Gevolgtrekkingen na de Quantative survey en slotconclusies.
Céline
Beraud, The Role of Religion in Students' Lives and their
Surroundings [REDCo III, pp. 397-408]
Also some
remarkable findings (quotes) from other contributions than Beraud's.
p. 401
The REDCo survey's conclusions on the religiosity of the teenagers
surveyed
\¥hat is a
"religious student"? Measuring religious identity is undoubtedly a
sociological challenge. The indicators are imprecise and insufficiently
inclusive when considered separately (Campiche, 1997, p. 47-48). When
the questionnaire was conceived, we used different indicators of
religiosity. The first was based upon the assertion of a religious
affiliation or a worldview, or the lack of such an assertion. As with
the Norwegian report, we may wonder about how those surveyed understood
the question: was it seen from an institutional point of view (having
been baptised for example), from a familial and cultural point of view
(having grown up in a Muslim family for example), or from an individual
point of view of personal convictions? This indicator shows whether or
not the people in question think of themselves as within an existing
religious system, and whether or not they feel that they are part of a
tradition. However, this relationship "is not necessarily a fundamental
component of personality" (Campiche, 1997, p. 55). Moreover, it rules
out other non-institutional forms of religiosity. To get a sense of
personal commitment, the indicator associated with the importance given
to religion in each person's life may be more significant. In some of
the reports, it was clearly preferred as a way of measuring the level of
teenagers' religiosity. The data gathered in the question dealing with
belief also made distinctions possible. The frequency of religious
activities appears as a less effective indicator for distinguishing
religious students from nonreligious ones. On the other hand, it was
useful for highlighting the existence of very religious minorities.
Despite the limitations of our survey, involving either the indicators
of religiosity or the samples chosen, we may draw several firmly
established conclusions. We must first point out that some of these
conclusions may seem to contradict each other; this is a result of the
diver- p 402- sity of religious experience among the teenagers surveyed.
This diversity is perceptible between national (or local) contexts, but
even more so within them.
-
The overall tendency toward a
lack of
interest in religious institutions is clearly perceptible
everywhere.
A good illustration of this is the relatively low percentages of
the young people surveyed who identify with a religion: in many
cases they make up less than half of the sample. The influence of
religious communities and their leaders appears everywhere as
secondary. The young people surveyed have few opportunities to meet
with religious authorities. It is therefore not surprising that
religious communities are not seen as important sources of
information regarding religion. In the case of St. Petersburg, this
could be explained by historical circumstances, but also because
here, as in all the other locations where the survey took place,
those surveyed tended to consider religiosity as the individual's
business before being something institutions need to deal with.
-
This tendency does not stand in the way of the
existence of
active religious minorities with an institutional presence among
young people.
A small proportion of those surveyed consider religion as
something very important in their lives. These same people stand out
by their high level of belief and religious practice. On this
point, young Muslims seem noteworthy. In the Norwegian sample, five
times more Muslim teenagers than Christian teenagers feel that
religion is very important to their lives. The tendency is the
same in the German and English samples, although the difference
between the groups is not as great. There is another remarkable
distinction between young Muslims and young Christians concerning
their level of belief in God. Among young Muslims in the German and
French samples this level is much higher (94% and 97% respectively)
than among young Christians in both samples (59% and 53%
respectively)ll. The difference is not as large in the English
sample: nearly all young Muslims say they believe in God, vs. 75% of
young Christians. The data from this same sample also reveals a
higher level of religious practice (particularly prayer and reading
of sacred texts) among young Muslims. The insufficiently large size
of the samples made it impossible to get an idea of distinctions
internal to Christianity: between denominations, but also between
tendencies within these denominations. The French report has some
comments on young Protestants who belong to charismatic,
evangelical movements. In the national context, they seem to have
many similarities with their Muslim peers. The impact of
national origin on the internal diversity of the various Christian
and non-Christian denominations also deserves a more detailed
analysis, but here again a larger sample, and/or a qualitative
methodology, would be required. The English report seems to go in
this direction when it draws a comparison between Muslim students of
South Asian origin and African Christians, who share strong theistic
points of view.
-
We
should add that this lack of interest in
religious institutions is not associated with a large-scale
acceptance of
antireligious positions.
