School League Tables

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The Government has caused a stir this week with the appearance of school league tables which incorporate its new performance measure of the English Baccalaureate, comprising grade A*-C GCSEs or equivalent passes in five core subjects: English, mathematics, a science, a language and a humanity. Government’s definition of a humanity excludes religious education and other disciplines which are deemed to be ‘easier’.

On behalf of The Sun, YouGov polled online a representative sample of 1,518 Britons aged 18 and over on 11-12 January, asking them which GCSE subjects should count towards a school’s league table position. The results have been published at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-LeagueTables-130111.pdf

Religious studies came fifteenth out of twentieth in the list of subjects offered by YouGov, attracting 22% support. This was well behind the front-runners: mathematics (86%), English language (85%), science (79%), English literature (67%), history (66%), geography (64%), modern languages (61%), and information and communication technology (55%). Dance came bottom (with 8%).

Backing for religious studies was lower among men than women, the under-40s than the over-40s, non-manual than manual workers, and Liberal Democrat than Conservative or Labour voters. There was no major regional variation.

Another recent survey, by ComRes for Premier Media on 15-16 December 2010, reported that 30% of the general public wanted religious education to be a core GCSE subject, with 56% opposed and 14% undecided. See http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=817

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Introverts in the Cathedral

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Clive D. Field

A press release from Glyndwr University just before Christmas drew attention to the publication of some results of a Glyndwr research team into the application of Jungian psychological type theory to profile the visitors to two Anglican cathedrals.

Psychological type theory offers a fourfold psychographic segmentation of a sample, distinguishing between introversion and extraversion, sensing and intuition, thinking and feeling, and judging and perceiving.

The research is reported in full in Leslie Francis, Simon Mansfield, Emyr Williams and Andrew Village, ‘Applying Psychological Type Theory to Cathedral Visitors: A Case Study of Two Cathedrals in England and Wales’, Visitor Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2010, pp. 175-86. This is a subscription only journal published by Routledge.

157 visitors to Chester Cathedral and 381 to St Davids Cathedral were asked a series of questions about their personality profiles and how those profiles related to their visitor experiences. In particular, the research team measured how active, private or sociable the visitors were, and to what extent they were energized by other people.

The principal conclusion was that, relative to population norms, extraverts and perceivers were significantly under-represented among visitors to these two cathedrals. The venues also appealed more to sensers than intuitives but drew equal proportions of thinkers and feelers.

The researchers hope their findings will help tourism managers at both cathedrals to maximize the visitor experiences of those already drawn to these heritage sites and to discover ways of attracting more extraverts and more perceivers to explore them.

The foregoing summary derives from Glyndwr’s press release and the abstract which accompanies the article in Visitor Studies. These are available at, respectively:

http://www.glyndwr.ac.uk/en/Contactus/PressOffice/Pressreleases2010/Cathedralvisitorslikelytobeshyresearchfinds/

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a927854195~frm=abslink

Other aspects of the same research among visitors to St Davids Cathedral have been previously reported in two further articles: Emyr Williams, Leslie Francis, Mandy Robbins and Jennie Annis, ‘Visitor Experiences of St Davids Cathedral: The Two Worlds of Pilgrims and Secular Tourists’, Rural Theology, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2007, pp. 111-23; and Leslie Francis, Emyr Williams, Jennie Annis and Mandy Robbins, ‘Understanding Cathedral Visitors: Psychological Type and Individual Differences in Experience and Appreciation’, Tourism Analysis, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2008, pp. 71-80.

An even more detailed investigation of the visitor experience at St Davids is Jennie Brice-Annis, ‘The Soul of St Davids: Mapping the Spiritual Quest of Visitors to St Davids Cathedral’, Bangor University Ph.D. thesis, 2009, 361pp. This considered four aspects of spirituality: spiritual awareness, spiritual experience, participation in the spiritual revolution, and spiritual health.

