This study drew on data provided by 11,809 13- to 15-year-old students drawn from the four nations of the UK to explore the level of agreement with the view that science disproves the biblical account odf creation, and to explore the power of five sets of variables to predict individual differences in responses to that opinion. The five sets of…

This study employs multi-level linear statistical modelling to examine the power of school-level and individual-level factors to predict individual differences in scores recorded on the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity by 6,036 students (who self-identified as either Christian or no religion) in year-seven, year-eight, year-nine,…

Sectarianism is perceived as a serious issue in Scotland despite a lack of concrete evidence, according to the Advisory Group on Tackling Sectarianism. This paper addresses one of the gaps in knowledge, the attitudes of Catholic school pupils. Our research was designed to profile sectarian attitudes among a sample of Catholic school pupils in…

What does it mean to be a Muslim young woman in Britain today and with which religious and social values do these young women identify? This paper tests the thesis that Muslim identity predicts distinctive values of public and social significance among female adolescents (13- to 15- years of age) who participated in a survey conducted across the…

Drawing on data provided by 5,811 students from schools in England, Wales, and London who self-identified as either 'no religion' or as Christian, this study explored the effect of the contact hypothesis (having friends who are Muslims) on scores recorded on the seven-item Scale of Anti-Muslim Attitude (SAMA), after controlling for type of school…

This study argues that it is the collective worldview of the students which is crucial in reflecting and shaping the ethos of schools. In order to understand the potential distinctiveness of Christian ethos schools two analyses were undertaken. The collective worldview of 2942 students attending 10 Christian ethos schools was compared with the…

For the first time in 2001 the Census for England and Wales included a question on religious identity. The campaign for the inclusion of this question was largely pioneered by the Muslim community who argued that religious identity was a more significant indicator of social and public significance than ethnicity. This paper tests the thesis that…

This study set out to explore the trajectory of personal, moral and spiritual values of students taking Religious Studies at A level in the UK. A sample of 150 students completed a battery of measures at the beginning of their period of A level study and again at the end. The data found no difference over this period of time in personal values…

The "theology of religions" is concerned with the interpretation and evaluation of the divergent truth-claims and views of salvation that are asserted or implied by different religious traditions. This study proposes a new multi-choice index that distinguishes between six current positions within the theology of religions, characterised…

In order to evaluate the impact of the pilot Narnian Virtues Character Education English Curriculum Project, a pilot sample of 86 year 7 and year 8 students (11 to 13 years of age) completed a battery of tests both before and after participating for six weeks in the programme. The battery of tests comprised 12 Narnian Character Virtue Scales…

This study builds on the research tradition modelled by the Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity, the Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude towards Judaism, the Sahin-Francis Scale of Attitude towards Islam and the Santosh-Francis Scale of Attitude towards Hinduism to propose a generic instrument concerned with attitudes towards theistic faith.…

This article reports on the development of scales for measuring moral values in three domains: anti-social behaviour, sex and relationships, and substance use. Students studying religion at A level in 25 schools were invited to respond to 32 Likert items that referred to a wide range of moral issues and behaviours, employing a 5-point response…

The Young People's Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project was established to compare the attitudes of students (13-to 15-years of age) educated within the state-maintained sector in church schools (Catholic, Anglican, joint Anglican and Catholic) and in schools without a religious foundation. Data provided by 5,402 students recruited from…

Northern Ireland has been and remains a religiously divided community. This study sets out to examine outgroup prejudice among a sample of 1799 13-15-year-old students attending Catholic or Protestant schools and employs both bivariate analyses and hierarchical modelling to chart the associations between outgroup prejudice and personal factors…

This article argues that the nation's commitment to young people involves proper concern for their physical health, their psychological health, and their spiritual health. In this context the notion of spiritual health is clarified by a critique of John Fisher's model of spiritual health. Fisher developed a relational model of spiritual health,…