On the contrary, we find that only a very small minority of
teenagers declare themselves to be staunch atheists, including those
in Estonia and S1. Petersburg where state atheism was promoted
during the Soviet era, as wen as teenagers in France and Spain where
anticlerical movements have historically had large followings. In
all of the regions involved, even the most secularised countries,
those surveyed strongly reject the most hostile statements regarding
religions and religious people, such as "Religion is nonsense."
There are sometimes marked differences between sexes on this issue.
p. 403 For example, in the samples from Estonia and St. Petersburg,
girls are much less likely to give the most negative responses than
boys are. This is another example of something already observed in
the EVS surveys: "Vague beliefs and religious indifference are
becoming much more prevalent among young Europeans than the
well-reasoned rejection of religious systems" (Campiche, 1997, p.
53). In many national contexts, we may be able to establish a
hypothesis of a break with previous generations on this matter:
older generations seem to have a more negative image of religions
and their most ardent followers. The French context seems to be a
perfect example ofthis12
-
We find
various signs of a
tendency toward "religion off the beaten track"
(Lambert, 2005: "religion hors-piste")
among the young people surveyed, a phenomenon also described as
a mobile and flexible religiosity
modelled on the two ideal-typical figures of the "pilgrim"
and the '"convert" (Hervieu-Leger, 1999:
The pilgrim travels alone and of his or her own free will. His or
her practice revolves around "sacred places" and "profound
experiences", not around day-to-day living. The convert chooses to
commit himself or herself). This phenomenon is part of a
religious environment that is more complex than what was foreseen
some years ago by the theory of a decreasing interest in religion
(Berger, 1967).
The analysis of the answers given to the question dealing with
belief in "God, a life force or a kind of spirit" reveals that
people without a religious affiliation are
not necessarily nonbelievers or non-observant
(at least when it comes to prayer). Here we find another
example of the phenomenon of "believing without belonging" that the
British sociologist Grace Davie has observed (1994). The decline of
religious institutions has not been accompanied by a decline in
belief. Quite the reverse: some beliefs remain strong and are even
growing, though with some wavering. The grand narratives of belief
"function as stocks of symbolic resources that individuals
appropriate freely" (Hervieu-Leger, 2005, p. 296). In addition, some
teenagers who do not identify with any religion say they pray at
least occasionally. This is true for more than a third of the young
Spaniards surveyed who said they did not have a religion. A small
minority of German teenagers who said they had no religion (between
4% and 8% depending on the federal state studied) even said they
pray every day. In all cases, many of those surveyed agree with the
following statement: "One may be a religious person without
belonging to a particular community of faith." (The level of
agreement is especially high in the Estonian, English, Spanish,
Norwegian and S1. Petersburg samples.) The young people surveyed
thus seem to have taken note of the phenomenon of "the institutional
deregulation of belief' (Hervieu-Leger, 1999).
There is
only one question in the REDCo questionnaire - the one regarding "some
sort of spirit or life force" - that allows us to evaluate
how much borrowing takes place from non Christian
belief systems, which is another example of this mobile and
flexible religiosity
(Sociologists use the metaphor of the
"bricolage" to describe that kind of phenomenon. See Hervieu Leger
(2005)). For example, 27% of the teenagers surveyed in the
Norwegian sample feel that "some sort of spirit or life force" exists.
In other words, these teenagers in a traditionally Lutheran country
agree with an expression that has its roots in Oriental or New Age
religions. A comparable proportion of teenagers in the French sample
agree, in a country that has traditionally had a Catholic majority. The
proportion is even higher in S1. Petersburg (40%), in a context marked -
p. 404 -
by Orthodox
Christianity followed by several decades of state atheism. Theses
results are interesting but we lack other indicators often used in
quantitative surveys on religiosity, such as belief in reincarnation or
the practice of meditation, to go further on the question of
"bricolage" mixing Christian and non-Christian beliefs and
practices.
Some doubts are often expressed. For
example, more than 40% of French teenagers surveyed say they have
doubts16 about the existence or non-existence of God (the proportion is
roughly the same in the Norwegian and German samples). In addition, some
of those
surveyed say they are
open to change. This position ("What I think about religion is open
to change") is clearly mentioned among the Spanish and Estonian
teenagers surveyed, whether or not they identify with a particular
religion. But some religious minorities resist this relativism, as shown
by the young English Muslims surveyed who distinguish themselves from
their classmates by disapproving strongly of doubts about the existence
ofGod and by rejecting the possibility of future changes in their
beliefs.
