Young People's Attitudes to Religious Diversity

整个联合王国日益增加的宗教多样性为社会的未来提供了重大挑战和机遇。媒体对最近的本地和国际事件和趋势的评论使宗教差异和分歧受到公众的高度关注。在政府层面，人们越来越认识到，宗教不能被贬谪到私人领域，在宗教教育和公民课程中向学生讲授宗教多样性可以促进社区凝聚力。迄今为止，关于学生自己对宗教多样性的态度或影响其形成的因素的研究很少。这些态度和影响是沃里克宗教和教育研究小组（WRERU）成员开展的这项研究项目的主题。这项研究将调查全英国13至16岁学生的态度。来自不同社会经济、文化、种族和宗教背景的青年人将参加这项研究，以便听取各种不同的意见，并考虑到一些背景因素的影响。研究小组将使用混合方法（定性和定量）来探索年轻人对宗教多样性的体验和观点。该项目的第一阶段将在15所中学进行。这些学校将被挑选出来，以涵盖四个国家和伦敦（每个国家有三所学校）的多样性和相对同质性的各种背景。伦敦因其庞大的规模和独特的多样性模式而被列为特例。来自WRERU的定性研究人员将在每所学校进行三次小组访谈，以调查学生认同宗教多样性的关键主题和问题，以及他们采取的立场的范围和多样性。这一阶段将为定量阶段提供一个探索性的基础和详细的背景。它将允许假设出现，然后在下一阶段的英国范围内的调查中进行测试。这项定量调查将从公立学校、私立学校和宗教学校中抽取1万名学生作为代表性样本。这种规模的样本将确保少数族裔的可靠可见度。将采用已建立的心理测量工具和专门编制的量表，并创造性地使用各种统计技术，以促进发展和测试路径模型，以调查社会和环境因素（包括学校、家庭、媒体和当地社区）、他们自己的宗教信仰、信仰和实践以及超越的观点、人格特征和其他个人层面变量对学生态度的影响。具有定性和定量研究经验的同事将在项目设计、数据分析和结果撰写方面紧密合作，以实现思想和专业知识的交叉融合。方法的三角化将能够进行深入的分析和一定程度的通用性，这是单独根据一种方法方法所不可能做到的。该项目的一个主要成果将是加强研究能力，并在青年宗教实证研究的定量和定性方法方面取得卓越成就。这项研究将引起政府部门对宗教在塑造社会中的作用的重大兴趣；政府间组织，如欧洲委员会，教会和宗教团体，既关注内部发展，又评估其对社会的影响；校长、校监、教育及公民教育教师，以及与年青人的需要和观点有关的课程发展的专业组织。

The increasing religious diversity throughout the United Kingdom provides both a major challenge and an opportunity for the future of society. The media commenting on recent local and international events and trends have given religious difference and divisions a high public profile. There is a growing recognition at government level that religion cannot be relegated to the private sphere and that teaching school students about religious diversity in religious education and citizenship lessons can contribute to community cohesion. To date little research has been done on students' own attitudes towards religious diversity or the factors influencing their formation. These attitudes and influences are the subject of this research project to be carried out by members of the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (WRERU).The research will investigate the attitudes of 13 to 16 year old students across the United Kingdom. Young people from a variety of socio-economic, cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds will take part in the study in order for a variety of views to be heard and the influence of a number of contextual factors to be considered. The WRERU team will use mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) to explore the young people's experiences of and perspectives on religious diversity. The first phase of the project will take place in fifteen secondary schools. These will be selected to cover a variety of contexts of diversity and relative homogeneity across the four nations and London (three schools in each). London is included as a special case because of its sheer size and distinctive patterns of diversity. Qualitative researchers from WRERU will conduct three group interviews in each school to investigate the key themes and issues the students identify with religious diversity and the range and variety of positions they adopt in response. This phase will provide an exploratory basis and a detailed context for the quantitative phase. It will allow hypotheses to emerge that will then be tested in the next phase by a UK wide survey. The quantitative survey will draw a representative sample of 10,000 pupils from state maintained, independent and faith-based schools. A sample of this size will ensure reliable visibility for minorities. Established psychometric instruments and specially originated scales will be employed and creative use made of various statistical techniques to facilitate the development and testing of path models to investigate the influence on student attitudes of social and contextual factors (including school, family, media and local neighbourhood), of their own religious affiliation, beliefs and practices and views of transcendence, of personality traits and other individual-level variables. Colleagues with qualitative and quantitative research experience will work closely together in the design of the project, analysis of the data and write up of the findings to enable a cross-fertilisation of ideas and expertise. The triangulation of methods will enable a depth of analysis and a degree of generalisability that would not have been possible on the basis of one methodological approach alone.A major outcome of the project will be enhanced research capacity and excellence within quantitative and qualitative approaches to empirical research in religion among young people. This research will be of major interest to government departments concerned with the role of religion in shaping society; to inter-governmental organisations such as the Council of Europe, to churches and faith communities concerned both with internal development and with assessing their impact on society; to head teachers and governors, to RE and Citizenship teachers and professional organisations concerned with curriculum development related to the needs and perspectives of young people.