Abstract
Religion has become a contested issue in Norwegian society. Some of the ongoing debates are highly relevant to the rights and freedoms of young people, such as the debate on the use of religious symbols as part of one’s attire, and the use of prayer rooms in public schools. This paper will reflect on attitudes to public forms of religion according to social capital theory. Social trust is an essential component of social capital. Trust generated in face-to-face settings develops into a more generalised social trust that has profound effects on complex modern societies. This contribution analyses the explanatory power of social-capital indicators on attitudes to religion in the public sphere. The paper will also discuss additional explanatory factors, such as gender, political views, religiosity and the education level of the parents of young people.
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- 1.
The project is led by Professor Hans-Georg Ziebertz at the University of Würzburg, and details may be found at: www.rhr.theologie.uni-wuerzburg.de
- 2.
The English questionnaire was developed by a team of researchers connected with the international project and discussed by a group of about 20 researchers in a meeting in Wurzburg on 9–12 December 2012.
- 3.
The individual right to practise one’s religion openly is often referred to as ‘freedom to religion’.
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The right to form religious groups and to act collectively is often referred to as ‘freedom of religion ’.
- 5.
The majority of students are affiliated with schools in Oslo. A minority of the students go to schools in the neighbouring county of Akershus or in the city of Drammen, urban areas just outside of Oslo. This makes it possible to operate with the variable go to schools in Oslo/outside Oslo.
- 6.
‘Political view’ is self-placement on a 10-point left-to-right scale.
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Botvar, P.K. (2018). Social Capital and Religion in the Public Sphere: Attitudes to Visible Forms of Religion Among Norwegian High-School Students. In: Ziebertz, HG., Sterkens, C. (eds) Religion and Civil Human Rights in Empirical Perspective. Religion and Human Rights, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59285-5_6
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