Religion and Social Capital: Examining Social Networks and Religious Identification in the UK

Abstract

Recent research into religion’s intersection with social class, specifically in the UK, represents a conspicuous gap in recent scholarly work. I seek in this article to help fill this gap by focusing on the specific element of social capital. Adopting the lesser used lens of Bourdieu, and using a UK-wide survey, I measure various elements of social capital and employ advanced statistical methods to ascertain social capital composition for various groups of religious identity. Results show that the primary difference between religious groups is social network variety. Those who assert multiple religious identities show the highest level of social network variety. Therefore, results suggest that as either a product or cause, it is those asserting multiple religious identities who may possess the greatest amount of aggregate and bridging social capital.