Changing American Congregations: Findings from the Third Wave of the National Congregations Study


Autoria(s): Chaves, MA; Anderson, SL
Data(s)

01/12/2014

Resumo

The third wave of the National Congregations Study (NCS-III) was conducted in 2012. The 2012 General Social Survey asked respondents who attend religious services to name their religious congregation, producing a nationally representative cross-section of congregations from across the religious spectrum. Data about these congregations was collected via a 50-minute interview with one key informant from 1,331 congregations. Information was gathered about multiple aspects of congregations’ social composition, structure, activities, and programming. Approximately two-thirds of the NCS-III questionnaire replicates items from 1998 or 2006-07 NCS waves. Each congregation was geocoded, and selected data from the 2010 United States census or American Community Survey have been appended. We describe NCS-III methodology and use the cumulative NCS dataset (containing 4,071 cases) to describe five trends: more ethnic diversity, greater acceptance of gays and lesbians, increasingly informal worship styles, declining size (but not from the perspective of the average attendee), and declining denominational affiliation.

Identificador

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2014, (Forthcoming in the December, 2014 issue)

http://hdl.handle.net/10161/9193

Idioma(s)

EN

Relação

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

http://hdl.handle.net/10161/9161

10161/9161

http://hdl.handle.net/10161/9162

10161/9162

Tipo

Journal Article