Religion_3RR – Religious Mobility

Note to the Instructor: This is the third in a series of three exercises that focus on religious mobility.  We'll develop an overall measure of religious mobility and look to see whether mobility varies by sex and age.   In these exercises we're going to analyze data from the Pew 2014 Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.  We're going to use SPSS to analyze the data.  A weight variable is automatically applied to the data set so it better represents the population from which the sample was selected.  You have permission to use this exercise and to revise it to fit your needs.  Please send a copy of any revision to the author so I can see how people are using the exercises. Please contact the author for additional information.

Goal of Exercise

The goal of this exercise is to explore religious mobility.  We'll develop an overall measure of religious mobility and compare out-mobility for men and women and for different age categories.  Out-mobility refers to those who have left the religion in which they were raised.

Part I – The Data Set We'll be Using

The Pew Research Center has conducted a number of surveys that deal with religion.  Two of these surveys are the Religious Landscape Surveys conducted in 2007 and then repeated in 2014.  They were very large telephone surveys of about 35,000 adults in the United States.   For more information about the surveys, go to their website

We'll be using a subset of the 2014 survey in this exercise which I have named Pew_2014_Religious_Landscape_ Survey_subset_for_classes.sav.  For the purposes of these exercises I selected a subset of variables from the complete data set.  I recoded some of the variables, created a few new variables, and renamed the variables to make them easier for students to use.  There is a weight variable which should always be used so that the sample will better represent the population from which the sample was selected.  To open the data set in SPSS, just double click on the file name.[1]  Your instructor will tell you where the file is located.

Some of you have used SPSS, the statistical package we're using, and know how to get a frequency distribution.  Others of you are new to SPSS.  There is a tutorial that you can use to learn how to get a frequency distribution.  The tutorial is freely available on the Social Science Research and Instructional Center's website.  Chapter 1 of the tutorial gives you a basic overview of SPSS and crosstabulations are covered in Chapter 5. 

Part II – Developing a Measure of Religious Mobility

In the previous exercise (Religion_2RR) we looked at the relationship between the religion in which people were raised and their current religious preference.  Let's run that crosstab now.  Put the independent variable (RR3) in the columns and the dependent variable (R5) in the rows.  You won't need the column percents this time.  All you need is the observed counts which you get by default.  Your output should look like Figure 1.  This is a large table so we're just showing the top left part of the table.

Title: Figure 1 - Description: This is the SPSS output for the crosstab of RR3 and R5 showing the observed counts (i.e., frequencies).

Figure 1

The upper-left cell represents the respondents who grew up Evangelical Protestant and are still Evangelical Protestant.  In other words, they have remained in that same religious group.  There are 5,461 of them.  Moving over one column to the right we have the Mainline Protestants.  Look for the number of Mainline Protestants who have remained Mainline Protestant.  Do this for each religious group in the table.  Fill in the appropriate number of cases in Figure 2.

Title: Figure 2 - Description: For each religious group, the number of respondents staying in the same group in which they were raised

Figure 2

Now add up all these numbers.  This is the number of respondents who remained in the religious group in which they were raised.  The last thing to do is to divide the number of respondents who were not religiously mobile by the total number of cases in the table and convert that to a percent.  To get the percent that were religiously mobile, just subtract that value from 100.

Part III – Comparing Religious Mobility for Men and Women

Now that we have a measure of religious mobility for our sample of adults, let's compare mobility for men and women.  That means that you will need to run a three-variable table that controls for sex.  Put your independent variable (RR3) in the column and your dependent variable (R5) in the row as you did in Part 2.  Put your control variable (D14) in the big box just below the column box.  Copy by hand the observed counts (i.e., frequencies) into figures 3 and 4 below.  

Title: Figure 3 - Description: For each religious group, the number of male respondents staying in the same group in which they were raised

Figure 3

Title: Figure 4 - Description: For each religious group, the number of female respondents staying in the same group in which they were raised

Figure 4

Write a paragraph comparing mobility for men and for women.  Was there more mobility for men or for women?  Were they only slightly different or quite different?  Which percents did you use to compare mobility rates?

Part IV – Comparing Religious Mobility for Age Groups

Now let's compare mobility for different age groups.  As you did in Part 3, you will need to run a three-variable table that controls for sex.  Put your independent variable (RR3) in the column and your dependent variable (R5) in the row as you did in Parts 2 and 3.  This time put your control variable (D6R2) in the big box just below the column box.  Copy by hand the column percents into the tables below

Title: Figure 5 - Description: For each religious group, the number of respondents under 30 years old staying in the same group in which they were raised

Figure 5

Title: Figure 6 - Description: For each religious group, the number of respondents ages 30 to under 45 years old staying in the same group in which they were raised

Figure 6

Title: Figure 7 - Description: For each religious group, the number of respondents ages 45 to under 60 years old staying in the same group in which they were raised

Figure 7

Title: Figure 8 - Description: For each religious group, the number of respondents 60 years old and over staying in the same group in which they were raised

Figure 8

Write a paragraph comparing mobility for the four age groups.  Was there more mobility for younger respondents or for older respondents?  Were they only slightly different or quite different?  Which percents did you use to compare mobility rates?

Part V – Conclusions

Write one or two paragraphs summarizing what you learned about religious mobility.  Use the relevant percents from above in your answer.

 


 

[1] This assumes that the proper associations have been set up on your computer so the computer knows that .sav files are SPSS data files