly literature during their research. A thank you to reference librarian Jim Schnur at Poynter Library for assisting students with learning how to use Lexis/Nexis, Westlaw, JSTOR, and the other resources available to students at USF.

Students were given the opportunity to work independently and as part of an international group – linking students from the SPSNA in Bucharest with students in St. Petersburg, FL studying at USFSP.  Students met “virtually,” via skype videoconference (and also facebook group and email) and were able to share documents in a Dropbox folder. Working together, students were able to share information about religious freedom, the courts, and share/translate sources to aid each other in their research endeavors.

This joint project created a “virtual classroom” linking the students and professors from USF in St. Petersburg and SPSNA in Bucharest.

The main focus of the research was on freedom of religion, divided into the following six topics:

1. The place of religion in the public life

2. Children and religion

3. Women and religion

4. Freedom of religion and restricted/ institutional settings

5. Work without discrimination and religion

6. Freedoms and rights within Religious organizations