Sociology

Several measures of religious practice and religious orientation (intrinsic/ extrinsic/quest) and two measures of psychological well-being (positive affect and negative affect) have been employed in a cross-cultural survey of undergraduate university students from five different cultural/religious environments: Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, the United States of America, and Japan. Results suggest that measures of exstrinsic, intrinsic, and quest religiosity are not entirely applicable in most of the cultures observed. Nevertheless, it was possible to discern abbreviated cross-culturally valid scales for each dimension. The strength and direction of the correlation between psychological well-being and a particular type of religious orientation proved to depend substantially upon culture. More importantly, the cultural environment plays a crucial role in shaping the relationship between general measures of religiosity and psychological well-being. According to the data, higher general levels of religiosity at the societal level are linked to more positive correlations between religiosity and psychological well-being. The overall picture leads to the conclusion that there is no culturally universal pattern in the relationship between measures of religiosity and psychological well-being and that the particular cultural and religious context should always be considered in studies dealing with this issue.

The relationship between intrinsic and personal extrinsic religious orientation as suggested by Gorsuch and McPherson is studied within four denominational samples of university students in four different cultural environments. Results show that intrinsic and extrinsic personal religious orientation form two separate dimensions only within the American Protestant sample. In three different European religious environments (one Eastern Orthodox, one Islamic, and one Roman Catholic), all extrinsic personal and intrinsic items can be combined into a single dimension. It is speculated that the intrinsic orientation may be culturally tied to Protestantism.

Student samples have become a widely used resource in the study of not only particular phenomena and problems within individual environments but also of their study within a cross-cultural context. A number of such studies, most often generalizing their results to the level of cultures, are illustrated in this article. In addition, the authors carry out a number of empirical tests of the generalizability of results attained on student samples in cross-cultural research. Based on the World Values Survey data, mean values of four sociologically and psychologically relevant measures are compared between national and student samples of twenty-three countries. Results suggest that the findings attained on student samples can be viewed cautiously as a good indicator of national sample rankings in cross-national comparisons.

The aim of this article is to introduce an instrument for measuring the presence of New Age ideas, to determine its general, methodological and empirical adequacy, and to apply derived instrument in measuring the presence of the New Age ideas among students at the University of Maribor. Survey findings show popularity of the New Age ideas among Slovenian students, but there has been a tendency of slow dropping since the year 2001. At the same time, Catholic ideas show moderate growth during the observed period (2001-2004). It is concluded, that there is no empirical ground to expect any kind of New Age spiritual breakthrough in the near future in Slovenia.

Four religious cultural settings, a Slovenian Catholic one, a Bosnian Muslim one, a Serbian Orthodox one and an American Protestant one, are compared on the basis of a variety of measures of religiosity, resulting from a survey carried out on large student samples in 2005. Certain cultural peculiarities of the groups emerge: e.g., the particular Muslim stress on the concept of God as austere judge. These peculiarities, indicative of a more pronouncedly rigid and authentic religiosity do not add up to a qualitatively different religiosity among the Muslims. Nevertheless, clear differences appeared in the structure of religiosity, which are of particular relevance to the two more intensively religious groups: the American Protestants and the Bosnian Muslims. The former group's religiosity is more dependent on social pressure, and its religious practice is more frequent, whereas the latter group's religiosity seems better linked to their personality set-up and integrated in personality. The American Protestants are slightly more inclined to sacrifice their life both for religious purposes and for their country. ABSTRACT Četiri religijska kulturna okruženja, slovenačko katoličko, bosansko muslimansko, srpsko pravoslavno i američko protestantsko su poređena na osnovu više mera religioznosti, a na osnovu anketiranja sprovedenog na većem uzorku studenata 2005. godine. Određene kulturne posebnosti se pojavljuju: na primer, naročito muslimani naglašavaju pojam Boga kao strogog »sudije«. Ove posebnosti svedoče o posvedočenoj rigidnijoj i izvornijoj, ali ne i kvalitativno drugačijoj religioznosti među muslimanima. Ipak, jasne razlike su se pokazale u strukturi religioznosti, naročito kod dve izrazito religiozne grupe: američkim protestantima i bosanskim muslimanima. Religioznost prve grupe više zavisi od socijalnog pritiska i religijska praksa je češća, dok je religioznost druge grupe izgleda bolje povezana (i integrisana) sa crtama ličnosti. Američki protestanti su nešto skloniji da žrtvuju svoj život kako za religijske ciljeve, tako i za svoju zemlju.