Her evidence base was both quantitative and qualitative, including a questionnaire survey (which yielded around 2,700 responses), interviews, and case studies. Analysis of the data suggested visitors to St Davids Cathedral were very much spiritually aware and underwent various spiritual experiences.

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21st Century Evangelicals

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Clive D. Field

According to a large-scale survey of churchgoing published by Tearfund in 2007, there are approximately two million evangelical Christians in the UK. Hitherto, we have had only limited insights into their profile and attitudes.

We now know a great deal more about them, thanks to a study undertaken by Christian Research for the Evangelical Alliance in 2010, and published on 11 January under the title 21st Century Evangelicals: A Snapshot of the Beliefs and Habits of Evangelical Christians in the UK.

17,298 Christians aged 16 and over completed the Christian Research questionnaire. These mostly divided between two samples: 14,511 attenders at seven Christian festivals in the UK and known to be popular with evangelicals, and 1,159 attenders at 35 churches randomly selected from the 3,222 in membership of the Evangelical Alliance.

Interestingly, 6% of both samples could not say for certain that they were Christians, while fully one-quarter of the professing Christians failed to designate themselves as evangelicals.

A third sample was also drawn, of black majority churches and conferences. Only a few agreed to participate. Although 1,239 questionnaires were completed by attenders at these churches, Christian Research clearly has reservations about the typicality of this sample, and limited use has been made of the findings from it.

Two reports on the research have been issued at present, although more are promised. The first (described as the ‘initial report’) is a ‘popular’ 24-page summary. This is fully-illustrated, selective in its use of statistics, and has an emphasis on headlines and brief commentaries. Such data as are quoted in it mainly relate to the festival sample. It can be found at:

http://eauk.org/snapshot/upload/21st-Century-Evangelicals-PDF.pdf

The second 47-page report (the so-called ‘data report’) is likely to be of special interest to BRIN users. This contains detailed information about the research methodology and the all-important weighting procedures, which require careful review (see the discussion and weighting factors on pp. 6-7).

The second document mainly comprises tables of results (pp. 8-45), routinely disaggregated for the festival and church samples and, more occasionally, for non-evangelical festival-goers. There are some minor inconsistencies between some of the tables when replies to certain questions are duplicated. This report can be accessed at:

http://www.eauk.org/snapshot/upload/21st-Century-Evangelicals-Data-Report.pdf

There were fewer differences in the profiles, beliefs and behaviours of the festival and church samples than might have been expected. However, for simplicity, and because they instinctively feel more ‘representative’ of grass-roots evangelicals, all the figures quoted below derive from the church sample only.

DEMOGRAPHICS: 60% of evangelical churchgoers are women and 38% men. 36% are under 45 years of age, 39% 45-64, and 21% 65 and over (an age profile far less skewed than for churchgoers in general). 24% are single, 1% cohabiting, 61% married, 6% separated or divorced, and 7% widowed.

BELIEFS: 98% agree that their faith is the most important thing in life and 96% that it is the key factor in their decision-making. 96% believe that Jesus is the only way to God. 96% consider the Bible to be the inspired word of God and 82% say that, in its original manuscript, it is without error. 92% believe in miraculous gifts of the Spirit. 59% believe in a physical hell, but 27% are unsure and 14% disbelieve. 39% think evolution and Christianity are incompatible, 43% that they are not.

PRACTICES: 95% claim to attend church once a week or more. 76% attend a small group meeting at least once a fortnight. 55% read the Bible daily and a further 36% during the course of a week. 78% pray daily and a further 20% during the course of a week.

EVANGELISM VERSUS SOCIAL ACTION: 91% deem it the Christian’s duty to be actively engaged in evangelism, and 58% talk about their faith with a non-Christian once a month or more. 82% regard evangelism and social action as equally important and 80% as complementary, but 39% think many churches place too much emphasis on social action. 88% consider it a Christian’s duty to volunteer in the service of the local community. 78% volunteer at least once a month. 98% voted in the 2010 general election.

