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Featured Findings

Here we showcase interesting findings from particular projects and events organised.

Since projects have been commissioned in three phases between 2007 and 2009 and are of a varying duration, new findings are posted here as and when they become available.

  • Secularism means very different things in different times and places

    2011-03-06 00:00:00

    Read the findings from the Religion and Society funded network led by David Lehmann and Humeira Iqtidar at Cambridge University.

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  • Opting out of RE could and should be easier

    2011-02-18 00:00:00

    Alison Mawhinney and her team from Queen’s University Belfast find that the ability opt-out from Religious Education in schools in Northern Ireland is not working effectively to protect human rights.

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  • Trail of a deadly cult…

    2011-01-31 00:00:00

    Medieval historian Professor Miri Rubin, already famous for books like ‘Mother of God’ (a history of Mary), led a research network funded by the Religion and Society Programme in order to investigate the first known ritual murder accusation.

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  • Shrines in India and Pakistan demonstrate shared practices of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims

    2011-01-17 00:00:00

    This research project conducted between 2008 and 2010 by Dr Navtej Purewal, Dr Virinder Kalra and their interdisciplinary team, funded by the Religion and Society Programme, shows that despite Partition and the clear separation of Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism in modern scholarship, many holy places, shrines and tombs of saints (pirs) are regularly used by Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs.

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  • Child Abuse in the Catholic Church – what can be learned?

    2010-11-04 00:00:00

    The AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme co-hosted with Heythrop College London this one day closed workshop to bring experts together to discuss this serious and pressing issue within the Catholic Church.

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  • Anxiety about ‘religious academies’ is nothing new

    2010-12-06 00:00:00

    In some ways our forebears were more tolerant of ‘radical’ religion than we are.

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  • Faith and Policy

    2010-07-01 00:00:00

    The AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme organised with the Faiths and Civil Society Unit, Goldsmith’s, a one day conference asking ‘Faith and Policy – Where Next for Religion in the Public Sphere?’ at the British Library Conference Centre, London, UK 1st July 2010 and here is the report from this event.

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  • Innovative Methods in the Study of Religion

    2010-08-02 00:00:00

    Over two days over 80 people from a range of UK and international universities and disciplinary backgrounds gathered for fresh reflection on methods in the study of religion. The growing interest in religion, growing academic recognition of its complexity and changing forms and yet relatively little discussion of methods made this conference timely and welcome. It was co-organised by the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme and Norface ‘Relemergence of Religion’ research programme. Presenters included members of projects funded by both programmes.

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  • British Religion in Numbers unveils online treasure-chest of data

    2010-05-18 00:00:00

    A great leap forward in accessing facts and figures on religion in Britain has been made possible by a project funded by the Religion and Society Programme. Leading scholars David Voas and Clive Field with a team based at the University of Manchester this month [April 2010] launched a new free-to-use website which will be of immense value to academic researchers as well as to government, private enterprises, journalists, and anyone wanting authoritative and up-to-date data on British religion.

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  • Religion, identity, and violence in Kaduna State Nigeria

    2010-01-29 00:00:00

    Dr Colette Harris and her team find that participatory action research contributes to a reduction in tensions and violence.

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  • Partnerships Between Muslim Groups and Police

    2009-11-26 00:00:00

    Criminologist Basia Spalek finds that successful community policing in a counter-terrorism context requires the building of trust between police officers and community members. The Metropolitan Police’s Muslim Contact Unit has managed to do this.

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  • Christian Ethos Schools

    2009-11-26 00:00:00

    Dr Mark Pike finds through a combination of ethnography, interviews and surveys across five British state-funded schools of a Christian ethos that the schools encourage their students to engage critically with ‘religious truth claims’.

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  • From Hijab to Jilbab

    2009-11-26 00:00:00

    Dr Kaye Haw from the University of Nottingham and her team met again 10 years on a group of young Muslim women in Britain and found out how their lives and ideas had changed in that time for the Phase 1 Small Grant ‘The Myth of British Identity and the Failure of Multiculturalism? From hijab to jilbab’.

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