Gordon Allport defined intrinsic religious orientation as the polar opposite of the utilitarian and instrumental extrinsic orientation. On the other hand, Rodney Stark and associates developed a theory of religion according to which the utilitarian motive is at the very core of (any) religious motivation. A study of undergraduate students from three social settings with different dominant religions (Catholic, Islamic and Eastern Orthodox) showed that the intrinsic religious orientation and the perceived religious rewards, such as expectations of eternal life in heaven or perceptions of God’s help in everyday life, tend to form a unidimensional construct in all the observed samples. On the one hand, these results shed new light on the assumption of intrinsic religious orientation being free of utilitarian and instrumental motives. On the other hand, they lend substantial support to the basic assumption of the rational choice approach to religion.

The assumption of rationally motivated individual religious behavior was tested in a survey of undergraduate university students from four different cultural/religious environments: Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and the United States of America. In particular, an attempt was made to explain readiness to bear religious costs by the expectation of otherworldly rewards and some other variables, such as religious socialization, support in the upbringing of children, religious capital, satisfaction with religious services and the perceived social sanctions for possible religious nonparticipation. It was found that it is the otherworldly rewards in all the samples that explain by far the major part of the variance in the readiness to bear religious costs. These results suggest that individuals do tend to make rational choices even when it comes to religion. Based on their beliefs, they are ready to accept religious costs approximately to the level of their expectation of otherworldly rewards.

Several measures of religious practice and religious orientation (intrinsic/extrinsic/quest) and the trait form of State-Trait Anxiety Inventory were employed in a cross-cultural survey of undergraduate university students from four different cultural environments: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia and the United States of America. The results suggest that: (1) the relationship between trait anxiety and religiosity substantially depends upon culture. (2) the relationship between quest religious orientation and trait anxiety was the only one to give stable (positive) unidirectional and significant correlations across the four samples. (3) among the religious measures employed, attendance at religious services proved to be potentially the most effective anxiety-buffering mechanism across the four samples.

In this article the authors study social inequalities in Slovenian higher education, using a census of students at the University of Maribor. Using the common odds ratio test, it was found that young people whose fathers had completed higher education or levels beyond are approximately 14 times more likely to enter the higher education system than those whose fathers had not completed primary education. Stratification is even more acute when mothers are observed: the ratio is 1:25. Both the situation and the trend are assessed as being unmeritocratic. These findings fit into the hypothesis of the radicalization of economic inequality in society and clarify the consolidation of a class structure and a relative absence of meritocracy. An attempt is made at longitudinal analysis of the issue: it seems that disparities in this area are increasing, after a diminution during communist times.

The concept of civil religion has caught major attention among scholars studying the junction of religion and politics (J.-J. Rousseau, E. Durkheim, R. Bellah). The notion focuses on the phenomenon of cultural contents sacralizing and ritualizing the ruling political institutions of a society, extending support to the integration of the political and social system at a cultural level.

The assumption of rationally motivated individual religious behavior was tested in a survey of undergraduate university students from four different cultural/religious environments: Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and the United States of America. In particular, an attempt was made to explain readiness to bear religious costs by the expectation of otherworldly rewards and some other variables, such as religious socialization, support in the upbringing of children, religious capital, satisfaction with religious services and the perceived social sanctions for possible religious nonparticipation. It was found that it is the otherworldly rewards in all the samples that explain by far the major part of the variance in the readiness to bear religious costs. These results suggest that individuals do tend to make rational choices even when it comes to religion. Based on their beliefs, they are ready to accept religious costs approximately to the level of their expectation of otherworldly rewards.

Gordon Allport defined intrinsic religious orientation as the polar opposite of the utilitarian and instrumental extrinsic orientation. On the other hand, Rodney Stark and associates developed a theory of religion according to which the utilitarian motive is at the very core of (any) religious motivation. A study of undergraduate students from three social settings with different dominant religions (Catholic, Islamic and Eastern Orthodox) showed that the intrinsic religious orientation and the perceived religious rewards, such as expectations of eternal life in heaven or perceptions of God's help in everyday life, tend to form a unidimensional construct in all the observed samples. On the one hand, these results shed new light on the assumption of intrinsic religious orientation being free of utilitarian and instrumental motives. On the other hand, they lend substantial support to the basic assumption of the rational choice approach to religion. Keywords intrinsic religious orientation, rational choice, religious rewards Rationality and Society 23(2) 217-233

