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Papers by Adrian N Stringer

Research paper thumbnail of Book review: Gladys Ganiel, Transforming post-Catholic Ireland: religious practice in late modernity

Research paper thumbnail of The Congregation as a Station for Social Integration an Analysis of Congregants Personal Networks with an Interpretation Using Giddens Theory of Structuration

ISASR in association with the Study of Religions, University College Cork, 2019

This is a study of personal networks from a sample of two contrasting congregations in Northern I... more This is a study of personal networks from a sample of two contrasting congregations in Northern Ireland: one is Anglican ('A'), historic and rural, the other newly formed, independent and evangelical ('I.E.'). This research helps to redress the lack of such studies in Britain and Ireland as compared to those in the USA. Using data from survey questionnaires and computer aided social network analysis, it investigates the role a congregation may have within such members' networks. The findings can be broken down into four sections. First, although a substantial proportion of co-congregants formed actors' networks, these did not form the majority of nodes. Second, Anglicans differed from the Independent Evangelical respondents in having networks of congregants who were, a) predominantly kin and b) more extensive in number. For the 'I.E.', the key integrative connections were provided by co-congregants. Third, congregants from both churches were primarily located within multiplex relationships-the people from their church were also either kin or already known through some other friendship group. Fourth, whilst each congregation can be differentiated from the other by social attributes (such as SEC, age, residency) such features appeared to be more that of induced homophily (local contexts and personal networks) rather than as a result of the simple agency of choice. Giddens' Structuration Theory was found to be a useful application for the theoretical animation of these results, especially in how the congregation acts as a station for congregants, integrating the household with the meso-level of social structure.

Research paper thumbnail of Congregation and social structure: An investigation into four Northern Irish memberships

Social Compass, 2013

The relationship between organised religion and the wider society has been of fundamental concern... more The relationship between organised religion and the wider society has been of fundamental concern within the sociology of religion. The author addresses the issue in terms of how material forms of social structure relate to individual congregational memberships. Four contrasting congregations were chosen for study (Baha’i, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Independent Evangelical), all in the author’s home region of Northern Ireland. A range of interviewing methods and tools were used, including tables of indices of dissimilarity, narrative analysis and Multidimensional Scaling. Each congregation was found to be delineated according to a specific set of demographic variables, each forming the profile of a wider community beyond that generated by itself. Additional investigations revealed how the congregations operated at the micro, meso and macro levels of social integration and differentiation.

Research paper thumbnail of Sample Size Requirements for Stable Clustering of Free Partition Sorting Data

Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique, 2013

Convergence rates of cluster analysis results are studied for six sets of partition sorting data.... more Convergence rates of cluster analysis results are studied for six sets of partition sorting data. Hierarchical cluster analysis, fuzzy cluster analysis, k-medoids clustering and four variants of the consensus clustering method are covered. The six data sets are kinship terms, colour plates, drug data, consultancy Web site items, social groups and prenatal tests. Convergence rates depend on the number of clusters extracted, on the clustering method and on the domain. For domains of 25 items or more, cluster analysis results identical to the final result were most consistently obtained using the third method of Gordon and Vichi (2001). Example evaluations are given for the most stable numbers of clusters for five sets of partition sorting using the method of Gordon and Vichi. The interpretations resemble previously published interpretations of results obtained from non-partitioning statistical methods.

Research paper thumbnail of Addressing the Problem of Socio -Economic- Classification

This paper examined the relationship between socio-economic-classification and organised religion... more This paper examined the relationship between socio-economic-classification and organised religion. Findings showed that SEC is particularly salient at the scale of the individual congregation rather than as a denominational amalgam. The research reignites interest in this issue and offers a new explanation for this association, whilst also adding to the growing interest in the study of religion at the congregational level.

