Taking Part, 2010-11

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Clive D. Field

My colleague Siobhan McAndrew introduced BRIN users to the Taking Part surveys in her post on 12 April 2010. See:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=172

These studies have been running continuously in England since 2005, with fieldwork by TNS-BMRB on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and four of its Arms Length Bodies.

The surveys cover many aspects of leisure, culture and sport (although it should be noted that they have no value as a guide to regular attendance at places of worship).

During the course of this summer the data for year 6 (mid-April 2010 to mid-April 2011) of Taking Part have progressively become available, culminating in the annual Taking Part User Event on 18 August and the release of the year 6 dataset by the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) on 25 August.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted with a cross-section of 14,002 adults aged 16 and over and 1,116 children aged 11-15 resident in private households in England, with information also collected from parents or guardians about 1,590 children aged 5-10.

As has been the custom, a couple of questions on religion were included, primarily for use as background demographic variables in analysing responses to other questions. However, given the large size of the sample, they also have independent value in their own right.

Asked ‘What is your religion?’ – which many would regard as a somewhat leading question – 62% of adults replied Christian, 4% Muslim, 3% other world faiths, 28% none, and 2% (spontaneously) atheist or agnostic.

The no religion category varied considerably by age, ranging from 46% among young persons aged 16-24 to 9% for the over-75s.

Muslim numbers naturally peaked among non-whites, but they also grew in direct relation with the number of children, from 2% in households with no children to 46% in those with five or more children.

Of those professing a religion, 41% said that they were currently practising it (practice was not defined). The proportion was highest among Muslims (88%), followed by Hindus (83%), Sikhs (78%), Buddhists (66%), Jews (61%), and Christians (36%).

Regionally, the range of practice was from 25% in the North-East to 58% in London (where non-Christians and Afro-Caribbean Christians are disproportionately to be found).

The practice figure was 36% for those whose first language was English and 78% among those for whom it was a second language, suggesting a strong linkage between ‘religiosity’ and ‘immigration’.

Taking Part is a rich source of data which can be explored further in one of three ways:

a) printed reports and spreadsheets can be found on the DCMS website, the individual Excel files containing results for questions on the arts, cycling and swimming, digital participation, heritage, libraries, museums and galleries, sport, and volunteering, all with disaggregation by religious affiliation (no religion, Christian, other religion) for the six years of data; these are available at:

http://www.culture.gov.uk/publications/8253.aspx

b) users can register (for free) to access the Taking Part NETQuest service and run their own analyses online in real time (it actually is a very simple process), exporting the results as PDF documents, Excel files or text files; go to:

http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/research_and_statistics/6762.aspx

c) finally, the full dataset can be obtained from ESDS as SN 6855; see:

http://www.esds.ac.uk/findingData/snDescription.asp?sn=6855&key=6855

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Religious Studies GCSEs, 2011

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Clive D. Field

There was a 17.6% increase in the number of candidates sitting the full course GCSE in Religious Studies (RS) in June 2011, compared with the summer before, according to results released today by the Joint Council for Qualifications, and covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland (there is a separate Scottish Qualifications Authority).

Entrants for the full course were 221,974 (almost double the figure of 119,550 in 2001). This represented 4.3% of papers sat in all subjects (up from 3.5% in 2010 and 2.1% in 2001). The proportion of female candidates in RS was 54.3% (50.9% for all subjects). A*-C passes were achieved by 73.3% of RS full course examinees and by 69.8% in all subjects.

In addition to the full course, there is also a short course GCSE in RS, which attracted 257,793 candidates in June 2011 (7.9% fewer than the previous year but well above 165,520 in 2001). Male and female entrants were almost evenly balanced. Grades A*-C passes were obtained by 52.4% in RS, which was 1.3% below the mean for all subjects. 

For the full set of results for these and other qualifications, with disaggregations by gender and home nation, see:

http://www.jcq.org.uk/attachments/published/1589/GCSE%20RESULTS.pdf

As intimated in our report on A Levels – http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=1382 – the Government decision to exclude RS from the 2011 eBaccalaureate (eBacc) may contribute to halting the steady growth in numbers taking GCSE RS.

