Young Religion and Other News

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Today’s authoritative post by BRIN associate Dr Ben Clements on survey trends in religious attitudes to euthanasia will be a hard act to follow, but hopefully these eight items of religious statistical news will still be of interest to some of the BRIN readership.

Youth on religion

The first major output from the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme’s Youth on Religion (YOR) project was published by Routledge on 9 January 2014: Nicola Madge, Peter Hemming, and Kevin Stenson, Youth on Religion: The Development, Negotiation, and Impact of Faith and Non-Faith Identity (xii + 240p., ISBN 978-0-415-69670-8, £29.99, paperback, also available in hardback and as an e-book).

The book is based upon research undertaken in 2010 in three ethnically and culturally diverse and multi-faith areas of England, with relative social deprivation: the London boroughs of Hillingdon and Newham and Bradford in West Yorkshire. The quantitative phase of investigation comprised online questionnaires completed during lessons in February-April 2010 by 10,376 students in years 8, 10, and 12 (and thus mostly aged 13-18) at 39 secondary schools or colleges in the study areas (4,160 in Hillingdon, 3,361 in Newham, and 2,855 in Bradford). The qualitative phase involved group discussions and paired interviews with 157 students in year 12 (aged 17-18).

It goes without saying that the study areas are not typical of the country as a whole, and, moreover, respondents were not even fully representative of the relevant age group in those areas, thereby creating ‘limitations to the degree of generalisability possible from the study’ (pp. 42, 215). Care should therefore be taken in citing the statistical results because they will not necessarily exemplify the religious views of English young people overall. Commercial online youth panels exist which could have been used as the vehicle for an approximation of a national cross-section, but that is not what is on offer here. In particular, in reflection of the locations (and also differential response), the majority of participants were drawn from ethnic minorities: 40% Asian, 13% black, 10% other ethnicities, and just 37% white. As a consequence, ‘especially high levels of religious belief and practice’ are manifest (p. 215). Muslims formed the largest sub-group in the sample (35%), followed by Christians (31%), no religionists (20%), Sikhs (6%), and Hindus (5%). The numbers interviewed from other religious faiths were too small to be meaningful, even in this specific geographical context.

All that said, the volume contains a fascinating wealth of detail, with chapters on: constructions of religion; religious journeys; religious identity and expression; religion and everyday life; family and its influence; friends and schools; and religion and the community. Especially illuminated is ‘how young people in multi-faith areas get on together and how they live with difference’ (p. 17). Particular interest is likely to attach to the fourfold typology of religiosity introduced on pp. 72-88, sub-dividing the young people into Strict Adherents (24%), Flexible Adherents (32%), Pragmatists (21%), and Bystanders (23%). Unsurprisingly, the majority of Muslims were Strict Adherents, with most of the rest Flexible Adherents who ‘have negotiated ways of accommodating their religiosity within Western lifestyles’ (p. 207). Less than one-tenth of Christians were Strict Adherents, with one-fifth being Bystanders, having no real interest in religion. While four-fifths of the no religionists naturally also fell into the Bystander category, the remaining fifth were Pragmatists, taking a somewhat fluid view of their religious journey. Across the entire sample, there was ‘a tendency toward greater flexibility in religious expression’ (p. 216) as the young people evolved ‘their own personal religious identities within a prevailing ideology of liberal individualism’ (p. 217).

Although the book contains 39 figures and 12 tables, the qualitative evidence features as prominently as the quantitative, and BRIN readers will often find themselves thirsty for more numbers and also questioning some of the researchers’ decisions (for example, to use household ownership of books as some kind of ‘surrogate’ for socio-economic status, p. 35). It is to be hoped that the dataset will eventually be made available for secondary analysis, alongside the questionnaire and more details of methodology (unfortunately, the questionnaire is omitted from its customary place at the end of the book, nor is it available on the project website). Likewise, despite copious references to existing literature, much of the concern is apparently to inform theoretical debates (p. 1), and there are only incidental attempts to compare the project’s own findings with those of previous large-scale surveys, such as, from the 1990s, Leslie Francis’s Teenage Religion and Values project or Alan Smith’s investigation of adolescents in multi-faith Walsall (indeed, the latter’s 2007 book does not even appear in the bibliography of Youth on Religion).

Expectations of God

People now expect more of government than they do of God, according to an Ipsos MORI poll for King’s College London which was published on 14 January 2014, and for which 1,011 adult Britons were interviewed by telephone on 7-9 December 2013. Almost three-fifths (59%) of the public agreed with this statement, against only 29% disagreeing and 12% undecided. By contrast, many fewer (41%) thought that expectations of politicians were greater than those of God, the dissentient voice being 48%, with 11% uncertain. This doubtless reflects, less a vote of confidence in God, than cynicism about politicians, whose reputations have been tarnished by sleaze and other circumstances. Those putting greater expectations on God were especially likely to be found among the over-35s, non-manual workers, and owner-occupiers (54% in each case). For more information, see tables 63-66 at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/LeadershipPoll_tables.PDF

Same-sex marriage

The UK Data Service released on 22 January 2014 two datasets based on online, email, and postal responses to the Government’s public consultation in March-June 2012 on its Equal Civil Marriage (ECM) proposals for England and Wales. As with all such consultations, respondents were entirely self-selecting and almost certainly unrepresentative, demographically and/or attitudinally, of the population as a whole. One dataset comprises the 136,968 replies to the specific questions posed in the consultation, the other contains all 228,066 responses with coding of the more open-ended and free-text content. The coding framework developed by the Government Equalities Office includes the following codes:

SUPPORTIVE

  • Y4 Religious argument that supports ECM
  • Y5 Religious bodies ought to be allowed to marry same-sex couples if they wish to

NON-SUPPORTIVE

  • N4 Religious argument on nature of marriage and against ECM
  • N5 Religious bodies feel they will be forced to marry same-sex couples, even if they do not want to

OTHER

  • O5 All religious organizations should/must/will conduct religious marriage for same-sex couples

ISSUES

  • IS9 Ability of religious organizations to preach and teach their beliefs on the definition of marriage

For further information and documentation about these datasets, consult the UK Data Service catalogue record for Study Number 7394 at:

http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue?sn=7394

Church of England health check

The current issue of the Church Times (31 January 2014, pp. 23-9) includes the first of a four-part series entitled ‘The Church Health Check’, and examining the current state of the Church of England. The first three parts will be devoted to ‘a diagnostic investigation of the patient’, while the fourth will ask ‘what remedial treatment may be required’. The theme of the first part is churches and congregations, and its contributors include Professor Linda Woodhead and Dr Peter Brierley. Woodhead (pp. 23-4) draws on her profile of Anglicans from the 2013 Westminster Faith Debates/YouGov research, arguing that it is ‘Time to Get Serious’ for ‘Anglicans are dying out’, with ‘Anglican identity … not being transmitted from one generation to the next’ and a striking disconnect between the Church’s official teachings and grass-roots social values. Brierley (pp. 24-5) examines Anglican attendances since 2000, forecasting continuing rapid decline to 2030, within three broad age bands, while also noting some pockets of church growth (such as ‘messy church’).

Elsewhere in the same issue of the newspaper (p. 3) are featured some initial findings from the online and postal survey of a self-selecting (and thus potentially unrepresentative) sample of 4,500 clerical and lay readers of the Church Times in July and October 2013. The study was undertaken in conjunction with Professor Leslie Francis and Dr Andrew Village, and the questionnaire extended to eight pages. This first glimpse reveals an excessive degree of confidence on the part of laity (40%) that their own churches would grow over the next 12 months, notwithstanding that just 27% agreed that they often invited other people to come to church, and 19% acknowledged that newcomers would not find it easy in their church.

Lord Williams of Oystermouth’s Sharia moment

When Rowan Williams, as the then Archbishop of Canterbury, suggested in February 2008 that the absorption of aspects of Islamic Sharia law into the British legal framework was inevitable, he was condemned by over two-thirds of the public and churchgoers, with two-fifths of adults calling for him to step down. A further indication of the intense interest generated by his comments, and their broader implications for the Church of England, can be found in the dramatic increase in the number of unique UK web hosts linking to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s official website. The figure for 2008 was nearly 50% higher than for 2007 and almost 25% higher than the previous peak of 2004, although it quickly fell back to trend in 2009 and 2010. The discovery has been made by Dr Peter Webster through interrogation of the Internet Archive’s collection of .uk websites for 1996-2010, a copy of which is held by The British Library. For more details, including about methodology, see Webster’s blog post of 28 January 2014 at:

http://peterwebster.me/2014/01/28/distant-reading-the-webarchive/

Methodists and deprivation

Methodism once cultivated the reputation of being a movement for the poor and marginalized, but that no longer appears to be the case if research published by Michael Hirst in the current issue of the Methodist Recorder (31 January 2014, p. 8) is anything to go by. He has mapped the postcodes of Methodist ministers in England in 2001 and 2011 to an index of multiple deprivation for each neighbourhood, revealing that they live disproportionately and increasingly (65% in 2001, 68% in 2011) in the less deprived half of the country. Indeed, the more deprived an area, the less likely Methodist ministers were to live there and the greater the decline over the decade, from a drop of 36% in the fifth most deprived areas to 10% in the fifth least deprived areas. Around 900 active ministers changed addresses between 2001 and 2011, of whom 33% moved to more deprived areas, 41% to less deprived areas, with 26% moving to areas with a similar level of deprivation. Of 700 ministers retiring between 2001 and 2011, 74% went to live in the less deprived half of England compared with the 64% who had worked there in 2001.

Methodists on the internet

The same issue of the Methodist Recorder (31 January 2014, p. 3) also included a somewhat garbled news story about research undertaken in the Cumbria District of the Methodist Church into Methodist use of the internet. BRIN has followed this up and located the original four-page report on the survey by Martyn Evans, which is also no model of clarity. The survey was conducted in October-November 2013 and obtained responses from 100 Methodist congregations in Cumbria (or 93%). Results are mostly disaggregated in the report by circuits, or groups of Methodist churches. Overall, 58% of Methodists reported having access to the internet, which is below average, in reflection, it is suggested, of the disproportionately elderly profile of Methodists and of variable broadband provision in the county. Methodist access to the internet is mostly via a home desktop (38%) or laptop (38%), with 12% using a smartphone and 10% a tablet. Internet Explorer (53%) and Chrome (27%) are the commonest browsers for Methodists. The report is currently available at:

http://www.cumbriamethodistdistrict.org.uk/254360377788.htm

National Jewish Community Survey

On 29 January 2014 the Institute for Jewish Policy Research published its latest 45-page report on Jews in the United Kingdom in 2013: Preliminary Findings from the National Jewish Community Survey, written by David Graham, Laura Staetsky, and Jonathan Boyd. Designed to complement statistics available from the 2011 census, and funded by the Pears Foundation and a consortium of Jewish organizations, the data-gathering was managed by Ipsos MORI by means of an online survey completed by a self-selecting and thus non-probability sample of 3,736 unique UK Jewish households (containing 9,895 individuals) between 6 June and 15 July 2013. The sample was principally recruited by ‘snowballing’ techniques through a large number of ‘seed’ agencies in the Jewish community. There was some under-representation of Jewish adults aged 16-39 and 80 and over, and of Jews unaffiliated to a synagogue and of the Strictly Orthodox. Weights were applied to help correct for such sampling bias.

The report presents initial results for six principal areas: generational differences between Jews; denominational switching (within Judaism); intermarriage (with non-Jews); Jewish education; charitable giving; and health, care, and welfare. A major finding is that the observance of Jewish religious rituals (such as dietary laws, Sabbath and festivals, and synagogue attendance) actually decreases with age, being lowest among Jewish over-65s and highest for Jews under 40. The likely explanation advanced for this counter-secularizing tendency is the replenishment of younger cohorts by high birth rates among Haredi and Orthodox Jews. Across the entire sample, ethno-cultural elements (such as remembering the Holocaust and combating anti-Semitism) featured strongly in defining Jewish identity, far more so than religious beliefs and even supporting Israel (although 69% of respondents still considered the latter to be important). One of the key tenets of Judaism is to help less advantaged people, and 77% viewed donating funds to charity as an important component of Jewish identity, with 93% having made a charitable donation during the previous year (three-fifths of whom had given more than £100). All these areas, and more, covered by the preliminary findings will be explored in far more detail in subsequent thematic reports. Meanwhile, you can read the initial document at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR.Jews_in_the_UK_in_2013.NJCS_preliminary_findings.January_2014.pdf

 

 

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, church attendance, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Religious Vote and Other News

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Is there a religious vote?

