Lesson video

Hello, everybody.

It's Mr. Robertson here.

I love RE, and I'm really excited to be learning with you today.

In today's lesson, we are continuing with our big inquiry question, Worldviews: How is our Country and Community Changing? In this unit, we've been exploring the census results and looking at the changing face of worldviews in our country.

Today's lesson is all about investigating worldviews in your community.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to analyse local census data about worldviews and carry out a survey.

So exciting, practical lesson for you where you're going to be putting some of these big ideas we've been learning about into practise.

We have five keywords today.

I will say the keyword first and I'm gonna ask you to repeat it back to me.

So let's begin.

Our first word is worldview.

Brilliant.

Next, we have census.

Amazing.

Data.

Fabulous.

Survey.

Brilliant.

And local.

Fantastic, everybody.

So what do these keywords mean? Well, worldview is the way that people see, interpret, and inhabit to the world.

A census is a national survey held every 10 years in the UK.

Data is information that can be collected and analysed.

A survey is a method of collecting data by asking questions through a form.

And local means nearby or related to an area.

We're going to use these keywords throughout the lesson, so you will be really familiar with them.

Our lesson today about investigating worldviews in our community is made up of two parts.

The first question we are asking is this, what local data can I find out about worldviews? Let's go.

So let's think about this idea of local data.

This lesson is going to be using a social science way of knowing, and we're going to be using some social science tools to help us answer these questions around worldviews.

Alex is gonna talk about the role of social science in RE.

Alex says, "Social scientists are interested in how people live and how context like where they live or when they live affects this.

We can better understand people's worldviews by looking at photographs or analysing data.

We can survey or interview people to find out more about their worldview." So those are some of the ways of knowing in social science.

How does that apply to what we're doing today? Well, in this lesson, we will examine census data about religion and beliefs, and we're going to be comparing national and local data.

What do we mean by this idea of national and local? Izzy and Jacob, who are investigating this with us today, are talking about national and local.

Izzy says, "I went to see the Lionesses play at Wembley recently.

They are the national women's football team for England.

There were people in the crowd from all over the country cheering them on!" Jacob says, "Yeah, I support the England national teams too! But I also support my local team, Bristol Rovers.

When I watch them, the crowd is mainly people from the local area." So actually, when we think about what Izzy and Jacob are saying in the context of a football match, we've got different things going on, haven't we? If you go to England and see a national team playing at Wembley, there might be people from all over the country supporting that team.

But if you go and see your local football team, like Jacob supports Bristol Rovers, it's mainly people from the area nearby, close to that area.

So we have a difference between national and local.

Can you think of any other examples of things that are national or local? So things which might involve the whole country or things which involve just the local area.

You might want to pause the video now and see if you can think of any examples.

Awesome, some really brilliant examples.

Yes, I think you are really getting this idea of national and local.

Well done.

So Izzy and Jacob want to investigate local worldviews and they wanna do that using the census.

Izzy explains why.

She says, "The census is a national survey that takes place every 10 years.

The last census was in 2021.

We can use it to find out what worldviews people in England and Wales have." Jacob says, "It's amazing that we can find out worldviews for England and Wales, but what about in our local area? Is there a way we could find out if it was similar or different to England and Wales as a whole?" Hmm, that's a really good question, Jacob.

He's really thinking here about, well, we can get all of the England and Wales data, but could we find out what was going on in our local area? Hmm, how might we find out worldviews in the local area? Again, you might want to pause the video at this moment and have a little think about that.

Maybe talk to the person next to you if you've got somebody to talk to.

Again, some really interesting thinking.

We're really beginning to think like social scientists do when they're investigating worldviews.

So actually, social scientists can use the 2021 census information to examine worldviews.

These are the national results for the 2021 census question, what is your religion? You can see on your screen a graph, and we've got the main worldviews that you could answer the question: Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, other religion or no religion.

And you can see the data in percentages.

Again, just so we can check we can interpret and understand what this data is saying, I'd like you to think of three statements you could make about this.

You might want to say something about which is the largest worldview in England and Wales? Which is the smallest? Pause the video and have a think about this.

So let's just check our understanding of this data.

What is the national majority worldview according to the 2021 census? Which worldview has the highest percentage of the population? Pause the video, have a think.

Excellent, social scientists.

It's Christian, isn't it? 46.

