Description of the sample

Although the Estonian sample for the REDCo quantitative survey was purposive and not directly representative, it was still designed to be educationally significant and rational. The goal was to have a bigger sample than the minimum of 400 demanded by the REDCo agreement. One thousand, two hundred and eight (1208) students in Estonia between 14 and 16 years of age answered the questionnaire. As a result of the procedure of including all the parallel classes in schools, the gender balance was satisfactory (48% males, 51% females).

There is some statistical data about the 14–16 years old population, so I tried in sampling to reflect the diversity and heterogeneity of the Estonian po-pulation, with no major groups left out. The main criteria for selecting schools were geographical location, type of school, and model of religious studies.

Given the difficulty of obtaining permission to conduct a survey about religion in schools, I had to have a flexible procedure for replacing a school if per-mission was denied. Below are the description of the criteria used and the selection procedure.

1) Geographical location; urban and rural schools. Although Estonia is small, its regions differ in the composition of people, with diverse migration and national background, religious affiliation, and socio-economic indicators.

Uneven distribution of national and religious composition of the population is discussed in paragraph 2.1.1. The incorporation of different areas increased the likelihood of having a sample with a varied national and religious background.

In order to compare different factors I concentrated on three geographically different regions and added some schools from locations of interest. 1) The Northern region of Estonia is an industrial area, and many immigrants live there. I have chosen schools from Tallinn, the wealthiest region in Estonia, and from its surroundings. I added a school from Narva, a town in North-Eastern Estonia, with more Russians and immigrants living there, also a larger percentage of Orthodox, and people having lower economic status. 2) The Western region is represented by schools from Pärnu county, with a moderate number of people with a migration background and average income; in addition a school from an island, a remote area with almost no immigrants. 3) The Southern region is a rural area, and most of its residents are lower income. I have chosen schools from Viljandi, Põlva and Tartu counties, with an exceptional region of Old Believers⁹. In this region there is also a university town, Tartu. I tried to find contrasting schools in each region (for example, a school in a city centre, another in the suburbs, and another in a rural area).

2) Type of school. According to the homepage of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research every fifth student went to a basic school¹⁰, which is usually smaller in number of students; but four-fifths went to secondary schools in the year of study. The sample reflects the distribution of students according to school type (Table 4).

Table 4: Distribution of types of school in Estonia in general and in the sample

Schools in

Estonia Schools in

the sample Students in

Estonia Students in the sample

Basic 223 6 30 000 (20%) 236 (20%)

Upper secondary 232 15 123 000 (80%) 992 (80%)

Municipal 490 19 147 000 (95%) 1070 (89%)

Private 33 2 4 400 (3%) 138 (11%)

State 32 0 3 600 (2%) 0

Sources: http://www.hm.ee and http://www.ehis.ee/ (accessed 16.09.2007)

9 The Old Believers (Russian: старове́ры or старообря́дцы) separated from the Russian Orthodox church after 1666-1667 as a protest against introduced church reforms and continue liturgical practices which the Russian Orthodox Church maintained before the implementation of these reforms. The first Old Believers arrived in Estonia in the late 17th century, escaping from the persecution of the Russian government. Nowadays, there are almost 15 thousand Old Believers by birth living mostly in eastern Estonia; they comprise an ethnic minority, clearly distinguishable from other Russians in Estonia due to their unique traditions and religion. (Ponomariova & The Society of Old Believer Culture and Development, 2003) According to the Statistical office there was a much smaller number of Old Believers living in Estonia in 2000, about 2500 people.

10 A basic school gives education until the end of compulsory education, when children are 16–17 in age. An upper secondary school in Estonia usually has classes for children 7–19 years of age.

There are only a few private schools in Estonia and some state schools (usually for students with special needs), while most schools are run by the municipality (Table 4). I included six basic schools and 15 upper secondary schools; 19 municipal and two private schools, including a religious school. I excluded schools for students with special needs. One of the private schools is confes-sional, although only slightly more students with a religious affiliation than average attend it. Another private school is not religious; the parents pay tuition fees and mostly have higher socio-economic status.

The language of instruction was one of the indicators in choosing the schools. In addition to the REDCo qualitative survey about the views of young people on religion (see chapter 3), many recent studies have revealed diffe-rences between schools with Estonian and Russian languages of instruction (e.g.

Ruus et al., 2007; Veisson et al., 2007; Toots et al., 2004). Ethnic Estonians make up two thirds of the Estonian population; more than a quarter of the Estonian population consists of Russians (Table 5); the percentage of ethnic Estonians among children of school age (aged 7–16) has increased to 77–78%

(Lauristin, 2008, 46). Like its population, schools in Estonia differ also by the language of instruction –there were 369 Estonian-medium schools, 83 Russian-medium schools¹¹ (18 of those use both Estonian and Russian languages for studies) and three English-medium schools (Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, http://www.hm.ee (accessed 16.04.2008)).

