Scholarlink

<p>Secularization is a&#xa0;tendency statement: The modernization of Western countries decreases religiosity. As modernization refers to countries and religiosity to persons, the question whether it depends more strongly on indicators of modernization or on determinants of religiosity arises. To answer it, replicated comparative surveys of religiosity are needed which started only in the 1990ies; they must be combined with indicators of modernization and analyzed by multi-level regression; and their country sample sizes must be sufficiently large to compare country- and person-variances. Only 10&#xa0;publications met these criteria. They were evaluated according to seven criteria: Are (1)&#xa0;the distribution of variances and (2)&#xa0;the regression coefficients estimated in models on the three levels of country, country in time, and person, which (3)&#xa0;include time as a&#xa0;predictor and (4)&#xa0;separate within and between effects of country-level predictors, control for (5)&#xa0;cohort and (6)&#xa0;religious belonging, and use a&#xa0;sample of (7)&#xa0;religiously homogeneous countries? When all criteria are met, only minimal variances remain at the country and country in time levels. Secularization is only weakly conditioned by country qualities of modernization and reflects mostly changes of personal determinants of religiosity. We conclude with suggestions for the design of secularization research and the statistical analysis of tendencies in general.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Secularization—Do countries matter?

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年3月19日

查看全文
  • Heiner Meulemann,
  • Alexander W. Schmidt-Catran

摘要

Secularization is a tendency statement: The modernization of Western countries decreases religiosity. As modernization refers to countries and religiosity to persons, the question whether it depends more strongly on indicators of modernization or on determinants of religiosity arises. To answer it, replicated comparative surveys of religiosity are needed which started only in the 1990ies; they must be combined with indicators of modernization and analyzed by multi-level regression; and their country sample sizes must be sufficiently large to compare country- and person-variances. Only 10 publications met these criteria. They were evaluated according to seven criteria: Are (1) the distribution of variances and (2) the regression coefficients estimated in models on the three levels of country, country in time, and person, which (3) include time as a predictor and (4) separate within and between effects of country-level predictors, control for (5) cohort and (6) religious belonging, and use a sample of (7) religiously homogeneous countries? When all criteria are met, only minimal variances remain at the country and country in time levels. Secularization is only weakly conditioned by country qualities of modernization and reflects mostly changes of personal determinants of religiosity. We conclude with suggestions for the design of secularization research and the statistical analysis of tendencies in general.