National Survey of Religious Leaders
Challenge
There was no accessible source of nationally representative data about religious leaders across the religious spectrum.
Given the decentralized nature of religious practice in the United States, there is no single, exhaustive sampling frame of religious congregations or religious leaders. As a result, creating a nationally representative sample of religious leaders is challenging for many researchers.
Providing access to this type of scientifically rigorous data is important to a wide audience of researchers, journalists, policymakers, and students so that our collective knowledge about this area of American society can be deepened while minimizing bias in the data collected.
Solution
We launched data collection for the National Survey of Religious Leaders (NSRL).
NORC conducts the General Social Survey (GSS), which collects the most rigorous, widely used data in the United States on the attitudes, opinions, and behaviors of the American public using a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. The National Congregations Study, also conducted by NORC for Dr. Mark Chaves at Duke University, uses hyper-network sampling to gather a nationally representative sample of congregations in the U.S. by studying congregations attended by GSS respondents.
By further conducting a study on attitudes and practices among the ministerial staff of these congregations, researchers can attain an unbiased picture of religious clergy across the religious spectrum in the U.S.
NORC’s deep experience conducting attitudinal studies and NORC’s infrastructure around the GSS and hyper-network studies allows this 1st of its kind data to be collected and made available to researchers of all disciplines and experience levels so they may gain scientifically based insights on religious life in the U.S.
Result
We generated the opportunity for groundbreaking insight into religious leaders’ characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors.
The NSRL dataset became publicly available on the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) in August 2023. By June 2024, eleven papers using study results were published in publications like Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, JAMA Psychiatry, Friends Journal, Politics and Religion, Review of Religious Research, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, and Sociological Focus, with a publication forthcoming in Journal of Pastoral Care & Counseling. The NSRL data continues to be widely accessible and used by researchers and students.
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Project Leads
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Jodie Smylie
Senior Research DirectorProject Director -
Steven Pedlow
Principal StatisticianSenior Staff