Youth On Religion

The development, negotiation and impact of faith and non-faith identity

Nicola Madge, Peter Hemming, Kevin Stenson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317914563
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Globalisation has led to increasing cultural and religious diversity in cities around the world. What are the implications for young people growing up in these settings? How do they develop their religious identities, and what roles do families, friends and peers, teachers, religious leaders and wider cultural influences play in the process? Furthermore, how do members of similar and different cultural and faith backgrounds get on together, and what can young people tell us about reducing conflict and promoting social solidarity amid diversity?

Youth On Religion outlines the findings from a unique large-scale project investigating the meaning of religion to young people in three multi-faith locations. Drawing on survey data from over 10,000 young people with a range of faith positions, as well as a series of fascinating interviews, discussion groups and diary reports involving 160 adolescents, this book examines myriad aspects of their daily lives. It provides the most comprehensive account yet of the role of religion for young people growing up in contemporary, multicultural urban contexts.

Youth On Religion is a rigorous and engaging account of developing religiosity in a changing society. It presents young people's own perspectives on their attitudes and experiences and how they negotiate their identities. The book will be an instructive and valuable resource for psychologists, sociologists, criminologists, educationalists and anthropologists, as well as youth workers, social workers and anyone working with young people today. It will also provide essential understanding for policy makers tackling issues of multiculturalism in advanced societies.

1 Background and context

Background

Rapidly increasing numbers of young people are growing up in multi-faith locations in Britain. Some come from long-established British families, some belong to British families with much shorter histories in Britain, and others have arrived from different geographical and social settings in their own lifetimes. All these young people have experienced change in their lives, either through the transformations of the neighbourhoods they have grown up in, or through migration from one milieu to another during the trajectories of their early years. Whether or not they are religious themselves, all are likely to have been affected in some way or another by the religious beliefs and practices of those in their localities. The purpose of this book is to respond to calls from Grace Davie and others (Davie, 2007a; Barker, 2010a) to put the study of religion back at the heart of enquiry and to provide empirical evidence to inform theoretical debates about religious belief and expression in multi-faith Britain. It reports on an investigation of the meaning of religion in the lives of young people from a range of faith positions in three selected religiously diverse locations, and interrogates their religious identities and how these have been developed and negotiated. Through a detailed look at their subjective lives, and the contexts in which these are lived, it provides a contemporary and interdisciplinary perspective on the vexed questions of ‘who are we?’ and ‘how do we all get on?’ in these unprecedented times.

This chapter sets the scene for the context of the Youth On Religion (YOR) study and the interpretation of the findings. Drawing on lessons from the grand themes of social science as well as more contemporary enquiry, it outlines how globalisation and population change have affected the character of many urban areas in the UK over recent years. It describes how religion has assumed a pre-eminent position in the process, albeit alongside accounts of increasing secularisation and shifts in the modes of religious expression. Recourse to the theorising of Durkheim, and other classic and more recent scholars on the impact of great demographic and other structural changes, gives rise to the hypothesis of prevailing liberal values amongst both those influenced by the human rights agenda and those whose families have, over recent generations, experienced the move from traditional rural communities to British urbanity. The individual identities of young people within this broad setting reflect first, their biological, physical and cognitive development, second, cultural values and prevailing discourses, and third the local economic, spatial and other contexts in which young people are making the journey to adulthood (Gunter, 2010; MacDonald et al., 2010).

Based on the Durkheimian thesis as well as interpretive perspectives, it seems likely that these young people will both espouse liberal values about individual rights and assert their own control over their personal lives. It is also anticipated that they will present differing aspects of identity according to context and their role within it. Behaviours and attitudes in all these respects are linked to the way they lead their lives and get on with one another. Concepts of multiculturalism and social cohesion, and their relevance to young people growing up in diverse communities, are also pertinent.

Establishing a focus

The world today is very unlike that of even 50 years ago. Immigration has been the most visible outcome of globalisation and, as Scheffer (2011) describes, cities around the world have become almost unrecognisable over the past generation or two. In Britain, changing populations have led to the establishment of many highly diverse urban areas set within the broader context of a much more traditional Britain, and transformed the meaning of what it is to be English or British. Recent data from the 2011 Census for England and Wales indicate that, overall, the white population has declined from 91 to 86% over the past decade, and that 3.8 million, or half the total of 7.5 million, of those born outside the UK arrived during the past ten years. The most sizeable groups of the foreign-born population are, in order of magnitude, from India, Poland, Pakistan and Ireland. In addition, the mixed ethnicity population now numbers over 1 million. This population influx has been accompanied by movement out of city areas by White British members of the population: there was a fall of 600,000 from this group within London in the period between the 2001 and 2011 Censuses (Goodhart, 2013). These patterns of change mean certain localities are becoming increasingly multi-ethnic, and often religious, accentuated by the larger than average families of many of those with strong religious beliefs (Kaufmann, 2010). Newham (one of the current research areas) has been particularly affected in these ways and shown a marked increase in religiosity among its population: it has also become the first location where White British citizens are now in the minority.

