Lesson video

Hello there, my young scholars of religion.

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

Today we're going to be looking at the work of Professor Linda Woodhead, and how she explores how some people are classed as the nones within census data.

So these are people who said they were not affiliated with any religious group and one particular group within the nones is people who are atheists, which means they don't believe in God or they believe that there is no God.

So we're going to explore that in today's lesson.

And for this we're going to use a lot of the tools of social science.

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

So by the end of this lesson, you'll be able to explain what the nones are and why this group has increased using Linda Woodhead's research.

So let's start with our key terms. Atheism, a belief that there's no God or higher power or a lack of belief in God.

Nones, people who self-report that they do not affiliate with any religious group.

Linda Woodhead, an academic who studies the place of religion in Modern British society.

So look out for those in today's lesson.

So our lesson today will have two sections, religion and nones, and Woodhead's research studies on the nones.

Let's start with our first section, religion and nones.

The census of England and Wales asks a voluntary question, "What is your religion?" every 10 years.

What do you think the trend has been since 2001 in how many people choose no religion? So that's three sets of census data we can look at.

What do you think the trend has been to do with people who say they have no religion? Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well done.

Well here we've got three sets of census data, 2001, 2011, and 2021.

This is the percentage of people who said they had no religion and it's gone up from 14.

8%, 25.

1% to 37.

2% in 2021.

So the trend is that it has been increasing, the number of people who say they don't have a religion.

So this is a group of people who are referred to as the nones.

We can see that that number is increasing.

So they're of great interest to people like Professor Linda Woodhead who's studying the place of religion in modern British society.

But not only does the census show us this, other social science data also shows this trend in the UK.

So as social scientists, we're gonna look at different ways of recording and measuring this, not just the census to see if it kind of corroborates and agrees with this too.

So every 10 years we can compare the British Social Attitude survey and it asks, "Do you have a religion?" So it doesn't take that question of, "What is your religion?" As we have at the census for England and Wales, but asks, "Do you have a religion?" And here we've got an increase in the number of people from 1983, '93, 2003 to 2013, showing an increase of people who do not have a religion.

So again, we've got that same trend of people and actually it's gone up to 50.

6%.

So just tipping over into the majority there in 2013.

So it's got the same trend as the census data for England and Wales and more people saying they're not religious.

But there is a key difference here.

In 2013, here we've got 50.

6% of people, so it's a higher percentage of people saying that they've got no religion than was in the census data of England and Wales.

Why might the British Social Attitude survey have higher amounts of people reporting no religion? Pause the video and have a think and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, one clue could be in the wording of the question.

Social sciences are gonna look very carefully at the way that a question is asked as well as who it's asked to.

But the wording here could be quite important.

In the England and Wales census, it says, "What is your religion?" And in the British Social Attitude survey it says, "Do you have a religion?" So you can see a difference there where some people have criticised the census question for assuming that people have a religion.

It's gonna encourage people to maybe write a religion perhaps if they feel culturally religious rather than it being beliefs and practises that they're doing.

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

In what year did the British Social Attitude survey report a majority of people were of no religion? Pause the video and have a go.

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

Well done.

It was in 2013.

Well done.

So well, what type of people might have recorded in this social science data, both sets of them that they had no religion? Well, it could be people who believe there's no God or higher power.

So they've got a strong belief that there is no God or higher power.

They might believe in a God or a higher power but not actually follow religion.

They might say I believe in God, but I've not particularly part of any of these religions.

They might follow religious customs but not affiliate with the religion.

They might celebrate Christmas or Eid, but they might not actually feel that they are in that religion.

They're not sure if there's a God or a higher power, so they haven't really made up their mind yet.

They might believe in spiritual practises but not follow religion or they might belong to a non-religious worldview such as humanism.

There's a whole range of people, and this is who we are interested in looking at today and Linda Woodhead too, understanding who the nones are.

Not all the people who self-reported as no religion would necessarily be atheist then.

So an atheist is someone who believes there's no God or higher power or has a lack in a belief in there being a God or a higher power.

But we can see here there's lots of other types of people who might have reported as none as well, not just this group of people.

Well let's understand atheism though a little bit more.