The recent survey by the National Association of Teachers of Religious Education – covered at http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=1342 – seems to have found evidence that this may already be happening.

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Consumerist Christians

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Many professing Christians seem unconsciously torn between the consumer-driven world that encourages material wealth and their religious beliefs, according to research publicized by the University of Bath on 22 August 2011 in a press release available at:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/research/news/2011/08/22/christianity-consumerism

The study was conducted by Avi Shankar, of Bath’s Centre for Research in Advertising and Consumption, and Ekant Veer of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

More than 400 people living in the UK were shown an advert for the same watch that was either depicted as being an item of desire and public recognition, or as an item of functional value. 

Half of the sample identified themselves as Christians believing that materialism was wrong. Although non-religious consumers did not prefer one advert over the other, religious consumers were 25% more likely to purchase the watch if they saw the advert that did not portray it as a materialistic item. 

‘We found that expensive luxury watches that were advertised as being showy or an item of envy were frowned upon by religious consumers. However, when the same item was advertised as being high quality and enduring, rather than having materialistic value, the religious consumers were significantly more willing to purchase the product.’

The authors claim that the results of the study ‘help to explain how many Christians acquire and store materialistic items for themselves and their family, despite many Biblical teachings that discourage hoarding wealth.’ They suggest the findings could be used by marketers, advertisers and sales forces to drive sales up.

‘It’s important to know what type of person you’re dealing with,’ said Dr Shankar. ‘If you are talking to someone who is clearly not averse to being materialistic, then it doesn’t really matter what you say. But, if you’re targeting a high-end, expensive, flashy product to people who are put off by materialism, then you need to change your approach.’

More generally, there is a dearth of survey information about religion and consumerism readily available in the public domain. This is true, for instance, of a major but largely inaccessible report on marketing to Muslims from JWT Worldwide in 2007, in which 350 British Muslim adults aged 18 and over were interviewed.

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Lynda Barley moves on

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The Reverend Prebendary Lynda Barley, currently Head of Research and Statistics for the Church of England, has been appointed as Truro Diocesan Secretary and Canon Pastor at Truro Cathedral. She takes up her new post in November. The diocesan press release can be read at:

http://www.trurodiocese.org.uk/news-and-links/?id=556

Lynda studied mathematics and education at the University of York and subsequently worked as a statistician, social researcher and educational inspector in a number of contexts. She is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a member of the Market Research Society.

She was ordained as an Anglican clergywoman in 1996 and was appointed as Head of Research and Statistics at the Archbishops’ Council in 2000. In that role she has been hugely influential in enhancing the Church of England’s data-gathering infrastructure and in improving its deployment of statistics for missiological purposes and ecclesiastical policy-making.

She has also commissioned public opinion surveys on church-related topics, inaugurated an annual ‘Faith in Research?’ conference, and written three excellent research-based booklets entitled Christian Roots, Contemporary Spirituality (2006), Churchgoing Today (2006), and Community Value (2007).

Quite coincidentally, the publishers of these three titles, Church House Publishing, are offering them at the reduced price of £2 each in the summer 2011 sale. For further details, go to:

http://www.chpublishing.co.uk

Further back, Lynda was the author of the section on recurrent Christian data in the Reviews of United Kingdom Statistical Sources volume on religion, published in 1987 on behalf of the Royal Statistical Society and Economic and Social Research Council. This can be found at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/commentary/documents/eBook-RUKSS-Religion.pdf

Interesting insights into Lynda’s work as a church statistician can be found in the interview with her by Terence Handley MacMath which appeared in the Church Times, Issue 7599, 7 November 2008.

BRIN readers will be reassured by Lynda’s report that ‘Plans are being made to ensure continuity until a new appointment is made for the Head of Research and Statistics at the Archbishops’ Council.’

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Faiths in Action

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Faiths in Action was a Department for Communities and Local Government-backed £4.4 million grant programme for faith, inter-faith, voluntary and community sector groups and organizations in England, which ran from 1 April 2009 to 31 March 2011.

