AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme Conference “New Forms of Public Religion” The Divinity School, St John’s Colle

1. AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme Conference “New Forms of Public Religion” The Divinity School, St John’s College, Cambridge 5–7 September 2012 Robert Jackson, Elisabeth Arweck, Leslie J Francis Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, UK

2. Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project Introduction Robert Jackson

3. Building on REDCo Framework 6 Project involving 8 European countries Whole UK covered (England, Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland) + London as a ‘special case’ Mixed methods study, starting with qualitative and using findings in questionnaire design PhD student attached to the project

4. Main Research Questions Using qualitative methods, what are the key issues 13-16 year old students identify with religious diversity and how do they respond to these?  Using quantitative methods, how widespread are the responses identified by the qualitative methods?

5. Further Research Questions Drawing on insights from individual differences psychology, how far can quantitative approaches, using recognised measures of personality and other individual-level variables (emotional intelligence, self-concept and empathy), explain attitudes towards religious diversity? Drawing on insights from social psychology,how far cansocial and contextual factors (school, family, media and local neighbourhood) explain individual differences in attitudes toward religious diversity?

6. Further Research Questions Drawing on insights from empirical theology, how far can religious affiliation, beliefs, practices and views of transcendence, explain individual differences in attitudes toward religious diversity?  Drawing on insights from qualitative research, how can attitudes toward religious diversity be more adequately operationalised in quantitative studies?

7. Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project Quantitative Phase Leslie J Francis

8. Structure: • sources of theory • an empirical tradition • methods of measurement • instruments of measurement • data collection • descriptive analyses • model building analyses • publications

9. Part One Sources of theory

10. Sources of theory: • the qualitative project • psychology of religion • empirical theology

11. The qualitative project: • what matters to young people • how young people express themselves • a rich and deep tapestry

12. Psychology of religion: • Argyle (1958) • Argyle and Beit-Hallahmi (1976) • Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle (1997) • Hood, Hill and Spilka (2009)

13. Empirical theology: • Hans van der Ven • Journal of Empirical Theology • International Society for Empirical Research in Theology

14. Part Two An empirical tradition

15. An empirical tradition: • Teenage Religion and Values Project • Assessing Attitudes towards Religion • Outgroup Prejudice Project

16. Teenage Religion and Values: • survey of 34,000 13- to 15-year-old pupils • England and Wales • diversity of schools

17. Assessing Attitudes: • Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity • Kutz-Francis Scale of Attitude towards Judaism • Sahin-Francis Scale of Attitude towards Islam • Santosh-Francis Scale of Attitude towards Hinduism

18. Outgroup Prejudice Project: • York St John University • Dr Andrew Village • Dr Adrian Brockett

19. Part Three Methods of measurement

20. Methods of measurement: • fixed choice • binary options • Likert scaling

21. Methods of measurement: • Are you? • male 1 • female 2

22. Binary options: • Do you like going out a lot? • yes • no

23. Likert scaling: • I find life really worth living • agree strongly • agree • not certain • disagree • disagree strongly

24. Levels of measurement: • nominal • ordinal • interval • scaled

25. Part Four Instruments of measurement

26. Instruments of measurement: • psychological constructs • religious constructs • openness constructs

27. Psychological constructs: • Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised • self esteem • empathy

28. Religious constructs: • affiliation • practice (public) • practice (personal) • belief • attitude

29. Openness constructs: • a lot of good is done in the world by.. • I have friends who are.. • I am interested in finding out about.. • a lot of harm is done in the world by.. • I would not like to live next door to..

30. Part Five Data Collection

31. Data collection: • pilot study • main study • interim analyses

32. Pilot study: • questionnaire included variants • one school intensive examination • cognitive testing • quantitative testing • leads to shorter revised questionnaire

33. Main study: • Five nations of the UK: • England • Northern Ireland • Scotland • Wales • London

34. Main study: • 2000 pupils from each nation: • 50% religious character • 50% secular

35. Part Six Descriptive analyses

36. Example 1: • Females only • no affiliation, no attendance • Christian, no attendance • Christian, with attendance

37. I am interested in finding out about Muslims: • no religion 27 % • nominal Christian 40 % • practising Christian 55 % • χ² = 59.5 • p<.001

38. Muslims should be allowed to wear the headscarf in schools: • no religion 60 % • nominal Christian 59 % • practising Christian 79 % • χ² = 40.2 • p<.001

39. Example 2: • secular religious • % % • England • N Ireland • Scotland • Wales • London

40. Studying religion at school helps me understand people from other religions: • secular religious • % % • England 79 80 • N Ireland 83 89 • Scotland 68 71 • Wales 77 82 • London 85 86

41. I would be happy about a close relative marrying someone from a different faith: • secular religious • % % • England 66 55 • N Ireland 69 73 • Scotland 53 65 • Wales 59 61 • London 57 66

42. Part Seven Model building analyses

43. Model building: • testing scales • establishing correlations • multivariate models

44. Scale reliabilities: • Diversity .89

45. Correlations with diversity: • sex .24+++ • age -.06 +++ • school .01

46. Partial correlations with diversity: • extraversion -.04 • neuroticism .08 +++ • psychoticism -.32 +++ • lie scale .12 +++

47. Partial correlations with diversity: • empathy .36 +++ • self concept .21 +++

48. Partial correlations with diversity: • theism .22 • God image .27

49. Regression model: beta weights: • sex .12 +++ • age -.04+ • extraversion .00 • neuroticism .07 +++ • psychoticism -.27 +++ • lie scale .03 • theism -.01 • God image .20 +++

50. Part Eight Publications