Lesson video

Hello there, my young scholars of religion.

My name is Ms. Marx and I'm going to be your religious education teacher today.

Today we're going to be interpreting the 2021 census data for England and Wales, particularly around religion, where people self-reported with a voluntary question, whether they were affiliated with a particular religion or not.

Now this data is really interesting for us as scholars of religion 'cause we can understand the religious landscape of England and Wales, as well as look at different patterns and trends and things that might be happening to do with religious belief and practise within those two countries.

So we'll be using a lot of the tools of social science when we do this to understand the data.

So when you're ready, let's go.

So by the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain how the census asks about religion and what the results can and cannot tell us about religion in England and Wales.

So let's start with our key terms. Census: an official count of a country's population, usually including details like age, sex, and occupation.

Voluntary: done by choice without being forced.

Multi-religious: involving or including people who follow different religions.

And religious affiliation: a person's connection or association with a specific religion.

So look out for those in today's lesson.

So our lesson today will have three sections: how the census works, the census results for 2021 and what the census results can and can't tell us.

So let's start with our first section, how the census works.

Lucas, Izzy and Alex have some ideas for how we can know what religions people belong to in a country.

Which one could be the best way to gather that information and why? So let's have a look.

Lucas says, "See how many people attend worship." So, how many people go to the places of worship and take part in different services.

Izzy says, "Ask everyone to say if they're religious." And Alex says, "Talk to a group that represents the country." Which of these do you think would be the best way to get the information about what religions people belong to in a country and why? Pause the video and have a think and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, social scientists are very interested in religion within a country, and these are three tools that social scientists might use to kind of understand and see how many people belong to religion in a country.

But there are obviously strengths and weaknesses with each of these approaches, aren't there? Well, one way that we could get this information is through a census, and the census of England and Wales gathers this information every 10 years.

So social scientists are academics and people who may investigate religions and religious people.

Social scientists will use evidence to back up their claims about religion.

And whether or not you have religious worldview, you can use social science as a tool to understand religion and worldviews through looking at how people live and behave.

And in this lesson we'll use social science to look at the religious landscape in the United Kingdom.

What tools could social scientists use to find this out? We've already mentioned a few at the start of the lesson there.

Have a think, you could pause the video and talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, we've said that one tool which is really important is census data.

And here we've got quite a famous census that happened, which we might know from Christmas stories where Mary and Joseph had to complete a census in Bethlehem.

Censuses have been used for thousands of years to count people within a country or an area for tax, military and other planning purposes.

Through history, censuses have been used by empires to gain a picture of the people living there.

And there's evidence of censuses dating back from around 5,000 years ago in the Babylonian Empire.

They were also regularly taken by ancient Roman Empire and historians believe that Emperor Caesar Augustus held regular censuses around the time of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Bible has an account of Jesus' mother and her husband, Joseph, travelling to Bethlehem in order to complete a census, as the area was under Roman occupation at the time of Jesus' birth.

This is told in the gospel of Luke and forms an important part of the Nativity story.

Censuses have continued to be a useful tool in gathering information about a country.

The United Nations recommends that they should be completed once every 10 years in order to gain an understanding of trends and patterns in a population.

There is a census in England and Wales every 10 years with the most recent one being from 2021.

Let's do a quick check before we move on.

What empire ran a census around the time of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth? Was it the Babylonian Empire, the British Empire, the Roman Empire or the Ottoman Empire? Pause the video and have a go.

We'll see what you've got in a moment.

Well done.

It was the Roman Empire.

So why is census data about religion important, then? We've thought here about how a census could gather some data for us about religion within a country, but why might that be important, particularly for social scientists? Pause the video and have a think, and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, here I've got reasons like, it can support community services to know what things might need to be built or put in place to support different parts of the community.

It can influence government policies, it can promote understanding where people within a country can learn about one another more.

It can support education, like it is for us today.