MORALITY: 82% agree that sexual intercourse outside marriage is always wrong. 62% say that assisted suicide is always wrong (and 15% not). 49% agree and 33% disagree that abortion can never be justified. 36% feel it is wrong to have homosexual feelings, with 22% unsure and 42% not seeing it as problematical. However, 80% condemn homosexual actions. 84% oppose the blessing of civil partnerships in churches.

GIVING: 97% have given money to their church in the past year, 77% to Christian charities, 48% to other charities, 47% to individual missionaries, and 22% to individual homeless people. 62% claim to have given at least one-tenth of their household income during the past month to their church and charities. 73% agree that it is a Christian’s duty to give 10% of their income to their church, but only 40% tithed to their church during the past month.

ECUMENICAL AND INTER-FAITH WORK: 95% consider it important for Christians to be united in truth and 93% in mission. 88% say that their church works with other places of worship. 63% want Christians to collaborate with people of other faiths on community projects.

Also worth a glance is the Evangelical Alliance’s press release about both strands of the research, issued on 10 January. This focused on the themes of distinctiveness and diversity in the evangelical constituency, and highlighted the vital role of evangelicals in volunteering in the community. See:

http://eauk.org/media/uk-evangelical-christians-distinct-yet-diverse.cfm

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Roman Catholic Schools in England and Wales

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Clive D. Field

As we noted three months ago (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=650), the Catholic Education Service for England and Wales (CESEW) has sometimes been accused of excessive secrecy in guarding its statistical data.

This is notwithstanding the fact that Roman Catholic schools account for about one in ten of all maintained school places in England and Wales and receive 100% of their running costs and 90% of their capital funding from the state.

However, the CESEW has started the New Year on the front foot by releasing on 10 January two new quantitatively rich 40-page reports which, it is claimed, ‘demonstrate that Catholic schools are rated consistently better than other schools’ and ‘show just how well taxpayers’ money is spent when it is channelled into Catholic schools.’

This assessment seems likely to fan the flames of the often acrimonious debate about the principle and practice of faith schools, especially since the CESEW’s chairman (Malcolm McMahon, Bishop of Nottingham) has taken the opportunity of the new publications to attack the National Secular Society, teachers’ leaders and their ‘friends in Parliament’ who are campaigning for the abolition of faith schools.

The first document is the Digest of 2009 Census Data for Schools and Colleges, only the third in the series (the others being for 2007 and 2008), although the tradition of conducting an annual census of Catholic schools, teachers and pupils dates back to 1959. 94% of the Catholic schools in England and Wales made a return in 2009.

80% of the 2,289 Catholic schools in England and Wales in 2009 were primary, 17% secondary, 1% tertiary, and 2% all through. 94% were maintained and 6% independent. 96% were in England and 4% in Wales. Diocesan totals ranged from 18 in Wrexham to 252 in Birmingham.

74% of the 736,000 pupils in maintained Catholic schools and colleges were Catholic, falling to 65% in Wales, but only 41% of the 41,000 pupils in independent Catholic schools were Catholic. Proportions of Catholic teachers were lower: 57% of 44,000 in maintained schools and 40% of 5,000 in independent schools.

Pupil intakes appeared socially quite diverse. ‘The data shows that Catholic schools have similar proportions of children eligible for free school meals as schools nationally have, and are more ethnically mixed than schools nationally’.

The second report is entitled Value Added: the Distinctive Contribution of Catholic Schools and Colleges in England and has been written by Peter Irvine, retired HMI and education consultant. The data derive from Ofsted inspections in 2005-09 and test and examination results for Key Stages 1-5 in 2007-09.

