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Religious Pluralism pp 73–91Cite as

The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in Order to Map and Assess the Religious Diversity of a Whole Country

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Abstract

Religious diversity is often captured in “mapping studies” that use mostly qualitative methods in order to map and assess the religious communities in a given area. While these studies are useful, they often present weaknesses in that they treat only limited geographic regions, give limited possibilities of comparing across religious groups and cannot test theories. In this chapter, we show how a census and a quantitative national congregations study (NCS) methodology can be combined in order to map and assess the religious diversity of a whole country (Switzerland), overcoming the problems mentioned above. We show the methodological steps and selected results concerning organizational, geographic, structural, and cultural diversity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See for a more general treatment of “diversity”: Salzbrunn (2012).

  2. 2.

    http://www.religionenlu.ch

  3. 3.

    http://teo.au.dk/en/csr/religionindenmark/

  4. 4.

    http://arts.leeds.ac.uk/crp/

  5. 5.

    For the adaptation of the questionnaire, we refer to Behling and Law (2000); Forsyth et al. (2007).

  6. 6.

    The response rates correspond to RR1 calculated according to the standards defined by the AAPOR (2011).

  7. 7.

    For one-half of the regular non-Christian worshipers.

  8. 8.

    See for the details: Pahud de Mortanges (2007) In some cantons, other religions may also be recognized.

  9. 9.

    CHF: Swiss Francs. The average Swiss salary is 60,000 CHF (FSO 2012: 19).

  10. 10.

    The Muslims sing from 1 to 2 min in their celebration if we take the call to prayer into account. For many Muslims, the practice of music is forbidden (which is not the case for singing). The average for the denominational category is higher than these few minutes because of the Sufi fellowships.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Social Sciences of Religion, University of Lausanne, Anthropole, CH – 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Christophe Monnot & Jörg Stolz

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  1. Christophe Monnot
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Correspondence to Christophe Monnot .

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  1. Department of FISPPA, University of Padova, Padova, Italy

    Giuseppe Giordan

  2. Department of FISPPA, University of Padova, Padova, Italy

    Enzo Pace

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Monnot, C., Stolz, J. (2014). The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in Order to Map and Assess the Religious Diversity of a Whole Country. In: Giordan, G., Pace, E. (eds) Religious Pluralism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06623-3_6

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