engleski

Religiosity of Croatian Youth: Just Another Exceptional Case?

All available data from recent surveys clearly show that differences among Central and Eastern European countries are so big that it is completely inappropriate to speak generally about this region. Therefore, the general theories (such as secularisation or privatisation) can explain only marginally the role of religion and churches in different countries and they must be connected with some more specific ones about the possibility of certain religion to answer to basic needs of individual or social groups. Another important questions are what are these specific needs and how they correlate with some other crucial social questions and processes (such as modern and post-modern development, respect for rights of others etc.). In order to illustrate all that the paper will focus on the youth religiosity in some Central European countries, like Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. According to some basic indicators Croatian youth are more similar to Polish and Slovak but also to Austrian and Italian youth, and not so to Hungarian, Slovenian and absolutely not to Czech youth. While in all aforementioned countries religiosity of younger generations follow largely the general pattern of religiosity only in Croatia there are no differences between age groups with respect to believing to God, Church attendance and religious self-declaration.

youth religiosity; exceptional case; country specific factors;

nije evidentirano