Findings particularly highlighted by CESEW in its press release include the following (others may be picked up from the executive summary on pp. 6-8):

  • ‘In terms of overall effectiveness, Ofsted judged 73% of Catholic secondary schools to be outstanding or good, compared to 60% of schools nationally. For primary schools, 74% of Catholic schools were judged outstanding or good compared to 66% nationally.
  • In terms of the contextual value added measure, 58% of Catholic secondary schools had above average scores, compared to 39% of schools nationally.
  • The proportion of pupils gaining level 4 or above in Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) at age 11 was consistently around 5% higher in Catholic schools than in schools nationally.
  • At GCSE level, the proportion of students obtaining 5 or more GCSEs at A*-C (including English and Maths) was consistently at least 6% higher in Catholic schools than in schools nationally.’

The two reports, with accompanying press release, can be downloaded from:

http://www.cesew.org.uk/standardnews.asp?id=10080

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Declining Faith in Scotland?

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The correspondence columns of The Scotsman may seem an unlikely venue for a debate on religious statistics, but the issue of 3 January contained an interesting letter from Professor Callum Brown of the University of Dundee about the decline of faith in Scotland during recent years. The letter will be found at:

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/opinion/Letter-Declining-faith.6677614.jp

In it Brown, a leading academic exponent of secularization and author of the standard monograph on the social history of modern Scottish religion, compared religious profession in Scotland in 2001 (from the decennial census of population) with the Scottish Household Survey for 2008 (presumably, Brown was using only the second half of the data for that particular survey which actually fielded throughout 2007 and 2008).

‘The position has changed significantly’ between the two dates, Brown wrote. In the space of these seven years, affiliation to Christianity in Scotland dropped from 65% to 57%, principally as the result of falling allegiance to the Church of Scotland (down from 42% to 35%) and to the other Christian category (which declined from 14% to 9%). Roman Catholic identification remained stable at about 15%, while those claiming no religion increased from 28% in 2001 to 40% in 2008, virtually by 2% each year.

Brown made the important point that the question-wording used on both occasions was identical (‘What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?’), thereby implying his confidence that he was comparing like with like. It is a well-known fact that investigation of religious affiliation is especially sensitive to the precise formulation of the question.

Brown’s 2001 figures appear to be calculated on a base which included those who declined to answer the voluntary question about current religion, of whom there were 278,000 in Scotland. If these are removed from the base, then the proportion of Christians in Scotland in 2001 rose to 69%.

Such a calculation enables comparison with the Scottish data from the Integrated Household Survey for 2009-10. 72% of the 55,000 Scots interviewed then answered Christian in response to the question ‘What is your religion, even if you are not currently practising?’

Some might superficially interpret this result as an increase rather than a decrease in Christian allegiance in Scotland since 2001. 25% of Scots said that they had no religion in 2009-10, with a wide geographical variation – from 8% in Inverclyde to 38% in Midlothian.

Another recent source is an Opinion Research Business poll in 2010. This asked a more normally-sized (1,000) representative sample of adult Scots ‘Which religion, if any, do you regard yourself as belonging to?’ 69% said Christian (including 53% Church of Scotland) and 28% no religion, with just 1% refusing to reply. Fractionally more (70%) said that they regarded themselves as a Christian and 26% not (excluding the 2% non-Christians).

The reality is, therefore, somewhat complex, possibly more so than Brown would like to admit. It will be interesting to see what results emerge from the 2011 census of religious profession in Scotland.

In the meantime, a year-by-year analysis of all the religious affiliation data in the Scottish Household Survey from 1999 to the present would be beneficial and would at least confirm whether Brown’s 2008 findings followed a consistent trend. All these data are available for secondary analysis from the Economic and Social Data Service. Any volunteers for the job? Or perhaps it has already been done?

None of the above is to infer that religious affiliation should be interpreted solely as a measure of religiosity. Clearly, for many it is inextricably bound up with national, ethnic and cultural identity.

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Reflecting on the Papal Visit

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Clive D. Field

More than three months afterwards, the state and pastoral visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Scotland and England last September continues to engender mixed views. That is the core finding of two recent online surveys released by ComRes on 1 January and conducted on behalf of Premier Media.

