The Muslim mainstream: co-producing secularity in Sweden
The main hypothesis of this project is that the normative secular discourse in Sweden is upheld and reproduced, not only by the majority of culturally Christian Swedes, but also by the mainstream of the country’s culturally Muslim population. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, we want to explore how and to what extent this is the case. There is presently no reliable data on the level of secularity among culturally Muslim people in Sweden and qualitative studies on of Swedish secularity have focused almost solely on the culturally Christian majority. Hence this project aims to fill a misfortunate lacuna in the research literature.
The secularity of culturally Christian Swedes has its particular features. Typically, it is characterised by a discrepancy between practice and self-image with regards to the religious heritage. In this project we will let eight particularly prominent characteristics that previous research has found in the secularity of culturally Christian Swedes constitute the focus points for our study of culturally Muslim people.
We will study people who have a Muslim family background and who have gone through the Swedish school system. The group will be chosen from the four largest Muslim national heritage groups in the country. Data will be collected through a quantitative survey and a series of qualitative case studies. The project members are experienced scholars in relevant fields and well versed in relevant methods.
Final report
The religious landscape in Sweden has gone through drastic chances lately. Sweden is now a society characterized by religious pluralism. This situation challenges the secular self-identity of the mainstream population. In the public debate, religious identities are often viewed with unease and religious minorities are often particularly depicted as opposed to secularity. Here – and most intensely in social media – it is almost exclusively Muslim minorities that are thought of as controversial.
The assumption that religious minorities by definition are more strongly religious than the secular culturally Christian majority, however, had not been empirically validated. In this empirically driven project, we have tried to remedy this.
Using both qualitative and quantitative methods we set out to study the country’s main Muslim immigrant communities in order to explore how and to what extent the people belonging to these are secular. Our hypothesis was that these communities would be more secular than the public image suggests and thus that the normative secular discourse in Sweden is upheld and co-produced, not only by the post-Christian majority, but also by this country’s culturally Muslim population. Our main research questions were:
(1) How and to what extent are culturally Muslim people in Sweden secular?
(2) In what ways is their secularity different or similar to that of their culturally Christian compatriots?
(3) What are the differences and similarities between the major culturally Muslim communities in Sweden when it comes to secularity?
In order to answer these questions, we have explored to what extent some prominent features of secularity among Swedes with a Christian family background, also exist among Swedes with a Muslim family background. On a theoretical level we have endeavoured to delve into the subtleties of what it means to be secular and to analyse in what ways secularity is affected by the religious tradition in contrast to which it is formed. A theoretical point of departure here has been the insight that being secular means different things in different contexts. Secularity, just as various religious identities, is always historically situated and needs to be approached and analysed with this in mind.
THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Our research was conducted in eight phases:
(1) In the first phase we identified a number of characteristics of post-Christian Swedish secularity, that is features which are typical for the way Swedes of Christian family background are secular. This was based on previous research. We identified eight features: (1) Infrequent everyday practice; (2) Use of religious rites of passage; (3) High recognition of religious holidays; (4) High level of membership in religious organisations; (5) Strong ideals of individualism; (6) A discourse of perspectivism; (7) Non-religion as norm, and (8) Negative stereotyping of religion and religious people. Together these features form a description of post-Christian Swedish secularity. For our project they also indicated the themes that we wanted to explore in our research.
(2) The second phase consisted in constructing a survey questionnaire based on the eight identified features. A questionnaire consisting of 31 questions was created and discussed with the advisory committee of the project.
(3) In the third phase we tested our questionnaire. This we did in collaboration with the SOM-institute at Gothenburg university using their webpanel known as LORE. In order to find repondents with a Muslim family background we began by sending a screening question to the full webpanel (60 000 participants). The question was “What religions do you have in your family, now and in previous generations?” A total of 845 active participants reported Islam as a religion in their family history. In our study, these participants form the group having a Muslim family background in the broadest sense of the word. In a second step, a survey was posted for the participants of this group. For the sake of comparison, surveys were also sent to a sample of participants answering “Christianity” and “no religion” to the aforementioned question. These comparative groups were selected based on similarities with the Muslim group regarding age, gender, and education.
