Far Right Britons

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Clive D. Field

The negativity of far right political parties, and particularly the British National Party (BNP), towards Islam and Muslims has been reaffirmed in a new report by academics at Nottingham and Salford Universities which was launched at Chatham House on 8 March 2012. Distributed by Searchlight Educational Trust, it is available online at:

http://www.channel4.com/media/c4-news/images/voting-to-violence%20(7).pdf

The research for Matthew Goodwin and Jocelyn Evans, From Voting to Violence? Far Right Extremism in Britain was funded by the British Academy. It is based on online interviews with 2,152 supporters of far right parties pre-screened from YouGov’s panel of 350,000 adults aged 18 and over. Fieldwork was presumably conducted in 2011.

Supporters exhibited a range of attachments to their parties: members, former members, identifiers, voters, and prospective voters. There were 485 supporters of the BNP (formed in 1982) in the sample, 1,505 of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP, 1993), and 210 of the English Defence League (EDL, 2009). Some support overlapped.

74% of BNP supporters and 46% of UKIP supporters cited immigration or Muslims as the most important issue facing Britain today, and a minority (22% and 8% respectively) even suggested that the position of Muslims already in British society was the most significant challenge faced by the country.

88% of BNP and 85% of UKIP supporters disagreed with the statement that Islam did not pose a serious danger to Western civilization; just 7% and 9% agreed. In the case of the BNP, core supporters (members and identifiers) felt more strongly about this than those on the periphery (voters or potential voters), but the distinction did not hold true for UKIP.

92% of BNP and 84% of UKIP followers said that they would be bothered by the prospect of a mosque being built in their community, considerably more than the 55% recorded by the British Social Attitudes Survey in 2008. Again, BNP’s core supporters were especially concerned.

Perhaps the most worrying finding of all was that 92% of BNP and 75% of UKIP supporters felt that violence between different ethnic, racial or religious groups in Britain is largely inevitable, with the core of both parties most likely to agree with this forecast.

Although far right parties often try to galvanize public hostility towards minorities by emphasizing Christian themes, respondents to this poll were not unduly religious relative to the population as a whole. The proportion professing no religion was 46% for BNP, 42% for EDL, and 39% for UKIP supporters. However, there were fewer non-Christians in the sample than the norm.

The number of EDL interviewees in this survey was small. Therefore, BRIN readers might like to be reminded of our coverage of another investigation of EDL supporters at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2011/inside-the-english-defence-league/

 

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Faith on the Move

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Faith on the Move: The Religious Affiliation of International Migrants is an ambitious new study from the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation.

Prepared by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, it was published on 8 March 2012 in the form of a full report, sortable data tables and an interactive map. These can all be accessed from:

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2214/religion-religious-migrants-christians-muslims-jews?src=prc-newsletter

The study focused on the estimated 214 million people, equivalent to about 3% of the world’s population, who had migrated across international borders as of 2010 and were alive at that date. It thus deals with cumulative stocks of migrants, not with annual flows.

The research involved the compilation, largely through the efforts of Pew Forum research associate Dr Phillip Connor, of a global religion and migration database for 2010, from the perspective of both migrants’ country of origin and country of destination.

Data derived from a combination of censuses, surveys and proxy measures, mostly gathered in countries of destination (from which emigrant information had to be backwardly imputed).

For example, in the case of the UK as a country of origin, use was made of the official Annual Population Survey for 2010, the 2001 census, and the World Religion Database (co-published by Brill and Boston University).

Spatial statistics are provided at global and regional levels and for 231 individual countries, including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man (albeit the numbers for these two units are naturally very small). The UK results for 2010 are as follows:

UK AS COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Christian emigrants

3,680,000

73.5%
Muslim emigrants

100,000

2.0%
Hindu emigrants

60,000

1.2%
Buddhist emigrants

30,000

0.6%
Jewish emigrants

120,000

2.4%
Other religious emigrants

90,000

1.8%
Religiously unaffiliated emigrants

930,000

18.6%
All emigrants

5,010,000

 

In terms of absolute numbers, the UK appeared in the top ten of all countries for the following groups of emigrants: Christians (fourth position), Hindus (tenth), Jews (ninth), and religiously unaffiliated (fourth).