However,
this tendency toward "religion off the beaten track" among the teenagers
surveyed may be put into perspective through the importance they give to
the family as a source of religious socialisation, as. well as through
the importance of the traditions inherited from their parents. This
heritage can be seen in the relative correspondence between the religion
or worldview of those surveyed and that of their mother or father, as
well as in the divided opinions gathered on the statement "Religion is
something one inherits from one's family", which did not make it
possible to ascertain a clear tendency toward rejecting inherited
religious affiliations.
-
The role of
religions in cultural heritage asserts itself at the very moment
when religious institutions are becoming less socially relevant and
are losing their hold on the faithful (Boespflug, Dunand
& Willaime, 1996). In all the samples, the statement "Religion is
important in our history" obtains a majority of favourable opinions.
The Norwegian report highlights the existence of a group of
"cultural Christians", that is young people who identify with
Christianity, but without necessarily sharing its beliefs or
practices. We thus see here a form of "belonging without believing"
in symmetry with the previously observed "believing without
belonging". This category must necessarily exist in other samples,
even though it is not explicitly mentioned.
[next pages
are devoted to checking the working hypotheses]
The data on
the role of religion in the personal lives of teenagers highlights
situations that contrast to a certain degree from one national (or
local) context to another, but also within each context, as well as some
tendencies that are partially contradictory. Our survey confirms the
tendency toward a lack of interest in religious institutions, excepting
very religious minorities. This tendency does not mean either the
end of forms of religiosity that willingly go "off the beaten track," or
the end of the ability religions have to build identities, as
demonstrated by the "cultural Christians" whose relationship to
religious traditions is based on cultural heritage.
As for the
issues of tolerance and dialogue, we may conclude by
distinguishing diversity as a fact and as a value (pluralism). The first
case [= as a fact] concerns the presence of several distinct groups
within a given society. The second corresponds to a "deliberate option
[...] that intends to emphasise that diversity, to take it into account
and even to promote it" (Lamine, 2004, p. 226). Whether or not we
consider the teenagers surveyed to be "religious", they are clearly
aware of how diverse the European societies to which they belong
have become, even for those living in national contexts where this
diversity remains quantitatively limited. Moreover, our survey
underlines the support that most of the teenagers surveyed share toward
diversity as a value (tolerance and openness to dialogue).
Still, we must be very cautious about our conclusions in this
area. With this quantitative survey, we have collected opinions. But to
be able to assert that there is indeed tolerance and openness to
dialogue, and thus that the values of diversity are experienced on a
daily basis, these opinions must confront the facts. Stopping at the
level of what is said means taking the risk of being caught in a form of
"religious correctness" that teenagers have no trouble mastering.
Moreover, we have to recognise the limits of our research regarding the
forms of tolerance and dialogue that the questionnaire takes into
account, and thus keep ourselves from being overly optimistic.
G.Bertram Troost, How do European Pupils see Religion in School
p. 420
The general
impression is that European pupils have the feeling that learning about
religions at school has more impact on their knowledge on different
religions, their respect for people of different religions and on how
they (learn to) live together than on what they learn about themselves,
current events and decisions between right and wrong.
The social dimension of learning about religion
in school (including getting knowledge about different religions) is, so
to say, much more accepted and appreciated by pupils than the personal
dimension.
Pille Valk,
How do European Students see the Impact
of Religion
p. 425-426
General patterns
Looking at the findings regarding the
role of religion in the
society
through the European teenagers' perspective, one can point out the
following general patterns:
-
Most oft he teenagers surveyed see religion as a normal part of the
societal life.
-
The surveyed students mainly did not see religion as a source of
aggressiveness nor an obstacle to tolerance.
-
Students soundly disagreed with the xenophobic statement 'I don't
like people from other religions and do not want to live together
with them' in all our samples.
The surveyed teenagers were quite aware of the conflict potential of
religion. At the same time most of them were convinced that respecting
the religion of others is a way to cope with differences.
[volgt een nationaal uitgesplitst stuk]
Thus,
summing up - in all the national samples in REDCo survey an interesting
and important similar pattern occurred:
Students
with religious affiliation share much more positive positions regarding
the impact of religion in society.
