Hypothesis: ‘Is religion becoming less important amongst British Pakistanis?’

I have two main aims there are as follows:

  • Ask 10 older and10 younger people about their religious practices and beliefs and to see if secularization is taking place.
  • Compare the results between the two sets of people.

 I think religion in society on the whole is on the decline however I think I will see that religion amongst British Pakistanis is still really high.

The area of sociology I have chosen to research and study is religion becoming less important and is on the decline amongst British Pakistanis. This research stems from Wilson’s study in  1966 and Hamilton study in 2001 ‘the secularization debate’ where  he points out, those who define religion in substantive terms are more likely to support the secularization thesis because they can show that religious belief has declined as people accept other more rational explanations of the world. However those who see religion in functional terms are more likely to reject the secularization thesis.  The strongest evidence for secularization in Britain comes from church-attendance statistics. According to the 1851 Census, approximately 40 per cent of the population attended church. By 1950, this had dropped to 20 per cent, and attendance was less than 7.5 in 2000 (Brierley- found this out in her study 1999). Sunday school attendance is also in the decline. This table can be shown below:

Hamilton who carried out his research in 2001 also points out that fewer people are church members (see the above table). His research shows clearly organisations such as the Church of England and the Catholic church have rapidly declined.

Briery also points out that religion is becoming age biased and more elder people go to the church then younger people. This can be shown from the table below:

 

Secularisation means the decline on religion, which si what I will be trying  to find out in my coursework.

Like Wilson used statistical data, I will also gather statistical data from my questionnaire.

My research is quite reliable as I have got a range of ages, which makes the results more reliable.  Reliable means it is accurate and I want reliable data because you can generalise from reliable data. I want to be able to generalise because I would like to know how the about British Pakistanis in general and how the community is changing.  Therefore I require quantitative data to be able to make comparisons. I also know this because the data in the debate are mostly quantitative.  My statistics above also show how using questionnaire method to get data is the most appropriate method for this to get data about religious practise because if I were to do an interview instead people are less likely to answer.

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My data that I will use will come from a questionnaire so therefore the data I will use is quantitative but also I will have a little bit of qualitative  data as I have one opened ended questions. The reason I have chosen also to obtain some qualitative data as using qualitative data is more appropriate for questions I have asked about the meaning and what religion means to the individual.

Most my questions are closed ended and most closed ended questions which gather quantitative data so as my questionnaire mainly has closed ended questions most my ...

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