Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
There is a wide divergence across Europe in attitudes toward Muslims. Generally, more favorable views of Muslims exist in Western Europe, Russia and Ukraine while more negative attitudes persist in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe. Solid majorities of people in the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden have positive opinions of Muslims in […]
Research suggests that parents have a large impact on their children’s religious behaviors.[35. numoffset=”35″ See Petts, Richard. 2009. “Trajectories of Religious Participation from Adolescence to Young Adulthood.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. Also see Smith, Christian and Melinda Lundquist Denton. 2005. “Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers.”] For example, there […]
In 2017, harassment against religious groups – either by governments or individuals and groups in society – was reported in 187 countries by this study’s sources (see Methodology for details). This figure remained the same from the previous year, matching the highest level since the study began in 2007. Harassment entails an offense against a […]
Based on religious affiliation (or lack thereof), the groups that display the highest levels of religious knowledge on this survey include Jews (who get an average of 18.7 out of 32 questions correct), self-described atheists (17.9) and self-described agnostics (17.0). Looked at another way, seven-in-ten Jewish respondents (69%) answer at least half of the questions […]
Before you read the report Test your religious knowledge by taking an interactive quiz. The short quiz includes some questions recently asked in the nationally representative survey that forms the basis of this report. After completing the quiz, you can see how you did in comparison with the general public and with people like yourself. […]
The survey included some questions designed to see whether higher levels of religious knowledge tend to go hand in hand with more positive attitudes toward various religious groups. Overall, the answer is “yes.” In general, respondents who are highly knowledgeable about a religious group tend to express relatively warm feelings toward that group, and respondents […]
Over the decade from 2007 to 2017, government restrictions on religion – laws, policies and actions by state officials that restrict religious beliefs and practices – increased markedly around the world.
Data sources and analytical approaches used in the report are described in this section. First, this appendix provides shares of the populations that are represented in the study and details on the underlying source data. It goes on to explain how household types were categorized based on relationships in household rosters and how household sizes […]