2% of people in England and Wales identified as Christian, which means that the majority worldview in England and Wales is Christian.

Excellent if you could read that graph correctly.

Okay, so that gives us some information about the national picture.

Let's see if we can think a bit deeper about this.

So the census data is also available at a local level.

This means that social scientists can better understand worldviews locally, which is going to be really interesting for us.

So we're going to investigate the census data on worldviews for Bristol.

We're going to use Bristol as a case study.

And if you don't know where Bristol is, well, Bristol is a city in the southwest of England, it's actually where I live.

So we're going to look at the example of Bristol, but you might also want to start thinking about your local area and where if you can find the data for your local community.

So here is the census data on worldviews for the city of Bristol.

You'll see that is the same question that was asked in the national census, what is your religion? And the same worldview categories of no religion, Christian, Buddhist, but this time the data is just for the people of Bristol rather than all of England and Wales.

So Izzy's asking a question, "Which is the majority worldview in Bristol?" Hmm, I wonder.

You might already have spotted this.

Jacob says, "The data tells me that no religion is the majority.

This means that most people in Bristol have a non-religious worldview." Wow, isn't that interesting? Over half the people of Bristol are non-religious.

They have a non-religious worldview.

So that's a really interesting example of local data, isn't it? Let's just check our understanding that we can interpret this data.

What percentage of people in Bristol are Muslim? So you're going to need to look at the graph carefully, find the worldview and look at the data.

Pause the video, have a go.

Amazing work.

Yes, the data shows that 6.

7% of people in Bristol are Muslim.

So actually Muslims form the third largest worldview in the city of Bristol.

Brilliant if you've got that right.

So we've got another graph now.

So far we've looked at the national census data for all of England and Wales, then we looked at the census data for Bristol alone, now we've got a graph here.

Ooh, I wonder what you might notice about this graph.

How is it different to the previous graphs? You might have noticed this time we've got two bars on our chart, haven't we, for each of the worldviews.

So this graph compares the Bristol and the national data.

So we're putting all the information we've looked at so far onto one graph 'cause that's gonna make it much easier for us to compare it.

The dark purple bars is the national data and the light purple bars is the Bristol data.

So Jacob says, "If we compare Bristol with the national data, what will we notice?" You might want to pause the video here and discuss this.

What's similar and what's different about the data between Bristol and the rest of England and Wales? Again, you might want to pause the video and have a bit of a think about that first.

Also brilliant thinking, you are really using those social science tools well to analyse worldviews.

Fantastic.

So Jacob says, "I've noticed that a lot more people in Bristol have a non-religious worldview.

51% of people in Bristol have a non-religious worldview, but only 37% nationally.

That is 14% higher." So those percentages mean that there are a lot more people in Bristol that have a non-religious worldview than do in the rest of England and Wales.

Isn't that interesting? So there we've got a really big difference between local data, in this case Bristol, and the national data.

Izzy says, "I can see there are fewer Christians in Bristol.

32% of Bristol is Christian.

Nationally, 46% of people are." What I've done here is I've rounded the numbers to make it easier to talk about them.

So if it's 0.

5 and 0.

4 and below, I'm rounding it down, otherwise I'm gonna round it up just 'cause it makes it easier than using points all the time.

So that means there are 14% fewer Christians in Bristol.

So this is why analysing local data could be really interesting because Bristol has a lot more people who are non-religious and a lot fewer people who are Christian.

So the city of Bristol looks quite different to England and Wales as a whole.

Did you notice those differences too? Fantastic if you managed to interpret that data and see that there were those differences between the national and local data.

Let's just check your understanding of this.

Again, I want us to look at Muslims. I want you to compare Muslims in Bristol to the national data.

So again, look down the graph, find the worldview Muslims and remember the purple data, the dark purple is the national data and the light purple is Bristol.

What do you notice about it? You might want to use some numbers in your answer.

Okay, pause the video and have a think.

So, you may have noticed that 6.

7% of people in Bristol are Muslim.

And actually this is really similar, isn't it, to the national data.

You can see the bars are pretty aligned and 6.

5% of people nationally are Muslim.

So there's about the same number of Muslims in Bristol as there is in the rest of England and Wales.

Well done if you managed to interpret that graph correctly.

Okay, so for our task, first task, I'm going to ask you to find out the census data in your local area.