The issue of religion in this context is complex and changing. In Britain, for example, there have been significant shifts in the relationship between the Church of England and the nation state over many years. There has been continuing erosion of the monopoly position of Anglican Christianity (Guest et al., 2012), driven in part by the growth of the welfare state following World War II, rising faith in the market and the media since the 1970s, and the effects of globalisation and mass migration (Woodhead, 2012). These great changes have created opportunities for new forms of religious faith involving both the long-standing indigenous and newer sections of the population.

One outcome is a much greater emphasis on religion in public discourse over recent years. This has largely overtaken, or at least complemented, earlier emphases on the racial differences within our society or the significance of ethnicity and its cultural implications (Snow, 2007; Malik, 2010). As a vivid illustration, Mondal (2008) reports a young person who suggests that Muslims are now at the top of the agenda for the British National Party, representing the political far right. This replaces the focus on Black people a decade ago. In many ways, and as these and other commentators have pointed out, a shift to the examination of religious differences and their impact on the operation of society reflects the greater visibility of religion both nationally and locally. This is fuelled both by high awareness of extremist and terrorist actions carried out in the name of religion, and by the very evident increase in mosques, temples and other places of worship in many of our communities (Peach and Gale, 2003).

At the same time, however, there has been copious discussion of the secularisation thesis proposed by Max Weber (1948). In brief, this posits that the rise of new forms of rationality, embodied in science and technology, challenge more traditional forms including religious belief systems. A long-term process of disenchantment underpins a move to a more prosaic view of everyday reality. Religion does not necessarily disappear during this process, but changes in character and style. It is argued that pluralities of faith in modern societies also contribute to a decline in religion, in part because the rational thinker might wonder, if different religions are in evidence, whether any single faith position is in fact tenable. These ideas have been much debated as the meanings we attribute to ‘secular’ and ‘reli-gious’ have changed over time and become more complex (Martin with Catto, 2012). However, apparent signs of a trend towards secularisation have received superficial support from recent Census 2011 data which note a decrease in the self-reported population of Christians from 72 to 59%, accompanied by a 10% increase to 14 million in those reporting ‘no religion’. Observed patterns of decline in public religion have been interpreted in different ways. These include suggestions that religion is dead (Brown, 2009), in part because religious beliefs are less sustainable once religious practice ceases. Other recent commentators have pointed to the increased incidence of ‘believing without belonging’ (Davie, 1994), where churchgoing is seen as a matter of personal choice and not a formal requirement of religious belief, fuzzy religiosity (Voas and Day, 2009) in which people are neither Christian nor non-Christian, or ‘vicarious religion’ (Davie, 2007b) where some people let others do religion for them and turn to the faith only in moments of need. In these ways there has been a notable shift from obligation to consumption when it comes to religion (Davie, 2005).

These positions imply that religion is not dead or dying but is in a process of transformation (Hervieu-Léger, 2000; Davie, 2007a), or that traditional religion is being superseded by alternative spiritualities (Heelas et al., 2005; Barker, 2010b; Vernon, 2011). They are supportive of Emile Durkheim’s claim that religion remains necessary in modern society even if it changes in form (Durkheim, 1912). Furthermore, communitarians, who have debated with liberal secularists for generations, argue that religion remains resilient because it lies at the heart of community life and identity: it meets essential human needs and can adapt to the new conditions of urban life (McIntyre, 1981; Taylor, 2007). They see the roots of morality, religion and law not in rational systems of thought or in grand designs of policy makers, but from the bottom up, in everyday collective life. The focus is on the connections, developed over generations, between the blood ties of kinship, and ethnic and religious networks, with strong attachments to places. Hence communitarians may be tolerant of minority ethnic and religious subcultures because of the role they play in maintaining moral codes and passing them onto the next generation (Etzioni, 1993).