And it comes from Greek, the term atheism and well that part in the middle of the word theists, comes from the Greek word theo meaning God.

So I studied theology at university 'cause I studied ideas about God, and a theist believes that there is a God because they believe in the existence of God.

But an atheist believes there's no God because that negative A at the start as a prefix flips it.

So it turns it to atheistic rather than theist.

It turns it to its opposite.

So something's atypical, it's not very typical.

Someone's amoral, they haven't got many morals.

So that prefix A is a negative and it flips it the other way.

So it's a lack of or the opposite to.

So a theist believes in God, but an atheist believes there's no God or has a lacking belief in God.

So atheism usually refers to a belief that the God of classical theism and all powerful, all loving, all knowing being does not exist.

So it's been very heavily influenced by the ideas of God we have in the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and it's a belief that that God does not exist.

So let's understand a little bit more why people might have self-reported as no religion in the census.

Andeep is asking Nell, "Why did you self-report "as no religion in the census, Nell?" And Nell says, "I'm an atheist humanist.

"I ticked no religion rather than other religion humanist.

"I did this because it's important the government "have accurate figures on those of us "who are not religious in the country "to help with policies and planning "for the people who live here." In the England and Wales census the question, "What is your religion?" is asked and then if someone like now wanted to record that she was humanist, she would have to tick other religion humanist, but humanists do not see humanism as a religion.

There's no belief in God within it.

It's a non-religious worldview.

And so this kind of points to a limit within the census data and Nell felt it was more important that she's recorded as a non-religious person than she's recorded as a humanist.

What could be an issue with the census recording humanist as other religion then? Pause the video and have a think and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

And now Sofia's asking Zoe, "Why did you self-report as no religion "in the census, Zoe?" And Zoe says, "I'm not religious at all "so said no religion on the census.

"My parents were both raised as Christians "but they didn't raise us as Christians.

"One of my brothers did become a Christian as a teenager, "but it's not for me.

"I like living in a pluralist society "where we can have the freedom to choose "whether we believe or not." How does Zoe's example show a pluralist society? So this idea where people can choose to be religious or not, how does Zoe's example show that? Pause the video and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, here Zoe's given a choice by her parents to be religious or not.

And in fact her brother has chosen to be religious, but you can see that within that one society either way could be valid, so that shows that it's pluralistic.

It's not just one way of being based to a religion, that many different ways can be accepted.

Thank you Zoe.

And Michael is asked by Andeep, "Why did you self-report as no religion in the census, Michael?" And Michael says, "I've recorded my ethnicity as Jewish, "but I'm a secular non-practicing Jews, "so I wrote that I'm not religious.

"I don't believe there's a God or a higher power, "and I see my Jewishness as an ethnicity "rather than a religion.

"I think it's important that the census shows "there are Jews like me." So there are Jews who would've reported as ethnically Jewish but not necessarily religiously Jewish because Michael here is a secular Jew.

Why might some secular Jews record that they are religious though in the census because some have? Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

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

What term is often used to describe a belief there is no God or a lack of belief in God? Pause the video and have a think and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done, is atheism.

Let's do a practise task to see what we've learned.

For each of the characters write a reason for why they recorded "no religion" on the census of England and Wales.

We've got Nell who's a humanist, Zoe who is an atheist, and Michael who was a secular Jew.

Why did they record "no religion" on the census of England and Wales? Pause the video and have a go we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done, some great thinking there.

Your table might look something like this.

Nell is a humanist and she recorded no religion in the census of England and Wales, to show the number of non-religious people even though she's humanist.

She didn't wanna tick other religion and write humanist.

Zoe who's an atheist because she's not religious at all even though her brother is.

And Michael, who's a secular Jew, he sees his Jewishness as an ethnicity, not religion because he doesn't have any belief in God and he doesn't take part in any Jewish practises.

Well done.

So onto our second section then.

Woodhead's research studies on the nones.

Professor Linda Woodhead is the head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College London.

So there's that word theology again, theos meaning God.

And Linda is an academic who studied the nones in great detail.

So she's very interested in who the nones are and why people might be ticking that they are not religious in the census data and why that might be increasing.

She studies the place of religion in Modern British society and she refers to the nones as the new normal.

