The religious basis of resistance and non‐response: A methodological note

Abstract

The reluctance to participate in enquiries about religious belief and practice takes a variety of forms and has a number of bases. This paper draws upon enquiries of belief and behaviour conducted with samples of 692 Quakers and 238 clergy in the Church of England: in both cases a postal questionnaire was followed by selective interviewing. The paper explores the hazards of operating standard designs across a variety of religious tendencies. Resistance to generalised questions commonly took the form of non‐response at. the questionnaire stage and of negotiation of terms in the interview. It particularly besets enquiries conducted among constituencies which attach special significance to correct wording or acceptable assumptions and have negative dispositions toward the enterprise of social research, its habits of enquiry and its conceptual language. Attention is drawn to the precision with which respondents represent their religious beliefs and practices and the implications of losing this precision in approximations of response for the purpose of analysis. Croups, such as our Quaker sample, which ordinarily occupy themselves with the scrupulous negotiation and definition of aspects of belief, may become more sensitive to methodological issues than those who investigate them; some Anglican clergy, however, resisted questions on the basis of implicit assumptions concerning thé nature of their role. The consequence may be distrust in belief surveys and measures are therefore suggested in this paper to conserve the reputation of researchers.