A religious vote continues to exist in Britain, particularly as regards disproportionate Anglican and Jewish preferences for the Conservative Party and Catholic and Muslim preferences for the Labour Party. However, the association between religion and politics is by no means straightforward nor consistently strong (and probably weaker than yesteryear). It is also shaped by other socio-economic factors (notably class), and it is not necessarily driven by the saliency of religious or moral issues. Theo-political alignments certainly seem to be less powerful in Britain than the well-researched religious vote in the United States, albeit the latter can sometimes be exaggerated. These are some of the impressions left from a reading of the latest Theos report, published on 24 January 2014, by Ben Clements (University of Leicester) and Nick Spencer (Theos) on Voting and Values in Britain: Does Religion Count? It can be downloaded from:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/publications/2014/01/24/voting-and-values-in-britain-does-religion-count

This 123-page book, which packs in no fewer than 66 figures and 22 tables, is underpinned by secondary analysis of the British Election Studies from 1964 (including the special surveys of ethnic minorities in 1997 and 2010) and the British Social Attitudes Surveys since 2000. Its first two chapters map religious affiliation and attendance to voting yesterday (at 14 general elections between 1959 and 2010) and today (2010 and beyond, albeit omitting the recent large-scale polls by Lord Ashcroft, doubtless because he does not differentiate between Christian denominations). The third to fifth chapters map the same factors to three scales of political values (left versus right; libertarian versus authoritarian; and welfarist versus individualist), while an appendix presents the results of multivariate analysis of vote choice at the 2010 general election (drawing on the special internet panel of voters).

The findings and arguments of this work are (commendably) too nuanced and granular to restate here. Nobody could accuse the authors of over-simplification or of unevidenced assertions, such is the care with which the analysis and interpretation have been undertaken. They even resist a speculation about the likely effects on political behaviour and values of the progressive collapse of Anglican nominalism and rise of people of no religion. Consideration of the latter would have been especially interesting as they document a shift from libertarianism to authoritarianism among the ‘nones’ during the past decade. The book contains no overarching conclusion, although chapters 1 and 2 have separate summaries and conclusions, and the executive summary extends to 11 pages, reflecting the wide range of statistics.

Given all this complexity, by way of an appetizer, we confine ourselves to reproducing below a reformulated table 1.1 (p. 35) which shows average party vote share (in percentages) by religious group for all general elections between 1959 and 2010, calculated from the British Election Studies:

 

Conservative

Labour

Liberal/

Liberal

Democrat
Anglicans

47.8

35.5

15.4
Catholics

31.1

54.3

12.8
Nonconformists

41.5

36.9

19.3
Church of Scotland/Presbyterian

37.9

37.3

13.3
No religion

32.6

43.2

19.9

A Theos press release about the report, also issued on 24 January, offers a more bite-size overview under the heading ‘Anglicans are still “Tory Party at Prayer” but Muslims are Labour’s to Lose’. In it Spencer is quoted as saying that the report demonstrates that ‘religious block votes do not exist in Britain as many claim they do in America.’ On the other hand, he adds, ‘there are clear and significant alignments between various religious and political camps, of which politicians should be aware. At a time when mass party membership, political ideology and party tribalism are at a low ebb, we should pay attention to the big political values that shape our voting behaviour.’ The press release is at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2014/01/24/anglicans-are-still-aotory-party-at-prayerao-but-muslims-are-labouraos-to-lose

Disestablishment of the Church of England

Clements and Spencer have also taken a fresh look at ‘Public Opinion in Britain towards the Disestablishment of the Church of England’ in the FirstView edition of their article for the Journal of Anglican Studies, published online on 17 January 2014, and available for non-subscribers to rent or purchase. The paper derives from responses to the question about the Church of England’s continuing establishment asked in the Alternative Vote Referendum Study in Spring 2011, the importance of which Clements has already flagged up in his BRIN post of 21 May 2012. The sample is a very large one (n = 22,124 for Britain and 18,556 for England), thereby permitting a very detailed analysis.

Overall, 56% in England agreed that the Church of England should keep its status as the official established Church, with 15% disagreeing, and 29% neutral or undecided. The figures for Britain were 54%, 16%, and 31% respectively. Respondents most supportive of disestablishment were found to be men, residents of Scotland, those with degree-level education, Liberal Democrat identifiers and others with left-wing and liberal policy preferences, and readers of The Guardian. No significant differences by age group were discovered, despite generational variations in religious belonging, beliefs, and practice evident in other surveys. A limitation of the data source is that no information was gathered about religious affiliation, so religion is the one variable which cannot be controlled for. The article can be accessed at:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9151959&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S1740355313000399

Attitudes to the burka

Last summer and autumn we reported on a series of new polls of public attitudes to the wearing of the burka and full face-veil (niqab) by Muslim women in Britain. The issue is also live in several other Western countries, and the ethical, political, and legal dimensions of the matter are explored in a collection of French-language essays published on 16 January 2014: Quand la burqa passe à l’ouest: enjeux éthiques, politiques et juridiques, edited by David Koussens and Olivier Roy (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, ISBN 978-2-7535-2844-4, 280pp., €20). The chapters are a mixture of generic discussion and individual case studies, of France (particularly), Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy, and Quebec. The former include a digest of multinational polling about the burka and attitudes to Muslims in general by Ben Clements: ‘La burqa dans l’opinion publique des sociétés occidentales’ (pp. 39-52). It comprises 11 tables, with commentary, drawn from: Pew Global Attitudes Surveys in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011; European Values Surveys in 1990, 1999, and 2008; and Harris Interactive polls in 2006 and 2010. The discussion mostly centres on Britain, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. A brief conclusion highlights some distinctive characteristics of French and American public opinion.

Counting blessings

The Church of England appears to be in research overdrive at the moment. Following the release on 16 January 2014 of key findings from its 18-month Church Growth Research Programme, two more studies were published last week. First, on 20 January, to coincide with ‘Blue Monday’ (often considered as the most depressing day of the entire year), the Church issued a press release encouraging people to ‘count your blessings’, informed by new YouGov online polling which the Church had commissioned among 2,084 Britons on 10-13 January. The survey revealed that only one in ten adults never ‘count their blessings’, in the sense of feeling grateful or lucky when reviewing their life situation, while a majority (51%) count them at least once a week, including 59% of women and the over-55s and 60% of the retired. Family and/or partner (53%) is deemed to be the single most important factor when counting blessings, followed by health (15%). No option was given to mention faith or religion as a blessing in its own right, nor to acknowledge that ‘blessings’ might have a supernatural origin, along the lines of Johnson Oatman’s famous hymn of 1897, which invited its hearers and singers to acknowledge ‘what the Lord hath done’. The Church’s press release, including a link to YouGov’s full data table, is at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2014/01/count-your-blessings-on-blue-monday,-says-cofe.aspx

Credit unions

Then, on 22 January 2014 the Church Urban Fund (CUF) published a preliminary research report on credit unions: Money Speaks Louder than Words: Credit Unions and the Role of the Church in Tackling Financial Exclusion. The Church has been advocating a greater role for credit unions to combat the social evils which are seen to stem from the rapid growth of the payday lending sector and is encouraging churchgoers to invest some of their savings in such unions. To test churchgoers’ experience of and attitudes to credit unions, the Church commissioned two pieces of research: a quantitative study of 385 churchgoers of all denominations aged 16-75 who worshipped at least once a year (among them 200 attending at least once a month), interviewed online by Ipsos MORI in December 2013; and six focus groups involving 54 regular Anglican churchgoers.

Among the Ipsos MORI panel past or present membership of credit unions by all churchgoers was found to be very low (5%), with only 22% feeling they knew a great deal or fair amount about such unions, and less than one-quarter willing to consider joining a credit union in future, even after they had been given a brief explanation of how the unions function. At the same time, 83% of churchgoers agreed that payday loans exploit those who cannot access other forms of credit, and around one-half that the Churches should engage with credit unions in some way. Overall conclusions drawn by CUF from the quantitative and qualitative research were that churchgoers: think there is a need to develop a more ethical financial system; are positive about credit unions in principle but have some concerns; and believe the Churches should help the credit union sector to grow. The report can be read at:

http://www.cuf.org.uk/money-speaks

Religious gypsies

On 21 January 2014 the Office for National Statistics published a report on What does the 2011 Census Tell Us about the Characteristics of Gypsy or Irish Travellers in England and Wales? The 2011 census represented the first time that the ethnic group question had included a dedicated tick box for the white ethnic sub-group of gypsy or Irish traveller (which is recognized under the Equality Act 2010), and, in the event, 58,000 people identified themselves as such in the census (albeit this figure is lower than previous estimates). The report itself makes only a couple of brief references to the religious affiliation of the gypsy or Irish traveller community, but fortunately the detail can be calculated from Table DC2201EW, showing ethnic group by religion, which has been available for some time.

Summary data (in percentages) are presented in the table below, from which it will be seen that the proportion of Christians among gypsies and Irish travellers was much the same as in the white population overall, but that 4.6% less professed no religion and 2.4% more declined to answer the question. The lower figure for ‘nones’ is especially interesting in that the median age of gypsies and Irish travellers in 2011 was 13 years less than in England and Wales (26 versus 39), and that ‘nones’ generally tend to be concentrated among younger cohorts. The predominance of Christians is unsurprising. Historically, there were quite close links between gypsies and Christian evangelism in Britain, explored in a 2003 book by David Lazell, with Gypsy Smith one of the most famous revivalists of the early twentieth century.

 

Gypsy or Irish Traveller

All white people

All persons
Christian

64.1

63.9

59.3
Buddhist

0.7

0.2

0.4
Hindu

0.2

0.0

1.5
Jewish

0.4

0.5

0.5
Muslim

0.7

0.4

4.8
Sikh

0.2

0.0

0.8
Other religion

1.4

0.4

0.4
No religion

22.7

27.3

25.1
Not stated

9.6

7.2

7.2

 

 

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Scrooging Christmas and Other News

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Christmas has become such a secular festival in contemporary Britain that one might have thought that even non-religious people would have no difficulty in joining in, but our first story today shows a disproportionate dislike for Christmas on their part. The other nine brief items are not particularly seasonal but have all come to hand during the past week or so.