So in this lesson so far we've been looking at the city of Bristol and comparing the Bristol data with the national data.

What I would like you to do is find your local data, and you can do that by going onto the census website and putting in your local area.

There's a big map of the country and you can hover over your area and click on it and it will tell you the data for your local area.

And like we've done before, you might want to make a graph of the results, and I'd like you to complete these statements for me.

One, the census data for my local area shows that the majority worldview is.

What's the biggest worldview in your local area? Other important worldviews in my local area are.

Are there any other religions and worldviews that you notice are important? The data is similar to the national data because.

So you might want to say are there a similar number of Christians or similar number of Muslims in my local area compared to the national area.

And four, the data is different to the local data because.

What is different? When you look at the graphs, are there any bars which are much longer or much shorter? Okay, so we're gonna be using our social science tools and we're going to be looking at the data in your local community.

I can't wait to see what you find out.

Off you go.

Well, you found out some really interesting information, and I'm sure you found out some fantastic stuff about your local area.

I've used the example of Bristol here so you can see how the answer might work, but obviously the answers I've written are going to be different to yours.

So in my answer, looking at Bristol, number one, the census data for my local area shows that the majority worldview is no religion.

This was 51% of the population, which means that most people in Bristol have a non-religious worldview.

Two, other important worldviews in my local area are Christian, which is 32%, and Muslim, which is 6.

5%.

The data is similar to the national data because there are similar numbers of Muslims in Bristol and nationally.

The data is different to local data because there is a 14% higher percentage of people who are non-religious.

Also there are 14% fewer Christians in Bristol than nationally.

So your answers will probably have looked different to that because you are gonna be looking at a different parts of England and Wales.

But well done if you've managed to write some sentences which can express what the data looks like in your local area.

Fantastic.

The second part of our lesson is going to answer this question.

How can I survey worldviews in my school? Let's go.

So Izzy and Jacob are continuing their investigation into local worldviews.

We've looked at some national information, we've looked at some local census data.

Izzy says, "I wonder what the worldviews look like in our school context.

Would it be the same as the local or national data?" Jacob says, "I wonder how we could find that information out." Well, these are really important questions, Izzy and Jacob.

How might you find out what worldviews there were in your school? What tools could you use? Hmm, that's a great question.

I'd like you to pause the video and either talk to the person next to you or think for yourself.

How might you find out what religions and worldviews there are in your school? What might you use to find that information out? Wow, I'm hearing some amazing ideas here.

Brilliant that you're coming up with some fantastic plans.

So Izzy says, "Oh, we could carry out a survey of everyone in our class." Jacob says, "It's a great idea, but I'm not sure that data would be reliable.

Our class might have different worldviews to the rest of the school." So what Jacob's saying is really important here.

We need to make sure that our data is reliable, and that means that when we ask questions and find out information, we're not just looking at a really small group of people, but we try and look at as many people as possible because that means we'll have more accurate data.

So Izzy first suggested, we could just look at people in one class in school, but how could Izzy and Jacob make sure their survey data is reliable? How could they find out? How could they do a bit a bit more to find out what the worldviews were like in their school? Again, I'd like you to pause the video or talk to the person next to you.

Yeah, I can see all really thinking about this.

So Izzy's had a different idea.

She says, "We could ask at least three classes in the school so that our data is more reliable." What do you think about Izzy's idea there? Jacob says, "The census asks people, 'What is your religion?' I think we should ask the same question so that we can compare the answers.

Or we could ask, 'What is your worldview?'" So these are really, really good ideas by Izzy and Jacob.

If we ask at least three classes rather than just one, we'll have more data and it will be more reliable because it might be that in your class there are a certain number of people of a particular religion or worldview, but actually they're not found in the rest of the school.

But if we look at at least three classes, we'll get much more reliable data.

And Jacob suggested, when we think of a question, the question needs to be really close to the census question so that we can use the same categories and get similar answers so we can compare them 'cause if we ask a completely different question, then it's gonna be really, really hard to see if our data in the school is similar to that locally or nationally.

So fantastic thinking, Izzy and Jacob.

Let's just check what we've been learning here.

How can we ensure that our survey data is reliable? And I'd like you to choose two correct answers.

Is it A, ask one class or group of pupils, B, ask at least three classes of pupils, or C, use the same question as the census? Pause the video and have a think.

