Halloween, Take 2

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Today is Halloween (All Hallows’ Eve). We reported on 1 October (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=629) about the rapidly growing financial value of the market in Halloween-related products and also noted last year’s Angus Reid Public Opinion (ARPO) survey on the observance of Halloween in Britain.

Fresh data are now available from a YouGov poll commissioned by The Sun newspaper and conducted online on 27-28 October among a representative sample of 1,571 Britons aged 18 and over. Full results have been published at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Life-Sun-Halloween-291010.pdf

18% of the whole sample said that they were planning to celebrate Halloween this weekend. This was 4% more than told ARPO in 2009 that they always celebrated Halloween, although an additional 45% then said that they sometimes did.

YouGov recorded no real difference in the celebration of Halloween by gender and social class. However, age was significant: 33% of the 18-24s and 28% of the 25-39s planned to mark the festival but only 15% of the 40-59s and 5% of the over-60s.

Regionally, Scots intend to celebrate Halloween most (28%), followed by Londoners (20%). Party political preference is also a factor: 25% of Liberal Democrats will be Halloweeners but 15% of Conservatives.

Even those who will not be Halloweening themselves are likely to get the ‘trick or treat’ knock on the door tonight. While 38% of all adults regard this as a harmless tradition, 44% (including 54% of the over-60s) consider it an unacceptable annoyance.

Of the 24% with children of the appropriate age, 38% think they will go trick or treating tonight and 56% not. The highest incidence is anticipated by Labour voters (45%), the 18-24s (47%), and residents of Northern England (44%) and Scotland (45%).

If you are planning to answer the door tonight, YouGov has some advice about what to hand out to the trick or treaters, based on its SixthSense children’s confectionery study. You can certainly forget about trying to palm them off with anything nutritious or non-sugary, and dark chocolate is not well-received either. See:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/consumer/trick-or-treat

POSTSCRIPT [21 November]

A further Halloween poll was conducted in October by TNS Omnibus, among an online sample of 1,046 adult Britons aged 16-64. 25% said they would be personally celebrating Halloween and spending on average over £30 to do so. For the TNS press release, see:

http://www.tns-ri.co.uk/what-we-do/6863.aspx

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Religion and Belief in Higher Education Project

Posted on October 29, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Religion and Belief in Higher Education project, based at the Faculty of Education, Health and Sciences, University of Derby, has just entered its primary data-gathering phase, with separate online surveys launched for higher education staff and students.

Commissioned by the Equality Challenge Unit, and led by Professor Paul Weller, the project aims to develop an evidence base for understanding the experience of staff and students in higher education with a religion or belief.

The intention is that this evidence base will then ‘support the further development of more inclusive policy and practice within the higher education sector that meets legal requirements while also extending good practice’.

Full information about the project, which runs until March 2011 and covers England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, will be found at:

http://www.derby.ac.uk/ehs/research/religion-and-belief-in-HE

If eligible, to participate in the surveys, reckoned to take about 15 minutes to complete, go to:

http://www.derby.ac.uk/ehs/research/religion-and-belief-in-HE/project-online-surveys

Obviously, respondents will constitute a self-selecting sample, and it will be interesting to see how the data are eventually weighted and analysed to ensure they are as representative of the target population as possible.

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Take Your Bible to Work Day

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Clive D. Field

In case you did not notice, last Monday (25 October) was the Bible Society’s ‘Take Your Bible to Work Day’, when Christians were asked to take a Bible to their place of employment as a statement of personal faith.

The day was conceived by the Society following a number of high-profile cases in which Christians found themselves in trouble for encouraging people to think about faith in God or for offering to pray with people in the workplace.

Ann Holt, the Society’s Director of Programmes, was quoted as saying: ‘while we recognise the plural nature of our culture, we are inviting people to take their Bible to work because we believe it is their right to do so in a free society. We believe the Bible’s message provides a framework for living the whole of life, and is not simply a resource for personal piety or a support for those who like religion.’

In connection with the day, the Society commissioned Christian Research and ICM to undertake an online survey among a representative sample of adult Britons. Fieldwork dates and sample size have not yet been reported by the Society.

According to the poll, while most Christians said they would feel fine in having their Bible at work, 43% would feel uncomfortable about actually getting it out to read during breaks and at lunchtimes, and almost a third were worried what work colleagues might think.