It can also track changes over time so we could see what patterns and what things are happening within that country.

And it can also help to protect minority rights.

So we could see that there are particular groups that are there on the census who maybe aren't as represented in other areas of society and it can sort of protect their rights and help people to support them.

So we know in England and Wales, data is collected about religion within the census, but how does this happen in other countries? In addition to information about the number of people who live in a place, governments in many countries ask their citizens to report on their religious affiliation.

The UK Government has done this in England and Wales census since 2001 as a voluntary question which asks, what is your religion? There's a list of religions to choose from along with an option to say "no religion" or write in another religion, including the possibility to write atheist, agnostic, and humanist.

Other countries also collect data on religious affiliation, but in different ways.

In India, the question is compulsory and a write-in response.

These are then categorised into six main religious groups and anything that doesn't fall into that is classed as "other." In Canada, the question is voluntary as it is in the UK, but a write-in response is collated with over 200 different responses given.

Other countries such as France, don't collect any official data on religious affiliation, but use other methods to estimate the number of people who follow a religion within the country.

So think about those three different approaches.

What are the benefits of these different approaches to gathering data about religious affiliation in a country? We've got India where it's not voluntary, it's compulsory, but it's categorised into six main religions.

And then anything that's not those is called "other." In Canada, it's a voluntary question and anybody can write whatever religion they want to and you get over 200 different religions written in.

And then in France, there's no official data gathered on the different religious affiliations within the country.

What could be the benefits of those? Perhaps which one do you think might be the best? Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, each of these approaches are gonna have their strengths and limitations, aren't they? And we can think more about the census in England and Wales together now.

Let's do a quick check before we move on.

Which of these three countries does not collect census data on religious affiliation? Was it India, Canada, or France? Pause the video and have a go.

We'll see what you got in a moment.

Well done.

It was France.

So time for a practise task to see what we've learned.

Lucas has written an explanation of how the census works and he's made five mistakes.

You're going to correct his mistakes and rewrite his paragraph.

And Lucas says, "Censuses have been used for thousands of years to count animals for tax, military and planning purposes.

The Bible mentions a census during Jesus' birth, explaining why he was born in Nazareth.

Today, censuses has helped track population trends, with one held every five years in England and Wales, most recently in 2021.

Many countries also ask about religion.

In the UK, this is a compulsory question, while in India it's voluntary.

France also collects this data." So Lucas has made five mistakes.

Find the mistakes and rewrite his paragraph.

Pause the video and off you go.

Well done.

Did you spot all of Lucas's mistakes? Your response should look something like this: "Censuses have been used for thousands of years to count people for tax, military and planning purposes.

The Bible mentions a census during Jesus' birth, explaining why he was born in Bethlehem.

Today, censuses help track population trends with one held every 10 years in England and Wales, most recently in 2021.

Many countries also ask about religion.

In the UK, this is a voluntary question, while in India, it's compulsory.

France does not collect this data." Well done.

So on to our second section then, the census results for 2021.

So, in 2021, 97% of the population of England and Wales completed the census.

It's a very, very high proportion of people did complete the census.

It's around 57.

7 million people.

However, whilst the census is compulsory, the "What is your religion?" question is voluntary in the England and Wales census, remember? And 94% of the population choose to complete it.

So we still have a very high proportion of the population who've chosen to complete this.

And that's around 56 million people.

The census shows us that England and Wales are multi-religious societies.

We've got a whole range of different religions that people said they were affiliated with within the census data.

But let's think about those few people who chose not to answer that question.

Why do you think some people might have done the census but chosen not to complete that question? Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

So here we have the census results, and you can see at the bottom, we've got the people who chose not to answer this, represented with 6% there.

And then we have got other religious groups: Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Other religion also represented.

And then we have this 37.

2% of people who said they had no religion.

So they chose to answer "What is your religion?" but marked that they had no religion.

And then we have a whole range of other religious groups represented here.