Scrooging Christmas

When it comes to Christmas, people who profess no religion are more likely to be saying ‘Bah! Humbug!’ this year than many people of faith, according to a YouGov poll published on 30 November 2013 for which 1,888 Britons were interviewed online on 26-27 November. Overall, 75% of Britons express a like for Christmas and 21% a dislike, but the figures are 67% and 29% respectively for people of no religion. Adherents of the two main Christian denominations, by contrast, are proportionately more disposed to like Christmas (80% of Anglicans and 82% of Catholics). Similarly, given the chance, 24% of the ‘nones’ would cancel Christmas, against 16% of all Britons, 14% of Anglicans, and 4% of Catholics. Results for other religious groups are based on too small numbers to be meaningful. The greater propensity of the ‘nones’ to dislike Christmas is not merely a function of their younger age profile, since 18-24s generally are less likely to dislike Christmas (13%) than the over-60s (27%). The data tables can be found at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/i2osjr6bxm/YG-Archive-131127-Xmasv2.pdf

Gendering conference

Women may form the backbone of most congregations, but Christian Churches in the UK still have some considerable way to go before they achieve full gender equality in terms of governance and leadership. If further proof of this was required, it was published by Natalie Collins on 13 November 2013 on her God Loves Women blog. Responding to a similar exercise in the United States, she and Helen Austin analysed the gender of speakers and presenters at 26 Christian conferences in the UK, mostly during 2013 but with a few prospective ones for 2014. The majority of these events were evangelical in nature, including substantial festivals such as Spring Harvest and Greenbelt. Of 1,072 presentations (taking account of the fact that individuals often spoke more than once at the same event), only 26% overall were made by women, albeit this was better than in the United States (19%). The UK wooden spoon went to Keswick, which had 21 male but no female speakers, but the proportion of women at the podium was also notably low at the HTB Leadership Conference (13%) and New Horizon (14%). The post can be read at:

http://god-loves-women.webs.com/apps/blog/show/35601231-are-uk-christian-conferences-sexist-

2011 census (1): aggregate data

The UK Data Service announced on 2 December 2013 that aggregate data (about households and individuals within areas) from the 2011 census are now available as Study Number 7427. They cover the full range of geographies employed in the census, from the smallest (output areas with an average of 150 persons) to the nation as a whole. At the moment, aggregate data are only provided for England and Wales, but those for Scotland and Northern Ireland will be added soon. Data (for the 2001 as well as 2011 census) can be accessed through the InFuse service at the University of Manchester, which is easy to manipulate. In the case of religion calculations can be made for 2011 at the broad (9 category) or detailed (49 category) levels. InFuse is available at:

http://infuse.mimas.ac.uk/

2011 census (2): religion and the over-85s

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a new analysis of the ‘oldest old’ in the 2011 census of England and Wales on 6 December 2013. It revealed that there were 1.25 million people aged 85 and over on census day, 24% up on the 2001 level, and 45% in the case of men (although women continued to outnumber men by more than two to one in this age cohort). Doubtless reflecting their upbringing, the over-85s remained disproportionately Christian relative to under-65s in the population, 83% against 55%, the former figure being only 1% lower than in 2001 whereas the latter dropped by 14%. Judaism was the next most followed religion among the over-85s, with 11,000 adherents (much the same as a decade before), unlike in the country at large, where it was Islam. However, the number of over-85s affiliating to a religion other than Christianity or Judaism rose by 118% during the decade, with especially big absolute growth for Hindus and Muslims. Merely 71,000 over-85s stated that they had no religion. Non-response to the voluntary religion question was higher among the over-85s (9%) than the under-65s (7%), which ONS attributes to those living in communal establishments, such as care homes, where carers may have lacked the necessary information or time to complete this question on behalf of residents. The ONS briefing can be read at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_342117.pdf

Faith schools (1)

More heat was injected into the debate on faith schools on 3 December 2013 when the Fair Admissions Campaign (FAC) published an interactive map and commentary in a bid to demonstrate the extent of religious and socio-economic selection in state-funded English secondary schools, and its effect on social and ethnic inclusion. The research features information on every mainstream state-funded English secondary school, including how religiously selective its admissions policies are, and how representative it is of the local area in terms of the number of pupils eligible for free school meals (FSMs) and pupils speaking English as an additional language. Data were derived from various central government statistics and local authority admissions directories.

On social inclusion, the key finding claimed by FAC is that comprehensive secondaries with no religious character admit 11% more pupils eligible for FSMs than would be expected given their areas, while faith secondary schools (which account for 19% of the total) admit fewer than expected (10% fewer in Anglican schools, 24% fewer in Catholic schools, 61% fewer in Jewish schools, and 25% fewer in Muslim schools). A clear correlation is asserted by FAC between religious selection and socio-economic segregation, with schools applying religious admissions criteria tending to perform least well on indicators of eligibility for FSMs and English as an additional language.

Overall, FAC calculates that 16% of secondary schools religiously select pupils to some degree, affecting 72% of all places at faith secondary schools (and 13% of all secondary places in the state sector). The proportion of places affected by religious selection rises to 50% in Anglican and virtually 100% in Catholic secondaries. FAC further estimates that 17% of places at state primary schools are also subject to religious admissions criteria, giving a combined figure of 1,200,000 places at primary and secondary levels in England.

The map can be found at:

http://fairadmissions.org.uk/map/

and key findings and explanation of methodology at:

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/files/fair-admissions-campaign-map-briefing.pdf

Faith schools (2)

Meanwhile, the Catholic Education Service (CES) for England and Wales has just released the results of its 2013 annual census of Catholic schools and colleges with, for the first time, separate digests for England and Wales, plus a key facts card for England. At an initial glance, the story-line for England might seem hard to square with FAC calculations, above, the CES claiming (on the basis of its census, which achieved a 98% response, and Department for Education data) that Catholic schools recruit pupils disproportionately from the most deprived areas and from ethnic minority backgrounds. It should be noted that the CES deprivation comparisons draw on the official Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index (IDACI), rather than on eligibility for FSMs (the measure used by FAC, and on which, by CES’s own admission, Catholic schools certainly fall somewhat below the national average). Catholic schools are also said to outperform schools generally by 5% in terms of SATs scores for English and mathematics at age 11 and GCSE passes. In England, excluding 136 Catholic independent schools, there are 2,027 Catholic schools and colleges (equivalent to 10% of the maintained sector), attended by 770,083 students (of whom 70% are Catholic), and employing 46,664 teachers (of whom 55% are Catholic). In Wales there are 87 Catholic schools in the maintained sector, with 28,604 pupils and 1,570 teachers. The two digests can be found at:

http://www.catholiceducation.org.uk/ces-census

London church growth

Further to our coverage of last year’s Greater London church census in our most recent post (30 November 2013), some BRIN readers may like to know of a colloquium planned for 2 May 2014 on the theme of ‘Church Growth and Decline in a Global City: London, 1980 to the Present’. The event is being organized by the Centre for Church Growth Research at Cranmer Hall, St John’s College, Durham University and the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. It will be held in Room 349, Senate House, University of London between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Confirmed speakers include: Professor David Martin (LSE), Professor John Wolffe (Open University), Dr Peter Brierley (Brierley Consultancy, which conducted the census), Dr Lois Lee (University College London), Dr Alana Harris (Lincoln College, Oxford), Dr Andrew Rogers (University of Roehampton), and Rev Dr Babatunde Adedibu (Redeemed Christian Church of God). The cost is £50 (£35 for students). For more detailed information, and to book a place, visit: www.durham.ac.uk/churchgrowth.research

Trust in professionals

Ipsos MORI updated its trust in professions (veracity) index on 3 December 2013. It covers 16 professions, including clergy (column headed ‘cle’ in the table). It will be seen that the proportion of the British public trusting clergy to tell the truth has fallen from 85% in 1983 to 66% today, with a corresponding rise in those distrusting the clergy (from 11% to 27%). The trend cannot be attributed to a generic decline in the perceived truthfulness of all professions because most of the other columns are fairly static or even show some improvement in public standing over time (especially for civil servants and trade union officials). The index can be seen at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/15/Trust-in-Professions.aspx?view=wide

Academic confession

Professor David Martin, FBA is the elder statesman of British sociology of religion, particularly known for his writings on secularization and Pentecostalism. Now in his eighties, he has recently published a fascinating retrospect of his intellectual journey: The Education of David Martin: The Making of an Unlikely Sociologist (SPCK, pp. xi + 251, paperback, £25.00, ISBN: 978-0-281-07118-0). In it (p. 131) he reflects thus on his first major book, A Sociology of English Religion, which was published in 1967 at the height of what has since been termed the ‘religious crisis’ of the 1960s: ‘Perhaps its flaws were understandable, but I am embarrassed to have missed the decline in the second half of the sixties. I insouciantly ignored what the statistical experts in the Church of England were telling me, for example, about declines in rates of confirmation. I was dubious about using church statistics, even when, as in the case of Methodism, they were very good. If I had looked at the statistics of Methodist decline as a proportion of total population, as Robert Currie did somewhat later, I would have seen them marching steadily downwatd year by year.’

BRIN not in a spin

Scanning this weekend’s religious press, as we normally do, it was hard to avoid pausing over the headline ‘BRIN’S MISLEADING SPIN’ atop one of the letters in the Jewish Chronicle for 6 December 2013 (p. 37). BRIN caught out spinning? Surely not, when we strive so hard to be impartial! In fact, the letter was written by Rabbi Naftali Schiff in response to David Brin’s attempt ‘to put a positive spin on the figures regarding [Jewish] intermarriage’. Schiff contends that there is a serious problem of Jewish out-marriage, with less than one-third of Jews marrying in, except for the Charedi (Strictly Orthodox) community. So BRIN stands acquitted, even if (David) Brin does not.

 

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Official data, People news, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news, visualisation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Portrait of Catholics and Other News

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Clive D. Field

This week’s post contains five religious statistical stories, leading on a major new survey of Roman Catholic religious practice and values.

Portrait of Catholics

Results from one of the most extensive surveys of Roman Catholic opinion for many years were released on 12 November 2013. The poll was commissioned by Professor Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University in connection with the Westminster Faith Debates and conducted online by YouGov between 5 and 11 June 2013 among 1,062 self-identifying British Catholics aged 18 and over. The questions were a direct replication of those put by YouGov to a national sample of 4,018 adults on 5-13 June 2013, again on behalf of Professor Woodhead. Data tables for the Catholic sample, extending to 160 pages and containing innumerable two-way breaks, can be found at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/k0rbt8onjb/YG-Archive-050613-FaithMatters-UniversityofLancaster.pdf

It would naturally be impossible to do full justice to such a rich dataset in a brief post on BRIN, but the following table (using paraphrased questions) gives a flavour of how Catholic opinion on a range of moral, religious, and political issues differs (or not) from that of the general public (all figures in percentages):

 

Britons

Catholics
Moral issues

Abortion should be banned

6

19
Same-sex marriage is wrong

37

43
Assisted suicide should be legalized

76

58
Catholic adoption agencies should not   be denied charitable status for refusing same-sex adoption

39

57
B&B owners should not be allowed to refuse accommodation on grounds of sexual orientation

57

52
British society has become worse since 1945

51

50
Individuals are more selfish than 20   years ago

70

70
Religious issues

Faith schools generally should not be   state-funded

45

28
Catholic schools should not be state-funded

43

20
Muslim protests against cartoons of   the Prophet were justified

42

50
Christian protests against Jerry Springer: the Opera were justified

42

53
Concerned about Islamist terrorism

52

54
Church of England is a positive force   in society

18

21
Church of England is a negative force   in society

14

11
Catholic Church is a positive force in   society

13

36
Catholic Church is a negative force in   society

28

9
Political issues

Immigration has impacted negatively on my life

28

30
Cultural diversity of British cities is a bad thing

28

30
Better to live in Britain when more   people shared a common culture

48

48
Would vote for Britain to leave   European Union

47

44
Welfare budget is too high and should   be reduced

46

46
Britain’s welfare system has created a   culture of dependency

61

59
Crime rate is rising

44

44
Margaret Thatcher did more good for   Britain than Tony Blair

39

34
Tony Blair did more good for Britain   than Margaret Thatcher

18

24

Professor Woodhead has written two articles for The Tablet based on the survey, also drawing upon the inevitably smaller Catholic sub-samples from YouGov’s two national polls for the Westminster Faith Debates, on 25-30 January and 5-13 June 2013. The first article, published in the issue of 9 November 2013 (pp. 12-13), principally covers Catholic attitudes to sex, contraception, family, women, abortion, and same-sex marriage. The second article (16 November 2013, pp. 6-7) concentrates on the religious beliefs and practices of Catholics and their socio-political values. Both articles highlight how far British Catholics ‘have come adrift’ from Vatican-style Catholicism, only 5% overall and 2% of the under-30s now conforming to the model of ‘faithful Catholics’ according to the Church’s Magisterium.