One poll was undertaken among a representative sample of 2,017 adults aged 18 and over throughout Great Britain on 15 and 16 December 2010. The detailed computer tabulations are located at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/page165705613.aspx

31% of this sample of Britons thought that the papal visit had been successful, 29% disagreed and 39% could not make up their minds on the matter. The over-65s (37%) and Scots (48%) were most likely to rate the visit a success, with men (35%) more disposed to disagree than women (24%).

A smaller proportion (21%) considered that the Pope had correctly addressed serious problems facing society during the course of his visit, the highest figures again being recorded among the over-65s (30%) and Scots (31%). 39% disagreed with the statement (with a range of 30-45% across the various demographic sub-groups) and 40% expressed no opinion.

Notwithstanding their answers to the previous question, a majority (53%) agreed with the Pope’s assessment that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, is being marginalized in Britain. The proportion taking this position was especially high among the over-55s and the AB social group, which might have been anticipated. More surprisingly, it was also greater among men (59%) than women (48%). Just 17% of the whole sample took issue with the Pope’s verdict, with 30% uncertain.

A final question to the general public sought reactions to the Government’s plans to exclude religious education (RE) from the list of core GCSE humanities subjects for the new English Baccalaureate. 30% of respondents wanted RE to be a core subject, but 56% were opposed, the remaining 14% not knowing what to think.

The greatest support for RE (36%) was among the youngest cohort, aged 18-24. This is in line with another recent poll of young adults (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=790) and perhaps reflects the growing popularity of RE as a GCSE subject in recent years. The figure also stood at 36% for the over-65s. The strongest opposition to RE came from the 25-44s, skilled manual workers, and Scots.

The second ComRes/Premier Media survey was carried out among 600 UK churchgoing Christians between 17 November and 10 December 2010 via the ComRes CPanel. The unweighted sample included only 37 practising Roman Catholics, so too much should not be made of variations by denomination or churchmanship. Tables are available at:  

http://www.comres.co.uk/page165715812.aspx

As might have been expected, this religiously committed sample took a more positive view than the general public of the success of the papal visit (63%) and of the Pope’s handling of serious problems facing society (64%), with dissentients numbering 9% and 18% respectively.

But there was a little less consensus on two other issues. 57% deemed the visit relevant to them personally (with 38% saying it had been irrelevant). 53% disputed that the Pope had represented all Christians, not just Catholics, when he came to Britain, with 39% agreeing.

Churchgoing Christians overwhelmingly (93%) endorsed the Pope’s comments about the marginalization of religion in contemporary Britain. This was 40% more than among adult Britons as a whole. Moreover, 81% believed that such marginalization of Christians was increasing in the media, 77% in public (meaning not defined), 66% in the workplace, and 59% in Government. 

A final question to churchgoing Christians enquired into the use of new media by their local church in order to communicate its message. The most pervasive technology was a website (82%), followed by worship song projection (64%), videos during services (36%), podcasts/online sermons (33%), email newsletters (26%), and social media such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs (20%). One in ten churches were said to make no use of any of these media.

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Religious Trends Online

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Seven printed editions of Christian Research’s Religious Trends were published between 1997 and 2008, under the editorship of Peter Brierley. They appeared as a companion to the UK Christian Handbook, which had developed incrementally since 1973, predating the formation of Christian Research itself. Both series have rightly established themselves as a major resource for UK religious statistics.

Unsurprisingly, Christian Research has now decided that the pace of technological change, and user expectation, is such that the time has come to move Religious Trends into an online environment. It has just launched a prototype web version, edited by Michael Hudson, and with other contributions by Graham Sharp and Ian Wyllie (who also developed the website). This online version will be found at: http://www.christian-research.org/religious-trends.html

The aims and scope of the electronic publication are defined by Benita Hewitt, Christian Research’s Director, thus: ‘Our vision is to bring together facts and figures from many sources, and to paint an accurate picture of the state of religion, especially Christianity, both in the United Kingdom and throughout the world. We offer interpretation, analysis and comment in the articles on this website. If you need more detailed research or access to our source material, some of the articles in Religious Trends offer a gateway to spreadsheets or links to follow for more information.’