Much of the discussion of secularisation is based on an apparent decline in Christianity. This must nonetheless be seen in the context of increased numbers in the population from Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist and ‘other’ faith positions, groups which are likely to be religiously fervent and have higher fertility rates than White indigenous groups (Kaufmann et al., 2012). Within Christianity, the rising importance of evangelism and denominations such as Pentecostalism (Martin, 2002) as well as increased numbers of Catholics from Eastern European countries (Bates, 2006) should also be taken into account. These latter groups are not generally considered in relation to the secularisation thesis and important questions remain about their levels of religiosity in Britain in both present and future generations. A key issue is whether minority cultures will remain able to reproduce their religiosity and fulfil the imperative of cultural transmission (Parsons, 1951) or whether they will ‘secularise’ alongside everyone else. What is the role of so-called Westernisation in this process? Levey and Modood (2009) report that it had been anticipated that religiosity would decline in diverse Western democracies because of combined effects of Westernisation, consumerism and broader patterns of secularisation, but that this seems not to have happened. Contributory to recent observations is likely to be the gathering evidence that some members of younger generation Muslims are attributing more importance to their religion than their parents (Lewis, 2007; Mondal, 2008). In Valentine and Sporton’s (2009) study, young refugees and asylum seekers from Somalia found a Muslim identity less problematic than one linked to being British, Black or Somali. It seemed that being Muslim was the identity that provided them with the most continuity and most easily transcended context.

This is but one issue among many about the negotiation of religious identity in contemporary Britain. Before turning to theoretical discussion of and empirical evidence on a range of relevant questions, it is important to define religion for the purposes of this book. Countless texts have been written on its meaning both in general and in particular, but there is resonance in Jackson’s (1997) claim that religion, like culture, is neither simple nor static, but rather complex and in a permanent state of change. As the focus of the YOR study is the subjective accounts of young research participants, the meaning of religion for the present purposes is not regarded as a unitary definable concept but rather whatever young people mean by it. The approach is thus to allow subjects to give their self-chosen labels to their faith positions, and to report on whatever they deem to be significant in responding to questions on religion. Moreover, religion is regarded in terms of distinct aspects that may or may not co-exist, so that people may give themselves a religious label, say they believe in God or a higher power, feel they belong to a religious community locally and globally, go to a place of worship on a regular basis, and pray in private (Hemming and Madge, 2011). More likely, however, they may do some but not all of these things. The essence of this book is to listen to a wide variety of individual perspectives on the role of religion in everyday life and to try to make sense of them.

Religion in a context of change

Through her call for heightened attention to theoretical and empirical enquiry on the meaning of religion in the modern world, Davie (2007a) legitimates a return to the writings and concerns of the classic scholars to inform contemporary analysis. Religion was seen as playing a central role in the industrialisation and transformations of Europe a century ago, and it is likely that many parallels can be drawn between the situations then and now.

The early founders of social science in late 19th century Europe, including Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Ferdinand Tonnies and Georg Simmel, were trying to understand the dramatic changes wrought by urbanisation and industrialisation. People were leaving rural agricultural village life where, generally, the divisions and technologies of labour were simpler, and people lived their lives within small social circles in which most shared values and were known to each other; they moved to cities where multiple religions and other belief systems jostled with each other and anonymity was possible (Simmel, 1903). Writing at this time of widespread movement from the countryside to the towns, Durkheim (1893) witnessed the dissolution of traditional communities alongside the development of more complex societies, and became concerned with how social order and social cohesion were maintained under these changing circumstances. He observed strong links between the economic and social structure of society on the one hand, and religious adherence and expression on the other, and believed that religion was fundamental in binding people together and promoting community well-being. In recent parlance, religion played a major role in providing the ‘glue’ of social solidarity or community cohesion. Key mechanisms were common core values and moral categories such as the difference between right and wrong, a distinction between the sacred and the profane, and shared rituals and traditions. Durkheim believed that religion played such an important function in society that it would never disappear even though its form and sacred symbols might change. Allegiance to a god was not an essential requisite and, ultimately, religion might take on a civic form.