In fact, the survey found that only 14% of all workers expressed concern about Christian colleagues reading their Bible at work. Even 75% of atheists questioned said they would not consider it to be a problem. As many as half the workers claimed they would be happy to talk about the Bible with Christian workmates.

This post has been extracted from the limited information contained in the Society’s press release, available at:

http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/news/89/284/Take-Your-Bible-to-Work-Day/

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Names of Baby Boys in 2009

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The Muslim name Mohammed (meaning ‘one who is praiseworthy’) has become the most popular name for newborn boys in England and Wales, according to a reworking in today’s Daily Express and Daily Mail of 2009 data released yesterday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It moved up from third place in 2008 to supplant Jack, which had topped the list for the past fourteen years.

ONS actually has Mohammed in sixteenth position (up thirteen on 1999), with 3,300 babies given the name in 2009. However, this takes no account of the many different spellings of the name, each of which is ranked separately. By summing all twelve variations of the name in 2009, the newspapers produce a total of 7,549 occurrences of Mohammed, to head the list for the first time ever. This represents a 65% increase on the 1999 figure of 4,579.

In order of popularity, the variant ­spellings used during the year were: Mohammed, Muhammad (2,162 occurrences, in 36th place), Mohammad (1,073, in 62nd place), Muhammed, Mohamed, Mohamad, Muhamed, Mohammod, Mahamed, Muhamad, Mahammed, and Mohmmed.

There are widespread regional variations in the incidence of the name. For example, Mohammed alone (without the variants) came first in the West Midlands, fourth in London, and fifth in Yorkshire and the Humber. At the other end of the spectrum, it ranked 145th in the South-West.

Commenting on these findings, Murtaza Shibli, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said he was not surprised that Mohammed had become the most popular boys’ name. ‘Parents choose it because of their love of the Prophet Mohammed and they believe the name will bring happiness and abundance. Also, there’s a belief they will follow the good example of the Prophet.’

In reality, too much should not perhaps be made of all this. Even including all the variants, Mohammed represented 2% of given names for newborn boys in 2009. It was just one of 26,800 different names used in all.

Also, Mohammed (without the variants) has been around in England and Wales for some considerable time. According to the ONS spreadsheets, it first entered the top one hundred chart for boys’ names as early as 1924, as number 91. It has remained there ever since, being joined from 1954 by Mohammod and Mohamed. 

The most popular Muslim girls’ name in 2009 was Aisha, translating as ‘wife of the Prophet’. This was given to 541 babies, making it 101st on the list, up from 110th position in 2006.

The ONS data are available at:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=15282

The newspaper accounts can be found at:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/208029/Mohammed-is-top-boys-name

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1324194/Mohammed-popular-baby-boys-ahead-Jack-Harry.html

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Census 2011 – British Humanist Association Campaign

Posted on October 27, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The British Humanist Association (BHA), the national charity representing and supporting the interests of ethically concerned but non-religious people in the UK, has today launched ‘The Census Campaign’.

This is five months to the day before the next decennial population census of Great Britain asks people to make a voluntary declaration of their religious profession.

Under the tongue-in-cheek slogan, ‘If you’re not religious, for God’s sake say so!’, the campaign seeks to raise awareness of the potential dangers and damage arising from the non-religious not being accurately recorded by the census.

The BHA strongly feels that the 2001 census, the first to include the question about religious affiliation, ‘produced inaccurate and misleading data on religion, grossly undercounting the number of non-religious people and greatly inflating the number of Christians.’

According to BHA’s Chief Executive, Andrew Copson, ‘these misleading statistics are used to support policies that entrench religious privilege and increase discrimination on grounds of religion in our society …’

The BHA press release also quotes BRIN’s David Voas as saying: ‘In 2001 people tended to treat the census question on religion as a question about ethnic heritage. Their answers were interpreted very differently, though, by churches, journalists and policy-makers. Which box you tick on the census form may seem trivial, but the results do make a difference in public life.’

Following a preview to BHA supporters, the Census Campaign’s fundraising has already raised nearly 50% of its first target. The proceeds of this ongoing appeal (www.justgiving.com/census) will underpin national advertising.

The full BHA press release, on which this post has drawn, will be found at:

http://www.humanism.org.uk/news/view/682

The Census Campaign is also accompanied by an interactive website, which sets out the key arguments why people who are non-religious should respond to the voluntary question on religion, and why many of those who registered as Christians in 2001 (so-called ‘cultural Christians’) should respond by ticking ‘No religion’ in 2011. This is at:

www.census-campaign.org.uk

Additionally, there is a presence on Facebook and Twitter:

www.facebook.com/censuscampaign

www.twitter.com/censuscampaign.