Excellent, social scientists.

Yes, it's B, ask at least three classes of pupils, then we've got a broader selection of data, and C, use the same question as the census so then we can compare the data.

Fantastic if you've got that right.

Okay, so now we've decided what we're going to do, we need to think a little bit about the how.

Izzy and Jacob are thinking about how they're going to carry out their survey.

Izzy says, "We could split into small groups and go to each class.

Then we could ask other pupils what their religion or worldview is." Jacob says, "We can record the information in a tally chart." That sounds like a really good idea, doesn't it? Because we don't want everyone in the class going to another class, that would take a lot of work and make a lot of noise and isn't really necessary.

If we split into teams, survey teams, like little social science teams investigating worldviews, we could go with a clipboard maybe and we could record the information.

A tally chart's a brilliant idea because we can note the information down really, really quickly.

I wonder what methods you might want to use to gather information about worldviews in your school.

All schools are a little bit different.

You can have different numbers of classes.

Maybe your school's organised in more than one site, so you might wanna think a little bit about that.

Again, you might want to pause the video and discuss this idea.

Excellent, I could see you are really beginning to engage with how to do this research in a really reliable way.

A tally can be used to quickly record how many people said what their religion or worldview was.

So we've got the question at the top here, what is your religion or worldview? And then we've got some categories down there.

We've got no religion, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu.

People might put up their hands for the different category and then someone with a clip wall can note it down.

When we've written, so we put a stroke for 1, 2, 3, 4, and if we get to five, we can put a horizontal stroke across and that makes it really easy to count them.

Jacob says, "Our tally will have all the religions or worldviews recorded on it.

This means we can compare it with the census data." So in my example, I've got four different worldviews, but obviously you would want to add Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, et cetera so you've got a proper set of data like in the census.

So well done, Jacob, for spotting that.

Let's just check our understanding there.

True or false, only some religions or worldviews should be put on the tally chart? Is that true or false? Pause the video and have a think.

Excellent thinking.

It's false, isn't it? Why? Because to be able to compare with the census data, we need to use the same categories.

So we need to put all the different religions and worldviews down there and so we can find out if anyone in your school identifies with that religion or worldview.

Okay, your final task for today is this.

I want you to firstly, 'cause this is in two parts this task, to create the survey form to find out what worldviews you have in your school.

So think about the question you'll ask other pupils.

Think about what we've been saying about keeping that really consistent, and think about how you're going to record the information.

How are you going to do this? So I'd like you to use the census data to help you organise your ideas and what you've learned so far.

And then when you've done that, the second part of the task is to carry out the survey to find out what worldviews you have in your school.

And to do this, you're going to really have to think about your local school and what it looks like.

So you're gonna need to think about how many pupils you will ask.

If you're in a very small school, you might be able to only ask one or two classes, or even ask everybody.

If you're in a really large school, you might want to think a little bit about maybe asking one class in each year group.

It's really up to you to decide how you think this will work best.

You've got to think about how we can make sure the results are reliable, and you've got to make sure that you've got your form to record the results.

And then you can go out and be researchers and find out what information you've got.

So really looking forward to this.

Design your form and go and carry out your survey.

Good luck, social scientists.

Off you go.

Wow, you have been really busy, haven't you? So your survey form may have looked something like this.

You might have asked the question, what is your religion or worldview? And you may have had a list of worldviews as well.

No religion, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh.

You may also wanted to add other religion on there perhaps.

So your survey form will have looked something like this.

And your survey, of course, will have varied depending on the size and context of your school.

You might have decided to survey three classes in the school, but it might have been different to that.

You might want to have the question, what is your worldview? You might have decided to record the results in the tally chart and share the results with the rest of your class.

I hope you really enjoyed carrying out that survey and really looking forward to analysing that survey at another time.

Well done for all your really hard work today, and I hope you've really enjoyed being practical researchers using social science tools.

Let's summarise what we've been learning today about investigating worldviews in our community.

We've learned that social scientists use tools such as the census and surveys to better understand worldviews.

We've learned that the census provides data about worldviews at a national level.

It also provides data for local areas.

We've learned that we can compare local data with national data to see if worldviews are similar or different.

And we've also learned that we can use surveys to find out people's worldviews.

A survey of pupils in school will allow us to better understand worldviews in our school.

Thank you very much for learning with me today.