Durkheim wrote in the tradition of French secular republicanism following the French Revolution of 1789 and was much influenced by his predecessor Auguste Comte, who coined the term sociologie or the science of society. Comte had founded a secular, civic religion termed positivism, complete with temples and rituals. The worship of God was replaced with the celebration of the collective organisation of society and intellectual endeavour, and professors celebrating the fruits of science and philosophy substituted for religious doctrine and priests (Pickering, 1993; Davies, 1997). In more recent times, examples of civic, quasi-religions meeting Durkheimian criteria might include the changing form of Marxism-Leninism after the Russian revolution of 1917 when it moved from being a theory of change for revolutionaries to functioning as a belief system that provided the core moral and explanatory basis for Soviet rule (Marcuse, 1958). These conceptions of a secular society differ from Dawkins’ (2006) view that does not regard shared rituals and symbols as important and posits that the functions of religion can be provided by science and technology.

Despite the great differences between Durkheim’s Europe and present conditions there are parallels in terms of the scale and rapidity of social change and movement of people from rural village communities in poor countries, dominated by fairly homogeneous belief systems and cultural codes, to the shifting cultural mosaic of large Western cities (Scheffer, 2011). An important aspect of Durkheim’s theorising on social change that particularly resonates today is his distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity within society. In its mechanical form, typically found in traditional communities, solidarity depends on a collective conscience that provides a common core of values and moral rules and allows little scope for individuality. Many of these traditional rural communities were, however, largely oral in character until the relatively recent development of mass literacy, and culture was transmitted through actions and word of mouth (Ong, 1982). Religious belief and practice in these contexts is embedded within tribal/ethnic beliefs, rituals and other practices rather than based narrowly on holy texts such as the Qur’an or Bible, and inevitably shows some flexibility over time and space. In these conditions it can be difficult to differentiate between religion, as we may understand it in advanced societies, and the everyday cultural life of a society.

In its organic form, by contrast, found particularly in socially diverse areas of modern cities, solidarity does not depend in the same way on homogeneity of belief, rituals and intolerance of those who do not conform to norms, but is maintained by both a collective conscience and economic interdependence. The change to organic solidarity, and the development of a new collective moral order to bring together diverse subcultures and individuals and enable them to live in harmony, is long in gestation and can take generations. This gestation may be accompanied by what Durkheim termed anomie, or an absence of order, and social conflict (Durkheim, 1893). Although Durkheim was writing about a different time in history, and a different location, his theorising gives rise to hypotheses about current societal processes. Societies characterised by organic solidarity permit people to assume different roles in society, become more dissimilar, and show weakened identity with the group, and the question arises as to whether young people growing up in modern multi-faith areas of Britain demonstrate these patterns. Do they show signs of strong identification with their origins, whether these are from within or outside the UK, are they committed to diversity, or are they responsive to both priorities? This is a key question for the present research.

The values of solidarity, which permit a degree of moral and cultural diversity, include a focus on a positive form of individualism that flowered during the 18th century European Enlightenment, henceforth here termed liberal individualism (Durkheim, 1893; Douglas, 1967). The roots of individualism lay in the loosening ties between church and state in Europe from the 17th century onwards, the struggle to limit the powers of central, sovereign governments, and the attendant new, sacred value placed on the fulfilment of the individual, and the rights of religious and other minorities (Hunter, 1998). This liberal individualism is a core feature of liberal ideology. It differs markedly from egoism in being more altruistic, and emphasises the rights and personal fulfilment of individuals provided they also consider the rights and needs of others and set limits on their own desires and ambitions. On this point, Durkheim (1953) was trying to provide a sociological basis for Immanuel Kant’s (1788) moral philosophy in that a social and moral order must be based on shared moral imperatives and the principle that others are seen as ends in themselves and not simply means to achieve personal goals.

Liberalism interacts with nationalism and other ideologies and has taken a range of different forms historically with the rise of various democratic, nation and welfare states since the early 20th century (Stenson, 2012). These range from the French state’s commitment to rationalism and laïcité, officially enshrined in a law of 1905 formally separating church and state, and recently echoed by the French law forbidding the use of religious clothing or insignia, such as the Muslim veil, in public institutions (Saunders, 2009), to the position of countries such as the UK and the Netherlands that have been more accepting of the rights of faith and ethnic groups to self-expression within the framework of a shared state (Scheffer, 2011). This latter version of liberalism is more favourably disposed to communitarian arguments (McIntyre, 1981; Taylor, 2007). National variations in the institutional and cultural relations between religion and the state should ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• With contributions from
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Background and context
• 2 The Youth On Religion study
• 3 Constructions of religion
• 4 Religious journeys
• 5 Religious identity and expression
• 6 Religion and everyday life
• 7 The family and its influence
• 8 Friends and schools
• 9 Religion and the communityy
• 10 The overall picture
• References
• Index