It remains to be seen what impact the BHA’s campaign will have. However, it will be recalled that, in connection with the 2001 census, a push to persuade people to register as Jedi Knights (of Star Wars fame) had significant effect. In the end, more Jedis than Jews were returned.

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Senior Staff Recruitment in Faith Schools

Posted on October 25, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Recruitment to senior staff posts in Anglican and – especially – Catholic faith schools continues to be more problematical than average according to the sixteenth annual report on The State of the Labour Market for Senior Staff in Schools in England and Wales, prepared for the National Association of Head Teachers by John Howson and Almut Sprigade of Education Data Surveys at TSL Education Ltd.

The document analyses the outcomes for 1,499 posts on the Leadership scale (head teachers, deputy head teachers and assistant head teachers) advertised by publicly-funded schools in England and Wales between September 2009 and April 2010. Results are presented for each level of post separately for secondary, primary and special schools, and also by type of control of school (including Church of England and Roman Catholic).

Although the authors note ‘some signs of possible improvement’ in 2009-10, they remain critical of the persistent failure, over the past decade, of some dioceses to give adequate attention to the issue of succession planning for school leadership and imply that these shortcomings have not been exposed to the ‘intense public scrutiny’ to which local authorities would have been subject. The failure is particularly manifest in the high proportion of faith school posts which have to be readvertised.

For detailed figures and commentary, see:

http://www.naht.org.uk/welcome/resources/key-topics/leadership/unfilled-posts-leave-profession-on-knife-edge/

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Facing the Axe? Diocese of Bradford in the Headlights

Posted on October 25, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Periodic reports about Islam overtaking the Church of England in terms of the number of worshippers have been a feature of media life for much of the past decade.

The latest variant on the theme is to be found in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday, in an article by Jonathan Petre and Andrew Chapman. A version of this is online at:  

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323237/Facing-axe-Diocese-twice-Muslim-worshippers-Anglicans.html

The opening paragraph summarizes the story: ‘A historic Church of England diocese where Muslim worshippers outnumber Anglican churchgoers by two to one is set to be scrapped.’

The diocese concerned is Bradford, which – the article suggests – is being lined up by the Dioceses Commission for possible merger with the neighbouring Diocese of Ripon and Leeds (it was actually part of the Diocese of Ripon until separated out in 1919).

Neither the Diocese of Bradford nor the Commission was willing to comment on this mooted reorganization. But what of the other half of the equation, the suggestion that Friday mosque attendances have surpassed Anglican Sunday congregations?

The Bradford diocesan churchgoing statistic quoted is the Mail on Sunday is the usual Sunday attendance figure of 8,700 for 2008, taken from the latest edition of Church Statistics.

Other and more favourable figures for the Diocese of Bradford in that year are overlooked, one suspects deliberately. These are (in ascending order): average Sunday attendance of 10,200, electoral roll membership of 11,300, average weekly attendance of 12,200, Easter Day attendance of 13,800, and Christmas Day/Eve attendance of 26,100.

As for Muslims, a total population figure of about 80,000 for Bradford is cited, apparently put forward by Peter Brierley of Brierley Research. The basis for this estimate is not explained.

The 2001 census of the Bradford Unitary Authority identified 75,200 Muslims, representing 16% of all inhabitants at that date. However, if the Muslim community in Bradford has grown at the same rate as in the rest of the country since the census, the number of Muslims in the city must now be about 110,000, rather than 80,000.

The article goes on to say that ‘Government surveys have established that at least a quarter of Muslims are weekly mosque-goers’. Therefore, ‘on a conservative estimate 20,000 are regular worshippers, more than double the number of their Anglican counterparts.’

It is not clarified what these ‘Government surveys’ are. By far the largest such enquiry which includes religion, the Integrated Household Survey, is confined to religious affiliation and does not measure religious observance.

The question used in the Government’s Citizenship Survey asks whether respondents practice their religion, and 80% of Muslims in 2008-09 said that they did.

An as yet unpublished academic study of Muslims, conducted by Ipsos MORI in 2009 and made available by BRIN’s David Voas, records claimed weekly attendance at services as higher than one-quarter, 30% for the 18-34s and 50% for the over-35s. These claims may, of course, be exaggerated.

