Perhaps what I wrote wasn't clear. I suggested that new immigrants are more likely than others to have a religion.…
Dear Mette Thanks very much for your observation, which I have posted online. Unfortunately, we have had no national censuses…
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Eddie You can email them to c.d.field@bham.ac.uk Best wishes. Clive
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One response to “More Perceptions of Islam”
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As Clive Field notes above, the iERA report (page 5) makes some rather defensive criticisms of the similar YouGov study. It’s hard to take these comments seriously in the absence of further information on the methods used for their own survey.
Face to face interviews do have advantages (and some disadvantages), but the key issue is how representative the sample is of the population. YouGov is a leading firm with a good record (as measured by some objective tests, including elections). This very small study may be better, but we simply don’t know enough to judge.
The survey was conducted by a small but respectable market research firm. Unfortunately there is no real information in the report about sampling.
On page 16 one finds the statement that “The questionnaire was completed by a random sample of 500 English-speaking people living in Britain; this ensured that the gathered information was of the highest, most statistically robust standard.” I’d want to know more about how respondents were selected. (Was it really a random sample, and if so what was the sampling frame and what was the level of non-response?) I strongly suspect that it was actually a quota sample; the age/sex distribution is otherwise too good to be true. Most opinion polls report on 1,000 people; 500 is quite a small sample, particularly if you try to break down the topline results by age, region, etc.
For the most part the presentation of the results is straightforward and broadly sensible. It’s apparent that there have been some criticisms, and I have a certain amount of sympathy with both sides of the argument.
http://www.iera.org.uk/pdf/Clarifying_iERA_Research_Press_Release.pdf
There’s always a risk that presenting results in an interpretative context with a clear policy agenda tends to raise questions about impartiality. It might have been better had the iERA separated the report on the findings from the theology and advocacy. That said, there is no reason to suppose that the research wasn’t well conducted.
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