Church Attendance and Religious Change in Italy, 1968-2010: A Multilevel Analysis of Pooled Datasets
The debate over religious change in Italy is far from having reached unanimous conclusions: some scholars point to an unbroken trend toward a decrease of religiosity, while others highlight the signs of a religious revival, especially in younger generations. Besides difficulties with definitions, di...
| Main Author: | |
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| Contributors: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
[2015]
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| In: |
Journal for the scientific study of religion
Year: 2015, Volume: 54, Issue: 1, Pages: 100-118 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Southern Italy (motif)
/ Catholic church
/ Church attendance
/ Secularization
/ History 1968-2010
/ Statistical analysis
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| IxTheo Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy CB Christian life; spirituality CH Christianity and Society KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history KBJ Italy KDB Roman Catholic Church |
| Further subjects: | B
Secularization
B repeated cross-section surveys B Italy B Church Attendance B Religious Change |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | The debate over religious change in Italy is far from having reached unanimous conclusions: some scholars point to an unbroken trend toward a decrease of religiosity, while others highlight the signs of a religious revival, especially in younger generations. Besides difficulties with definitions, different conclusions are also due to a lack of information over a sufficiently long period of time. This problem is tackled here by developing a pooled analysis of repeated cross-section surveys that span over four decades. Using six different studies, the article analyzes the secularization trend in Italy on the basis of church attendance that, despite well-founded criticism, continues to be a crucial indicator of this phenomenon. The results, estimated using multilevel models, show that the trend of attendance at Mass in Italy has decreased since the 1960s until today, despite a period of stability at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The overall trend looks like a “recumbent S” trend (decrease up to the 1970s, stability in the 1980s, decrease afterwards). Thus, the claims of a religious revival in Italy are not supported by our results. |
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| ISSN: | 1468-5906 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for the scientific study of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/jssr.12173 |