In all, the programme funded 575 small-scale projects within local communities to enable people of different faiths and wider civil society to develop strong and positive relationships.

The Community Development Foundation has recently published an assessment of the programme: Daniel Pearmain, Faiths in Action: Final Evaluation Report.

In particular, this explores the experiences of 297 projects which received funding during Year 2 of the programme (1 April 2010 to 31 March 2011) and which replied to the survey (non-response was about 40%). The report is available at:

http://www.cdf.org.uk/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=31a7bf5e-0490-421d-b532-0ce610153b20&groupId=10128

Key statistics from the evaluation include the following:

  • 78% of projects were carried out by voluntary and community sector groups, registered charities or similar agencies, with a further 17% led by faith-based groups 
  • 21% of projects operated exclusively within the local area (defined as within 20 minutes’ walking distance), 49% within the local authority, 21% regionally, 7% nationally, and 2% internationally 
  • On average, 338 individuals benefited from each project, and nearly 200,000 from the programme; the median was lower (110), since the mean was distorted by groups working with large numbers of school students 
  • Beneficiary groups were diverse: women (89%), men (76%), youth (73%), people on low incomes (64%), urban dwellers (62%), people of a particular religion or belief (60%), unemployed (57%), single (57%), families (54%), people of a particular ethnicity (52%), elderly (47%), children (45%), disabled (36%), and refugees (34%) 
  • Faith communities benefiting from projects included: Christians (89%), Muslims (86%), Hindus (51%), Sikhs (38%), those of no religion (35%), Jews (32%), Buddhists (27%), and Baha’is (16%) 
  • 71% of projects stimulated engagement with specific groups not previously worked with in the community, and this was especially the case with people of a particular religion/belief or ethnicity 
  • 57% of projects reported that the Faiths in Action funding had contributed a great deal to their awareness of inter-faith activity in the local area and 32% a little, and 84% had participated rather more in local inter-faith networks as a result 
  • 60% claimed that their projects had contributed a great deal to integration between faith groups in their local area and 31% a little 
  • 25% of projects felt that the funding had considerably increased their group’s influence on local decision-making affecting community cohesion and faith, and 46% that it had modestly increased their influence 
  • Each project boosted volunteering by an average of seven persons, or 4,000 across the programme
  • 44% of projects said that support from the programme had helped them develop capacity to access other sources of funding through enhanced kudos, learning opportunities, and improved practical skills 
  • 81% of projects said that their organization would continue the same or similar work following cessation of Faiths in Action funding

The report also includes a more qualitative evaluation of the three-year (2008-11) £1.9 million Government programme to capacity-build a network of nine Regional Faith Forums in England. The first Forum was set up in 1997, the most recent in 2010.

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Religious Studies A Levels, 2011

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Clive D. Field

There were 4.9% more UK candidates sitting A Level Religious Studies (RS) in June 2011 than in 2010, but the proportion of them getting A* and A grades was 2.1% down, according to data released today (18 August) by the Joint Council for Qualifications.

There were 22,325 candidates for A Level RS in summer 2011, maintaining the steady growth which has been apparent since the turn of the millennium (in 2000 there 9,178). Entries for RS now comprise 2.6% of those for all A Level subjects.

68.2% of RS candidates are female, compared with 53.7% for all subjects. Females also tend to get rather better grades in RS than males, 58.9% and 55.4% respectively being awarded A*, A or B.

Overall, 5.5% of RS candidates received the A* grade, 21.8% A, 30.5% B, 23.4% C, 12.5% D, 4.8% E, with 1.5% unclassified. The figure of 57.8% for A*, A and B was 1.8% up on 2010 and above the 52.6% for all subjects, for which 2.2% of entries were unclassified.

Candidates from Northern Ireland were far more likely (68.1%) to get A*, A or B grades at RS than those from England (56.9%) or Wales (52.0%). It should be noted that there is a separate Scottish Qualifications Authority which publishes its own statistics.