UK AS COUNTRY OF DESTINATION 

Christian immigrants

3,500,000

54.3%
Muslim immigrants

1,420,000

22.0%
Hindu immigrants

390,000

6.0%
Buddhist immigrants

190,000

2.9%
Jewish immigrants

40,000

0.6%
Other religious immigrants

380,000

5.9%
Religiously unaffiliated immigrants

530,000

8.2%
All immigrants

6,450,000

 

In terms of absolute numbers, the UK appeared in the top ten of all countries for the following groups of immigrants: Christians (seventh position), Hindus (eighth), Jews (fifth), all other religions except Buddhism and Islam (fifth), and religiously unaffiliated (seventh). Perhaps surprisingly for some, the UK did not feature in the top ten countries for Muslim immigration.

NET MIGRATION TO THE UK 

Christians

– 180,000
Muslims

+ 1,320,000
Hindus

+ 330,000
Buddhists

+ 160,000
Jews

– 80,000
Other religions

+ 290,000
Religiously unaffiliated

– 400,000
All

+ 1,440,000

Assuming that these Pew estimates are broadly accurate (and it is conceded that some of the data in the report are ‘fuzzy’), then international migration had added 1,440,000 to the population living in the UK in 2010.

Net immigration particularly contributed to the growth of non-Christian faiths other than Judaism, and notably to the increase in UK Muslims. For Christians, Jews and people of no faith emigration took away more than immigration brought into the UK.

 

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Inclusivity of Faith Schools

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Clive D. Field

‘England’s faith state schools are on average failing to mirror their local communities by shunning the poorest pupils in their area, an analysis by The Guardian of the latest government figures shows’, Simon Rogers wrote on the newspaper’s datablog on 5 March 2012.

‘The Roman Catholic Church, which has repeatedly insisted that its schools are “inclusive”, comes out as particularly unrepresentative of the local communities it serves. Three-quarters of Catholic primary and secondary schools have a more affluent mix of pupils than their local area … The same is the case for Church of England primary and secondary schools.’ Non-religious schools, by contrast, tended to reflect their neighbourhoods.

The findings, which cover 16,781 primary and 2,753 secondary schools (excluding special needs schools), ‘will fuel claims that faith schools have been picking pupils from well-off families by selecting on the basis of religion’.

These conclusions derive from a database created by The Guardian by merging, at both local authority and postcode levels, elements of two datasets published by the Department for Education: a criterion of inclusivity (pupil eligibility for free school meals, a key measure of poverty) extracted from the Department’s spending database; and address and school type derived from the ‘spine’ (the Department’s official list of schools). Analysis focused on a comparison of Anglican, Catholic and non-religious schools (there being too few state schools of other denominations or faiths).

As Rogers notes, the research does pose certain methodological challenges, which will doubtless be picked up by proponents of faith schools in the coming days. In particular, ‘one big area of disagreement is whether you take the postcodes for where pupils actually live, or you do what we did, which is to compare each school to all the schools in their area. We decided to go for the latter as we wanted to see how each school compares to its peers in the area.’

We can probably expect both Anglicans and Roman Catholics to come out of the corner fighting on the issue. Only recently, as noted by BRIN, the Catholic Education Service for England and Wales has trumpeted (drawing on data from a Department for Education study in 2009-10) that a higher proportion of pupils at its schools come from the 10% most deprived areas than those attending English schools as a whole. See:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/catholic-school-statistics-2011/

The Guardian’s datablog, with further commentary and access to the full database, can be found at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/mar/05/faith-schools-admissions

An article about the research, by Jessica Shepherd and Rogers, was also published in The Guardian of 6 March 2012, including reactions from Anglican and Catholic spokespersons and the British Humanist Association. This is at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/mar/05/church-schools-shun-poorest-pupils?INTCMP=SRCH

 

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Occupy London Eviction

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Clive D. Field

56% of British Christians believe that the anti-capitalist Occupy London protestors at St Paul’s Cathedral should not have been evicted by police and bailiffs, according to a poll from the Bible Society. 29% backed their removal, with 15% unsure what to think.

The results were released on 28 February 2012, in the early hours of which the eviction occurred, following judgment against the protestors in the Court of Appeal on 22 February. The fieldwork was almost certainly undertaken online between the two dates but this is not clearly stated.

The Bible Society’s sample was probably unrepresentative, in the sense of not being constructed according to recognized quota or random methods and of being unweighted. It may have been, at least in part, self-selecting.