Jewish births, marriages, and deaths

David Vulkan’s analysis of Britain’s Jewish Community Statistics, 2012 has also been released this week, by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the umbrella body which collects the data from synagogues and other agencies. It can be found at:

http://www.bod.org.uk/content/CommunityStatistics2012.pdf

The report provides a demographic rather than attitudinal snapshot of Britain’s Jewish community, with reference to births, marriages, divorces, and deaths which are recorded under Jewish auspices (life events not marked by ‘a formal Jewish act’ will therefore be omitted, rendering it misleading to express the data as rates per 1,000 Jews). The headline findings are:

  • Births: There were at least 3,860 Jewish births in 2011. This figure is inferred, from records of male circumcisions and a multiplier for female births, and it includes some estimation for missing data. Births to strictly Orthodox (or Charedi) Jewish parents now account for at least two-fifths of the total. This reflects the younger age profile, earlier marriage, and higher birth rate of the strictly Orthodox.
  • Marriages: There was an increase in Jewish marriages between 2011 and 2012, from 808 to 857, but the long-term trend remains downwards (there were 1,029 in 1992). The proportion of strictly Orthodox marriages has trebled over the past three decades. On present trends, they are predicted to constitute a majority of Jewish marriages within the next decade.
  • Divorces: Statistics relate to religiously sanctioned divorces (excluding civil divorces). The trend is downwards, from 277 in 1992 to an estimated 188 in 2012.
  • Deaths: The long-term decline in the number of Jewish burials or cremations continues, from 4,200 in 1992 to 2,575 in 2012 (albeit the latter was up from 2,452 in 2011). Since 2005 deaths have been lower than the number of births, meaning that there is natural increase in the Jewish community. Whether that translates into an actual increase will depend upon migration flows, on which the Board has no data.

Jewish perceptions and experiences of anti-Semitism

Two-thirds of UK Jews think that anti-Semitism has increased a lot (27%) or a little (39%) in the country over the past five years, and only 5% consider it has decreased, according to data released by the European Union (EU) Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) on 8 November 2013. Moreover, 48% of UK Jews regard anti-Semitism generally as a very (11%) or fairly big (37%) problem in the UK, with 52% seeing it as such in the media and 64% on the internet. Association of Jews in the public mind with Israel and even the economic crisis is believed to contribute to anti-Semitism, while negative statements about Jews are most often attributed to people with left-wing political views and to Muslim extremists. Worries about becoming a victim of verbal insult or harassment over the next year are expressed by 28% of UK Jews, with 17% fearful of being physically attacked. One-fifth constantly or frequently avoid wearing or carrying things in public which might identify them as Jews, and 18% claim to have considered emigrating because they do not feel safe living as a Jew in the UK.

Personal experiences of anti-Semitism are lower than perceptions, 16% of UK Jews reporting personal discrimination or harassment during the past 12 months on the basis of their religion or belief, and 19% of verbal insult/harassment and/or physical attack over the same timescale due to being Jewish. Over the previous five years 29% have endured one or more of five forms of anti-Semitic harassment. The workplace is the most common context for such incidents, 76% of which (in the past year) or 71% (in the past five years) go unreported. However, in terms of both perception and experience, anti-Semitism appears to be less widespread and virulent in the UK than in several other European countries surveyed, notably France, Belgium, and Hungary.

The data for this survey were collected by Ipsos MORI, in association with the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, in the eight countries collectively containing more than 90% of the EU’s estimated Jewish population: Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden, and the UK. Fieldwork took place in September-October 2012 using an online sample of 5,847 self-identifying Jews aged 16 and over, of whom 1,468 were from the UK. The questionnaire was placed on the open web, and publicized via the FRA and Jewish media and other agencies. Respondents were entirely self-selecting and cannot necessarily be considered to be national Jewish cross-sections. They are likely disproportionately to comprise those with an interest in, or experience of, anti-Semitism and to be members of Jewish community organizations. Nor did it prove feasible to weight the data to correct for any demographic bias. As the report notes: ‘this methodology is unable to deliver a random probability sample fulfilling the statistical criteria for representativeness’. Therefore, great care should be taken in interpreting the results.

An 80-page report on the survey, Discrimination and Hate Crime against Jews in EU Member States: Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism, can be read at:

http://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra-2013-discrimination-hate-crime-against-jews-eu-member-states_en.pdf

An interactive visualization website, with data export facility, has also been set up, permitting the results for each question for each country to be analysed by age, gender, strength of Jewish identity, and strength of religiosity. This can be found at:

http://fra.europa.eu/DVS/DVT/as2013.php

Wearing the veil in court

The debate about whether a female Muslim defendant should be allowed to wear the niqab or full face veil in court has still not run out of steam. If anything, it has been rekindled by the Lord Chief Justice’s recent announcement that there is to be a public consultation about the wearing of the niqab in courtrooms. In a new YouGov poll for the Sunday Times among 1,878 Britons on 7-8 November 2013, 55% agreed that a defendant should be made to remove the niqab throughout her entire trial and a further 32% when giving evidence (but not otherwise). The combined figure of 87% wanting the niqab prohibited for at least part of the trial peaked at 99% of UKIP supporters, 96% of Conservatives, 96% of over-60s, and 93% of Londoners. More generally, 63% of adults wanted to see a complete ban on wearing the niquab in Britain, rising to 93% of UKIP voters and 82% of over-60s. The full data are available on pp. 7-8 of the survey tables at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/qhng8fwkh7/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-081113.pdf

Self-assessed religiosity

In last week’s post (8 November 2013) we reported results about the claimed frequency of prayer in the UK from Round 6 of the European Social Survey, the dataset for which has recently been released. Now we present the (weighted) answers given to another question: ‘Regardless of whether you belong to a particular religion, how religious would you say you are?’ Interviewees were given a showcard inviting them to choose a point on a scale running from 0 (not at all religious) to 10 (very religious).

Religiosity score 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012
0

14.4

11.4

18.1

18.8

18.0

17.0
1

5.6

7.7

7.7

6.9

8.4

8.2
2

9.7

10.2

9.1

9.8

10.3

9.5
3

10.0

10.6

11.1

10.4

10.4

10.1
4

8.0

10.6

8.9

7.8

8.6

7.5
5

17.7

15.2

14.3

13.8

13.9

12.9
6

10.4

8.8

8.0

8.9

7.4

8.7
7

10.1

8.6

9.6

10.0

9.4

10.1
8

8.2

9.0

6.4

6.1

6.5

9.4
9

2.8

4.3

2.8

3.1

3.4

3.4
10

3.1

3.7

4.1

4.4

3.6

3.3
Low (0-3)

39.7

39.9

46.0

45.9

47.1

44.8
Medium (4-6)

36.1

34.6

31.2

30.5

29.9

29.1
High (7-10)

24.2

25.6

22.9

23.6

22.9

26.2

The scores have been summed into three bands, corresponding to low, medium, and high religiosity. Unsurprisingly, the proportion self-assessing as of low religiosity has increased, from 40% in 2002 to 47% in 2010, before dropping to 45% in 2012. The high religiosity group has fluctuated in size but was actually larger in 2012 than in 2002 (26 versus 24%). It is naturally too soon to say whether the 2012 data mark the reversal of a downward trend or are something of a ‘blip’.

 

 

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Rites of Passage, Survey news, visualisation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Prayer and Other News

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Today’s post features eight religious statistical news stories, leading on an analysis by BRIN of the answers to one of the questions in the latest round of the European Social Survey, whose results have just been released.

Prayer

Data from Round 6 (2012) of the European Social Survey (ESS) have recently been released for most of the 30 participating countries and can be accessed at http://nesstar.ess.nsd.uib.no. UK fieldwork was undertaken by Ipsos MORI through face-to-face interviews with 2,286 adults aged 15 and over between 1 September 2012 and 7 February 2013. The standard short battery of ESS religion questions was included in the schedule: self-assessed religiosity, current and former religious affiliation, churchgoing, private prayer, and experience of religious discrimination. Trend statistics (weighted) for the claimed frequency of private prayer (i.e. apart from during religious services) in the UK appear below (figures in percentages):

 

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012
Every day

19.1

18.6

18.1

17.9

17.5

17.6
More than once a week

6.9

9.2

7.5

6.4

5.3

6.9
Once a week

5.2

5.0

5.3

5.2

5.0

7.0
At least once a month

6.1

6.0

5.8

6.0

5.7

5.3
Only on special holy days

2.1

2.5

1.4

1.9

2.2

1.9
Less often

16.9

16.7

15.7

14.8

15.9

14.5
Never

43.8

42.1

46.3

47.7

48.4

46.8

As ever with sample surveys, there are some fluctuations in results between surveys. Nevertheless, comparing 2012 with 2002, it will be seen that the proportion of UK citizens claiming to pray once a week or more has stayed the same (31.2% in 2002, 31.5% in 2012), although the number never praying has risen by three percentage points over the decade and is well in excess of the European average in 2012 (37.9%). In 2012 the UK ranked ninth of 24 countries in terms of percentage of the population never praying, as shown in the following table.

Czech Republic

70.5

 Germany

36.9
Denmark

58.2

 Russian Federation

36.4
Estonia

57.3

 Iceland

33.2
Netherlands

55.3

 Switzerland

32.9
Sweden

55.3

 Finland

32.6
Belgium

53.9

 Portugal

23.9
Norway

52.0

 Bulgaria

23.9
Slovenia

47.3

 Slovakia

22.7
United Kingdom

46.8

 Kosovo

15.4
Hungary

41.3

 Ireland

14.2
Spain

40.0

 Poland

10.8
Israel

38.6

 Cyprus

4.8

Faith tourism in Wales

A Wales Faith Tourism Action Plan was launched at St Asaph’s Cathedral by the Welsh Government on 25 October 2013 as part of its long-term strategy to boost tourism. The plan’s 2020 vision is ‘to exploit the full potential of Wales’ places of worship for the visitor economy and to exploit the visitor economy for the purpose of sustaining Wales’ places of worship’. It aims to build upon the existing contribution which places of worship make to Welsh tourism. In 2011 (the last year for which data are available) St David’s Cathedral was the seventh most popular free visitor attraction in Wales. According to Visit Wales, the top five places of worship in that year in terms of visitor numbers were:

St David’s Cathedral

262,000
Norwegian Church, Cardiff

149,000
Brecon Cathedral

120,000
Tintern Abbey

70,000
Llandaff Cathedral

40,000

During 2012 visitors from the UK spent an estimated £12 million while visiting cathedrals, churches, and other religious sites in Wales. More details about the initiative can be found at:

http://wales.gov.uk/newsroom/tourism/2013/8125137/?lang=en

Barristers on the veil

The majority of barristers (57%) favours a ban on defendants wearing the full face-veil or niqab during the whole of a criminal trial, and a further 34% support a ban when the defendant is giving evidence. This is according to a single question online poll of members of the Bar Council conducted during October 2013 on behalf of The Times, and summarized by Frances Gibb, the newspaper’s legal editor, in an article in The Times for 2 November 2013 (available online to subscribers). Over 400 barristers responded via Survey Monkey. The poll has been triggered by the public debate about the case of a Muslim defendant who had insisted on wearing the niqab in court but who had been told by the judge she must remove it when giving evidence.

Bonfire Night

The chairman of the Edinburgh Secular Society recently called for a purely secular alternative to Bonfire Night on 5 November, to rid it of its anti-Catholic overtones, arguing that the burning of effigies of Guy Fawkes or even the Pope was an offensive way to connect to the failed plot by Catholic conspirators to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. In response, a spokesperson for the Free Church of Scotland branded the secularists as ‘the puritanical killjoys of the 21st century’.

In practice, the tradition has long since moved on, and the effigies burned on bonfires are no longer just of individuals associated with the Gunpowder Plot but can be of any living public figures or celebrities who are disliked. This year a Kent bonfire society gained widespread publicity for choosing Katie Hopkins, former contestant in The Apprentice, as its annual ‘guy’, to be burned in effigy.

