Chapter 17 : Religion in Modern Society

As the authors of your text note, Americans are unusually religious in comparison to citizens of other industrial nations. An area of interest to sociologists is whether or not the level of attachment has changed across time; are Americans' less or more religious today than they were in the past? Also of interest is the question of religious affiliation-who belongs to which religious denominations and how strong are their ties to, and involvement in, those denominations? In this exercise we will explore these questions with the help of the General Social Survey (GSS).

Part I:

Let's begin by looking at the different religions with which people identify. Over the past 30 years, the survey has asked people this question: What is your religious preference? Is it Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, some other religion, or no religion? Of the 43,532 people who have participated in the annual, and then biennial, surveys, slightly more than three in five (61%) was Protestant, another one in four (25%) was Catholic, nearly one in ten was nothing (9%), and the remainder were either Jewish (2%), or some other religion (3%). It is possible that the distribution of people across the religious categories may have changed over the past 30 years.

Has religious preference changed over the past 30 years?

To find this out follow these steps:

1. Go to the University of California webpage for Survey and Documentation Analysis . Select "Frequencies and crosstabulation" and then click the "Start" button.
2. At the SDA Tables Program screen, enter RELIG (r: 1 "Protestant"; 2 "Catholic"; 3 "Jewish"; 4 "None"; 5-13 "Other") as the Row variable.
3. For the Column variable, enter YEAR (r:1974-1978; 1980-1984; 1985-1989; 1990-1994; 1996-2002). You need to include this entire string in order to recode the individual years into a smaller number of categories.
4. In the Table Options box, check Column Percentaging, Statistics, and Question Text.
5. In the Chart Options box, select "Bar Chart."
6. Finally, click on "Run the Table."

Writing Assignment 1:

After analyzing your results, which religious categories have remained unchanged over this time period? Which ones have changed and in what ways have they changed? What factors may be related to these changes?

Next we are going to see whether or not there are any differences in religious affiliation according to social class and race. First, we will look at social class.

Do you have any opinions about whether or not there are class and race differences in religious affiliation? Think about your own participation in a religion. Do you perceive that most of the people with whom you worship share the same class background? To find out whether or not there is an association between these two variables, follow these steps:

1. Go to the University of California webpage for Survey and Documentation Analysis . Select "Frequencies and crosstabulation" and then click the "Start" button.
2. At the SDA Tables Program screen, enter RELIG (r: 1 "Protestant"; 2 "Catholic"; 3 "Jewish"; 4 "None"; 5-13 "Other") as the Row variable.
3. For the Column variable, enter CLASS.
4. In the Table Options box, check Column Percentaging, Statistics, and Question Text.
5. In the Chart Options box, select "Stacked Bar Chart."
6. Finally, click on "Run the Table."

One note of caution: As you read the table and examine the chart, you will notice that there is a column that reads "No Class" that has only one case in it. This represents one respondent for whom there was information on religion but not on class. For the purposes of analysis, you can simply disregard this one case.

Writing Assignment 2:

What conclusions can you draw regarding the association between religion and social class? Can you develop an explanation in which one's religious preference might influence one's social class? How about one in which one's social class might influence one's religious preference?

Now let's look at whether or not there are any racial differences in religious affiliation. Repeat the preceding steps, only this time the Column variable will be RACE.

Writing Assignment 3:

Based on the table and the chart you have generated, what conclusions can you draw regarding race and religion? What are the biggest differences between white and black people? Were you surprised by what you found?

Part II:

Between 1974 and 2002, respondents to the GSS were regularly asked questions about their religion affiliation. Those who expressed a preference for any religion were asked if their identification with that religion was strong, somewhat strong, or not very strong. Our first investigation is to see whether or not there has been any variation in the strength of respondents' attachment to their preferred religion. To find out, follow these steps:

1. Go to the University of California webpage for Survey and Documentation Analysis . Select "Frequencies and crosstabulation" and then click the "Start" button.
2. At the SDA Tables Program screen, enter RELITEN as the Row variable.
3. For the Column variable, enter YEAR (r:1974-1978; 1980-1984; 1985-1989; 1990-1994; 1996-2002). You need to include this entire string in order to recode the individual years into a smaller number of categories.
4. In the Table Options box, check Column Percentaging, Statistics, and Question Text.
5. In the Chart Options box, select "Bar Chart."
6. Finally, click on "Run the Table."

Writing Assignment 4:

Examine both the table and the bar chart. What changes can you see in terms of the strength of Americans' religious feelings? Where has there been the most change? Where has there been the least change? What broader social factors do you think are associated with these changes?

For Further Exploration:

Are there differences in the strength of affiliation between men and women or among people of difference ages? We can explore these questions using the GSS data. Repeat the previous steps, only this time, use SEX as the Column variable. Whose attachment is stronger? Why do you think this is so? To see whether there are age differences, use AGE (r: 18-24; 25-34; 35-44; 45-54; 55-64; 65-89) as the column variable. What happens as people age? Does their attachment to religion get stronger or weaker? Using what you learned in previous chapters about gender roles as well as the aging process develop an explanation for these patterns.

Part III:

In this part of the exercise we're going to examine patterns in church attendance. First, let's look at variations in attendance across time. Here are the steps you need to follow in order to generate this information:

1. Once again, go to the University of California webpage for Survey and Documentation Analysis . Select "Frequencies and crosstabulation" and then click the "Start" button.
2. At the SDA Tables Program screen, enter ATTEND as the Row variable.
3. For the Column variable, enter YEAR (r: 1972-1978; 1980-1989; 1990-1998; 2000-2002). This time you are going to recode the year category into decades.
4. In the Table Options box, check Column Percentaging, Statistics, and Question Text.
5. In the Chart Options box select "Stacked Bar Chart."

Writing Assignment 5:

The question on attendance has a number of categories, so take your time in examining the results. In which categories do you notice the most change in behavior over the years since the GSS first asked this question? What conclusions can you draw about patterns of attendance based on this table?

For Further Exploration:

What other variables might be associated with church attendance? For example, are there gender differences in church attendance? Repeat the preceding steps, but this time, use SEX as the Column variable. Is one gender more likely than the other to attend church on a regular basis? How about age differences? Repeat the steps once more,

using AGE (r: 18-24; 25-34; 35-44; 45-54; 55-64; 65-89) as the Column variable; once again, be sure to type the whole string in order to collapse the individual ages into broader age groupings. What happens as people age? Are older people more or less likely to attend religious services regularly? Use the knowledge you gained in previous chapters about gender and age to develop a sociological explanation for these findings.

Part IV:

Writing Assignment 6/Essay:

Often, researchers will present the findings and conclusions of their research at scholarly meetings. For the final part to this exercise, assume that you have been asked to give a presentation to the class on your research into religion in the contemporary U.S. Prepare a research report in which you include the findings of your research and the conclusions that you have drawn based on these findings.