Headline findings from the 2010-11 Citizenship Survey for England and Wales were published by the Department for Communities and Local Government on 22 September 2011 in the form of Cohesion Research Statistical Release No. 16, comprising a textual report and Excel tables. This document is available to download from:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/citizenshipsurveyq4201011
The Citizenship Survey was initiated by the Home Office in 2001 and has subsequently been conducted in 2003, 2005, 2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11. It has now been discontinued as a cost-saving measure. Even the traditional topic reports (one of which covers race, religion and equalities) will not be published in respect of the 2010-11 data.
Fieldwork for the April 2010 to March 2011 survey was undertaken by Ipsos MORI and TNS-BMRB. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with a representative core sample of 10,307 adults aged 16 and over living in households in England and Wales, together with an ethnic minority booster sample of 4,721 and a Muslim booster sample of 842.
Religion-related statistics in the latest set of tables comprise the following:
TABLE 2 (England): Christians (37%) and people of no religion (38%) were less likely to feel they could influence decisions affecting their local area than non-Christians (the proportion varying from 42% for Sikhs to 53% for Buddhists); a similar pattern emerged in respect of decisions affecting Britain, albeit all the figures were lower
TABLE 6 (England): Christians (58%) and people of no religion (56%) were more likely than non-Christians to have participated in some form of civic engagement or formal volunteering during the previous year, with a low of 44% for Hindus and Muslims; however, Sikhs excepted, participation rates have fallen for all faith groups since 2007-08
TABLE 9 (England): Buddhists and Sikhs (92%) were more likely than Muslims (91%), Hindus (90%), Christians (87%), and people of no religion (82%) to agree that their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together
TABLE 11 (England): Sikhs (85%) were most likely to feel a sense of strongly belonging to the neighbourhood, more so than Christians (80%), Muslims (79%), Hindus (78%), Buddhists (70%), and people of no religion (70%); Sikhs (93%) also had the strongest sense of belonging to Britain, followed by Christians and Hindus (89%), Muslims (88%), people of no religion (87%), and Buddhists (80%)
TABLE 12 (England): Christians (78%) were the religious group reporting the lowest rate of mixing regularly (at least once a month) with persons of different ethnic or religious backgrounds, as they had been in the three previous surveys; this compared with 96% for Muslims and Sikhs, 95% for Buddhists, 92% for Hindus, 86% for people of no religion and with a national average of 82%
TABLE 13 (England): the below-average mixing rate for Christians held good for most spheres of social encounter apart from mixing at a place of worship where, at 16%, it was 1% above par; even so, non-Christians were far more likely than Christians to report mixing at a place of worship with persons of different ethnic or religious backgrounds, rising to 45% in the case of Muslims
TABLE 19 (England): Muslims (14%) were most likely to record that racial or religious harassment was a very or fairly big problem in the local area, twice the national average, albeit this has steadily fallen from 20% in 2007-08; Hindus and Sikhs followed on 11%, people of no religion on 7%, Christians on 5%, and Buddhists on 4%
TABLE 20 (England and Wales): the proportion of Britons believing that there was more religious prejudice than five years before fell from 52% in 2008-09 to 46% in 2009-10 to 44% in 2010-11; the decrease for ethnic minorities alone was from 44% to 33% over the three years, revealing a relatively high degree of optimism
TABLE 24 (England and Wales): 96% of Britons said that violence in the name of religion is always wrong, 2% that it is often wrong, 1% that it is sometimes right and sometimes wrong, with fewer than half a percent stating that it is always or often right; the always wrong category was 94% for violence towards ethnic groups, 87% for violent extremism generally, and 84% for violence to protect animals
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