(4) The fourth phase of the project consisted in analyzing the results of the web panel survey, to evaluate the functionality of the questionnaire and, based on this evaluation, to construct a second final survey.
(5) In the fifth phase we sent out this survey by post to a random sample of the population. This was done in collaboration with Statistics Sweden (SCB). In order to reach Swedes with family background in Muslim majority countries, the sample was based on country of birth or parents' country of birth. Five sample groups were selected: Iranian-, Iraqi-, Yugoslavian-, Turkish- and others. We obtained the following number of responses from the respective groups: Iranian-born (270 responses), Iraqi-born (138 responses), Yugoslavian-born (213 responses), Turkish-born (169 responses) and Swedish-born (322 responses). The total number of respondents included in this article's analysis is 1112.
(6) In the sixth phase we analyzed the results of the postal survey. In order to overcome the methodological problem of low response rate and to obtain sufficiently large survey groups for statistical analysis, we – in addition to making our sample based on the five groups described above – weighted the results. The weight compensates for non-response bias due to gender, age and education level. Together with the group-based sampling procedure, it helps to reduce the non-response bias in our descriptive estimates while still obtaining enough responses from people with Muslim family backgrounds to make comparisons with the majority population.
(7) In the seventh phase of the project we conducted in-depth interviews with Swedes of Muslim family background in order to deepen our understanding of the survey results. The interviewees were found through a question in the survey where respondents were asked to contact us should they be interested in being interviewed.
(8) In the eighth and final phase of the project we analyzed the surveys and interviews and disseminated our results through academic publications.
RESULTS
We refer to the publications of the project for a detailed description of our many findings. However, some results which relate directly to the above mentioned research questions are:
(1) Most Swedes with a Muslim family background descend form countries whose modern history is dominated by contested secular regimes. This means that they are not alien to secularism as an ideology. On the contrary, there is often a greater awareness about secular ideals than among the post-Cristian majority. For those who self-identify as secular, this entails that their secularity is also more definitive.
(2) Swedes of Middle Eastern Muslim descent are significantly more secular than those of Middle Eastern Christian descent.
(3) The negative feelings about religion in general, and Islam in particular, that are found among the post-Christian Swedish majority is largely shared by the post-Muslim minorities.
(4) There are big differences between national Muslim/post-Muslim communities in Sweden. Swedes of Iranian or Bosnian descent mirror the majority of Swedish descent when it comes to views of religion and secularity. Swedes of Turkish and Iraqi descent are less secular but this is largely explain by the string Christian identity of many of those belonging to these groups.
All data will be made available through the Swedish National Data Service.
The assumption that religious minorities by definition are more strongly religious than the secular culturally Christian majority, however, had not been empirically validated. In this empirically driven project, we have tried to remedy this.
Using both qualitative and quantitative methods we set out to study the country’s main Muslim immigrant communities in order to explore how and to what extent the people belonging to these are secular. Our hypothesis was that these communities would be more secular than the public image suggests and thus that the normative secular discourse in Sweden is upheld and co-produced, not only by the post-Christian majority, but also by this country’s culturally Muslim population. Our main research questions were:
(1) How and to what extent are culturally Muslim people in Sweden secular?
(2) In what ways is their secularity different or similar to that of their culturally Christian compatriots?
(3) What are the differences and similarities between the major culturally Muslim communities in Sweden when it comes to secularity?
In order to answer these questions, we have explored to what extent some prominent features of secularity among Swedes with a Christian family background, also exist among Swedes with a Muslim family background. On a theoretical level we have endeavoured to delve into the subtleties of what it means to be secular and to analyse in what ways secularity is affected by the religious tradition in contrast to which it is formed. A theoretical point of departure here has been the insight that being secular means different things in different contexts. Secularity, just as various religious identities, is always historically situated and needs to be approached and analysed with this in mind.
