Religion, Identity and Attitudes toward Minorities in Western Europe

Dr Neha Sahgal and Alan Cooperman from the Pew Research Center will present findings from a major new study examining identity, nationalism and attitudes toward migration and minorities in Western Europe. Based on an extensive survey conducted in 15 Western European countries, including France, the presentation takes a comparative look at Christian identity and secularization in Europe, and examines how attitudes toward minority groups, such as Muslims and Jews, are associated with religious beliefs and practices, nationalist sentiment, personal economic situation, social views, political ideology, as well as age, gender and education.

 Discussants:  Patrick Simon, Director of research, INED; Martin Clement, Défenseur des Droits

• Dr. Neha Sahgal is an associate director of research at Pew Research Center; she specializes in international polling. She earned her doctorate in government and politics from the University of Maryland in 2008. She is an author of studies on the beliefs and practices of Muslims around the world, Christian-Muslim relations in sub-Saharan Africa, religious change in Latin America, religion’s role in Israeli society and religious identity and nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe.
•  Alan Cooperman is the director of religion research at Pew Research Center. He is an expert on religion’s role in U.S. politics and has coauthored studies on Jews, Mormons and Muslims in America; he also has edited many of the Center’s reports on religious change around the world. Before joining the Center in 2009, he was an editor and staff writer at The Washington Post, foreign editor of U.S. News & World Report and a foreign correspondent in Moscow and Jerusalem.

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