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Congregations in Europe pp 1–12Cite as

Introduction

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Abstract

In congregation studies, scholars must define and operationalize their unit of observation. While most mapping studies routinely give a definition of congregation, there has been no attempt to show just what techniques of operationalization are needed to apply the definition to the field, what problems may arise and how they can be solved. This chapter uses the example of the Swiss congregation census to fill this gap in the literature. We first discuss general questions of definition and operationalization and give our definition of congregation. Second, we show how the definition has been operationalized in the census, demonstrating for every element of the definition how it includes certain phenomena and excludes others. We give special attention to borderline cases and discuss with what techniques they have been treated.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    These studies are in line with the works by Park et al. (1925), known as the Chicago School, which focus on understanding the transformations of neighborhoods under the pressure of waves of immigration. It was Louis Wirth (1928) with The Ghetto who first pointed out the central role of identity that a religious community plays in a diaspora of a diversified population.

  2. 2.

    For an in-depth theoretical discussion of the sociology of organizations and the study of congregations, see the article by Scheitle and Dougherty (2008b).

  3. 3.

    For an in-depth theoretical discussion of the types of congregation studies, see the chapter by Woodhead et al. (2004).

  4. 4.

    For now, it is only in Switzerland, with the NCS research (2007–2010) under the direction of Chaves and Stolz, that an identical enquiry has been conducted (Stolz et al. 2011; Monnot 2013).

  5. 5.

    For the UK, see Harris et al. 2003, 2005.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Theology, University of Strasbourg, BP 90020, Strasbourg Cedex, 67084, France

    Christophe Monnot

  2. Institute for Social Sciences of Religions (ISSR), and Observatoire des Religions en Suisse (ORS), University of Lausanne, Anthropole, Lausanne, 1015, Switzerland

    Christophe Monnot & Jörg Stolz

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  1. Christophe Monnot
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  2. Jörg Stolz
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Correspondence to Christophe Monnot .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Theology, University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg Cedex, France

    Christophe Monnot

  2. Institute for Social Sciences of Religions (ISSR), and Observatoire des Religions en Suisse (ORS), University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Jörg Stolz

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Monnot, C., Stolz, J. (2018). Introduction. In: Monnot, C., Stolz, J. (eds) Congregations in Europe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77261-5_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77261-5_1

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