Association of Religion Data Archives

Association of Religion Data Archives
Name	Association of Religion Data Archives
Abbreviation	ARDA
Formation	1998
Headquarters	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Leader title	Director
Leader name	Roger Finke
Website	(omitted)

Association of Religion Data Archives is an online research archive providing quantitative and qualitative religion data for scholars, journalists, policy makers, and the public. Founded in the late 1990s, it aggregates surveys, denominational statistics, GIS files, and historical documents from a variety of sources including academic centers, denominational bodies, and international research programs. The archive supports comparative studies across United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and numerous other national and subnational contexts through curated datasets and analytical tools.

History

The archive originated in collaboration between scholars at Pennsylvania State University and later Pittsburgh Theological Seminary under leadership associated with scholars like Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, drawing on traditions from projects such as the General Social Survey, World Values Survey, and the American National Election Studies. Early contributions included denominational census data from institutions like the United Methodist Church, Southern Baptist Convention, and Roman Catholic Church. The archive expanded by incorporating international collections linked to research programs at University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, University of Michigan, Harvard University, Oxford University, and University of Toronto. Over time it integrated survey instruments and results from projects such as the Pew Research Center studies, the International Social Survey Programme, and regional datasets produced by entities like Australian Bureau of Statistics and Statistics Canada.

Mission and Scope

The archive’s mission emphasizes accessibility of primary data for analyses of religious affiliation, attendance, belief, and organizational structures, engaging partners including the Institute for Social Research, Baylor University, Duke University, Notre Dame University, Columbia University, Yale University, and denominational archives like United Church of Christ repositories. Scope covers demographic statistics from national census bureaus such as the U.S. Census Bureau and the Office for National Statistics (UK), survey series including the European Social Survey, and historical sources like the U.S. Religious Census of 1957. The project intersects with scholars who work on topics related to the First Amendment, Civil Rights Movement, Great Migration, and global phenomena studied by the United Nations and World Bank.

Collections and Datasets

Collections include national surveys (e.g., General Social Survey, American National Election Studies, Pew Global Attitudes Project), denominational membership reports from the Southern Baptist Convention, United Methodist Church, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, and archival holdings such as the Baptist Historical Collection and the Catholic Research Resources Alliance contributions. The archive houses specialized datasets on topics linked to organizations and studies like Sociological Research Association, Association for the Sociology of Religion, Religious Research Association, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, and historical church membership series similar to the Flewelling-Franklin series. It also includes regional files for US states (e.g., Texas, California, New York), metropolitan studies (e.g., Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans), and global samples from countries such as India, China, Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa, and Mexico.

Data Access and Tools

Users access microdata, codebooks, and aggregated tables via web interfaces and APIs comparable to platforms maintained by ICPSR, Harvard Dataverse, and the World Bank Open Data portal. Analytical utilities enable cross-tabulation and mapping with GIS layers referencing systems like Esri shapefiles and linking to spatial datasets used by National Geographic Society, U.S. Geological Survey, and academic projects at Stanford University and MIT. Teaching resources mirror curricula in departments at Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, and Cornell University, and the archive supports citation practices used in journals such as Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sociology of Religion, American Sociological Review, and Demography.

Governance and Funding

The archive is overseen by an advisory board drawing experts from institutions including University of Notre Dame, Penn State University, Ohio State University, Vanderbilt University, University of Chicago, Georgetown University, and Emory University. Funding sources have included foundations and agencies such as the Lilly Endowment, John Templeton Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and grants coordinated with centers like the Center for Religion and Civic Culture and the Institute for Advanced Study affiliates. Partnerships with denominational bodies such as the Episcopal Church archives and research arms of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints supplement institutional support.

Impact and Use in Scholarship

The archive has enabled empirical work in sociology, political science, history, and religious studies cited by scholars at Harvard Divinity School, Princeton Theological Seminary, Yale Divinity School, and in comparative studies published in outlets such as American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, and Historical Methods. Its datasets underpin analyses of religious change related to events like the Second Vatican Council, Pentecostalism growth studies, and electoral behavior research linking religion to outcomes studied in 2008 United States presidential election and 2016 United States presidential election. Researchers from centers like the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and programs at Georgetown University employ its data for policy briefs and classroom instruction.

Criticism and Limitations

Critics point to selection biases when datasets favor anglophone sources tied to institutions such as University of Pennsylvania and University of Oxford, uneven coverage for regions like parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, and challenges similar to those discussed in critiques of Pew Research Center methods and the World Values Survey over sampling and translation. Limitations include variable metadata quality compared with standards from ICPSR and the European Data Archive, constraints on longitudinal comparability akin to debates around the General Social Survey trend analysis, and concerns about denominational reporting consistency as seen in disputes involving the United Methodist Church and Southern Baptist Convention counts.

Category:Digital libraries Category:Religion databases Category:Research projects