Access to the online Religious Trends is free to members of Christian Research, who pay an annual subscription to join the organization. There are varying levels of membership, including individual membership at £30 per annum. Besides Religious Trends, there are sundry other membership benefits, among them a regular printed magazine (Quadrant) and an email Research Brief.

Information about membership of Christian Research will be found at: http://www.christian-research.org/membership-info.html. Alternatively, you can contact: membership@christian-research.org.uk.

The online Religious Trends currently has the following main sections:

  • Introduction
  • The world and its religions (including global overviews, profiles of China, the United States and Europe, and a feature on martyrdom and persecution)
  • UK church overview (including a summary of recent trends in churchgoing, restating the question posed by Christian Research since September about ‘The end of decline?’)
  • Anglican UK (including attendance, clergy, parochial finance, and other key statistics)
  • Other UK churches (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, Independent, New, and smaller denominations)
  • The Bible (including a digest of the results from a poll of 1,013 adults in England and Wales in July 2010)
  • Faith Journeys (a major and ongoing project of Christian Research)
  • UK population (including births and deaths, abortions, breaks by age, gender, ethnicity and region, and international comparisons)
  • Household statistics (including adoption, household size, and children by family type)
  • Marriages (including ages and attitudes to marriage)
  • Web resources (including international religious research, other UK religious research, UK social research sources, and highest ranking religious blogs)
  • Quadrant archive (at present, just the issues for 2009 and 2010)
  • Other research reports (currently only one, on Mapping Migration)

Just like the BRIN website, the online version of Religious Trends naturally represents work in progress, and not all its sections are yet fully populated, nor are all the features (such as data downloads) operable. Text and charts, rather than tables of raw data, predominate at present. But the site-search function is already working.

Christian Research is positively inviting user feedback and suggestions on the Religious Trends website, which it will use to shape new features and updates (a major annual revision is promised, to incorporate each year’s membership, attendance and other data from individual denominations). So, it will be well worth subscribers bookmarking the site and making regular visits to check out what is new.

Understandably, the emphasis is deliberately on the contemporary scene (largely post-2000), so the printed series of Religious Trends and UK Christian Handbook will continue to have value for more ‘historical’ statistics.

However, there is a consequential caveat and risk arising from this. As the online Religious Trends publication is updated, Christian Research will need to ensure that superseded content is properly archived in some way, and not simply overwritten as is the case with so many websites, thereby consigning invaluable research data and commentary to a digital black hole.

All of us here at BRIN wish the Christian Research team every success as they evolve and grow Religious Trends in the years to come.

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Converts to Islam

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Conversion to Islam by Britons is a centuries-old phenomenon but has only become numerically significant in recent decades. Mostly, the process passes relatively unnoticed by the public, but there have been occasional high-profile conversions, including recently that of the journalist Lauren Booth (sister-in-law of the former British prime minister, Tony Blair), which drew significant negative media coverage.

The phenomenon has attracted more attention in the academic literature, with, for example, important books by Ali Köse, Conversion to Islam: A Study of Native British Converts (London: Kegan Paul International, 1996) and Kate Zebiri, British Muslim Converts: Choosing Alternative Lives (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2008).

There have also been various autobiographies and biographies of converts, some historical, like Ron Geaves, Islam in Victorian Britain: The Life and Times of Abdullah Quilliam (Markfield: Kube Publishing, 2010), others more contemporary, such as Lucy Bushill-Matthews, Welcome to Islam: A Convert’s Tale (London: Continuum, 2008).

Yesterday’s edition of The Times (only available online to subscribers) contained a two-page feature by Ruth Gledhill, the newspaper’s religion correspondent, investigating British converts to Islam, largely through a sneak preview of an as yet unpublished report from Faith Matters, an organization which works towards conflict resolution and cohesion through partnership with faith communities in the UK and Middle East.

