Abstract
Despite the long-lasting interest in religious change, debates on the topic have been heated and are still far from being settled. In order to provide a reliable data source through which to study these dynamics, the CARPE project harmonizes well-known international surveys containing items concerning religiosity (the ESS, Eurobarometer, EVS, ISSP and WVS). This makes it possible to broaden the available observation window, both across countries and over time. Moreover, the opportunities this provides for comparing different survey programmes also enable researchers to analyse the consistency of the results, minimizing the impact of random fluctuations and providing useful information with respect to the degree of confidence which can be placed on the relevant estimates. The main focus of this cumulative approach is the variable regarding church attendance, which has been harmonized in various ways. All in all, the CARPE dataset contains figures of religious practice for 45 countries spanning the period of 1970–2016 and derived from 1665 national surveys. This results in a sample of approximately 1.8 million individual observations. The aim of this contribution is to present the dataset’s composition, the harmonization procedure adopted, the strategy used to combine the single datasets and the reliability tests which have been performed. Finally, some possible applications of the CARPE dataset will be introduced.
Highlights
The origin of change pooled European dataset (CARPE) (Church Attendance and Religious change Pooled European dataset)1 lies in a research project started few years ago and devoted to religious voting in Europe
The authors depict the peculiar trend of religious change in Italy, with church attendance decreasing at different paces during the period between 1968 and 2010
The CARPE project mainly aims to inform the debate about the substance of religious changes that occurred in Europe over the past decades
Summary
The origin of CARPE (Church Attendance and Religious change Pooled European dataset) lies in a research project started few years ago and devoted to religious voting in Europe. The CARPE project mainly aims to inform the debate about the substance of religious changes that occurred in Europe over the past decades This being done by using data from a multiplicity of sources with sometimes more, sometimes less differing approaches to Throughout the article, we will use the terms ‘pooled dataset’ and ‘harmonized dataset’ as interchangeably, since they refer to the same research practice even if focusing on different aspects (pooling the datasets rather than harmonizing the variables). The second, methodological, source of variability stems from different survey practices being followed across countries, fieldwork organisations, and points in time, be those related to ad hoc decisions or to conscious attempts at refining (and changing) measurement practice This introduces variation even into what might otherwise count as measures of a single dimension of religiosity, e.g. when church attendance is measured with a six-point scale in one survey and with a seven-point scale in another one, and when response category wordings vary across surveys etc. The question concerning church attendance is relatively simple to formulate and easy to understand for respondents, given that it requires reporting the frequency of a certain behaviour
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