Table 5: Nationality of Estonian population and of the sample

Estonia, nationality The sample, language spoken at home Estonians 921 062 (69%) 956 (80%)

Russians 344 280 (26%) 230 (19%)

Others 77 067 (5%) 7

Source: Statistics Estonia, http://pub.stat.ee (accessed 10.06.2007)

It is difficult to determine the nationality of the sample, as this question was not asked, but language used at home was asked about instead. In the sample, 956 spoke Estonian at home, 230 Russian, four English, one Swedish, one Finnish, one Italian and fifteen did not answer the question. All the students who did not answer the question were from Russian-medium schools. The bigger number of Russian-medium schools would increase also the variety of national back-ground, but it was the most difficult to obtain agreement from Russian-medium schools (of the 36 Russian-medium schools invited to participate, only four agreed), although I used a Russian questionnaire in these schools.

3) Religious education and its model. There are no figures on the number of students in Estonia who study religious education; probably it is under 1%. It

11 It is difficult to say how many Estonians and how many Russians are there, as some Russians and students from other countries go to Estonian schools, although most Rus-sians, Ukrainians and Belorussians go to Russian schools.

did not make sense to incorporate so few students. In the sample I included schools that have never had religious education (8) and those who have religious education this year (7) or have religious education in the school curriculum, but students 14–16 years of age do not have access to the subject (6). In a school with religious education some classes could have religious education and others not, some students have chosen the subject, others not. In the year of this study 1078 students in the sample did not study religious education and 130 did study it; 162 more have studied religious education for least one year during their studies at school. The students differed also by length of study of religious education. The inclusion of schools where religious edu-cation is not taught, where religious eduedu-cation is taught only in primary classes, or where religious education is taught recently or is incorporated into the whole school life, enabled the exploration of the views of students, who have experienced different educational models, about living in a pluralistic society.

4) Religious background of students. In regard to religious background I had only the data from a poll of the people 15 years and older in 2000 (Table 6).

In order to include most religious groups I looked for Russian-speaking Orthodox students in Tallinn and Narva, Old Believers in special areas in eastern Estonia, Estonian speaking Orthodox students in South-Eastern Estonia, and Catholic students and students with other religious backgrounds in two schools with an open Catholic ethos¹².

Table 6: Religious affiliation of Estonian population 15 and older, of the age 15–19 and of the sample.

Total population

age 15 and older Total number in

Estonia age 15–19 Sample Total 1 121 600 Total 103 772 Total 1 208 Not defined¹³ 730 845 (65%) 82 019 (79%) 1021 (84%) Orthodox 143 554 (13%) 8 756 (8%) 52 (4%) Lutheran 152 237 (14%) 5 278 (5%) 12 (1%) Atheist 68 547 (6%) 5 978 (6%) 5 (less than1%) Other Christians 24 137 (2%) 1 742 (2%) 74 (6%) Other religions 3 882 (Less than 1%) 235 (Less than 1%) 44 (4%)

Source: Statistics Estonia, http://pub.stat.ee (accessed 16.04.2008)

The number of students who did not define their religious affiliation is higher than expected from the national figures, while the number of religiously

12 There are slightly more students with (different kinds of) religious affiliation (19% in schools with Catholic ethos, while 15% in other schools). Not only Catholic parents, but with other religious affiliation, choose these schools for their children, as there is no school with their own religious or confessional ethos.

13 The respondents who said that they do not have religious affiliation, cannot define it or refused to answer the question.

affiliated students is lower. The religiosity of the younger generation is known to be lower than in the overall population, as has been seen in comparison of the overall population to 15–19 year olds in Table 6. Another factor was the fact that there were no options added to the question about their religious affiliation (q. 126); this probably increased the number of those who did not answer the question, answered ‘no’ or did not distinguish different denominations (as in answers like ‘Christian’, ‘religion’).

The procedure of selection schools and classes for the research

The selection of schools consisted of three steps; each criterion was counter checked. In the first step were included schools, where extended fieldwork had been conducted in religious education lessons, and qualitative research about students’ views on religion in the framework of REDCo. Then I found schools without religious education, but with similar characteristics in the sample criteria, or the classes from the same school who had no religious education. In the second step I listed the schools which have integrated religious education in basic school and found their ‘twins’ as in the first step. In the third step I acquired a balanced sample by adding schools with the criteria missing from the current sample list.

According to the research questions I surveyed the students who are 14–16 years old; most of them were in grades 8–10. I focused on grade 9, the end of basic and compulsory schooling in the selected schools. In schools where there were fewer than 50 students in grade 9, I asked students from grade 8 to fill out the questionnaires. The grades who studied religious education were included in the sample, if students were 14–16 years of age.

Altogether, 71 letters were sent to schools and 21 replied positively. In my sample I have dropped all the responses from students who were younger than 14 (19 students) or older than 16 years old (141), leaving 1208 respondents aged 14–16. The desired and actual samples are presented in Appendix 6.

Reflection on the sample. The sample accurately represents the religious, geographical and socio-economic distribution of Estonian students. The higher number of students who have studied religious education enables to compare subgroups but this can influence the reported attitudes of the whole sample.

4.1.2. General procedure of the fieldwork and