Research paper thumbnail of Sample Size Requirements for Stable Clustering of Free Partition Sorting Data

Research paper thumbnail of The Congregation as a Station for Social Integration - an Analysis of Congregants' Personal Networks with an Interpretation using Giddens' Theory of Structuration

Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions, 2019

This is a study of personal networks from a sample of two contrasting congregations in Northern I... more This is a study of personal networks from a sample of two contrasting congregations in Northern Ireland: one is Anglican, historic and rural, the other newly formed, independent and evangelical. Amongst the findings is that each congregation was found to be differentiated by its social attributes such as SEC, age, residency, rather than as a result of simple agency ion choice. Giddens' Structuration Theory was found to be a useful application for the the theoretical animation of these results, especially in how the congregation acts as a station for congregants, integrating the household with the mess level of social structure

Research paper thumbnail of Personal Introduction.docx

I am an ordained Priest, having served thirty years in the Anglican Church, both in Ireland and t... more I am an ordained Priest, having served thirty years in the Anglican Church, both in Ireland and the U.K. I also worked for a number of years in two schools as Head of R.E. With regard to my further interest, the sociology of religion, an outline is given below. In 2000 I began an MPhil with the University of Essex, examining the social networks, beliefs and practises of church attending and non-attending residents in a town in Cornwall. Three years later I converted to a PhD and began a further study of the memberships of four contrasting congregations in Northern Ireland. The research instruments were carried within two different questionnaires. The first of these was usually self-completed and distributed to as many from each congregation as possible. From these, basic demographic enquiries were made. The second questionnaire was longer and administered from the researcher in a face to face interview. Further questions were asked, including additional instruments such as a card sorting exercise and requests for narratives concerning family and individual, religious life histories. A variety of tools were used to analyse this data, including percentage tables of dissimilarity, narrative analysis and with the assistance of the late Professor Tony Coxon, Multi-Dimensional-Scaling maps. This study revealed how each congregational membership related to a clearly defined set of material structures such as socioeconomic classification ; residential location and ethnicity. The socio-structural profiles of each congregation was found to be articulated by interlocking sets of familial and friendship face to face social networks. Thirteen years later I conducted a follow-up enquiry of two of these Northern Irish congregations: the traditional Anglican church in rural Mid-Ulster and the newly formed evangelical, urban church. Alongside repeating the self-completed exercise was a further set of face-to-face interviews, this time using social network analysis techniques. Respondents were asked to identify using first names and surname initial only, as many people as they wished whom they talked, chatted, conversed with 'often' 'some of the time' or 'little of the time'. Various tools were used from the UCINET package including that of creating sociograms, data for density comparisons, K Core and QAP analyses. The results and their accompanying discussion are currently being compiled for presentation and publication.

Research paper thumbnail of Stringer, A., 2016. ‘Addressing the Problem of Socio-Economic-Classification’. In: Day, A. (ed.) 'Contemporary Issues in the Worldwide Anglican Communion: Powers and Pieties.' Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.

Research paper thumbnail of Structural Conflict and Engagement: a Canterbury Symposium on Anglicanism

Research paper thumbnail of Congregation and Social Structure: An investigation into Four Congregational Memberships in Northern Ireland

Research paper thumbnail of Sample Size Requirements for Stable Clustering of Free Partition Sorting Data

Research paper thumbnail of Links Between Families and Congregations in the Church of Ireland

With a focus upon one Church of Ireland congregation, this paper explores the depth of the relati... more With a focus upon one Church of Ireland congregation, this paper explores the depth of the relationship between a congregation's membership with a cohesive and distinct set of kinship groups. These results are consistent with those found for three other and contrasting congregations within Northern Ireland, and as such, demonstrate the importance of material forms of social structure for the formation and maintenance of religious organisations.

Conference Presentations by Adrian N Stringer

Research paper thumbnail of The significance of demographic features in four congregational memberships in Northern Ireland.

Research paper thumbnail of Durkheim and the Twenty First Century Congregation: a Socio-Structural Diagnosis

Research paper thumbnail of Pursuing the relationship between organised religion and socio-economic-classification.

Research paper thumbnail of Addressing the Problem of Socio-Economic-Classification

This paper examined the relationship between socio-economic-classification and organised religion... more This paper examined the relationship between socio-economic-classification and organised religion. Findings showed that SEC is particularly salient at the scale of the individual congregation rather than as a denominational amalgam. The research reignites interest in this issue and offers a new explanation for this association, whilst also adding to the growing interest in the study of religion at the congregational level.

