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Description & Citation--Study No. 7520

Bibliographic Description

ICPSR Study No.:7520
 
Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07520
 
Title:Survey of Church Membership, 1971
 
Principal Investigator(s):National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA
 
Funding Agency:Aid Association for Lutherans
 
Bibliographic Citation:National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. Survey of Church Membership, 1971 [Computer file]. ICPSR07520-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1991. doi:10.3886/ICPSR07520
 

Scope of Study

Summary:This data collection contains information by region, state, and county on churches and church membership for 53 Christian denominations in the United States in 1971. These estimates or enumerations by denomination were collected by the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (NCCC) from each reporting denomination. The data are recorded for the nation as a whole, regions, states, SMSAs, and counties. This dataset was obtained from the Office of Research, Evaluation and Planning of the NCCC. In addition to data identifying the units of record, data for each reporting denomination are present, including: (1) number of churches, (2) number of communicant, confirmed, or full members, and (3) total number of "adherents." When incomplete information was supplied about a denomination's total number of adherents, an estimate was made by NCCC and identified in the data as such.
 
Subject Term(s):Christianity, church membership, counties, Metropolitan Statistical Areas, Protestantism, religion, religious behavior, religious congregations, states (USA)
 
Geographic Coverage:Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, United States, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
 
Time Period:1971
 
Date(s) of Collection:January 10, 1973 - December 31, 1973
 
Universe:All of the denominations listed in the YEARBOOK OF AMERICAN CHURCHES, 1971.
 
Data Type:survey data, and census/enumeration data
 
Data Collection Notes:When a denomination supplied only a count of its communicant, confirmed, or full members, NCCC estimated the total adherents by means of a computer-based procedure. The total population of an area (as reported in the First Count 1970 Census tabulations) was divided by the total population 14 years of age and over. The resulting figure was multiplied by the number of confirmed members reported for the denomination to produce the estimated total number of adherents. When such a procedure for estimating adherents was employed, the "estimate indicator" variable for that denomination contains the value of "1".
 

Methodology

Data Source:mailback questionnaires
 

Access and Availability

Note:A list of the data formats available for this study can be found in the summary of holdings. Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.
 
Original ICPSR Release:1984-03-18
 
Dataset(s):
  • DS1: Survey of Church Membership, 1971
 

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