Measuring religious affiliation in Great Britain

The 2011 Census in Historical and Methodological Context

Bibliographic Data

ID4373328
AuthorsClive D Field (University of Manchester, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume44
Issue3
Pages357-382
Publication date2014-07-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0048-721X • E-ISSN: 1096-1151
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0048721x.2014.903643
OpenAlexW2074904765
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited23

The British religious census of 2011 is located in its broader historical and methodological context. The principal developments in the measurement of religious affiliation (proxy-assigned or self-assigned) in Britain are traced from the Reformation to the present day, charting the relative contribution of the Churches, the State and empirical social science. The key statistics which have emerged from their respective efforts are summarised, with nominal religious affiliation universal until the time of the French Revolution and preponderant until as late as the 1980s. For recent decades, when the profession of faith has been rejected by large numbers of Britons, particular attention is paid to the variant results from different question-wording. Depending upon what is asked, the proportion of the population currently making sense of their lives without asserting a confessional religious identity ranges from one-quarter to one-half. The difficulties of trying to construct a religious barometer through a single, unitary indicator are thus illuminated

Census · Confessional · Context (archaeology) · Epistemology · Faith · Identity (music) · Political science · Politics · Population · Quarter (Canadian coin) · Religious identity · Social science · Sociology · Unitary state · Demography · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development · Religious Freedom and Discrimination

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