All that was reported is that ‘a range of Christians from various organisations including our own supporters’ were interviewed, and that ‘over 800 people replied’. The Society’s press release is at:

http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/news/133/284/First-poll-of-Christians-across-Britain-finds-56-per-cent-think-the-St-Paul-s-protestors-should-be-allowed-to-stay/

The survey also asked Christians whether the Church should have been on the side of the protestors or the City of London, to which 40% responded the protestors, 2% the City and 59% neither. Questioned ‘where would Jesus be?’ the answers were as follows:

Preaching in the City – 14%
In a TV studio – 0%
In a tent outside with the protestors – 13%
In the Cathedral praying – 3%
Acting as a mediator – 10%
None of the above, He would do something none of us expected – 60%

The Bible Society claims that this is the first survey of Christian opinion about Occupy London since the protests began on 15 October 2011. This is incorrect.

As BRIN has noted, the topic was covered in some detail in the December 2011 CPanel of practising UK Christians, albeit 56% (the identical proportion to that in the Bible Society poll) then opposed forcible eviction. See:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2011/december-2011-cpanel/

 

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Labour Force Survey

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Professing Christians in this country are declining by one and a half percentage points annually and, on present trends, ‘the number of people with no religion will overtake the number of Christians in Great Britain in twenty years’. This prediction is made in an article by Oliver Hawkins in the January 2012 edition of Social Indicators (House of Commons Library Research Paper 12/05), and updated on 14 February 2012. It is available at:

http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06189

The analysis is based on the Government’s Labour Force Survey (LFS), a quarterly study of around 50,000 households (and 100,000 individuals), for 2004 to 2010 inclusive. The religion question asked in Great Britain (different wording was used in Northern Ireland, which is excluded from the following figures) was: ‘What is your religion even if you are not currently practising?’ Responses covered persons of all ages (since proxy replies were permitted).

The data indicate that between the fourth quarters of 2004 and 2010 professing Christians in Britain fell by 3,410,000 (or 8%), from 44,820,000 to 41,410,000, or by 570,000 each year. At the same time, the number of people with no religion increased by 4,380,000 (49%), from 9,010,000 to 13,390,000, equivalent to 730,000 per annum. Starting from lower baselines, there was also significant six-year growth in Buddhists (74%), Hindus (43%), Muslims (37%), and religions other than the main world faiths (57%).

The decline in Christian market share, from 78% in 2004 to 69% in 2010, would have been still more serious had it not been for the effect of net migration (which was at a substantial level during this period). Among those born outside the UK there were 730,000 more Christians in 2010 than in 2004, partly offsetting the fall of 4,140,000 in UK-born Christians. People with no religion were the most likely to be born in the UK (94%), albeit net migration also improved their numbers by 320,000 between 2004 and 2010. The majority of Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims were born outside the country, with migration accounting for 43% of the growth in the Muslim population.

From 2011 the LFS dropped the qualifying phrase ‘even if you are not currently practising’ and also altered the running order of response categories, moving no religion from last to first position. These changes had an immediate effect, comparing the fourth quarter of the 2010 LFS with the first quarter of 2011. In particular, the number of professing Christians reduced by a further 2,800,000 and of persons with no religion rose by 2,750,000, a 5% swing in religious allegiance. This is a graphic reminder of the effect which question formulation can have on religious data.

 

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Marriages in England and Wales, 2010

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Although there was a modest (0.4%) increase in the number of marriages solemnized in places of worship in England and Wales between 2009 and 2010, it was less than the 3.7% growth in total marriages. Consequently, the proportion of marriages conducted according to religious ceremonies continued its relentless fall, standing at 31.8% in 2010, as against 32.9% in 2009. 1991 was the last year in which the majority of marriages in England and Wales were solemnized in religious ceremonies.

These findings can be extracted from the provisional marriage data for England and Wales in 2010, which were released by the Office for National Statistics on 29 February 2012 in the form of a statistical bulletin and accompanying spreadsheets (tables 1 and 4 being most relevant for our purposes). These are available at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/marriages-in-england-and-wales–provisional-/2010/marriages-in-england-and-wales–2010.html

While the declining popularity of religious ceremonies doubtless reflects the overall weakening of faith which is evident from a wide range of religious performance measures, it is probably also partly attributable to the introduction in 1995 of ceremonies in approved premises (such as historic buildings and hotels). These have provided an alternative ‘traditional’ ambience to that offered by places of worship, combined with superior on-site catering for the reception. For the sixth consecutive year, there were fewer religious ceremonies than those in approved premises.

