21st Century RELTRAD: Revising the Measure of American Religion

• In Event: New Approaches to Measuring Religion and Its Effects

Abstract

For more than two decades, Steensland et al.’s (2000) RELTRAD coding scheme has helped to advance social scientific knowledge on the role that religion plays in shaping aspects of American political, economic, and social life. However, researchers have highlighted coding decisions that impede RELTRAD’s statistical precision and have led to increasing numbers of dropped cases with the passage of time. In this paper, we update Steensland et al.’s (2000) original taxonomy to address these limitations. Most importantly, data for all nondenominational Protestants, regardless of how often they attend worship services, is now included within the coding scheme. We also advance two additional revisions consistent with the logic and method of original RELTRAD by distinguishing between categories of religiously unaffiliated (the fastest growing RELTRAD group), and modifying categories to recognize the unique role that race has played within American Protestantism. Findings from the 2000-2022 General Social Surveys provide strong support for both our Elaborated RELTRAD and Revised RELTRAD taxonomies. They also reveal major limitations in another recent reformulation of original RELTRAD. Consequently, we propose that future research should adopt the revisions to RELTRAD outlined here.

Authors

• Jason E. Shelton, University of Texas-Arlington

• Jerry Z. Park, Baylor University

• Brian Steensland, Indiana University-Indianapolis