Work

Methodological challenges of designing a survey to capture young people’s (non-binary) affiliations in relationship to religion, sexuality and gender

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: Large-scale population studies surveying young people in relation to their worldviews have tended to frame their identities in a fixed and limited capacity while also treating the topics of religion/spirituality and sexuality/gender as discrete categories of scholarly analysis. We highlight the affordances and limitations of foregrounding fixed religious, sexual and gender-based identity categories in the process of collecting and analysing data related to the worldviews of young people. In this paper we argue the value of studying the complexities and intersections of these identities and worldviews together in one study. We do this through reference to the Australia’s Generation Z (AGZ) study: the first nationally representative sample focused on providing an evidence-based understanding of both the religious/spiritual/non-religious and sexuality/gender identities and worldviews of young Australians aged 13–18. We discuss how we built on existing surveys in designing the AGZ survey. We also demonstrate how this survey allowed for the incorporation of young people’s non-binary understandings of religion, sexuality and gender.

Source: International Journal of Social Research Methodology

DOI: 10.1080/13645579.2020.1763692

Authors: Mary Lou Rasmussen, Sulamith Graefenstein, Andrew Singleton, Anna Halafoff, Gary Bouma

Institutions: Australian National University, Deakin University, Monash University

Language: English

Topic: LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy

Subfield: Social Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Gender equality, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

Funder: Australian Research Council