They are
more likely to disagree that religious people are less tolerant toward
others, that the world would be a better place without religion and that
religion is the source of aggressiveness.
They
also esteemed the role of respecting the religion of others in coping
with differences significantly more highly.
Religion as a
contribution for dialogue
As is said
in the first chapter of the book, we did not work with an elaborated
specific theoretical concept of dialogue in our quantitative study.
Instead, we decided to use the simple wording 'talking about' as a
flexible synonym for dialogue in our instrument [...]. Three statements
[..] explored the possible positive impact of dialogue on religious
issues
-
"Talking about religion helps to understand others",
-
"Talking about religion helps me to live peacefully together with people
from different religions", and
-
"Talking about religion helps me to understand better what is going on
in the world"
When
looking at the mean values of the responses to the first statement, it
occurs that in all samples they lay closely and firmly on the agreement
side of the scale, between 2.44 (England) and 2.82 (Estonia). A similar
pattern was found also in regarding to the third statement. Here also
all the means are below '3' from 2.49 (France) to 2.95 (Russia). Talking
about religion as a prerequisite for the peaceful co-existence of people
from different religions met a slightly different response. Here the
means lay between 2.75 (Dutch respondents) and 3.18 (French
respondents). The means of the responses fell slightly into the
disagreement side of the scale in three samples - in France, St.
Petersburg (3.07) and Norway (3.04). The statement, that talking about
religion only leads to disagreement was not agreed by the 'average
respondent' in all countries - all the mean values lay on the
disagreement side of the scale from 3.07 (for Norway and Estonia) to
3.86 (for The Netherlands). The statement reflecting the emotional
reactions regarding religion as something to talk about - "In my view
talking about religion is embarrassing" was rejected by lot of
respondents in all countries. The mildest disagreement was found among
the St. Petersburg students (3.31); the strongest disagreement was
recorded among the Dutch students (4.25). There were three samples where
the mean value of the responses was higher than 4 (thus, in-between
'disagree' and 'strongly disagree') - in addition to The Netherlands
this was the case also in Germany and in Norway. The last detail is of
particular interest because when looking at the answers to "For me
talking about religious topics is boring", Norwegian respondents
together with Estonians were the only ones whose mean response fell
slightly to the agreement side of the scale (2.96):
is it the case that talking about religion is not
embarrassing because it is just not an issue to talk about?
These
general findings regarding 'talking about religion' could be synthesized
in the following way:
-
The
surveyed students evaluate the dialogue on religious issues as an
important mean of understanding others as well as the current events
going on in the world.
-
The
respondents were less optimistic about talking about religion as
being a sufficient prerequisite for peaceful coexistence. Probably
something more is needed.
-
Religion was not considered as an embarrassing topic to discuss
about by our respondents. If they are not so eager to talk about
religion in some countries it is because their main interests lay
somewhere else.
[nationaal
uitgesplitst]
p. 430
Summing up the main findings
[whether religion is
positive or negative with regard to dialogue] one can state
that:
-
Positive statements towards dialogue are evaluated more highly, and
negative ones lower, by the students with religious affiliation.
-
Girls in all countries tended to be more open for dialogue and more
optimistic about the possible positive impact of such communication.
-
Muslim students were distinguished by higher readiness for dialogue
and communication in several countries.
It is a challenging complex research question for future deeper
investigation how far their readiness to talk about religion is
influenced by their reaction to the negative image propagated
sometimes by the media, how far it is an apologetic position, how
far there is deeper conscious readiness for dialogue. These
questions can of course also be addressed to the readiness for
dialogue of Christian pupils.
ways to peaceful coexistence
Looking at
the general tendencies in the surveyed students' views regarding the
prerequisites for peaceful coexistence, one can point out the following
issues:
-
Students evaluate knowledge about the different religions and
worldviews as one of the most important preconditions for peace in
the pluralistic society.
-
Common
interests and joint action help to develop social cohesion. Personal
contacts help to overcome separation and xenophobia.
-
The
relevance of the impact of legislative measures in attaining
peaceful coexistence is less agreed upon, compared to the
above-mentioned aspects such as knowledge, common interests and
joint actions. Nevertheless legislative measures are also regarded
as a useful instrument by a considerable proportion of pupils. Even
less was the number of those who agreed that keeping religion as a
private matter will solve the problems.
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