Young People and Religion in a Global Perspective

Here at the RSP we are ever conscious of the perils of creating or reinforcing hard-and-fast distinctions between groups. However, it is arguably fair to see that, in contrast to previous generations, young people born after 1990 have always lived in social and cultural environments constituted by conspicuous consumerism, digital media and the proliferation of global social movements. Despite a number of detailed, contextual studies that have emerged in recent years concerning the complex interactions between young people and the religion-related field – indeed, we would strongly recommend listeners check out our podcast with Naomi Thompson on “Religion, Youth and Intergenerationality” – large-scale, international, and usefully comparable research has been lacking. Today, Chris is joined by Marcus Moberg and Sofia Sjö to discuss the fascinating “Young Adults and Religion in a Global Perspective” project, which has been addressing this dearth on a massive scale. In this interview, we discuss the logistics and some of the emerging findings of a project which has involved utilizing a number of innovative research methods – including the Faith Q-Sort – conducted simultaneously in different locations across the globe, including China, Finland, India, Israel, Japan, Ghana, Peru, Poland, Russia, Sweden, USA and Turkey. This interview was recorded at the European Association for the Study of Religions’ 2018 conference on Multiple Religious Identities in Bern, Switzerland.