According to a YouGov poll, conducted online on 3-4 November 2013 among a sample of 1,747 Britons, the public is evenly divided (43% each way) on whether it is acceptable or unacceptable to burn well-known people in effigy on bonfires on or around 5 November. Men (55%) are far more likely to find it acceptable than women (31%). Somewhat fewer adults (28%) deemed it acceptable to burn an effigy of Hopkins. As for Bonfire Night itself, 24% anticipated they would be celebrating it this year, while, in a separate YouGov poll on 30-31 October, 45% said they preferred Guy Fawkes Night to Halloween, with only 13% preferring Halloween. The Bonfire Night tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/sz92wiohpx/YG-Archive-131104-Bonfire-Night.pdf

Christmas carols

BRIN has tried to spare you Christmas stories for as long as possible this year, but we cannot hold out indefinitely! Especially since there are only six full weeks to go before the festivities. Our seasonal coverage opens with news from OnePoll, published on 4 November 2013, that its latest online survey of adults aged 18 and over has confirmed Silent Night as the nation’s favourite Christmas carol, taking 59% of the vote. The carols in second to fifth positions were: O Come All Ye Faithful, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, O Little Town of Bethlehem, and Away in a Manger. A majority (62%) of the sample said they would open their door to Christmas carollers. OnePoll also found that 23% of people who celebrate Christmas go and see a nativity play, and that 55% admit to having performed themselves in Christmas ‘shows’, three-quarters of which were nativity plays. The press release is at:

http://www.onepoll.com/fairytale-of-new-york-is-top-favourite-christmas-song/

Adoption

To mark the start of National Adoption Week, on 4 November 2013 First4Adoption launched a campaign to increase the number of adopters in England, working in partnership with Home for Good, a Christian agency which aims to make adoption and fostering a significant part of church life. The campaign is targeting faith communities, among others, on the basis of survey data gathered by Kindred and Work Research on behalf of the Department for Education. The research, which was quietly published earlier in the year, is being newly promoted to help underpin the campaign. It comprised both qualitative and quantitative interviews, the latter conducted online among a sample of 4,948 English adults aged 18-65 between 30 November and 5 December 2012. Quotas were set for age, gender, and region to ensure that a national cross-section was achieved. The survey revealed that among the demographic groups most predisposed to adopt or foster children were: a) the 31% of people who claim actively to practice their religion, whatever it is; and b) the 5% who profess to be Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, or Sikhs. In fact, 55% of those who said they were certain or very likely to adopt a child described themselves as actively practising their religion. This was seen by the researchers as part of a wider association between predisposition to adopt and ‘an altruistic streak’. The survey has been partially reported at:

http://www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/families/adoption/a00223862/adopter-recruitment

Catholics polled on family life

In preparation for the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family, to be held at the Vatican on 5-19 October 2014, the Roman Catholic Church is consulting the global faithful about family life. It has drawn up a 40-question survey instrument covering the following ten areas:

  • Diffusion of the teachings on the family in scripture and the Church’s magisterium
  • Place of marriage according to natural law
  • Pastoral care of the family in evangelization
  • Pastoral care in difficult marital situations
  • Same-sex unions
  • Education of children in ‘irregular’ marriages
  • Openness of married couples to life issues (including contraception)
  • Relationship between the family and the person
  • Other challenges and proposals
  • Further comments

It is hard to be charitable about the design of the questionnaire, whose content lacks any kind of social scientific rigour. The questions are all of the open variety, calling for free text responses, and with no pre-set reply codes. They are mostly expressed in complicated language, with an excess of ecclesiastical jargon, and are sometimes ‘leading’. The short demographics section is very deficient and does not even ask for the respondent’s gender. On these various counts, as well as because all respondents will be entirely self-selecting, it is unlikely that any useful (or at least representative) statistics will emerge from the survey.

Presumably, however, it was not the Vatican’s intention to engage in grass-roots-led and evidence-based development of doctrine and policy. As Archbishop Bruno Forte, Secretary of the Extraordinary Synod, has clearly explained: ‘The Synod does not have to decide on the basis of the majority of public opinion’.

All the national bishops’ conferences have been asked to disseminate the survey. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has chosen to do so by making the questionnaire available online, with an option to complete it via Survey Monkey (with no obvious safeguards against misuse). Apparently, there is also to be a printed version in The Universe, a Catholic weekly. The closing date for responses is 30 November 2013.

According to James Bone, Vatican correspondent of The Times writing in that newspaper on 6 November 2013 (‘Vatican Survey Gives Catholics Chance to Question Their Faith’), the Vatican has been somewhat put out by the exercise in ‘direct democracy’ on the part of the English and Welsh bishops.

For more information, go to:

http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/Home/Featured/Synod-of-Bishops-on-the-Family-2014

Christian Research’s new website

Christian Research has recently launched a new website at:

http://www.christian-research.org/

The public domain pages on the site seem mainly concerned to promote Christian Research’s consultancy services, including the potential of its online panel of some 12,000 churchgoers and church leaders (Resonate). At this stage at least, the public pages do not contain much actual research data, and certainly no substantive details of published Resonate polls, although copies of a few past publications by Christian Research are advertised for sale.

The Religious Trends section of the website can only be accessed by those paying an annual membership fee to Christian Research. The section replaces the printed edition of Religious Trends, the seventh and last edition of which was published as far back as 2008. The online version of Religious Trends remains remarkably thin and not particularly current. Indeed, in terms of content, it seems to have moved on very little from the launch version which we covered on BRIN in our post of 6 January 2011. There are sub-sections on: introduction; the world and its religions; UK church overview; Anglicans UK; other UK Churches; the Bible; and other research reports.

As it currently stands, Christian Research’s Religious Trends online compares unfavourably with Dr Peter Brierley’s research outputs, in FutureFirst and UK Church Statistics, the second edition of which will be out next year. As the former director of Christian Research, Brierley was responsible for all the print editions of Religious Trends and much else besides.

 

 

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Muslim Distinctiveness and Other News

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Today’s round-up of eight religious statistical news stories leads on the first substantive output from an important and academic-led four-year-old sample survey of British Muslims.

Muslim distinctiveness

The distinctiveness of British Muslims is explored in a short but highly significant article by Valerie Lewis and Ridhi Kashyap, ‘Are Muslims a Distinctive Minority? An Empirical Analysis of Religiosity, Social Attitudes, and Islam’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 52, No. 3, September 2013, pp. 617-26. Data derive from face-to-face interviews by Ipsos MORI with a sample of 480 British Muslims between January and May 2009; and from face-to-face interviews by NatCen with samples of Britons of other religious persuasions (n = 2,457) and none (n = 1,903) from the contemporaneous British Social Attitudes Survey. Muslims were found to be more religious than other Britons in terms of beliefs, practices (public and private), and salience. They were also more socially conservative on a range of topics: gender roles in the home, divorce, premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage. In terms of premarital sex and homosexuality, an independent effect of Islam was documented; on other social issues Muslim attitudes tended to resemble those of other religious people. Indeed, more generally, multivariate analysis revealed that much of the difference on socio-moral opinions was due to socio-economic disadvantage and high religiosity, both factors which – Lewis and Kashyap argue – predict social conservatism among all Britons and not just Muslims. The distinctiveness of Muslims, therefore, may not be as great as it superficially seems. It should be noted that no weights were applied to the Muslim data, and that there are several caveats from the authors concerning the representative nature of the Muslim sample (including a high rate of non-response). For access options for this article, go to:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.12044/abstract

Civic core

Two-thirds of all charitable activity (charitable donations and volunteering) in this country is attributable to just 9% of its citizens (the ‘civic core’). This is according to a report published by the Charities Aid Foundation on 13 September 2013 and entitled Britain’s Civic Core: Who are the People Powering Britain’s Charities? A further 67% of individuals account for the remaining 34% of charitable activity (the so-called ‘middle ground’), while 24% of the population undertake little or no charitable activity (‘zero givers’). Members of the ‘civic core’ have the greatest interest (37%) in supporting religious organizations (including places of worship), with ‘zero givers’ showing the least (10%); among the ‘middle ground’ the proportion is 20%. This trend reflects the fact that the ‘civic core’ is disproportionately composed of women, the over-65s, and people from professional/managerial backgrounds – precisely those groups most inclined to be involved with organized religion. The data derive from an online survey of 2,027 Britons aged 18 and over conducted by ComRes on 31 July and 1 August 2013, and the report is available at:

https://www.cafonline.org/PDF/CAF_Britains_Civic_Core_Sept13.pdf

Full data tables for the poll were released by ComRes on 16 September. Table 21 provides breaks for interest in religious organizations by gender, age, social grade, employment sector, region, ethnicity, and the monetary value of volunteering and charitable donations. Table 64 gives details about volunteering for religious organizations during the past year among the sub-group of respondents who have given practical help to a social cause. Table 89 records self-assigned ‘membership’ of religious groups (56% Christian, 8% non-Christian, 34% none). Unfortunately, religious affiliation is not used in this set of tables as a variable to analyse answers to all the other questions about charitable disposition and activity. The data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/CAF_People_Power_9_August_2013_Sig.pdf

Confessions

The Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales reported on 2 September 2013 that the number of confessions (Sacrament of Reconciliation) is rising at many of its cathedrals. Twenty-two cathedrals were contacted by telephone or email on 21 August, of which 20 replied. Overall, 65% (i.e. 13 cathedrals) noted an increase in confessions, mostly attributing it to a ‘papal effect’ (either the visit to Britain of Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, the inauguration of Pope Francis I in 2013, or both), while the remaining 35% (7 cathedrals) said confessions were ‘steady’ or ‘normal’. Actual statistics of those confessing were not cited by the Church, and it is possible that they constitute a relatively small proportion of professing Catholics. The Church’s press release is at:

http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/Home/News/Back-to-Church

The story was picked up by all the UK’s Catholic newspapers and by the Church Times, including a particularly upbeat report and leader in the Catholic Herald. Responding to the latter, in a letter to the editor published in the Catholic Herald for 13 September 2013 (p. 13), Anthony Hofler of Wolverhampton was in little doubt from his own experience that confession is falling out of fashion among Catholics, except, relatively, at Christmas and Easter. Undaunted, the front page of the same edition of the Catholic Herald highlighted responses by 32 priests to a survey about a three-year-long initiative in the Diocese of Lancaster to boost the uptake of confessions, apparently also with encouraging results. Significantly, again, no hard data were cited in this report, and none currently appear on the websites of the diocese or the diocesan newspaper, Catholic Voice.

With regard to the ‘papal bounce’, as already noted by BRIN in our post of 28 January 2012, average weekly Mass attendance was actually lower after the papal visit in 2010 than before. And, in gearing up for its Home Mission Sunday (which took place on 15 September 2013), the Church itself conceded there are ‘four million baptised Catholics who rarely or never attend Mass’ in England and Wales.

Fracking

Recent public divisions about fracking within the Church of England and other Christian groups are evidenced in new research briefly reported in the latest issue of Christian Research’s monthly ezine, Research Brief, which was emailed to subscribers on 6 September 2013:

CRACKS APPEAR IN FRACKING ARGUMENT

‘Our Resonate August omnibus, completed by 1.520 Resonate panellists, revealed that two-thirds of practising Christians regard it as valid that the church should derive income from mineral rights on property it owns (marginally higher support amongst church leaders). More than 2 in 5 regular churchgoers felt that the church should be able to profit from shale gas reserves located under land it owns, 1 in 3 were uncertain and 1 in 4 objected (to some degree). Interestingly, men (significantly so) and Londoners agreed more strongly than others. The results see-sawed the other way, 1 in 3 opposed and 1 in 5 in favour, if the land was dwelt on.’

University students’ religion

On 27 April 2013 BRIN provided preliminary coverage of research into English university students and Christianity, undertaken by a team led by Mathew Guest of Durham University, with funding from the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme. A major aim of the project, which collected data via online questionnaires completed by 4,341 undergraduates in 2010-11 and via in-depth interviews, was to test empirically the widespread assumption that higher education is a force for secularization. Full details of the findings were published on 12 September 2013 in Mathew Guest, Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma and Rob Warner, Christianity and the University Experience: Understanding Student Faith (Bloomsbury Academic, ISBN 9781780937847, paperback, £19.99 – also available in hardback and ebook editions). The volume was reviewed by Gerald Pillay in Times Higher Education on 12 September 2013. Guest has also contributed a substantial article about the research – entitled ‘What Really Happens at University?’ – to Church Times, 13 September 2013, pp. 27-8.