Slovenia, a predominantly Roman Catholic country, has been historically typified by a political and cultural conflict between pro-clerical Catholic political forces and the opposite liberal camp. In the immediate post-independence period (after 1991), liberal forces succeeded in buttressing the lay public school, with no religious instruction. Later, disputes were ever more visible in issues of property restitution to the Church, regularising financial benefits the Church receives from the State, including social security benefits for priests (mostly Catholic), the financing of religious services in health institutions and the police, limitation at registration for new religious groups and others. Privileging of the Catholic Church in these respects was implemented particularly by the 2007 Religious Freedom Act, which was later declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court, as to its major provisions (2010). An ideological conflict followed, concerning how to supplement the Act. There have been a number of drafts, none of which have been adopted, even though the time limit set by the Constitutional Court has been exceeded. Property issues were another important dimension of church-state relations in the independent Slovenia. At the beginning of the transition period, the Church leadership defined the restoration of economic power from the period before WWII. This was followed by the financial breakdown of the Maribor Archdiocese in 2011. It resulted in huge financial losses and, among other consequences, the resignation of at least two Archbishops. It is argued that these and many other difficulties of the Catholic Church in Slovenia, such as the continuously declining attendance at Catholic rituals, ensue to a large extend from its strategic orientation, which places a relatively high emphasis on the re-accumulation of material wealth and political power.

Many reports rely on the estimate that there are anywhere from 150 to 100 million street children in the world, although this figure has virtually no basis in empirical evidence. In this article, all the available data on the number of street children and relevant social indicators for 184 countries were gathered and statistically processed in order to produce a more reliable estimate. Aptekar (Cross-Cultural Research 28(3): 195-224, 1994) assumption on common denominators of countries with a high presence of street children was used as a starting point. The results show that there is about 10 to 15 million street children in the world. Two directions for future development are outlined: firstly, a more reliable and unified inductive approach for estimating the number of street children in individual countries is needed along with an appropriate methodological model and secondly, there is a need to create a global estimate of the number of all children living in the streets, which might be achieved by a similar methodological approach to the one used in this article.

After the fall of communism, the ideological arena for framing constitutions was influenced by liberal democratic ideas, which fit well with the concept of state impartiality toward religion. Among the 23 European post-communist constitutions that were analyzed, five (Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Macedonia and the political entity of Republika Srpska) refer to religion in an ethno-symbolist manner, invoking and honouring the special nature of their religious traditions in their constitutions. According to our results, instrumental political considerations play an important role in explaining these references and need to be taken into account along with the ethno-symbolist approach.

European Strategy 2020, a series of priorities and initiatives that will transform the EU into a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy, with high rates of employment, productivity and social cohesion, recognized cities as units crucial for social, cultural and economic progress and sparked the development of new integrated urban strategies (IUSs) across the EU. By the end of 2016, 11 Slovenian cities had developed and ratified their own strategic plans in order to manage their urban development. We analyzed the content of the IUSs and supporting documents of Slovenian cities in order to evaluate the quality of IUSs in terms of empirical groundedness, logical consistency and structure and to assess the conformity of these documents with Europe 2020 strategy and national guidelines. Our results show that the IUSs of Slovenian cities are generally of low quality and that they conform to the Europe 2020 strategy poorly, but rather more to national guidelines defined by the Slovenian government. The implications of these findings for EU policy in the area of urban development are discussed.

The individualization of family life is one of the crucial ideas among leading theorists dealing with late modernity (Giddens, 1991; Beck, 1992; Bauman, 2000; Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). The individualization thesis was applied in a study of youth attitudes and actions relating to individualization in family life. Data were gathered through surveys on representative samples of young people from nine countries in Southeast Europe. The Human Development Index (HDI) was used as an indicator of the general level of modernization. Analyses revealed that young people from countries with higher HDI tend to (1) be substantially more autonomous in their decision-making and in their plans for the future; (2) perceive relationships with their parents as more conflictual; (3) perceive decision-making in their family as less patriarchal; and (4) be substantially less inclined to marry. With the notable exception of Slovenia, there is also a strong tendency for youth from more developed countries to leave their parents' households earlier. With some important reservations, these findings lend important empirical support to the individualization thesis relating to family life.