Pew Research Center designed this focus group and interview-based study to better understand Asian Americans’ diverse perspectives on the intersection of religious identity and ethnic culture. The analysis presented in this data essay is intended to provide insight into Asian Americans’ cultural connections to religion and is not meant to be an exhaustive representation of experiences on these topics or of specific demographic groups.
About the groups
We conducted 20 focus groups and five one-on-one interviews with more than 100 Asian American adult participants from April 15 to July 19, 2023. Eight in-person focus groups were conducted in Chicago, Illinois. The remaining 12 focus groups and five interviews were conducted remotely. Each person was offered an incentive of $100 to participate. In-person focus groups were approximately two hours long, virtual focus groups were about 90 minutes, and one-on-one interviews were approximately one hour in length. All focus groups were conducted in English.
Focus groups were organized according to participants’ religious identity, level of religious commitment, ethnic origin group and immigration status. There were five Muslim groups, three Buddhist groups, three Hindu groups, two Protestant groups, two Catholic groups and five religiously unaffiliated groups. Four of the one-on-one interviews were with Asian American Muslims, and one was with an Asian American who is religiously unaffiliated. Participants represented nine different Asian origin countries and were selected to maximize gender and age diversity.
Focus groups had an average of six participants, with a minimum requirement of three participants and a maximum of nine.
The focus groups were conducted by Research Support Services Inc. (RSS) for Pew Research Center and were reviewed by Sterling IRB (internal review board) for human subject research. The interviews were conducted by Dr. Eman Abdelhadi, assistant professor in the Department…
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