Of the 76,770 religious ceremonies in 2010, 73.8% took place in the Church of England or Church in Wales, 11.0% in Roman Catholic churches, 11.6% in other Christian churches, and 3.6% in places of worship of non-Christian faiths. Anglican and Catholic marriage numbers increased absolutely between 2009 and 2010, but other Christian denominations and non-Christian faiths experienced falls.

82.1% of religious ceremonies in 2010 involved a first marriage for both partners, compared with 65.9% for all marriages, suggesting that divorcees disproportionately wed in register offices or approved premises, perhaps fearing the disapproval of local clergy. A further 11.7% of religious ceremonies involved a first marriage for one partner, with 6.3% representing a remarriage for both partners (against 15.1% of all marriages).

 

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Islamophobia in the West

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Islamophobia in the West: Measuring and Explaining Individual Attitudes, edited by Marc Helbling (of the Social Science Research Centre, Berlin) was published by Routledge on 16 February 2012 (ISBN 978-0-415-59444-8, hardback, £80). The book comprises 13 essays exploring the views of ordinary citizens toward Islam and Muslims as revealed by survey evidence.

Following an introduction by the editor (chapter 1), including discussion of the complex definitional issues, there are case studies of Islamophobia in the United States (chapters 2 and 12), Great Britain (3, 11 and 13 – each summarized below), Norway (4), Sweden (5), Spain (6), Switzerland (7), and The Netherlands (8, 9 and 10). The full contents table can be viewed at:

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415594448/

Chapter 3 (pp. 39-55): Erik Bleich and Rahsaan Maxwell, ‘Assessing Islamophobia in Britain: where do Muslims really stand?’

This is a study not merely of national attitudes to Muslims but also of Muslim attitudes toward British society. The principal source is the Government’s Citizenship Surveys from 2001 to 2009, with some subsidiary use of the Pew Global Attitudes Surveys and Eurobarometers. The authors conclude that ‘Islamophobia may be a real challenge and an obstacle to intergroup harmony but is not yet the most significant cleavage defining the nature of group divisions in British society’. They likewise highlight that ‘despite the tense atmosphere in contemporary British society, Muslims have remarkably high levels of positive national identification and political trust’.

Chapter 11 (pp. 147-61): Clive Field, ‘Revisiting Islamophobia in contemporary Britain, 2007-10’

The attitudes of ordinary Britons towards Muslims and Islam are reviewed through 64 opinion polls conducted in 2007-10. Comparisons are also drawn with 2001-06 (the subject of an earlier article by the author). Islamophobia is shown to be multi-layered, affecting one-fifth to three-quarters of adults, the actual level depending on topic. It is said to be undoubtedly increasing, albeit still less pervasive than other western European countries, and is by far the commonest form of religious prejudice in Britain. Muslims are seen as slow to integrate, to have a qualified patriotism and, sometimes, to be drawn to extremism. Negativity is found to be disproportionately concentrated among men, the elderly, the lowest social groups and Conservative voters.

Chapter 13 (pp. 179-89): Marco Cinnirella, ‘Think “terrorist”, think “Muslim”? Social-psychological mechanisms explaining anti-Islamic prejudice’

The author ‘draws upon an eclectic mix of different theoretical traditions from social psychology’, in particular social representations theory, terror management theory, social identity theory, self-categorization theory, and intergroup threat theory. Their aggregate applicability to Islamophobia is demonstrated by two small-scale research projects among British students, in 2006 and 2008. The first project revealed that ‘exposure to media social representations of Muslims is likely to be a causal factor in Islamophobia’. The second discovered that perceived cultural threat from Muslims, realistic threat from Islamist terrorism and strength of British national identity were all predictors of Islamophobia.

This post’s inevitable focus on the three chapters affecting Islamophobia in Britain is not to imply that the remainder of the volume should be ignored by BRIN users. Several authors provide invaluable comparative insights, while chapter 2 offers us an Anti-Muslim Prejudice scale developed for the American context. This can be compared and contrasted with the equivalent scales which have been proposed in the UK by Adrian Brockett, Andrew Village and Leslie Francis (the Attitude toward Muslim Proximity Index in 2009 and the Outgroup Prejudice Index in 2010).

