Browse 114 concepts used in the study of religion, review how survey researchers measured them in the past, and quickly compare the results of more than 7,600 survey questions.
The archive is a collection of surveys, polls, and other data submitted by the foremost scholars and research centers in the world. Review and analyze data online, or download free of charge.
Examine the religious composition, religious freedoms, demographics, constitutional clauses, survey findings and multiple social and political measures for 250 nations.
View maps of the United States and individual states for hundreds of variables, including congregational membership, census data, crime statistics and many others.
Generate congregational membership reports for any county, state and urban area in the United States using data collected by the Religious Congregations & Membership Study.
The profiles chart schisms and mergers, document membership trends, offer basic descriptions, and link to additional resources for more than 400 past and present American religious groups.
Browse dozens of topics from a major national survey of religious congregations. See how the responses vary by the size, religious family and region of the congregation.
Browse dozens of topics covered by major national surveys. See how the responses vary by demographic categories and, when available, how they change over time.
View maps of the United States and individual states for hundreds of variables, including congregational membership, census data, crime statistics and many others.
"Southerners tend to slip through the cracks between state surveys, which are unreliable for generalizing to the region, on the one hand, and national sample surveys, which usually contain too few Southerners to allow detailed examination, on the other. And few surveys routinely include questions specifically about the South. To remedy this situation, the [Odum] Institute and the Center for the Study of the American South sponsor the Southern Focus Poll" (Odum Institute).
Southern and non-Southern residents are surveyed yearly and "are asked questions about economic conditions in their communities; cultural issues such as Southern accent, the Confederate flag and 'Dixie;' race relations; feelings toward migrants to the South; and characteristics of Southerners vs. Northerners" (Odum Institute).
All of the data sets from the Southern Focus Polls archived here are generously made available by the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (OIRSS).
Data File
Cases: 1,013
Variables: 158
Weight Variable: TOTWT and WTVARS
The variable WTVARS is "for weighting the data by household size. The weight variable TOTWT is based on the Census of Population and allows a user to combine the Southern and non-Southern data sets" (Odum Institute Survey Methodology), and also includes the weight for household size.
Data Collection
Date Collected: Date Collected: January 29 - March 30, 2000
The target population for the telephone survey consisted of adults age 18 or older, residing in households with telephones in the United States. "The Odum Institute purchased two random-digit dialing (RDD) samples from Genesys Sampling Systems (GSS) of Fort Washington, Pennsylvania: a sample of Southern numbers, and a sample of non-Southern numbers. To give each residential telephone number within each sample an approximately equal chance of being dialed, GSS first systematically stratified each sample to reflect each state's proportion of the appropriate region's population. For each state, GSS then estimated the proportion of telephone numbers beginning with each three-digit prefix in use in that state. This estimate was based on the proportion of numbers with each prefix listed in the telephone directories for the state. Strings of four random digits, confined to working banks where known, were generated by computer to complete the phone numbers. Using this method, GSS produced sets of Southern and non-Southern numbers" (Odum Institute Survey Methodology).
"The target respondent within each household was the person living in the household, age 18 or over, with the next birthday... At least eight call attempts were made to each telephone number, at least 24 hours apart" (Odum Institute Survey Methodology).