It is also far from certain whether the Mail on Sunday’s journalists are comparing like-with-like in spatial terms. The Diocese of Bradford is larger than the city, as regards both population (by 37% in 2001) and area, its 920 square miles taking in (as the article acknowledges) the western quarter of North Yorkshire and parts of East Lancashire, South-East Cumbria and Leeds.

Thus, while the general point made by the article still stands, that Anglicans are in relative retreat in a city which, in 2001, had the fourth highest proportion of Muslims anywhere in the country, it otherwise leaves a very great deal to be desired in respect of presentation and interpretation of the facts. These appear to have been sacrificed in the pursuit of a sensationalist headline.

The story is rerun in today’s Daily Express, in an article by Mark Reynolds, with the additional twist that, following projections in Christian Research’s Religious Trends, it is claimed that ‘even Hindus will soon come close to outnumbering churchgoers’. See:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/207388/Church-diocese-is-axed-because-of-Muslim-influx

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Church of England General Synod Elections

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Clive D. Field

The General Synod is the national assembly of the Church of England. It came into being in 1970 under the Synodical Government Measure 1969, replacing an earlier body known as the Church Assembly. It comprises three houses: Bishops, Clergy and Laity.

The quinquennial elections to the Houses of Clergy and Laity have just taken place, and the results were announced on 15 October. 378 seats were contested (183 in the House of Clergy and 195 in the House of Laity). A list of the elected diocesan candidates can be found at:

http://www.generalsynodelections2010.org/results.pdf

Competition for seats was stiffer in 2010 than in 2005, with an average of 2.4 candidates per seat, comprising 2.1 per clerical seat (1.9 in 2005) and 2.8 per lay seat (2.3 in 2005).

Of the successful diocesan lay candidates, 54% are men and 46% women. This compares with a 65% female majority in Anglican congregations, according to the 2007 Church of England diversity audit. The Anglican figure in the 2005 English church census was 60%.

Of the successful diocesan clergy candidates, 71% are men and 29% women. This is a better representation of women than in the full- or part-time Anglican stipendiary ministry as a whole in 2008, when it stood at 20% (from Church Statistics, 2007/8).

Including the House of Bishops (all of whom are men), but excluding some ex officio, non-diocesan elected and co-opted members, this means that the overall composition of General Synod is roughly two-thirds men and one-third women.

Of the elected diocesan members, 54% sat in the 2005-10 General Synod and 46% are new. Slightly more clergy are new (49%) than laity (44%). 52% of women are new and 43% of men.

Traditionalists have been carefully studying the outcome of the elections, to assess the implications for the draft legislation on women bishops should it come back to General Synod in 2012 following the current consultation in the dioceses (at least half of which must approve it to bring it before General Synod again). The issue of women bishops has largely dominated these elections.

In a joint statement the Conservative Evangelical group Reform and the Catholic Group on General Synod have estimated that, having swapped their respective lists of candidates, 32% of the clergy and 35% of the laity who have just been elected to the Synod are likely to vote against the draft legislation unless it is amended to address the conscientious and scriptural concerns of traditionalists.

The groups therefore calculate that only one more clerical vote will be needed in order to prevent the measure securing the two-thirds majority in each of Synod’s three houses, which is required for the measure to pass.

However, in another statement, WATCH (Women and the Church) dismisses as premature this speculation that opponents of women bishops have made gains in the Synod elections. It comforts itself that some significant figures against the consecration of women bishops lost their seats, that there are now more women clergy on Synod, and that there are many members who did not declare their positions during the elections.

The new General Synod will meet in Church House, Westminster from 22 to 24 November. It will be inaugurated by Her Majesty the Queen.

This post is derived from several sources, including reports in The Times of 19 October and the Church Times and Church of England Newspaper of 22 October (both of which also print the full lists of elected members). The analysis by gender and new members was undertaken by the present writer especially for BRIN.

In due course, there will doubtless be more systematic attempts to gauge the attitudes of members of General Synod to a raft of ecclesiastical and other matters. One of the last major surveys of Synodical opinions was by Religiousintelligence.com in December 2007. Response rates to such Synodical surveys are often very poor.

POSTSCRIPT [12 November 2010]

According to the Church Times for 5 November 2010, based on a briefing from the Secretary General of the Archbishops’ Council, the average age of members of the House of Clergy rose from 49 in the 2005 Synod to 52 in 2010, and of members of the House of Laity from 53 in 2005 to 58 in 2010. 