 

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On the Seventh Day

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Only 6% of the readership of The People, the tabloid Sunday newspaper, regard Sundays as primarily a day for religious worship, and churchgoing is the most important regular feature of Sundays for just 10% of them, according to a survey published in today’s edition of The People (26 February 2012, page 20). Solely the text of Nigel Nelson’s accompanying article, and not the statistical tables, is available online at:

http://www.people.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/2012/02/26/people-poll-shows-nearly-half-of-britons-would-like-to-shop-more-on-sundays-102039-23765045/

Methodological details are not given, apart from the fact that 2,000 of the newspaper’s readers were polled. This appears to have happened quite recently, probably online, and possibly with a degree of self-selection. The People, founded in 1881 and published by Trinity Mirror Group, has a weekly circulation of around 800,000 and is read by 1,400,000. This makes it the sixth most widely read Sunday paper. The latest National Readership Survey shows that 67% of its readers are manual workers and 69% over 45.

The findings of this survey, therefore, cannot be taken as representative of the British public as a whole. Nevertheless, they still have some interest in illuminating attitudes to contemporary Sunday observance. The headlines are as follows:

  • 35% of readers of The People regarded Sunday as primarily a day of rest, 35% as a day for the family, 7% as a day for do-it-yourself jobs, 6% as a day of religious worship, and 4% as a day for romance 
  • 9% of respondents admitted that they could not stand Sundays, and a further 7% wanted the day to occur no more than once a month; however, if they could have waved a magic wand, 9% wanted every day to be a Sunday and 21% wished for two Sundays every week 
  • The most important regular feature of Sundays was: going to sleep in the afternoon (17%), going to the pub (12%), going to church (10%), having sexual intercourse with one’s partner (8%), and going to the cinema (6%) – for 47% it was none of the foregoing 
  • There was some support for further deregulation of Sunday shopping hours, with 33% preferring wholly unrestricted trading and another 15% wanting large stores and supermarkets to open for more than six hours; on the other hand, 22% opted for a return to the pre-1994 situation, with most shops shut, and an additional 12% wanted the trading hours of large stores reduced 
  • A traditional roast at home was the normal Sunday lunch for 47% of readers of The People, well ahead of a restaurant meal (8%), a pub lunch (7%), or a takeaway (6%) 
  • 24% were content with Sunday television programmes, but 21% would have liked more nostalgic dramas, 13% more soaps, 9% more sport, and 6% more news 
  • 6% said that they made a special effort not to argue with their partner on Sundays and a further 9% claimed that such arguments were far less likely on Sundays than on other days; however, 4% were much more likely to argue with their partner on a Sunday 
  • Given a choice of four celebrities to entertain them at home on Sundays, Adele (19%) and the Duchess of Cambridge (18%) were most popular, but 37% were quite happy with the company of their own loved-ones 
  • Political leaders ran the risk of having the door slammed in their face if they had the temerity to call on a Sunday (36%), although 19% were prepared to welcome David Cameron into their house, 11% Ed Milliband, 11% Nick Clegg, and 4% George Osborne 
  • When they went to bed on a Sunday night, 37% of these readers of The People felt rested, fulfilled or otherwise ready to face Monday, but 28% were dreading the next day, and 31% did not feel any different than on any other night

The residual affection for the ‘traditional Sunday’ surfaced by some of these results invites comparison with Mass-Observation’s classic study of Meet Yourself on Sunday (London: Naldrett Press, 1949). More generally, the data can be read alongside Geoffrey Gorer’s equally famous profile of the social attitudes and behaviour of readers of The People in 1951: Exploring English Character (London: Cresset Press, 1955). At that time 75% claimed a religion and 23% said they went to church once a month or more often.

 

 

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Religion and Change in Modern Britain

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Religion and Change in Modern Britain, edited by Linda Woodhead and Rebecca Catto, was published by Routledge on 14 February 2012 (ISBN 978-0-415-57580-5 hardback, £80.00 and ISBN 978-0-415-57581-2 paperback, £27.99). It is a major reappraisal of religious change in Britain since 1945, incorporating some of the results of new research commissioned for the AHRC/ESRC ‘Religion and Society Programme’, which provided a large project grant as core funding for BRIN.