The full results, which also cover several non-A Level qualifications (the most important for RS being AS Levels, with 33,915 candidates, a massive 22.3% increase on 2010), are available at:

http://www.jcq.org.uk/attachments/published/1575/JCQ%20RESULTS%2018-08-11.pdf

Trend RS A level data for 1993-2009 will be found on the BRIN website at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/documents/Table-10-1-Religious-Studies-A-Level.xls

It will be interesting to see how the currently rising number of RS A and AS Level candidates will be impacted down the line by Government’s recent decision to exclude GCSE RS from the 2011 eBaccalaureate (eBacc), which faith communities fear will deter schools from offering GCSE RS and youngsters from sitting it.

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National Student Survey

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Clive D. Field

There is a very wide variation in the satisfaction of full-time final-year undergraduate students with the quality of the teaching of first degrees in theology and religious studies at UK universities.

This is according to results from the National Student Survey (NSS), which has been running annually since 2005, and whose 2010-11 data were published today. The survey is administered by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the higher education funding councils.

The percentage of students at each institution who said that they definitely or mostly agreed with the statement that ‘overall, I am satisfied with the quality of the course’ (question 22) is shown below.

The data relate to undergraduate courses in theology and religious studies except where an asterisk appears (denoting a course in philosophy, theology and religious studies). In some cases, the satisfaction scores are based on more than one year’s NSS results.

100% Durham University

100% University of Exeter

100% Liverpool Hope University

100% University of St Andrews

98%   University of Cambridge

98%   St Mary’s University College, Twickenham

97%   University of Stirling*

96%   University of Kent

96%   University of Oxford

96%   York St John University

94%   University of Bristol

94%   University of Chester

94%   University of Glasgow*

94%   University of Nottingham

93%   University of Aberdeen

93%   Heythrop College, University of London

90%   University of Edinburgh

90%   University of Manchester

89%   Lancaster University

89%   Oxford Brookes University*

89%   Roehampton University

89%   University of Winchester

88%   University of Sheffield

87%   Bangor University

86%   King’s College London

86%   University of Leeds

84%   Anglia Ruskin University*

84%   Cardiff University

83%   Bath Spa University

81%   Newman University College

81%   Queen’s University Belfast

76%   University of Birmingham

76%   Canterbury Christ Church University

76%   School of Oriental and African Studies

76%   University of Wolverhampton

74%   University of Hull

73%   Middlesex University*

72%   University of Gloucestershire

71%   University of Wales, Trinity St David (formerly Lampeter)

The league table is in line with expectations in many respects, not least in the strong showing by such institutions as Durham University, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford.

But there are a number of surprises, especially in comparison with the assessment of the quality of research in theology, divinity and religious studies, as measured in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE).

For example, Liverpool Hope University, only 20% of whose research output in the field was judged 3* or 4* in 2008 (i.e. world-leading or internationally excellent) was joint top of the NSS table with 100%.

Towards the other end of the spectrum, the University of Birmingham achieved a 60% rating of its research at 3* and 4* but came well down the NSS list (in joint 32nd place, out of 39 institutions).

The NSS data can be searched and downloaded from:

http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/

The RAE results will be found at:

http://rae.ac.uk/results/qualityProfile.aspx?id=61&type=uoa

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Restrictions on Religion

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The UK’s reputation as a land of religious liberty and toleration seems set to take a bit of a knock following the publication on 9 August 2011 of Rising Restrictions on Religion by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life. The work was commissioned as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, with Brian Grim as the principal researcher.

The report, the second in a series, is the outcome of desk-based research from 18 published primary sources. It seeks to measure, on a points-based system, the incidence of restrictions on religious beliefs and practices in 198 countries between mid-2006 and mid-2009. Data are recorded for a Government Restrictions Index (GRI) and a Social Hostilities Index (SHI). Inevitably, the scoring cannot eliminate a degree of subjectivity.

On the GRI the UK’s overall score rose from 2.2 for the two-year period ending mid-2008 to 2.8 in mid-2009. This was assessed as a moderate score on the fourfold categorization used by Pew (very high embracing the top 5% of country scores, high the next 15%, moderate the next 20%, and low the bottom 60%). Of the specific measures comprising the GRI, 7 had increased in the UK between the two reference dates, 14 were unchanged, and 7 had decreased.