Scottish religious affiliation

The results from the religion question in the 2011 census of population for Scotland are still not available (they are expected to be included in release 2A of the census data on 26 September 2013). Meanwhile, we can note the religious affiliation question from the latest Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSAS), conducted by ScotCen Social Research among 1,229 residents of Scotland aged 18 and over between July and November 2012. The marginals on the UK Data Service Nesstar site show that a majority of Scots (52%) now regard themselves as belonging to no religion, compared with 40% when SSAS commenced in 1999. A further 22% regard themselves as Church of Scotland (35% in 1999), 11% as Catholics (15%), 12% as other Christians (10%), and 2% as non-Christians (1%). This ‘belonging’ form of question-wording is known to maximize the number of religious ‘nones’, and a similar formulation is used in the Scottish census (‘what religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?’). Claimed attendance at religious services (other than rites of passage) in the 2012 SSAS was 19% at least monthly, including 12% weekly or more often. These figures are down on 1999 levels (27% and 17% respectively) but are probably still aspirational to a considerable degree. The latest Scottish church attendance census, conducted by Christian Research on 12 May 2002, revealed a weekly participation rate of 11%, with no deduction for ‘twicing’.

Churchgoing in the Presbytery of Dunfermline

As noted in the previous entry, there has been no Scottish church attendance census since 2002. Nor does the Church of Scotland – as the ‘national church’ – routinely collect attendance data (in the way that the Church of England has since 1968). So there is added interest to annual churchgoing counts organized in the Church of Scotland’s Presbytery of Dunfermline since 2009, the latest on 17 and 24 March 2013. Through the kindness of Allan Vint, summary data for the Presbytery’s 24 congregations have been made available to BRIN. Total attendance in 2013 was 2,493, 4% down on the 2012 total and 14% on 2009. Attendees comprised 34% men and 66% women; 9% children, 3% teenagers, and 88% adults (with an average adult age of 63, up by four years since 2009).

Baby names

Biblical forenames remain fashionable for Jewish boys, according to a list compiled by the Jewish Baby Directory website. Analysing around 1,000 birth announcements in the Jewish Chronicle, Samuel was found to be first equal in the list of boys’ names for the Jewish year September 2012 to September 2013, with Jacob and Joshua joint third, Joseph joint fifth, and Benjamin, Ethan, Nathan and Noah in joint eleventh position. The attraction of female biblical names was less strong, with Leah in fourth place, Rachel in ninth, and Rebecca in eleventh equal. Previously popular biblical names for girls, such as Sarah and Naomi, failed to make it to the top twenty. The rankings are at:

http://www.jewishbabydirectory.com/top-baby-names-of-5773-september-2012-present/

 

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Muslim and Anglican Miscellany

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Our latest round-up of religious statistical news publicizes seven stories of Muslim and Anglican interest.

Ramadan and Channel 4

The announcement (on 2 July 2013) by Channel 4 that it will broadcast (on television and its website) the Muslim call to prayer (adhan) during the festival of Ramadan, which runs from 9 July to 7 August, has been poorly received by the British public. According to a YouGov poll released on 4 July, and undertaken online among 1,923 adults on 2 and 3 July, 52% are opposed to the broadcaster’s decision and only 26% supportive, with 23% undecided. Opposition peaks among UKIP voters (84%), the over-60s (68%), and Conservatives (61%). Most in favour, with just over one-third in each case, are Labourites, Liberal Democrats, the under-40s, and Londoners. Unfortunately, no supplementary question was asked to seek reasons for opposition (or support), but anti-Muslim sentiment is likely to have featured strongly, especially with the heightening of tensions following the murder in Woolwich of Drummer Lee Rigby at the hands of two Islamists. Detailed computer tabulations have been posted at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/gwofmzpssr/YG-Archive-Ramadan-results-030713-Channel-4-call-to-prayer.pdf

YouGov’s commentary on the results, including analysis of the impact of Channel 4’s announcement as reflected on Twitter and Facebook, can be found at:

http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/07/04/public-oppose-ch4-muslim-call-prayer/

Anti-Muslim hate crime

The work of Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) in recording anti-Muslim hate incidents in England and Wales, and of the criticisms which it has received for allegedly misleading interpretations of its data, have been mentioned by BRIN twice before (see our posts of 15 March and 9 June 2013). We now highlight the publication, by Teesside University on 1 July, of a systematic analysis of the 584 incidents notified to Tell MAMA between 1 April 2012 and 30 April 2013: Nigel Copsey, Janet Dack, Mark Littler, and Matthew Feldman, Anti-Muslim Hate Crime and the Far Right, at pp. 14-27. The overwhelming majority of these incidents, which the authors accept are of a ‘fundamentally self-selecting nature’, occurred online (74%) and were not reported to the police (63%, thus making it difficult to say how many were technically crimes under the law). Most (56%) were said to be linked with far right groups, rising to 69% for online incidents alone. There is a useful ‘post-Woolwich addendum’ (pp. 27-8), which shows that there were 241 anti-Muslim incidents notified to Tell MAMA in the period between 22 May and 25 June 2013, equivalent to a daily rate four times as high as during the preceding thirteen months, although 46% of these cases occurred during the five days after Rigby’s murder. The report – which marks the official launch of the University’s Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist, and Post-Fascist Studies – is available at:    

http://www.tees.ac.uk/docs/DocRepo/Research/Copsey_report3.pdf

True Vision, another hate crime reporting agency, has recently published a faith breakdown of the victims of religious hate crimes as recorded by the police in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 2011. Of the two-thirds of such crimes for which this information is available, 52% were committed against Muslims, 26% against Jews, and 14% against Christians. The data, which come with several caveats and have not been statistically validated, are at:

http://report-it.org.uk/files/religious_hate_crime_data_2011_published_(june_2013).pdf 

How many Muslims?

The British public greatly overestimates the number of Muslims living in Britain, and underestimates the country’s Christian population, according to an Ipsos MORI poll for the Royal Statistical Society and King’s College London whose results were published on 9 July 2013 in connection with the International Year of Statistics. Interviews were conducted online with 1,015 adults aged 16-75 between 14 and 18 June 2013, and topline and detailed tables (pp. 121-8 of the latter being most relevant for our purposes) are available at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3188/Perceptions-are-not-reality-the-top-10-we-get-wrong.aspx

Asked ‘out of every 100 people in Britain, about how many do you think are Muslim?’ 35% could not venture an opinion, but, among those who did reply, 24% was the mean estimated proportion of Muslims, about five times the actual figure for England and Wales as revealed in the 2011 census. The estimated proportion of Muslims peaks among those with no formal educational qualifications (33%) and readers of tabloid newspapers (31%). All told, as many as two-fifths of Britons think that Muslims account for more than 10% of people in the country. By contrast, Christians are believed to comprise no more than 34% of the nation, 25% fewer than in England and Wales at the 2011 census.

Such misperceptions were not confined to religion but affected a whole swathe of topics covered in the survey, thereby highlighting ‘how wrong the British public can be on the make-up of the population and the scale of key social policy issues’. Clearly, the challenge of innumeracy and the deficit of evidence-based thinking remain very great.

Church of England – hardly a ‘national treasure’

In his first presidential address to General Synod this week, Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, warned the Church of England of ‘the overwhelming change of cultural hinterland’, and of an increasing gulf between public attitudes and those of the Church. Some reflection of this disenchantment with the Established Church can be found in a YouGov poll undertaken for Freeview between 7 and 10 June 2013, and published on 10 July 2013. The sample comprised 2,066 UK adults aged 18 and over.

Respondents were given a mixed bag of fifteen British organizations, and asked about the extent to which they valued them, on a scale running from 1 (‘don’t value at all’) to 10 (‘value a lot’). In the case of the Church of England, 21% stated that they did not value it at all, the fourth worst score after the Football Association (32%), BskyB (27%), and Barclays (27%). By contrast, lower figures were recorded by British Gas (18%), the House of Commons (16%), British Telecom (11%), British Airways (11%), BBC (6%), ITV (6%), Freeview (4%), National Trust (3%), Post Office (2%), Royal Mail (2%), and the National Health Service (1%). The Church of England’s worst rating was among Scots (43%) and unemployed people (38%).

At the other end of the spectrum, only 8% valued the Church of England a lot, peaking at 12% of over-55s, the retired, and residents of South-West England; and 18% of those with three or more children in the household. This compared with 54% for the National Health Service, 20% for the BBC, 20% for Royal Mail, 19% for the Post Office, 17% for Freeview, 14% for the National Trust, 8% for the House of Commons, 7% for ITV, 5% for British Telecom, 4% for British Airways, 3% for British Gas, 3% for the Football Association, 2% for BskyB, and 2% for Barclays.

If we assume that scores of 1, 2, 3, and 4 equate to negativity, then 41% of Britons attach limited or no value to the Church of England. One-quarter (24%) are neutral (giving a rating of 5 or 6), 29% are positive (opting for 7, 8, 9, or 10), and 5% are undecided. Full data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/orjnam7d6m/YouGov-survey-Freeview-research-part%201-130610.pdf

Part 2 of the same poll included a similar question about the value of sundry ‘national treasures’, all of which bar British television soaps (27%) achieved a lower 1 score than the Church of England had in part 1: Harry Potter (20%), Wimbledon tennis championship (15%), James Bond (14%), royal family (10%), the Beatles (10%), a cup of tea (8%), William Shakespeare (6%), Stonehenge (6%), Big Ben (6%), British pubs (5%), fish and chips (4%), and red post boxes (4%).

Part 2 also contained a slightly daft question about which one of ten things UK adults would give up in order to ensure continuing free access (through the television licence) to the main television channels (BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5). Going to church was one of the forfeits and was selected by 14% of respondents, just behind using social media (18%) and smoking cigarettes (15%). The tables for Part 2 are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ftez3b2zxd/YouGov-survey-Freeview-research-part2-130610.pdf

Church of England finance statistics

The Church of England’s parochial finance statistics for 2011 were published on 1 July 2013. For the third year running, parishes were in overall deficit, albeit to a smaller extent in 2011 (£14 million) than 2010 (£22 million). Total income in 2011 was £916 million, £19 million more than the year before, while total expenditure was £930 million, up by £12 million. In 2007, the last year before the economic downturn, parishes had an aggregate surplus of £60 million, since when income has steadily fallen in real terms. The report, in the form of nine tables and ten figures, can be found at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1791665/2011financestatistics.pdf

Church Times readership survey

As part of its 150th anniversary celebrations, the Church Times has launched a survey of its readership, broadly comparable to the one undertaken by self-completion postal questionnaire in 2001. A questionnaire was included in the 5 July 2013 edition of the newspaper but can alternatively be completed online. Results will be analysed by Professor Leslie Francis of the University of Warwick and Andrew Village of York St John University; they will be available in the autumn. The online questionnaire can be found at:

https://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/yorksj/ctsurvey

The principal publications arising from the 2001 survey are: Leslie Francis, Mandy Robbins, and Jeff Astley, Fragmented Faith? Exploring the Fault-Lines in the Church of England (Bletchley: Paternoster Press, 2005); and Andrew Village and Leslie Francis, The Mind of the Anglican Clergy: Assessing Attitudes and Beliefs in the Church of England (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009).

Godparents for the royal baby

The birth of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first child may be imminent, but a majority of Britons have no views about the baby’s godparents. Given a list of prospective godmothers, 53% say they have no idea or do not care who it will be, with 51% replying along the same lines about prospective godfathers. The figures rise to 70% and 71% respectively among those expressing no interest in the forthcoming royal birth. In so far as Britons have a preference for godparents, it is Prince Harry for godfather (35%) and Pippa Middleton for godmother (16%). YouGov interviewed 1,577 adults aged 18 and over online on 7-8 July 2013, and data tables were published on 11 July at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/8xp56xnnvs/YG-Archive-Royal-baby-results-080713-memorabilia-and-godparents.pdf

 

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Religious Marriages and Other News

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Seven new sources of British religious statistics feature in today’s bulletin, leading with the latest set of official annual figures on the mode of solemnization of marriages in England and Wales.

