Becoming a Religious None: Irreligious Socialization and Disaffiliation

The rise in the numbers of religious “nones” is an almost universal phenomenon across the Western world. The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which religious nones are socialized to adopt a “no religion” position as children, as compared with disaffiliating during their teen or adul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal for the scientific study of religion
Authors: Thiessen, Joel 1981- (Author) ; Wilkins-Laflamme, Sarah 1987- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell [2017]
In: Journal for the scientific study of religion
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B North America / Irreligiousness / Socialization
RelBib Classification:AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism
AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
KBQ North America
Further subjects:B Religious Socialization
B Secularization
B Disaffiliation
B religious nones
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:The rise in the numbers of religious “nones” is an almost universal phenomenon across the Western world. The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which religious nones are socialized to adopt a “no religion” position as children, as compared with disaffiliating during their teen or adult years. Related, among those religious nones who come from a religious background, we examine the timing and depth of a person's disaffiliation. This study sheds light on these issues by combining a quantitative analysis of religious nones samples in Alberta, Canada, America, and other international contexts with a qualitative analysis of 30 semistructured interviews with religious nones. Building on a stage of decline framework, we argue that while disaffiliation has been a lead catalyst for the growth among the religious none population—and we offer several observations of what fuels disaffiliation—moving forward we can and should expect irreligious socialization to gradually take the lead in explaining rising religious none figures.
ISSN:1468-5906
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal for the scientific study of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/jssr.12319