But the one that has kind of the largest amount of people who are within that religion is Christianity at 46.

2%.

Which worldview had the largest number of people in England and Wales Identify with it, then? Pause the video and have a think and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well done.

That was Christianity.

Which worldview had the second largest number of people in England and Wales who identified with it, then? Pause the video and have a go and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well done.

That was no religion, then.

So these are the kind of two largest worldviews that people affiliated with in England and Wales in that census data.

Well done.

Well, we can see that in England and Wales, the majority of people actually affiliated to being part of a religious worldview or said they were.

In answer to the question, "What is your religion?" they responded with a religion and that's 60.

5%.

So that wasn't all one religion, that's all the people who responded with a religion.

And then we got 39.

5% of people who responded with "no religion." Let's do a quick check before we move on.

Which religious group had the second highest number of responses, then? So it's a religious group.

Which one had the second highest number of responses? Pause the video and have a go.

We'll see what you've got in a moment.

Well done, it was Muslim or Islam.

Well done.

And we said that the United Nations recommends that a census is done every 10 years so that you can see different trends and patterns within a country.

So the census before the 2021 census was in 2011.

And we can see here there are some changes.

So the 2021 census is in the purple colour and the 2011 is in the green colour.

What differences can we notice here, then? Pause the video and have a look and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, on almost all of these, there's some differences, isn't there? We've got slightly more people saying that they're Buddhist, less people saying they're Christian, slightly more people saying they're Hindu, same amount of people saying that they're Jewish, slightly more people saying they're Muslim, again with Sikh, slightly more people saying they're other religion, more people saying they're no religion.

And actually more people chose to answer this even though it's that voluntary question.

So two significant changes there were the amount of people who affiliated with Christianity decreasing and then the amount of people saying they were no religion increasing.

So you can see the differences here from 59.

3% down to 42 with Christianity.

So actually Christianity was even the majority of the whole country in 2011.

Now it might be the majority of the people who say that they're religious, but it's not the majority of the country as a whole.

And then what we do have is a really significant increase in the number of people who said that they weren't religious at all.

That wasn't the only changes that we saw, was it? We saw changes in the religions other than Christianity between 2011 and 2021.

So this chart shows the percent of respondents who answered with these, and as we can see here, the majority of them had a slight increase, as well as the people who said they were other religion as well.

And the religion here that's said the biggest increased is in Islam here from 4.

8% up to 6.

5.

Let's do a quick check before we move on.

Which worldview had a decline in percent between 2011 and 2021? Which worldview? Pause the video and have a go and we'll see what you've got in a moment.

Well done.

It was Christianity.

So let's do another practise task before we move on.

You're going to use this table as a prompt and give three differences in the religion data in the census between 2011 and 2021.

So look at the chart and pick three of the differences.

There's a lot of differences you can choose from here.

You're just gonna choose three and state what those differences are.

Pause the video and have a go and we'll see what you done in a moment.

Well done, there were lots of differences you could have spoken about then, but you might have said: Between 2011 and 2021, the number of people who said they were Christian decreased.

Between 2011 and 2021, the number of people who said they had no religion increased.

And between 2011 and 2021, the number of people who said they were Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh and other religion increased.

Well done.

So onto our third and final section, then, what the census results can and can't tell us.

So social scientists consider very carefully the questions that are asked within a study.

So it's not just like the results of the study where we look at the data like we have done now.

Social scientists also are very interested in how was it even asked about and could that influence the answer that people give.

There are two ways that religion can be asked about in a survey or census, and we've seen one already in the census of England and Wales.

So in England and Wales it says, "What is your religion? There are other ways of asking though.

So there are other surveys which say, "Do you consider yourself to be religious? If so, which?" Can you spot a difference between these two questions? Could you see, could they have any influence on the way somebody answers a question? How do these questions differ and how could they influence the results of a social science study, then? Pause the video and have a think and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

While some social scientists have criticised the England and Wales census for assuming belief.