Marriages (England and Wales), 2011

The number of marriages solemnized in religious ceremonies in England and Wales dropped by 6% between 2010 and 2011, notwithstanding that the overall total of marriages increased by 2% over the same period. The decline affected all denominations and faiths, including the Church of England and Church in Wales, which conducted 7% fewer weddings in 2011 than 2010, despite the former’s push over recent years to stimulate public interest in getting married in church. The fall in religious marriages since 2001 has been 18%, in contrast to all marriages which have contracted by just one-half a percentage point. The proportion of religious marriages to the total has slumped from 99% in 1838 to 84% in 1901 to 67% in 1966 to 30% in 2011, 1976 being the year when civil ceremonies overtook religious ones.

Perhaps reflecting the struggles which many Christian denominations have had to come to terms with divorce, both partners in religious marriages continue to be more likely to be entering their first marriage than do their counterparts at civil ceremonies (82% against 60% in 2011, albeit the former figure has dipped from 95% in the late 1960s as divorce has spread even among people of faith). Couples undergoing a civil marriage are also 10% more likely to be cohabiting before marriage than those marrying in a place of worship; however, the latter figure had climbed to 78% in 2011 (compared with 41% in 1994). So, whatever their traditional teaching against it, the Churches have clearly had to accommodate themselves to a society in which living together (i.e. sex) before marriage is the norm. Were they not to turn a blind eye to it, religious marriages would simply implode.

The foregoing data (still provisional for 2011) are taken from a bulletin issued by the Office for National Statistics today (26 June 2013) and from associated reference tables, all of which may be accessed at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/marriages-in-england-and-wales–provisional-/2011/index.html

Global threats

Given a list of eight possible international concerns, 55% of Britons selected Islamic extremist groups as a major threat to the country, second only to international financial instability (59%), and ahead of global climate change (48%), North Korea’s nuclear programme (45%), Iran’s nuclear programme (42%), political instability in Pakistan (31%), China’s power and influence (29%), and US power and influence (22%). This is according to the latest release of data from the Pew Global Attitudes Project, with fieldwork undertaken (by Princeton Survey Research Associates International) in 39 countries in Spring 2013 (including Britain, where 1,012 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed by telephone between 4 and 27 March 2013). Nevertheless, Islamic extremist groups were even more likely to be categorized as a major threat in several other leading developed nations: Italy (74%), France (71%), Spain (62%), Germany (60%), Japan (57%), and the US (56%). In Britain an additional 33% considered Islamic extremist groups to be a minor threat and only 6% no threat at all. Topline tables were published on 24 June 2013 at:

http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2013/06/Pew-Research-Center-Global-Attitudes-Project-Global-Threats-Report-FINAL-June-24-20131.pdf

Origins of life

The creationist view of the origin and development of life on earth is held by only a minority of UK citizens, according to Wellcome Trust Monitor, Wave 2, undertaken by Ipsos MORI through face-to-face interviews with 1,396 adults and 460 young people aged 14-18 between 21 May and 22 October 2012, but not published until 17 May 2013. Just 23% of adults and 21% of young people agreed that ‘humans and other living things were created by God and have always existed in their current form’, rising to 28% of over-65s, 27% of women, and 27% of those with no educational qualifications. A further 22% of adults and 18% of young people thought that ‘humans and other living things evolved over time, in a process guided by God’. But the biggest number in both groups, 50% of adults and 57% of young people, subscribed to the theory that ‘humans and other living things evolved over time as a result of natural selection, in which God played no part’. The proportion peaked (68%) among those scoring most highly on a quiz about scientific knowledge which was a component of the research. A wide range of documentation about the survey, including data in Excel format (T146 is the relevant table for this question) and the main report (with analysis on pp. 32-3), is available at:

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Publications/Reports/Public-engagement/WTX058859.htm

These results are broadly consistent with those obtained in Wellcome Trust Monitor, Wave 1, conducted in 2009. They also accord with evidence from other pollsters, although variations in question-wording and methodology make strict comparisons difficult. This evidence has been summarized thus by Clive Field in an, as yet, unpublished paper: ‘the creation in Genesis is now widely rejected in favour of evolutionist interpretations. This appears to have been a relatively recent phenomenon. Two-thirds to four-fifths now accept human beings have developed from earlier species of animals, while believers in the so-called young earth creation theory (that God made human beings in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years) fell from 29% in 1995 to below one-fifth in the most recent polls (2006-12). Excluding a fairly significant number of “don’t knows”, majority opinion is unevenly split between theories of Darwinian evolution and intelligent design (the latter still admitting some possible role for God or supernatural planner). Many do not see any inherent contradiction between evolution and Christianity in accounting for the origin of life on earth and thus can believe in both, and there is broad support for all explanations of the origin being taught in schools.’

Funeral hymns

Put on the spot, a plurality (44%) of 2,427 adult Britons did not know what song, hymn or piece of music they would like to be played at their funeral, and a further 11% did not want any music to be played. The remaining 45% nominated a particular song, hymn or piece of music, but none took more than 1% of the vote. The most popular religious or allied items were Abide with Me (the choice of 30 respondents), Jerusalem (28), Amazing Grace (22), How Great Thou Art (21), and The Lord is My Shepherd/Psalm 23 (20). The poll was conducted online by ComRes on behalf of Marie Curie Cancer Care on 3-6 May 2013, in advance of Dying Matters Awareness Week (13-19 May), although the full data tables were not published until 12 June at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Marie_Curie_Gardens_Final_Data_Tables_9_May_2013.pdf

Youth and religion

A YouGov poll of 940 18- to 24-year-olds for The Sun, conducted online on 14-19 June 2013 and published on 24-25 June, confirms the relatively weak hold which religion has over Generation Y, those born in the 1980s and 1990s. A mere 8% profess membership of a church or religious group (compared with 21% who belong to a gym). One-tenth claim to attend religious services once a month or more, with 56% never going and a further 18% less than annually. Only 12% say they are influenced a lot or a fair amount by religious leaders, even less than celebrities (21%), brands (32%), and politicians (38%), and way behind friends (77%) and parents (82%). Just 14% recognize religion as more often the cause of good in the world against 41% who agree that it is mostly the source of evil, the remainder being neutral or uncertain. No more than 25% believe in God, although another 19% accept that there is some kind of spiritual greater power; 38% believe in neither and 18% are undecided. And only 38% identify with a religion, 56% with none. Full data tables (with breaks by gender, age, and education) are available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/jgdvn3vm4b/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-190613-youth-survey.pdf

while commentary on the survey can be found at:

http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/06/24/british-youth-reject-religion/ and

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/4981030/yougov-survey-on-britains-young-adults.html

Methodist statistics

The Methodist Church of Great Britain has recently made available its statistics for mission report for the connexional year 2012/13 (representing the position as at October 2012, and based on a 98% response from local churches). Comparing with the year before, the picture which emerges is one of continuing decline on most performance indicators, with significant annual decreases in those with the loosest attachment to the Church, reflected in the figures for the community roll and rites of passage (the fall in membership and attendance was less marked). The following table has been compiled from data available at:

http://www.methodist.org.uk/ministers-and-office-holders/statistics-for-mission

 

2011

2012

% change
Members

All

221,879

219,359

-1.1
New

3,183

2,903

-8.8
Died

6,889

6,938

+0.7
Ceased to meet

4,734

4,052

-14.4
Community roll

513,671

453,990

-11.6
Attendances

All age weekly average: Sunday

202,573

197,592

-2.5
All age weekly average: midweek

33,035

32,814

-0.7
Adult weekly average

199,626

196,365

-1.6
Children/young people weekly average

33,794

33,736

-0.2
Rites of passage

Baptisms/thanksgivings

11,227

10,505

-6.4
Marriages/blessings

3,710

3,570

-3.8
Funerals

22,327

21,505

-3.7

Psychological type and churchmanship of Anglican clergy

The relationship of psychological type preferences to three forms of self-assigned churchmanship (Anglo-Catholic, Broad Church, evangelical) is explored by Andrew Village in ‘Traditions within the Church of England and Psychological Type: A Study among the Clergy’, Journal of Empirical Theology, Vol. 26, No. 1, 2013, pp. 22-44. The sample comprised 1,047 Anglican clergy ordained in the United Kingdom (mostly into the Church of England) between 2004 and 2007 who responded to a self-completion postal questionnaire. The majority of clergy were found to prefer introversion over extraversion, but this preference was more marked among Anglo-Catholics than evangelicals. Anglo-Catholics also showed preference for intuition over sensing, while the reverse was true for evangelicals. Clergy of both sexes exhibited an overall preference for feeling over thinking, but this was reversed among evangelicals. These variations could not be wholly explained by differences in the level of conservatism or charismaticism across the traditions, suggesting that they were linked to preferences for different styles of religious expression in worship. In short, Village argues, people gravitate to traditions that match their psychological type, especially in respect of the perceiving function. The analysis is preceded by a fairly extensive literature review of psychological type and religion. The abstract and full-text access options for the article are at:

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/10.1163/15709256-12341252

 

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Official data, Rites of Passage, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Eight Shorts

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Eight short items of statistical news feature in today’s second post, clearing a small backlog which has built up during a week’s absence from the desk.

Hate crime

The overwhelming majority of the British public (84%) consider that an attack on someone because of their religion should be treated as a hate crime, second only to those who deem an attack on someone because of their race as a hate crime (88%), and ahead of the numbers regarding as hate crimes attacks on the basis of sexuality (83%), transsexuality (81%), disability (78%), gender (75%), sub-culture (68%), age (59%), weight (56%), height (51%), hair colour (51%), and political views (51%). The proportion who do not think that an attack on the grounds of religion should be classed as a hate crime is 10% overall, but 13% for men and Conservative supporters, and 14% among the 18-24s. The survey was conducted by YouGov on 14-15 May 2013 with an online sample of 1,886 adults, and the data tables are available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/i4jqy1c3rk/YG-Archive-hate-crime-results-150513.pdf

Sunday stress

Far from being a day of rest, Sunday has become the most stressful day of the week for one-third of Britons, according to a ‘Sunday Stress Audit’ of over 2,000 adults commissioned by the Really television channel. Indeed, 65% now claim to have busier schedules on Sunday than on an ordinary weekday, and 67% report that ‘Sunday blues’ kick in at some point during the day. More than half (51%) consider Sundays to be a day ‘for getting things done’, with an average of 3 hours and 36 minutes being spent on various household tasks, and 35% admitting that they nag or are nagged by their partners to carry out such chores. Such is the level of ‘busyness’ that 34% never get a lie in bed on Sunday, and 53% never get chance to read the Sunday newspapers properly. Sunday lunch (which takes 2 hours to prepare and 26 minutes to eat) and seeing extended family remain key elements of the Sunday tradition, with two-thirds getting together with their wider family at least one Sunday each month, not always without friction. Full results and methodological details of the survey have not been released, and the above summary is largely taken from the Daily Mail for 10 May 2013 at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2322269/Sunday-Its-day-rest-day-stress-Two-thirds-say-Sabbath-busiest-time-week.html

Church organs

‘The traditional church organ is a must for special occasions but, Sunday to Sunday, congregations would rather have a guitar-based worship group.’ This is the conclusion drawn by Christian Resources Exhibitions International from a poll conducted between 26 April and 3 May 2013 among 2,250 UK churchgoers who are members of the Christian Research online panel (Resonate). A guitar-based group was the preference for ordinary Sunday services of 44% of churchgoers compared with 30% for the organ, while almost two-thirds of respondents disagreed with the statement that a church with no organ is like a pub with no beer. More than half the sample had experience of organists slipping ‘unrelated’ secular music into their repertoire. Detailed results of the poll have not been published, but there is a brief press release at:

http://www.creonline.co.uk/news.asp?pageid=13

Church Commissioners

The Church Commissioners, who make a substantial contribution to the finances of the Church of England (especially in respect of its ministry), published their annual report and accounts for 2012 on 14 May 2013. They demonstrate a return on investments of just under 10% for the year, almost matching the Commissioners’ average for the past 20 years. This return exceeds the Commissioners’ target of inflation plus 5%, as well as the performance of a comparator group of funds. The report can be found at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1743919/w1025_cc_annual-report_final.pdf

A century and more of Catholic statistics

The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales has performed a useful service in collating the available national statistics of the Catholic Church in England and Wales until 2010, of ordinations since 1860, priests since 1890, and baptisms, marriages, receptions (formerly adult conversions), and estimates of Catholic population since 1913. Updating the series already available on BRIN (reproduced, with permission, from Churches and Churchgoers, 1977), they were published in spreadsheet format (as a series of tables and graphs), together with a brief and not entirely unbiased commentary, on the Society’s news blog on 17 May 2013 at:

http://www.lms.org.uk/news-and-events/news-blog/may-2013#statistics

With the exception of ordinations (where the lists of men each year have been counted), the data have been taken from the Catholic Directory for England and Wales, a commercial publication but issued with the official sanction of the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. Although the best source we have, it should not be forgotten that, through no fault of the Catholic Directory, these figures present a variety of challenges in terms of methodology and quality, reflecting weaknesses in the Church’s statistics-gathering at diocesan and national levels. Indeed, the Catholic Directory has recently deemed them so problematical that it has ceased to publish them entirely.