On the SHI the UK’s overall score moved from 2.5 for the period ending mid-2008 to 3.6 in mid-2009. This was assessed as a high score. Seven UK measures rose between the two dates, 11 were unchanged, and 1 had fallen. The UK was one of five European nations (the others being Bulgaria, Denmark, Russia, and Sweden) which experienced a substantial rise in the SHI. In the UK’s case, this is largely attributed by Pew to mounting Islamophobia and anti-Semitism (the latter in response to Israel’s military intervention in Gaza early in 2009).

Overall, combining the GRI and SHI, Pew discovered that restrictions on religion had grown in 23 of the world’s 198 countries (12%), decreased in 12 (6%), and remained essentially unchanged in 163 (82%). Among the 25 most populous nations – which account for three-quarters of the global population – restrictions on religion substantially increased in eight, including the UK. In China, Nigeria, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam and the UK the increases were primarily due to movements in the SHI, whereas in Egypt and France they were the consequence of the GRI.

The main report and the detailed country report on this research are available to download at:

http://pewforum.org/Government/Rising-Restrictions-on-Religion.aspx

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Campaigning Christians

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Churchgoing Christians in the UK have a strong campaigning streak, according to a ComRes Cpanel poll commissioned by Premier Christian Media and published on 1 August. Online interviews were conducted with 529 Christians aged 18 and over on 6-18 July 2011.

Asked how important they considered various socio-religious issues to have a campaign on, the number of Christians replying ‘very important’ or ‘important’ ranged from 85% on abortion to 95% on parenting and the family.

93% each opted for campaigns on care of the elderly and freedom of religious expression, 92% for marriage, 91% for the persecuted Church, and 87% for lobbying on euthanasia or assisted suicide.

A press release accompanying the survey, and the basis for a report in the Church of England Newspaper for 5 August, claimed that ‘it revealed a staggering gulf between what young and older generations of believers regard as issues of importance.’

In particular, ‘pro-life and end of life issues were of greater concern to young people aged between 18-34 years compared with those over the age of 65’, whereas ‘youth related issues were of greater concern to over 65s compared to young people (under 35s)’.

However, these differences emerged when considering only those who said ‘very important’ in relation to each issue. If the figures for ‘very important’ and ‘important’ are summed, then the age margins narrow considerably.

In terms of gender, the single most notable variation was over attitudes to abortion, 79% of male and 91% of female Christians regarding it as very important or important to campaign on this topic. There were smaller gaps (84% versus 92% and 89% versus 95% respectively) on euthanasia and marriage.

Breaks were also provided by region, denomination and churchmanship, but individual cell sizes are too small to permit meaningful analysis. There was likewise disaggregation for those in a church leadership role, attendees at Alpha courses, and members of a Christian organization.

The data tables are available to download, but – for some unexplained reason – they do not include the answers about campaigns on youth work and young people in prison. The tables will be found at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Premier_tables_Q5_Aug11.pdf

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Terrorist Threats

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Despite renewed media preoccupation with far-right organizations in Britain, following revelations of links between them and Anders Behring Breivik, perpetrator of the recent outrages in Norway, many Britons still view ‘Islamic terrorism’ as the greater problem, even though two-thirds also see the far right as a serious or minor threat.

This is one of the findings from a YouGov poll for today’s edition of The Sunday Times, in which 2,529 British adults aged 18 and over were interviewed online on 28 and 29 July 2011. The data tables are available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/yg-archives-pol-st-results-29-310711.pdf

19% of respondents believed that the police and security services should devote more resources than currently to Islamic terrorism, and less to other extremists. Men (25%) were more likely to take this view than women (14%), and Conservative voters (23%) more than Liberal Democrats (14%).

Just 8% wanted resources switched from countering Islamic terrorism towards other extremists, rising to 15% among the 18-24s and 13% with Liberal Democrats. 50% contended that the police and security services were getting the balance about right, and 23% were unsure what to think.

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