Research paper thumbnail of Book review: Gladys Ganiel, Transforming post-Catholic Ireland: religious practice in late modernity

Research paper thumbnail of The Congregation as a Station for Social Integration an Analysis of Congregants Personal Networks with an Interpretation Using Giddens Theory of Structuration

ISASR in association with the Study of Religions, University College Cork, 2019

This is a study of personal networks from a sample of two contrasting congregations in Northern I... more This is a study of personal networks from a sample of two contrasting congregations in Northern Ireland: one is Anglican ('A'), historic and rural, the other newly formed, independent and evangelical ('I.E.'). This research helps to redress the lack of such studies in Britain and Ireland as compared to those in the USA. Using data from survey questionnaires and computer aided social network analysis, it investigates the role a congregation may have within such members' networks. The findings can be broken down into four sections. First, although a substantial proportion of co-congregants formed actors' networks, these did not form the majority of nodes. Second, Anglicans differed from the Independent Evangelical respondents in having networks of congregants who were, a) predominantly kin and b) more extensive in number. For the 'I.E.', the key integrative connections were provided by co-congregants. Third, congregants from both churches were primarily located within multiplex relationships-the people from their church were also either kin or already known through some other friendship group. Fourth, whilst each congregation can be differentiated from the other by social attributes (such as SEC, age, residency) such features appeared to be more that of induced homophily (local contexts and personal networks) rather than as a result of the simple agency of choice. Giddens' Structuration Theory was found to be a useful application for the theoretical animation of these results, especially in how the congregation acts as a station for congregants, integrating the household with the meso-level of social structure.

Research paper thumbnail of Congregation and social structure: An investigation into four Northern Irish memberships

Social Compass, 2013

The relationship between organised religion and the wider society has been of fundamental concern... more The relationship between organised religion and the wider society has been of fundamental concern within the sociology of religion. The author addresses the issue in terms of how material forms of social structure relate to individual congregational memberships. Four contrasting congregations were chosen for study (Baha’i, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Independent Evangelical), all in the author’s home region of Northern Ireland. A range of interviewing methods and tools were used, including tables of indices of dissimilarity, narrative analysis and Multidimensional Scaling. Each congregation was found to be delineated according to a specific set of demographic variables, each forming the profile of a wider community beyond that generated by itself. Additional investigations revealed how the congregations operated at the micro, meso and macro levels of social integration and differentiation.

Research paper thumbnail of Sample Size Requirements for Stable Clustering of Free Partition Sorting Data

Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique, 2013

Convergence rates of cluster analysis results are studied for six sets of partition sorting data.... more Convergence rates of cluster analysis results are studied for six sets of partition sorting data. Hierarchical cluster analysis, fuzzy cluster analysis, k-medoids clustering and four variants of the consensus clustering method are covered. The six data sets are kinship terms, colour plates, drug data, consultancy Web site items, social groups and prenatal tests. Convergence rates depend on the number of clusters extracted, on the clustering method and on the domain. For domains of 25 items or more, cluster analysis results identical to the final result were most consistently obtained using the third method of Gordon and Vichi (2001). Example evaluations are given for the most stable numbers of clusters for five sets of partition sorting using the method of Gordon and Vichi. The interpretations resemble previously published interpretations of results obtained from non-partitioning statistical methods.

Research paper thumbnail of Addressing the Problem of Socio -Economic- Classification

This paper examined the relationship between socio-economic-classification and organised religion... more This paper examined the relationship between socio-economic-classification and organised religion. Findings showed that SEC is particularly salient at the scale of the individual congregation rather than as a denominational amalgam. The research reignites interest in this issue and offers a new explanation for this association, whilst also adding to the growing interest in the study of religion at the congregational level.