The Latin Mass Society’s principal gloss on the data is to highlight ‘the striking decline of a range of statistical indications of the health of the Catholic Church in England and Wales in the 1960s and 1970s’. According to the Society’s chairman, Dr Joseph Shaw, ‘it is not fanciful to connect this catastrophe to the wrenching changes which were taking place in the Church at that time, when the Second Vatican Council was being prepared, discussed, and, often erroneously, applied’. No mention here of wider historical and sociological debates about the secularization of British society and of what some historians view as the ‘religious crisis’ of the 1960s.

Mass-Observation

Mass-Observation was a social research organization founded by Tom Harrisson and Charles Madge in 1937, employing a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods, primarily in two fieldwork areas: Bolton/Blackpool and London. Its heyday was relatively short, just twelve years until 1949, after which it was succeeded by Mass-Observation (UK) Limited, with a focus on commercial market research. From the outset it displayed a particular interest in religion, and, although only one major religion-related project (Puzzled People, based on interviews with a sample of 500 Hammersmith residents in 1944-45) was ever published, much raw material survives in the Mass-Observation Archive, on deposit at the University of Sussex since 1975, significant portions of which have been reproduced on microform and online by Adam Matthew Publications. Despite being the subject of a considerable amount of secondary literature, there has not hitherto been a full-length history. It is, therefore, a great pleasure to welcome the new book by James Hinton, The Mass Observers: A History, 1937-1949 (Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-967104-5). This is essentially arranged chronologically rather than thematically, but the volume does include some brief discussion of Mass-Observation’s religious research, including an account of Puzzled People on pp. 320-4.

NatCen trustees

NatCen (National Centre for Social Research), the independent and not-for-profit organization which undertakes a wide range of surveys (including the British Social Attitudes Surveys), is looking for four trustees to join its board. The closing date for applications is 17 June 2013. Further particulars are available at:

http://www.natcen.ac.uk/about-us/job-opportunities/trustee-x4   

Public understanding of statistics

Although it contains nothing specific about religion, some BRIN readers may be interested in a poll conducted by Ipsos MORI for King’s College London and the Royal Statistical Society and published on 14 May. The sample comprised 1,034 British adults aged 16-75 interviewed online between 9 and 15 April 2013. In a crushing blow to the BRIN ego, only 6% of respondents agreed that online blogs report statistics accurately. About half the population (49%) have a great deal or fair amount of trust in information provided by statisticians, but the proportion falls to 23% for pollsters, albeit it climbs to 63% for trust in academics. The twenty questions and sub-questions also included some practical tests of the public’s numeracy. The topline results can be viewed at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/rss-kings-ipsos-mori-trust-in-statistics-topline.pdf

 

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

2011 Anglican Statistics and Other News

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Clive D. Field

As usual, there has been a lot of media interest today in the latest (2011) Statistics for Mission of the Church of England. They are always seen as something of a barometer of the spiritual state of England, and so it is appropriate that we give them a fair amount of space here, alongside five shorter items of religious statistical news.

Church of England statistics for mission, 2011

The Church of England has today released its Statistics for Mission, 2011, comprising 18 pages of tables with breaks to diocesan level and some national time series. This report (prepared by Archbishops’ Council, Research and Statistics), together with a brief press statement largely quoting the Bishop of Norwich on the more encouraging aspects of the data, can be found at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2013/05/church-annual-statistics-for-2011.aspx

The short-term picture, comparing 2011 with 2010, is a mixed but largely downbeat one, which has been the story for several years past. On the credit side, the best news was the 14.5% increase in Christmas Day attendance, albeit this must be attributed in large part to the very poor weather at Christmas 2010, which negatively impacted congregations, and to the fact that Christmas Day fell on a Sunday in 2011, which probably gave them a boost. Christmas Day communicants were up by 13.3%, for the same reasons. Usual Sunday attendance grew by 0.8%, but the report ascribes this to a new estimation process for filling in gaps on the parochial schedules. Baptisms and thanksgivings were up by 4.6% in total, including by 2.6% for infant baptisms, 7.5% for baptisms of children aged 1-12, and 44.5% for thanksgivings of children.

On the debit side, there were falls in average weekly attendance (-0.3%), average Sunday attendance (-1.2%), Easter Day attendance (-1.6%), Easter Day communicants (-0.7%), electoral roll (-0.1%), confirmations (-0.5%), marriages and blessings (-3.1%), and funerals (-2.7%, although deaths in England and Wales also fell, by 1.8%, during the year). The decreases in two of the three rites of passage must be particularly disappointing for the Church, for this is an area where it has been investing resource of late and has traditionally held sway, especially over the ‘nominals’, about whom we have heard much in recent weeks. Anglican infant baptisms now account for just 12.1% of live births and Anglican funerals for 35.7% of deaths.

These are naturally national trends, which conceal some diocesan variation. For example, the average all age weekly attendance figure ranged from an increase between 2010 and 2011 of 11.0% for Southwell and Nottingham to a decrease of 10.6% in Canterbury. Will the new Archbishop make a difference in the latter see? Well, he comes from Durham, which recorded a decline of 8.0%, so it is too soon to tell.

Taking a ten-year view (2001-11), which gives a better feel for real trends, the position is summarized in the table below, which will make for rather bleak reading for the Church, even bleaker if we factor in that the mid-year population of England grew by 7.9% over the decade (invariably making the relative decline greater than suggested by the absolute numbers).

 

2001

2011

% change
Average all age weekly attendance

1,205,000

1,091,500

-9.4
Average adult weekly attendance

976,000

874,600

-10.4
Average children/young people weekly attendance

229,000

216,900

-5.3
Average all age Sunday attendance

1,041,000

898,300

-13.7
Average adult Sunday attendance

868,000

763,300

-12.1
Average children/young people Sunday attendance

173,000

134,900

-22.0
Usual all age Sunday attendance

938,000

807,500

-13.9
Usual adult Sunday attendance

781,000

690,700

-11.6
Usual children/young people Sunday attendance

157,000

116,800

-25.6
All age Easter Day attendance

1,593,100

1,365,000

-14.3
Easter Day communicants

1,134,900

979,700

-13.7
All age Christmas Day/Eve attendance

2,608,000

2,618,000

+0.4
Christmas Day/Eve communicants

1,227,900

1,008,500

-17.9
Electoral roll

1,372,000

1,206,000

-12.1
Baptisms and thanksgivings

160,200

146,330

-8.7
Confirmations

33,367

22,242

-33.3
Marriages and blessings

63,600

55,540

-12.7
Funerals

228,000

162,530

-28.7

Google ties with religion

In the latest variant of a trust in organizations survey, Google and religious institutions shared fifth equal place, 17% of Britons aged 16 and over who were interviewed reckoning that each had their best interests at heart. The 2,000 respondents were invited to rank their top three institutions from a list of sixteen. Most trusted – despite its recent high-profile failings – was the National Health Service (37%), followed by police (26%), charities (21%), and – notwithstanding the horsemeat scandal – supermarkets (19%). Least regarded as having the public’s best interests at heart were politicians (3%), the media (6%), banks (7%), and lawyers (8%) also scoring badly. These findings were released by communications agency OMD UK on 30 April 2013 as an initial output from its ongoing ‘Future of Britain’ project, in collaboration with MMR Research. The trust in organizations table is reproduced on the Sky News website at:

http://news.sky.com/story/1084991/britons-trust-google-as-much-as-religion

Religious opposition to same-sex marriage

Religious opposition to same-sex marriage in Britain is reviewed by Steven Kettell in a new article entitled ‘I Do, Thou Shalt Not’ published on 2 May 2013 in the ‘early view’ online version of Political Quarterly. Developments in Scotland are covered as well as in England and Wales. Religious arguments against same-sex marriage are analysed, the author noting how relatively little they deploy theology but rather invoke secular justifications. Some use is made of opinion poll evidence, although – inevitably for an academic journal – this is not absolutely up-to-date. Unsurprisingly, Kettell concludes that religious opposition to same-sex marriage has failed, with broader implications for religion’s public role. This is a subscription title; for access options, go to:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-923X.2013.12009.x/abstract  

Equality and Muslims

Almost three-quarters of adults (73%, rising to 81% of over-60s) think it a very or fairly big problem in Britain that Muslim girls suffer discrimination at the hands of their own families by being told when to leave school and/or whom to marry, and 26% rate it as one of the most urgent problems facing the country (35% among the 18-24s and 34% among Conservatives and the highest income earners). By contrast, only 3% consider that unfair treatment of Muslim workers by their employers is an urgent problem (bottom of a list of ten equality challenges), with 73% contending that it is either not a problem at all or a fairly small problem (and 27% that it is a very or fairly big problem). These two questions were included in a survey of equality issues undertaken by YouGov for the YouGov@Cambridge think tank, with 1,925 Britons aged 18 and over being interviewed online on 25 and 26 February 2013. The detailed tables were released on 1 May and can be found at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/9a679g3m9i/YG-Archive-Cam-equality%20results-260213.pdf

National Jewish Community Survey

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) launched the National Jewish Community Survey on 1 May, with the intention of collecting data which will complement the 2011 civilian census for ‘Jewish people living in Britain, irrespective of the nature of their Jewish identity and level of involvement in the community.’ In addition to probing Jewish identity, questions are being asked about the demographic profile and charitable behaviour of Jews. The survey, which is being funded by a consortium of Jewish community organizations and foundations, is being conducted online during May and June 2013 in association with Ipsos MORI. According to an interview given to the current issue (3 May 2013, p. 2) of the Jewish Chronicle, JPR is confident that its online methodology will not lead to under-representation of strictly Orthodox Jews ‘as Charedim have greater access to the internet than many people think’. Respondents to the survey will be recruited by invitation only, initially on a random basis, and will thus not be self-selecting. Further information about the survey is available in the FAQs posted at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/census-faqs.pdf

BRIN on BRIN

The latest BRIN site traffic statistics, kindly collated by Siobhan McAndrew, demonstrate that usage of BRIN has continued to build since the official launch of the website just over three years ago. Since that time there have been 186,000 visits to the site by 152,000 unique visitors who have viewed 422,000 pages. Judging by their IP addresses, 70% of visitors are from the United Kingdom and 11% from the United States, although 187 different countries are represented in all. The majority of visitors (65%) arrive at the BRIN website via Google, but 13% key the BRIN URL directly, and a similar proportion come as referrals from other sites (of which guardian.co.uk heads the list). The most frequently accessed blog post to date was from 21 September 2010 on ‘How Many Muslims?’ which accounts for just over 3% of all BRIN page views.

 

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Rites of Passage, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment