RELIGIOSITY OF STUDENT YOUTH: GENDER ASPECT

2018

Sovremennye Issledovaniâ Socialʹnyh Problem, Vol 10, Iss 2, Pp 191-212 (2018)

The authors analyze the effectiveness of the factors that shape the religiosity of student youth on the basis of the materials of a sociological survey conducted in Nizhny Novgorod higher educational establishments. The study of religion as a social institution was methodologically based on the functional analysis and the theory of rational choice. It is empirically confirmed that the verbal self-characteristics of religiosity do not have significant gender differences. The authors see the reason for that in the change of religious needs. For the atomized person, the therapeutic function of faith has come to the fore, which is not associated with a compensatory function, i.e. with a promise of compensation in the afterlife. In foreign countries, the function of “therapists” is performed by psychologists and psychiatrists, in Russia – by religious institutions. “Faith therapy” makes it possible to satisfy the basic need for self-justification. One can beg God for forgiveness or “buy” forgiveness through a religious institution thus obtaining spiritual comfort. When educational institutions and the family instill one set of moral rules, but one has to live by quite different rules, this is extremely important for the self-preservation of the individual. Students socialize in the conditions of post-traumatic syndrome, in the information environment where they have been constantly taught that religion is a teacher of morality, a comforter, a source of national traditions, etc. It is only natural that exactly those assertions have been reproduced by young men and girls in their answers. In the past, secularization manifested itself as a reflection of a more educated male population on the contradiction between the scientific picture of the world and the religious one. The modern gnoseological crisis has raised doubts as to the ability of science to provide answers to worldview questions and become a factor in changing the concept of God. Religious hierarchs focus on the way of life of believers, rather than on the creation of the world. As a result, the formula “the higher the education, the lower the religiosity” requires additional verification in each local study.

article

English
Russian

Science and Innovation Center Publishing House, 2018.

религиозность студентов, юноши, девушки, верующие, неверующие, конфессиональная политика государства, семья, Social Sciences