And we saw there with the British Social Attitude survey that actually a majority of people in that survey said they were not religious with over, slightly over 50%, wasn't it? And perhaps that'll be higher when the next set of data comes in.

So she says this is the new normal and we need to kind of understand and investigate the nones in more detail.

Alongside the census and social attitude survey.

She's completed her own research into the nones and she found three key findings.

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

Linda Woodhead only uses the England and Wales census data to study the nones.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and have a go, see what you're done in a moment.

Well done.

That's false, isn't it? Because Linda Woodhead uses census data, the British Social Attitude survey and her own research to study the nones.

So let's see what she came up with in her research then.

Finding one, the nones are a youthful group.

So here we've got two pie charts showing us the difference between the somes and the nones.

So we know the nones are the people who said they had no religion, so the somes are all those people who said they either were a particular religion or other religion, and we can see a difference between those who are under 40 years old and those who are over 40 years old.

So let's look at it a bit closely.

We've got people who are under 40 years old, 60% of them are the nones and 40% are somes.

So we still got some people who say they're part of a religion, but the majority say they're not, and these are the ones under 40 years old.

The people who are over 40 years old, it flips.

We've got 60% of that group saying that they are part of a religion, either a named religion or other religion, and then 40% say that they're not.

They're part of the nones.

So you can see a difference here in that the nones are a very youthful group, so that could predict towards the future.

Does that mean that we'll have more nones going on in the future? What could we predict about this for future trends with the nones then? Pause the video and have a think and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

So finding two, not all the nones are atheists.

So this is very interesting data here from Linda Woodhead because there's a range of different views about the existence of God here, even though all of them are people who would say they are not religious.

So if you even got within here a whole group of people, 5.

5% saying, "Yes, there definitely is a God "or a higher power." And yet they still classify themselves as not religious but they have a belief.

So we may call them theists but they may not necessarily fit with a particular religion or follow a particular religion.

And then you've still got another 11% of people saying, "There probably is a God or a higher power." So actually 16.

5%.

But those two groups together probably believe or say there definitely is a God or a higher power, but do not call themselves religious.

And then we go into a section of people who say there's probably not a God or a higher power and then there's definitely not a God or a higher power with 23% and 41% of people here in the nones.

And then we've got a section here who don't know.

So we might call them agnostics, there's 18.

5%.

That's quite a significant section here of people who just don't know so they didn't wanna put down that they were religious or not.

So not all of the nones are actually atheists.

The 41.

5%, that dark green section we would say is kind of pretty much definitely atheist if there's saying there's definitely no God or higher power, but all the others aren't necessarily that kind of strong atheistic position, are they? So what does this data show us about atheism and the nones then? Pause the video and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Finding three, the nones value personal freedom and choice.

Linda Woodhead compared the views of the nones to the somes on issues of abortion, same-sex marriage and assisted dying.

So when Linda was doing this research, these were three issues that were kind of seen as a bit controversial or contentious or there was kind of a lot of debate going around with them and she spoke to the somes and the nones to see what their views were on this.

And she put together a scale of how liberal those people were, how much was it down to personal freedom and choice to make decisions about this and how would there be other guidance that might.

And she found that the nones were the most kind of liberal end of those scales.

So 100% of the nones were on the liberal end of that, whereas 83% of the somes, so those who had some kind of religion were at that liberal end.

So both of them still have quite a high majority who value that personal freedom and choice, but we've got a greater significance within the group of nones there being on the liberal end of the scale for those issues.

Why might we expect the nones to be more liberal in their views? Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you will talk to me.

Time for a quick check before we move on.

Which three of the following statements are accurate? All of the nones are atheists.

The nones are a younger group than the somes.

The nones value personal freedom and choice.

Some of the nones do believe in God or a higher power.

Three of these are correct, one of them is not.

Can you find it? Pause the video.

Off you go.

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

Well done.

Not all of the nones are atheists, in fact some of the nones do believe in God or higher power according to Linda Woodhead research.

Well done.

Well, Linda Woodhead gives us three broad reasons as to why there's been a rise of the nones.

