Comparing the RELTRAD and Born-Again/Evangelical Self-Identification Approaches to Measuring American Protestantism

The question of how Protestantism (including evangelicalism) is measured in social science research is of keen importance to those seeking to understand religion in American life. In this article, we compare and contrast two of the leading techniques for classifying Protestants. One of these approac...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs: Smith, Gregory Allen (Auteur) ; Gecewicz, Claire (Auteur) ; Hackett, Conrad Peter 1972- (Auteur) ; Podrebarac Sciupac, Elizabeth (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
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Publié: Wiley-Blackwell [2018]
Dans: Journal for the scientific study of religion
Année: 2018, Volume: 57, Numéro: 4, Pages: 830-847
Sujets / Chaînes de mots-clés standardisés:B USA / Protestantisme / Mouvement évangélique / Identification / Mesurabilité
RelBib Classification:AD Sociologie des religions
KBQ Amérique du Nord
KDD Église protestante
KDG Église libre
Sujets non-standardisés:B Measurement
B RELTRAD
B Evangelical
B Protestantism
Accès en ligne: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Description
Résumé:The question of how Protestantism (including evangelicalism) is measured in social science research is of keen importance to those seeking to understand religion in American life. In this article, we compare and contrast two of the leading techniques for classifying Protestants. One of these approaches (the RELTRAD approach) categorizes respondents as evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, or black Protestants mainly on the basis of their denominational affiliation. By contrast, the self-identification method utilizes information about a respondent's race and a yes/no question that asks respondents directly whether they consider themselves born-again or evangelical Christians to create similar categories. We show that there is considerable overlap, though not perfect correlation, between the two approaches. Both methods produce similar estimates of the size of Protestant subgroups, and they paint similar religious and demographic portraits of the evangelical, mainline, and black Protestant communities. As a result, we argue that the self-identification method can be an effective proxy for RELTRAD when RELTRAD is unavailable as a measurement option.
ISSN:1468-5906
Contient:Enthalten in: Journal for the scientific study of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/jssr.12550