Entitled A Minority within a Minority: A Report on Converts to Islam in the United Kingdom, the publication is authored by Kevin Brice, a higher education administrator at Swansea University and a convert to Islam himself. He is also General Secretary of the Muslims in Britain Research Network and a member of the Association of Muslim Social Scientists. His academic profile is at http://www.mbrn.org.uk/members/bricekevin.html.

The number of converts to British Islam is estimated in the document to have almost doubled in the past decade, from 61,000 in 2001, to stand now at approximately 100,000, or 4% of the British Muslim community. Converts in the UK in 2010 alone are put at 5,200 in the light of a survey of over 250 London mosques. This annual rate is broadly on a par with conversions to Islam in France and Germany.

A separate online enquiry among 122 converts in August and September found that 38% were men and 62% women (although, surprisingly, marriage was not the key driver for conversion in at least 45% of instances).

The average age of conversion was 27.5 years. 44% had converted in 2001 or before and 56% subsequently. 56% of converts were white British, 16% other whites, and 29% non-whites. 7% were actually Pakistani by birth; they are presumed to have been brought up by lapsed Muslims.

Just 12% of converts altered their name officially following conversion, but a majority adopted a Muslim name or used a different name when with other Muslims. Three-quarters, including 90% of female converts, changed the way they dressed.

Converts did not generally regard their new faith as incompatible with Western life, although 39% did see themselves as Muslims first and British second. 84% considered that converts could act as a bridge between Muslim and non-Muslim communities and 64% rejected the notion that there is a natural conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in the UK.

According to Gledhill, Brice further discovered that the converts’ path was not entirely a smooth one. Their conversion occasioned a degree of isolation from their own families and friends, at least initially, doubtless partly reflecting latent Islamophobia in Britain.

At the same time, the new converts struggled to get the support they needed from their local mosque and were often ignored or mistrusted by birthright Muslims. They also came under pressure to comply with some practices which had more to do with culture than Islam.

POSTSCRIPT [7 January 2011]

Another two-page feature about the Faith Matters report appeared in The Independent on 4 January 2011, written by Jerome Taylor and Sarah Morrison. The article is available online at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-islamification-of-britain-record-numbers-embrace-muslim-faith-2175178.html

The full report appears to have been published by Faith Matters on the same day and can be downloaded from:

http://faith-matters.org/images/stories/fm-reports/a-minority-within-a-minority-a-report-on-converts-to-islam-in-the-uk.pdf

Chapters of special statistical interest comprise: chapter 3 on estimating the number of converts to Islam in the UK; chapter 4 on print media portrayals of converts in the UK between 2001 and 2010; and chapter 5 on the survey of converts. 

Some minor changes to the original BRIN post have been made in the light of the availability of the full report.

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Who Worked on Christmas Day? Not All the Clergy!

Posted on December 28, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Christmas Day may be both a religious festival and a secular public holiday in Britain, but many people have to, or choose to, work on the day, according to newly-released data from the Government’s Labour Force Survey, which interviews a very large sample of adults aged 16 and over resident at private addresses throughout the country.

The relevant press release does not yet seem to be available online on Office for National Statistics (ONS) or other Government websites, but, according to reports in the Boxing Day broadsheets, the data show that 881,000 Britons worked on Christmas Day in 2008, equivalent to about 3.5% of the workforce. This total was up by 19% from 741,000 in 2004 and slightly above the 872,000 in 2006.

Care assistants made up the largest number working a Christmas Day shift that year (160,000), followed by nurses (88,000), nursing auxiliaries (42,000), chefs and cooks (28,000), security guards (27,000), and police officers (25,000).

However, the occupation with the highest proportion of people working was the clergy, 57% of whom said that they worked on 25 December 2008. Some might be surprised that the figure was not even higher (as, indeed, was the ONS spokesperson, Nick Palmer), given the centrality of Christmas Day to the job, but allowance presumably has to be made for retired or sick clergy and those of non-Christian faiths.