Can you predict what some of those might be? Why do you think there's been that rise? Remember the graph we looked at at the start of the lesson? Why has there been a rise of the number of people who say they're not religious? Pause the video and have a think, and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, Linda Woodhead research points to upbringing.

When children are not raised as religious.

So if the children aren't raised as religious, like in Zoe's example, then the children aren't gonna be religious.

And then if those children then go on to have more children and they don't raise them as religious, then we're going to have this increase in the people who are not raised as religious within a society.

But also living in a pluralistic society where people can have different religious and non-religious worldviews living together.

So you can learn about different religions, you can learn about non-religious ways of being and there isn't one way of being religious, that can increase the number of people who feel like they're not gonna say they're part of particular religion.

Maybe they pick and choose different things from different religions.

Maybe they believe in God, maybe they're spiritual, but they don't want to say that they are part of one institutionalised organised religion.

And then linked to this, freedom of belief.

By living in a society where people could choose to be religious or not, it could then lead to people choosing not to be religious and feeling able and confident to write not religious on the census.

If you were in a country where you had to be religious or there might be punishments if you weren't religious, a lot less people are going to say that they're not religious, aren't they? So you can see here why there might be this rise of the people who are putting that they're not religious, although that doesn't necessarily mean that they are not believing in a God or a higher power.

Let's look at a none case study, Zoe.

Zoe says, "My parents didn't bring us up with religion "and so it's normal for me not to be religious.

"I do however have a Christian brother "and I sometimes go to his church when I stay with him, "but I don't believe there is a God.

"It's really important to our parents "that we should have the freedom to choose "how we wanted to live.

"And I like the fact that my society "has lots of different religions "and ways of life coexisting together." Thank you, Zoe.

What reasons for the rise of the nones can Zoe's case study show us then? Pause the video and have a think and you could talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, here we've got that she wasn't brought up to be religious and then also that she has that freedom to choose and she could choose not to be religious.

And finally she likes the fact that she's living with lots of different religions but doesn't feel that she wants to affiliate with any one of them in particular.

And now we can have a none case study with Nell.

Nell says, "I've grown up in a humanist family.

"I'm at secondary school.

"My parents have given me the freedom "to choose my own worldview.

"However, I definitely don't believe in God.

"For me, the evidence from science "and reasons makes this logical.

"On the other hand, I think humans are amazing "and that we should help each other "and work for a better world.

"That's why I'm a humanist." So what reasons for the rise of the nones could Zoe's case study show us then? Pause the video and have a think and you can talk to the person next to you or talk to me.

Well, here we've got Nell again being raised without religious worldview.

So that upbringing that Linda Woodhead spoke about is significant here for Nell, but also that sense of freedom and choice so Nell can make that decision for herself as to whether she does or doesn't, which is why she would say that she's not religious because she doesn't believe in God.

Thank you, Nell.

So now let's do a practise task to suit what we've learned.

Complete the table by writing a development for each statistic from Linda Woodhead about the nones.

And the statistics are, 60% of under 40 and nones compared to 40% of over 40s.

41.

5% of the nones state there's definitely not a God or a higher power.

And 100% of the nones believe in personal freedom.

What does this show us about the nones? Pause the video and have a go and we'll see what you've done in a moment.

Well done.

Some great thinking there.

I asked you to complete the table by writing a development for each statistic from Linda Woodhead about the nones.

And the statistics were, 60% of under 40s are nones compared to 40% over 40s.

And you could have said a younger group of society are nones which means we can predict the number will grow as they age and the older generation passes away.

41.

5% of the nones state there's definitely not a God or a higher power.

And you could have said not all the nones are atheists, but some of them believe there is or may be a God or higher power.

And 100% of the nones believe in personal freedom.

And you could have said personal freedom and choice is important to the nones, more important than to the somes.

Well done.

So let's summarise what we've learned today then.

Linda Woodhead's exploration of the nones, atheism.

The census of England and Wales and British Social Attitude surveys show a growing trend in the number of people self-reporting as no religion.

These may include atheists, but also a range of other beliefs about God or a higher power.

And Linda Woodhead is an academic who studied the nones and the reasons for this rise.

So well done for your hard work today my young scholars of religion, and I hope to see you again soon.

Bye-bye.