By asking "What is your religion?" it's assuming someone has a religion.

Whereas the second question here, "Do you consider yourself to be religious?" still leaves it up to the person to say whether they are or not, but it isn't assuming that they have a religion.

So some social scientists have said people might be likely to put in a religion when they haven't really got religion because they feel that they have to have one because it's assuming they've got one.

It could influence someone to choose a religion when they may not have a belief or complete any of the practises for that religion.

They might think, "Well, I was born into a family that's part of this religion, so therefore I am this religion." Or they might think, "Oh, I've been along to a service every so often or once a year, so that makes me that religion." So social scientists really like to delve into how the question could influence how somebody chooses to answer a census.

So let's look at a case study of humanism and the census question.

So humanism is a non-religious worldview without a belief in God.

And the Humanist Association in the UK spoke a lot about this census question when the time of the census was taken part and how it kind of assumes that someone has a religion.

Let's see what Brandon has to say.

Alex is asking Brandon, "What do you think about the phrasing of the religion question in the census, Brandon?" And Brandon says, "I think the question is asked in a leading way as it assumes someone has a religion.

Also, if I wanted to mark that I'm humanist or atheist or agnostic, I have to tick 'Other religion' and then write it in.

I think this will impact the results as I don't view humanism as a religion, and many atheists and agnostics wouldn't see their worldview as religious either." So we might not have an accurate understanding of people who have non-religious worldviews or who don't have a belief in God, because in order to write atheist in the census, they needed to tick "Other religion." So they might not feel comfortable ticking "Other religion" if they don't view it as a religion.

So social scientists look at the way that a census is put together, the way that questions are asked, in order to see whether it's really gonna give that true picture of what the different religious affiliations are in the country.

Thank you, Brandon.

Now, Niamh and Mark both share Christian backgrounds, but because of their different worldviews, they completed the census differently.

So we've got Niamh here and Mark and let's see how they completed the census.

Niamh says, "I'm a Roman Catholic but I don't attend church very often.

I celebrate Christmas with my family, so I put on the census that I'm Christian, but I don't agree with many of the church's teachings." And Mark says, "I'm from a Christian background and married to a Christian so we celebrate Easter and Christmas together.

But I wrote on the census that I have no religion." How can this example of Niamh and Mark show us a limit of the census data? They both celebrate Christian festivals.

They both come from a Christian background, but why did they choose to complete the census differently? And does that matter? Pause the video and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Let's look at another example.

Michael and Sherri are both secular Jews, but they completed the census differently.

Michael says, "I wrote in the census that my ethnicity is Black: Jewish, but I didn't write that my religion is Jewish because I'm a secular Jew and I'm an atheist.

I don't view myself as religious at all." And Sherri says, "I wrote in the census that my ethnicity is white Jewish and that my religion is Jewish.

I'm a secular Jew, but the traditions and culture is very important to me.

So I wanted to show that I am culturally Jewish." So what could this example show us about the limits of the census data, then? Here again, we've got Michael and Sherri who've got similar worldview, in that they're both secular Jews.

So they're Jewish but don't necessarily believe in God or follow the different practises within Judaism, and yet they chose to complete the census differently.

Why did they choose to do that and how could that be a limit for the census data for us? Pause the video and have a think and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, these examples show us that what it might mean to be religious could be different things to different people because they're obviously self-reporting when they say, "What is your religion?" Is there a different way it could be asked in the census in order to kind of work out whether this is someone's religious beliefs and practises or they feel it's a kind of cultural traditional thing that they have as part of their identity? Would you phrase it differently in the census? How could you say it in a different way that would give us that better picture of religion and belief in the countries, then? Pause the video and you can have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Let's do another check before we move on.

The census religion data shows exactly how many people believe in a religion's teachings and complete its practises.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and have a go.

