Religious identity of modern youth

Volume 3, Number 4, 2018, P. 74–78

[ SOCIOLOGICAL SCIENCES ]

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Abstract:

The article deals with the religious identity of modern youth, the processes of self-identification of the young generation of the Christian faith. The issues of religiosity and religious identity are becoming relevant and much-in-demand in the modern world; they are considered in different fields of scientific knowledge: psychology, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies and many others. This study involved 121 people 18 – 35 years of age. The main purpose of the study is to study the socio-psychological characteristics of religious self-identification of young people the Christian faith living in different cities of the Russian Federation. The respondents were asked «to question the God», and then to indicate their gender, age and level of education. Mathematical and statistical analysis of data is provided in «SPSS Statistics 17.0.», «Statistica v. 10». The content analysis was used to process the qualitative data. It made it possible to identify general thematic rubrics. There are different levels of manifestation of religious beliefs, ranging from the «declared religious status» to «undeclared religious identity». The «declared religious status» reflects a person’s ideas about religion and its meaning, and is a cognitive component of religious identity. The «undeclared religious identity» is a deeper integrating characteristic of the individual, and is a component of social identity, and, therefore, is embedded in the self-concept of personality in the system of modern education. The significant differences were found in religious self-identification depending on gender. Religious self-identification is associated with personal characteristics and manifests itself in different ways in different groups of religious people.

Keywords:

religious identity, religious self-identification, modern youth

Author:

Svetlana D. Gurieva, Dr. Sci. (Psychology), Professor of Social Psychology Department, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia

For citation:

Gurieva S.D. Religious identity of modern youth. Sotsial’naya kompetentnost’ = Social Competence. 2018;4(3):74–78. (In Russ.).

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