The next highest proportions working on Christmas Day were paramedics (38%), farm managers (34%), midwives (31%), farm workers (28%), managers of licensed premises (26%), and hotel managers (24%).

Regionally, Scots were the most likely to be working on Christmas Day 2008 and residents of Northern Ireland the least (followed by London). Public sector employees were also more likely to work than their counterparts in the private sector, and women more than men.

These figures are probably confined to those who claimed that they actually attended their normal place of work on Christmas Day. They presumably exclude those who did some work from home (for example, logging on to their email or office files) and those who worked on other days during what has increasingly become a fortnight’s festive break for many employees.

Some feel for the size of this broader Christmas working community is given in a survey released by Post Office Travel Services on 27 December, based upon online interviews with 2,000 Britons. The relevant press release is, yet again, unavailable online at present, but reports in various media indicate that one in four will go to work at some stage over the festive period this year, with a further one in six working from home.

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I Believe in Angels – The Reality Behind the ABBA Lyrics

Posted on December 28, 2010 by Clive D. Field

It can often be an uphill struggle to engage the news media in positive stories about religion, especially where statistics are also involved! However, the Bible Society and Christian Research were clearly on to a real winner with their press release on 23 December about popular belief in angels.

Thanks to a Press Association wire, and the inclusion of some city results (albeit based on small cell sizes), the story was picked up by local and regional newspapers the length and breadth of the UK, and by some national and international media, also.

The original release is not yet available on the Bible Society’s website, so this post draws upon coverage in the Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Independent, The Yorkshire Post and The Scotsman, as well as on the full data tables generously made available to BRIN by Christian Research.

The enquiry reported on was an online survey commissioned by the Bible Society and conducted by ICM Research on 15 and 16 December among a representative sample of 1,038 adult Britons aged 18 and over.

Reminded that the Bible states that angels were used to communicate with various characters in the Christmas narrative, 31% of Britons said that they believed in angels, 51% disbelieved, while 17% did not know what to think.

The number of believers was identical to a YouGov enquiry in October 2004 but rather less than the two-fifths recorded by TNS in July 2007 and Ipsos MORI in August 2009.

As reported by ICM, belief was notably greater among women (40%) than men (23%), and it was also somewhat higher among the over-45s than those aged 18-44 and with manual workers rather than non-manuals. The regional high was in London (40%).

Slightly fewer (29%) thought that they had a guardian angel watching over them personally. 54% disagreed and 17% did not know. Demographic variations were similar to the first question, with believers most prevalent among Londoners (37%) and women and the 55-64s (36% each).

This figure of 29% was lower than obtained in four Ipsos MORI polls about guardian angels, between February 1998 and August 2009, in which belief ranged between 31% and 46%.

Despite the relative incidence of belief in angels, only 5% of respondents claimed that they had actually seen or heard one. No demographic sub-group attained double figures, apart from the East Midlands (12%), including 17% of those whose nearest city was Nottingham. 88% were certain that they had not experienced an angel, with 7% unsure.

Canon Dr Ann Holt, the Bible Society’s Programme Director, interpreted the findings as ‘a sign of a spiritual need within many of us’.

The ICM survey also included a question about nativity plays at school, in the face of mounting evidence that a combination of secularization and political correctness is slowly killing them off.

Only a minority (44%) of schools in England and Wales were planning one at Christmas 2004, according to an Ipsos MORI poll for The TES, and the proportion is thought to have declined further during the past six years.

79% of Britons interviewed by ICM favoured such plays being performed in schools, rising to 88% for those aged 45-54 or living in Eastern England. The lowest levels of support were found in multicultural London (68%) and among the 18-24s (71%).

According to a study by Research Now for the Bible Society and Christian Research in December 2009, about one-fifth of the population attends a nativity play each year, peaking with the 35-44s (the cohort most likely to have children of primary school age).

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