We'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done, that's false, isn't it? But why? Because the census data can tell us how many people affiliated with a religion, but it doesn't tell us what beliefs or practises they actually take part in.

They're just self-reporting that they feel they are that religion, not necessarily telling us the things that they do or do believe as part of that.

Well done.

So the way a census is completed can impact the data that's collected.

The 2021 census had the same wording of the question, "What is your religion?" as the 2011 census.

And in 2011, 16% of the population completed it online.

In 2021, 88% of people did.

So it's a huge difference as to how many people did it online.

And the 2021 census was seen as like the first proper like online census that was completed for England and Wales.

Now if you're typing online, you might know this too, it could be quicker and easier to complete a write-in box than actually handwriting.

So, and it also means that auto complete can come up with options and spelling support.

And in 2021 there were 164,000 more other religion write-in responses than there was in 2011.

So it seems like perhaps this completing it online and it being slightly easier to do that write-in box meant that we had over 150,000 more responses in "Other religion" and we said there were more people who ticked "Other religion" and it seems that people felt more able to write in what the other religion was.

So how could that impact how we understand about religion in those countries, then? Pause the video and have a think, and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, we said earlier in the lesson, didn't we? That having census data can really help to protect different minority rights if people are able to be represented in the census data.

Let's look at an example together.

One example could be Alevism in the UK and here's Cem.

So Izzy's asking Cem, "What impact did the online census have on data for your community, Cem?" And Cem says, "In the UK, the majority of Alevis come from Turkey and they're assumed to be Muslims, so their Alevi identity is invisible to others.

Alevism has often been seen as a branch of Islam, but it's not accurate for my community.

We campaigned to be included as a distinct religious group in the national census, and this was achieved in the 2021 census.

This means for the first time, Alevis can tick 'Alevi' on the list under 'Other religions' in the census and be identified as a separate religion due to this being completed online.

And this makes the Alevi community more visible in the UK." Thank you, Cem.

And this was the same for other minority religious groups which were recognised in the 2021 census.

Let's do a quick check before we move on.

Why could completing the census online have influenced more people to write in the "Other religion" space? Pause the video and have a go and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well, one reason is it was easier to do than by handwriting it.

And also there were kind of auto complete options and there was spelling and autocorrect and things like that.

Well done.

So let's do another practise task to see what we've learned.

You're going to complete the table below by developing each point about the limits for what census data can show us about religion.

So here we got Niamh who was classed herself as a cultural Christian and Mark who said he was not religious, but they both came from a Christian background.

And the point is that some people identify as culturally Christian but not religious.

And you're going to develop that and you can use the phrase, "This limits the census data by.

." And then we have Michael and Sherri who are both secular Jews and they showed us that some people view Jewish as an ethnicity and not just a religion.

And different secular Jews may complete the census differently.

And you can develop that by using the phrase, "This limits the census data by.

." So pause the video and have a go and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done, some great thinking there.

So I asked you to complete the table by developing each point about the limits for what census data can show us about religion.

And your answers may include: Niamh and Mark showed us that some people identify as culturally Christian but not religious.

And this limits the census data by not showing the beliefs and practises of individuals, but just how they affiliate.

And then we have Michael and Sherri who are both secular Jews.

And the point is that some people view Jewish as an ethnicity and not just a religion.

And different secular Jews may complete the census differently.

And this limits the census data by an undercounting of people who are Jewish within the country.

Well done.

So let's summarise everything we've learned today, then, interpreting the 2021 census data.

The UK census collects data on religion every 10 years with an optional "What is your religion?" question.

In 2021, fewer people identified as Christian, while more chose "No religion" compared to 2011.

The census shows that the UK is a multi-religious society.

The census cannot reveal personal beliefs or religious practises.

And completing the census online may have led to more "Other religion" responses.

So well done for your hard work today, my young social scientists and scholars of religion.

And I hope to see you again soon.

Bye-bye.