THE RESEARCH PROCESS
Our research was conducted in eight phases:
(1) In the first phase we identified a number of characteristics of post-Christian Swedish secularity, that is features which are typical for the way Swedes of Christian family background are secular. This was based on previous research. We identified eight features: (1) Infrequent everyday practice; (2) Use of religious rites of passage; (3) High recognition of religious holidays; (4) High level of membership in religious organisations; (5) Strong ideals of individualism; (6) A discourse of perspectivism; (7) Non-religion as norm, and (8) Negative stereotyping of religion and religious people. Together these features form a description of post-Christian Swedish secularity. For our project they also indicated the themes that we wanted to explore in our research.
(2) The second phase consisted in constructing a survey questionnaire based on the eight identified features. A questionnaire consisting of 31 questions was created and discussed with the advisory committee of the project.
(3) In the third phase we tested our questionnaire. This we did in collaboration with the SOM-institute at Gothenburg university using their webpanel known as LORE. In order to find repondents with a Muslim family background we began by sending a screening question to the full webpanel (60 000 participants). The question was “What religions do you have in your family, now and in previous generations?” A total of 845 active participants reported Islam as a religion in their family history. In our study, these participants form the group having a Muslim family background in the broadest sense of the word. In a second step, a survey was posted for the participants of this group. For the sake of comparison, surveys were also sent to a sample of participants answering “Christianity” and “no religion” to the aforementioned question. These comparative groups were selected based on similarities with the Muslim group regarding age, gender, and education.
(4) The fourth phase of the project consisted in analyzing the results of the web panel survey, to evaluate the functionality of the questionnaire and, based on this evaluation, to construct a second final survey.
(5) In the fifth phase we sent out this survey by post to a random sample of the population. This was done in collaboration with Statistics Sweden (SCB). In order to reach Swedes with family background in Muslim majority countries, the sample was based on country of birth or parents' country of birth. Five sample groups were selected: Iranian-, Iraqi-, Yugoslavian-, Turkish- and others. We obtained the following number of responses from the respective groups: Iranian-born (270 responses), Iraqi-born (138 responses), Yugoslavian-born (213 responses), Turkish-born (169 responses) and Swedish-born (322 responses). The total number of respondents included in this article's analysis is 1112.
(6) In the sixth phase we analyzed the results of the postal survey. In order to overcome the methodological problem of low response rate and to obtain sufficiently large survey groups for statistical analysis, we – in addition to making our sample based on the five groups described above – weighted the results. The weight compensates for non-response bias due to gender, age and education level. Together with the group-based sampling procedure, it helps to reduce the non-response bias in our descriptive estimates while still obtaining enough responses from people with Muslim family backgrounds to make comparisons with the majority population.
(7) In the seventh phase of the project we conducted in-depth interviews with Swedes of Muslim family background in order to deepen our understanding of the survey results. The interviewees were found through a question in the survey where respondents were asked to contact us should they be interested in being interviewed.
(8) In the eighth and final phase of the project we analyzed the surveys and interviews and disseminated our results through academic publications.
RESULTS
We refer to the publications of the project for a detailed description of our many findings. However, some results which relate directly to the above mentioned research questions are:
(1) Most Swedes with a Muslim family background descend form countries whose modern history is dominated by contested secular regimes. This means that they are not alien to secularism as an ideology. On the contrary, there is often a greater awareness about secular ideals than among the post-Cristian majority. For those who self-identify as secular, this entails that their secularity is also more definitive.
(2) Swedes of Middle Eastern Muslim descent are significantly more secular than those of Middle Eastern Christian descent.
(3) The negative feelings about religion in general, and Islam in particular, that are found among the post-Christian Swedish majority is largely shared by the post-Muslim minorities.
(4) There are big differences between national Muslim/post-Muslim communities in Sweden. Swedes of Iranian or Bosnian descent mirror the majority of Swedish descent when it comes to views of religion and secularity. Swedes of Turkish and Iraqi descent are less secular but this is largely explain by the string Christian identity of many of those belonging to these groups.
All data will be made available through the Swedish National Data Service.