Research paper thumbnail of Sample Size Requirements for Stable Clustering of Free Partition Sorting Data

Research paper thumbnail of The Congregation as a Station for Social Integration - an Analysis of Congregants' Personal Networks with an Interpretation using Giddens' Theory of Structuration

Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions, 2019

This is a study of personal networks from a sample of two contrasting congregations in Northern I... more This is a study of personal networks from a sample of two contrasting congregations in Northern Ireland: one is Anglican, historic and rural, the other newly formed, independent and evangelical. Amongst the findings is that each congregation was found to be differentiated by its social attributes such as SEC, age, residency, rather than as a result of simple agency ion choice. Giddens' Structuration Theory was found to be a useful application for the the theoretical animation of these results, especially in how the congregation acts as a station for congregants, integrating the household with the mess level of social structure

Research paper thumbnail of Personal Introduction.docx

I am an ordained Priest, having served thirty years in the Anglican Church, both in Ireland and t... more I am an ordained Priest, having served thirty years in the Anglican Church, both in Ireland and the U.K. I also worked for a number of years in two schools as Head of R.E. With regard to my further interest, the sociology of religion, an outline is given below. In 2000 I began an MPhil with the University of Essex, examining the social networks, beliefs and practises of church attending and non-attending residents in a town in Cornwall. Three years later I converted to a PhD and began a further study of the memberships of four contrasting congregations in Northern Ireland. The research instruments were carried within two different questionnaires. The first of these was usually self-completed and distributed to as many from each congregation as possible. From these, basic demographic enquiries were made. The second questionnaire was longer and administered from the researcher in a face to face interview. Further questions were asked, including additional instruments such as a card sorting exercise and requests for narratives concerning family and individual, religious life histories. A variety of tools were used to analyse this data, including percentage tables of dissimilarity, narrative analysis and with the assistance of the late Professor Tony Coxon, Multi-Dimensional-Scaling maps. This study revealed how each congregational membership related to a clearly defined set of material structures such as socioeconomic classification ; residential location and ethnicity. The socio-structural profiles of each congregation was found to be articulated by interlocking sets of familial and friendship face to face social networks. Thirteen years later I conducted a follow-up enquiry of two of these Northern Irish congregations: the traditional Anglican church in rural Mid-Ulster and the newly formed evangelical, urban church. Alongside repeating the self-completed exercise was a further set of face-to-face interviews, this time using social network analysis techniques. Respondents were asked to identify using first names and surname initial only, as many people as they wished whom they talked, chatted, conversed with 'often' 'some of the time' or 'little of the time'. Various tools were used from the UCINET package including that of creating sociograms, data for density comparisons, K Core and QAP analyses. The results and their accompanying discussion are currently being compiled for presentation and publication.

Research paper thumbnail of Stringer, A., 2016. ‘Addressing the Problem of Socio-Economic-Classification’. In: Day, A. (ed.) 'Contemporary Issues in the Worldwide Anglican Communion: Powers and Pieties.' Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.

Research paper thumbnail of Structural Conflict and Engagement: a Canterbury Symposium on Anglicanism

Research paper thumbnail of Congregation and Social Structure: An investigation into Four Congregational Memberships in Northern Ireland

Research paper thumbnail of Sample Size Requirements for Stable Clustering of Free Partition Sorting Data

Research paper thumbnail of Links Between Families and Congregations in the Church of Ireland

With a focus upon one Church of Ireland congregation, this paper explores the depth of the relati... more With a focus upon one Church of Ireland congregation, this paper explores the depth of the relationship between a congregation's membership with a cohesive and distinct set of kinship groups. These results are consistent with those found for three other and contrasting congregations within Northern Ireland, and as such, demonstrate the importance of material forms of social structure for the formation and maintenance of religious organisations.

Research paper thumbnail of The significance of demographic features in four congregational memberships in Northern Ireland.

Research paper thumbnail of Durkheim and the Twenty First Century Congregation: a Socio-Structural Diagnosis

Research paper thumbnail of Pursuing the relationship between organised religion and socio-economic-classification.

Research paper thumbnail of Addressing the Problem of Socio-Economic-Classification

This paper examined the relationship between socio-economic-classification and organised religion... more This paper examined the relationship between socio-economic-classification and organised religion. Findings showed that SEC is particularly salient at the scale of the individual congregation rather than as a denominational amalgam. The research reignites interest in this issue and offers a new explanation for this association, whilst also adding to the growing interest in the study of religion at the congregational level.