Open AccessHow Unreligious are the Religious “Nones”? Religious Dynamics of the Unaffiliated in Canada
Author(s) -
Sarah Wilkins Laflamme
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
canadian journal of sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.357
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1710-1123
pISSN - 0318-6431
DOI - 10.29173/cjs21830
Subject(s) - religiosity , secularization , sociology of religion , sociology , spirituality , context (archaeology) , norm (philosophy) , social science , interdependence , positive economics , social psychology , political science , geography , law , psychology , economics , medicine , alternative medicine , archaeology , pathology
Increasing rates of religious non-affiliation have been a fundamental transformation of Canadian society since the 1970s. Such increases, present across the West, have received much attention from researchers and sparked much debate. Two competing frameworks identify differing mechanisms behind the rise in individuals declaring having no religion. Secularization theories see this trend as indicating a decline of all things religious. By contrast, individualization theories argue it is only institutional indicators of religiosity which are on the decline, and individually constructed spirituality systems are becoming the norm. Yet, little systematic empirical testing has been done on this subject, especially in the Canadian context. Generating single- and multi-level regression models with data from the Canadian GSS and the ISSP, this paper undertakes a novel comparison of religiosity levels among the unaffiliated between Canadian provinces, between a number of Western nations and regions as well as between age groups.