The volume is a quasi-textbook of 408 pages comprising twelve chapters and seven case-studies, preceded by a substantial introduction by Woodhead, which exemplifies a recurring theme that the religious and the secular cannot be understood in isolation, and that neither secularization nor desecularization provide adequate frameworks for theorizing a contemporary religious scene beset by diversity, complexity, contradiction, and conflict. There are also thirty plates and twenty-two text boxes with specific detail. A promised companion website does not yet appear to be live. A detailed contents list is available at:

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415575812/

An impressively large team of thirty-eight scholars has been assembled to write the book, so it will be readily appreciated that most contributions are multi-authored. They have been disproportionately drawn from social science and religious studies departments, which will probably provide the main market for the work. Very few historians are in the line-up (Callum Brown and John Wolffe being their principal representatives), despite the ostensibly historical scope of the work, and some may feel that genuinely historical insights are lacking from certain essays. Topical coverage is wide but, inevitably, cannot be truly comprehensive.

The overall approach is to offer commentaries based on syntheses of the relevant primary and secondary literature (with explanations of key terms, suggestions for further reading, and references) combined, where appropriate, with original research. With some exceptions (such as content analysis of religion in the media), the latter tends to be mainly qualitative or theoretical. Indeed, while summary statistics (from the Churches, the 2001 census, sample surveys, and so forth) inevitably inform several of the chapters, there is no systematic treatment of them. This is not a heavily quantitative book; in fact, there are only nine tables, mostly supporting the chapter on non-Christian faiths. It is perhaps surprising that, in a work clearly aimed at a student readership, no appendix of key data has been included. Nevertheless, BRIN users will still find the volume invaluable and thought-provoking background reading.

 

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Lenten Observance

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent in the Christian calendar, the forty-day period of fasting and penance ending on Easter Eve (which falls on 7 April this year), and replicating Jesus Christ’s sacrifice and withdrawal into the desert prior to His crucifixion.

According to an ICM Research survey for the Church of England, conducted online among a sample of 2,024 Britons aged 18 and over on 10-12 February 2012, more than one-fifth of adults plan to observe Lent in some way this year, albeit one-third of them did not know at the time of interview precisely what they would be giving up or taking up.

Women were more likely to claim that they intended to observe Lent than men (27% versus 20%), with age-based anticipated observance peaking, perhaps surprisingly, among the 18-24s (30%). Does the latter finding suggest that Lent is making a comeback?

Of those planning to observe Lent in 2012, 32% were unsure how they would actually do so. The proportions of the remaining 68% electing for specific observances were as follows:

  • Try to do more positive/kindly acts (21%)
  • Give up chocolate or other treats (17%)
  • Stop shopping for non-essential items (17%)
  • Give money to charity (10%)
  • Take up doing something spiritual like praying or reading the Bible (9%)
  • Stop swearing (9%)
  • Give up alcohol (8%)
  • Cut back on social media/gaming (7%)
  • Volunteer for a charity (7%)
  • Stop smoking (6%)
  • Something else (4%)

Lenten preferences were strongly related to gender. For instance, women were found to be nearly twice as likely as men to want to engage in positive or kindly acts as a Lent discipline. Men were twice as likely to aim to give up alcohol, whereas women were nearly three times more likely to forego chocolate.

Similarly, men were almost twice as likely to plan to spend less time on social media and gaming, and women were nearly one-and-a-half times as likely to stop shopping for non-essential items as a form of penance.

Of course, all these figures reflect aspirations before the event, which may not necessarily translate into reality at all or become quickly broken promises (a bit like New Year Resolutions).

From this perspective, it would be good to have a more retrospective enquiry, asking how people had observed Lent after it had finished. This would doubtless still involve some degree of exaggeration, but perhaps on a lesser scale.

The Church of England press release about the survey, dated 21 February 2012 and timed to coincide with the launch of Church House Publishing’s Reflections for Lent iPhone app, will be found at:

http://churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2012/02/one-in-three-planning-to-observe-lent-don’t-know-what-to-give-(or-take)-up-survey-finds-–-as-church-house-publishing-launches-reflections-for-lent-app.aspx

Analysis of a comparable YouGov poll from a year ago (which revealed that 27% then planned to observe Lent), together with a summary of previous Lenten survey research, is available at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2011/lent/

 

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