Also, for Synod as a whole, 61% of members of the 2005 Synod will be serving in the 2010 one, and the number of first-time members (deducting those with previous Synodical experience) is estimated at 35%. Ethnic breakdown of Synod membership is not yet known.

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Lies, Damned Lies …

Posted on October 24, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Were you, like me, too preoccupied with last Wednesday’s Comprehensive Spending Review announcement to remember that 20 October was also the first ever World Statistics Day, co-ordinated by the United Nations?

The day was celebrated in over 100 countries and territories and by 40 international agencies. In the UK it was marked by a series of events and activities organized by the Office for National Statistics, the Government Statistical Service and the Devolved Administrations and by the Royal Statistical Society.

It is often said that there are three kinds of untruth: ‘lies, damned lies and statistics’. This phrase was popularized in the United States by Mark Twain in 1906, who attributed it to the nineteenth-century British prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli (although it is apparently not found in any of his works).

According to an Ipsos MORI poll, conducted by telephone on 15-17 October among a representative sample of 1,009 adults aged 18 and over, 65 per cent of Britons agree with this proposition, just 17 per cent disagree, with 18 per cent neutral or otherwise expressing no opinion.

The context for this question about ‘lies’ was British official statistics, which seem especially distrusted. Only 35 per cent agree that they are mostly accurate; and just one-quarter say that they are produced without political interference and used honestly by the Government when talking about its policies.

A related problem is that the public is not especially numerate. In an earlier Ipsos MORI survey, undertaken among 1,004 adults by telephone on 10-12 September, one-third of Britons could not convert 20 per cent into a fraction. The very youngest (aged 18-34) and very oldest (aged 65+) were the least likely to be able to answer this correctly.

The Ipsos MORI findings are freely available at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=2682

They suggest that statisticians in general, and BRIN in particular, will have their work cut out to promulgate the quantitative gospel!

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Who Believes in Horoscopes?

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Horoscopes have been a prominent feature of British life since the 1930s and still regularly appear in newspapers and magazines and on websites. They form an important part of the complex spectrum of alternative ‘religious’ beliefs. But what credence do we attach to horoscopes?

Some clues have recently been provided by YouGov in a survey of a representative sample of 2,090 adult Britons aged 18 and over. They were interviewed online on 10-11 October. Full data tables and a commentary are now available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/life/stars-their-eyes

Unprompted, a mere 2% of Britons did not know what their star sign was, suggesting a high astrological awareness. 41% (26% of men and 55% of women) thought the set of characteristics attached to their star sign fairly summed up their own personality and exactly the same number took the opposing view.

While 39% never read their horoscope, 7% did so daily, 15% weekly, 13% monthly and 26% less frequently. Regular (monthly or more) readers were especially to be found among women (48%, against 20% of men) and the 18-24s (43%). Of all horoscope readers, two-thirds consulted them in newspapers, one-third in magazines and one-sixth on the internet.

Despite the attention paid to horoscopes, most of us do not rate their veracity. 83% considered them to have been inaccurate in predicting events in their personal lives, compared with 6% (rising to 10% of women) who said the contrary.

Just 7% agreed and 64% disagreed that horoscopes predict the future by monitoring the movements of cosmic objects. Only 5% (9% among the 18-24s) admitted that reading a horoscope had ever influenced a decision, action or event in their life.

55% contended that horoscopes have no grounding in reality and 77% dismissed them as vague statements presented in a way that makes them appear applicable to most individuals. 60% regarded horoscopes as harmless fun.  

As a cross-check on the survey results, YouGov conducted an experiment, quoting a personality profile and a horoscope prediction for the past week which purported to be particular to the respondent’s own star sign.

In reality, everybody was shown the same profile and prediction. Amazingly, as many as 39% of the sample said the profile matched their own personality, although far fewer (13%) thought the prediction to be accurate.

Previous polling on astrology and horoscopes is not strictly comparable with the current survey. However, the available data (http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/#ChangingBelief) do confirm the far greater propensity of women to believe in horoscopes than men.

The disproportionate appeal of horoscopes to the under-25s is also not new. While increasingly rejecting traditional Christian beliefs, there is a fair bit of evidence that the young are drawn to a variety of alternative religious systems.

One of the stranger correlations to emerge from this YouGov study related to Liberal Democrats. Although they are only average regular readers of horoscopes, they were somewhat more likely than voters for the other two main parties to think horoscopes can foretell the future and to have been influenced by reading a horoscope. And they were more convinced than the rest about the accuracy of their own spoof profile and prediction.

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