I am responded to John Harris's idea via the list not, as he requested,
direct to him, because of the importance of the issues that are raised
by the suggestion that a question about religion be included on a
student's registration form. 

What would it mean? Would it be a question about "religion" or "culture"
or "upbringing" (or, ye gods, race!)? Would it be a question about
belief or ethics? If a respondent said "Christian", would that be enough
classification? (And if they said C of E would that mean that almost all
such responses would count as nil, given the decline in evident
religious practice in the UK in teh Anglican and Roman Catholic
churches?) If a person responded "Muslim", would you want to know if
this was Shia or Sunni, etc? How would you classify a person who
responded "Humanist"? Would he or she be counted as "non-religious" (and
would that be a statement of religion?!) or simply a "don't know"?

And what can you do with the information, whatever it might mean,
afterwards? Anything useful?

Tony Bell


Tony Bell, Administrative Secretary
Institute of Latin American Studies
31 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9HA
PHONE No. FOR TONY BELL: 0171-862 8875

MAIN ILAS TEL: 0171-862 8870
MAIN ILAS FAX: 0171-862 8886
LIBRARY TEL: 0171-862 8501
LIBRARY FAX: 0171-862 8971
Webpage: http://www.sas.ac.uk/ilas/

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	John Harris [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent:	Wednesday, May 26, 1999 10:54 AM
> To:	[log in to unmask]
> Subject:	Students and religion
> 
> Colleagues,
> 
> There is some interest here at the University of Bath in including a
> question about a student's religion on our registration form. Some
> background information is given below. I should be interested to know
> whether other institutions do this, and if so, how they frame their
> questions, why they do it, and how they use the information. I would
> summarize and post information back to the list unless asked by anyone
> not to do so. Please reply to me direct, rather than to the list.
> Thanks.
> 
> John Harris.
> 
> ==============
> Some background:
> ==============
> 
> It is suggested:
> - That any question on our registration form would be for optional
> completion by students;
> - That we would store such optional replies in our student record
> database;
> - That individual information might be used in the scheduling of
> examinations;
> - That individual information might be used to deal sensitively and
> appropriately with particular requirements in the event of death;
> - That statistical information derived from the replies might assist
> in
> the monitoring of equality issues.
> 
> I have looked at the web pages relating to the 2001 census. It's
> interesting to note that the inclusion of a question on religion for
> England and Wales is under consideration, but that its inclusion for
> the
> first time would require a change in the primary legislation. The
> relevant document gives some background on the purpose of the proposed
> question: "responses to the question would help provide information
> which would supplement the output from the ethnicity question by
> identifying ethnic minority sub-groups, particularly those originating
> from the Indian sub-continent, in terms of their religion" ("The 2001
> Census of Population", Cm 4253, para. 64, cited from the Office for
> National Statistics web pages, via http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons_f.htm).
> This limitation of purpose would probably render the proposed
> categorisation unhelpful for university purposes.
> 
> HESA's Field 78 in the Individual Student Record asks a question
> labelled "Religion" for which response is compulsory in respect of
> Northern Ireland domiciled students at institutions in Northern
> Ireland.
> Many colleagues will recall that there was once a proposal that this
> question should be asked of all Northern Ireland domiciled students
> wherever they were studying in the UK, but this was removed during the
> early consultation phases. According to Cm 4253, there has
> traditionally
> been such a question in the census in Northern Ireland (ibid. para.
> 66).
> Here too the purpose and categorisation are unhelpful for our
> purposes.
> 
> 
> ____________________________________________________
> 
> Dr John Harris, Senior Assistant Registrar
> Student Records & Examinations Office
> University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, U.K.
> EMail:  [log in to unmask]
> Tel:    (01225) 826826, extn 5045
> SREO:   http://www.bath.ac.uk/Admin/Student_Records/
> JH:     http://www.bath.ac.uk/~adsjh/
> ____________________________________________________
> 


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