Category Archives: Topics

One Nation, Losing God

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Interview with Barry Kosmin in Free Inquiry (Dec. 31, 2010).

Barry Kosmin is the nation’s leading expert on the “nones,” a group
that he studies through the ARIS, or American Religious Identification Survey. In this episode of Point of Inquiry, he discusses where America is heading with respect to its religious identity, why this change is occurring, and what the implications will be for secular advocacy in the future.
Barry A. Kosmin is Research Professor in the Public Policy & Law Program at Trinity College and Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture

US Latino Religious Identification 1990-2008: Growth, Diversity & Transformation

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by Juhem Navarro-Rivera, Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture (Trinity College); Puerto Rican & Latino Studies Institute/Political Science (University of Connecticut), Barry A. Kosmin, Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture (Trinity College) & Ariela Keysar Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture (Trinity College)

The ARIS Latino Report is the third major report based on the findings of the American Religious Identification Survey, ARIS 2008, and the earlier surveys in the ARIS time series. In this report we focus on three aspects of U.S. Latino religious identification – growth, diversity and transformation. First, we investigate the current demography and profile of Latino religious identification and how they have changed since 1990. The comparison of the patterns of Latino religious identification in 1990 and 2008 is based on a unique data set covering two very large representative national samples. Secondly, we analyze the differences among different religious groups of Latinos, according to national identity and origin and acculturation variables such as language use. The answers to questions regarding language preference and national origin were asked in English or Spanish to a subsample of 959 Latino adults in 2008. Finally, we discuss the impact of the changes in Latino religion on American society at large and for the main religious groups to which Latinos belong.

US Latino Religious Identification 1990-2008: Growth, Diversity & Transformation

Juhem Navarro-Rivera is a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, Trinity College, Hartford, CT and Adjunct Professor of Latino Studies and Political Science at the University of Connecticut

Barry A. Kosmin is Research Professor in the Public Policy & Law Program at Trinity College and Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture

Ariela Keysar is Associate Professor, Public Policy & Law Program at Trinity College and the Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture

American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population

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ARIS Report by Barry A. Kosmin & Ariela Keysar with Ryan T. Cragun & Juhem Navarro-Rivera

Who exactly are the Nones? “None” is not a movement, but a label for a diverse group of people who do not identify with any of the myriad of religious options in the American religious marketplace – the irreligious, the unreligious, the anti-religious, and the anti-clerical. Some believe in God; some do not. Some may participate occasionally in religious rituals; others never will.

American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population

Secularization Versus the Weight of Catholic Tradition among Spanish Women

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by Sofia Rodriguez Lopez, Research Fellow, History, Geography and Art History Department, Universidad de Almería (Spain)

In order to measure the presence of secularism in Spain we must, first of all, consider the influence and impact of religion, in this case the established Roman Catholic Church, on civil society and public institutions, particularly as they affect the status of women. Then we shall analyze this problem by looking at the historical development of public services such as education and public health, which are traditionally considered to be the domain of the Church, and how they have undergone a process of secularization. Finally, we will determine the current relationship between women and the Catholic faith in Spain at the individual and collective levels.

Secularization Versus the Weight of Catholic Tradition among Spanish Women

The Ambiguous Position of French Muslim Women: Between Republican Integration and Religious Claims

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by Camille Froidevaux-Metterie, Maître de conférences en science politique (Associate Professor of Political Science) at Universite Paris II Pantheon-Assas

The “veils quarrel”—also known as the “scarf affair”—is a useful point of entry into the problem of laïcité in France today, not only because of its topicality, but also because the issue epitomizes the challenge to which the French State, in its secular form, is confronted. When approaching the problem of some young veiled girls in the public schools, our country must consider the five million Muslims who live in France, half of whom have obtained French citizenship. Despite the fact that the right to family reunification—given to immigrants in 1976—has recently been repealed, and also that President Nicolas Sarkozy wants the process to be restricted, we must keep in mind that its implementation has entailed the permanent settling of hundreds of thousands of families, whose children, whether born in France or not, do not want to go back to the country of origin of their parents. Contrary to what was expected—i.e., that the immigrants, who arrived in the 1950s to participate in the industrial boom would go back home once their work was finished—there is a strong trend towards permanent settlement.

The Ambiguous Position of French Muslim Women: Between Republican Integration and Religious Claims

The Ambiguous State: Gender and Citizenship in Algeria

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by Boutheina Cheriet, Professor in Comparative Education and Research Methodology, University of Algiers;Former Deputy Minister in Charge of the Family & Women’s Affairs, Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria.

What is the best way to examine the problem of citizenship and gender in the emergence of civil society and its dialectical relationship with a monolithic state in Algeria? One way is to analyze the Algerian debates over personal status in order to capture the nature of the relationship that links the triad of state, civil society and citizenship. This allows us to investigate the ambivalence that characterizes the nature of the state and women’s access to citizenship.

The Ambiguous State: Gender and Citizenship in Algeria.

Social Indicators of Secularization in Italy

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by Silvia Sansonetti, Researcher at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’; Scientific Director of the ‘Observatory on Secularization’ project sponsored by the Critica Liberale Foundation and CGIL

Secularization is a multidimensional and complex social process. The Critica Liberale Foundation and the CGIL (the largest Italian trade union) Sezione Nuovi Diritti have jointly sponsored research on the secularization process in Italy since 2005. The results, which are presented in this paper, have been published yearly in a special volume called Quaderno Laico of the Critica Liberale, the Foundation’s review, together with the complete data-base.

Social Indicators of Secularization in Italy.

Women and Demography in the Mediterranean States

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by Ariela Keysar, Associate Research Professor in Public Policy and Law and the Associate Director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College.

The goal of this chapter, drawing on recent statistics collected by the United Nations, is to explore the extent to which state secularism and private secularity across a range of Mediterranean states affect the socioeconomic status of women through the mediating factor of demographic processes, mainly reproductive patterns.

Women and Demography in the Mediterranean States.

Algeria: Prospects for an Islamic or a Secular State

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by Kada Akacem, Professor of Economics at the University of Algiers; President of the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Economic Sciences.

What are the prospects for an Islamic state in Algeria nowadays? Before we can answer that question, we must first understand the political, economic, and social developments that have recently taken place in Algeria. These events will shed some light on the decline of the Islamist movements.

Algeria: Prospects for an Islamic or a Secular State.

Israel: The Challenge of a Democratic and Jewish State

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by Asher Arian, Distinguished Professor of Comparative Politics, City University of New York Graduate School; Scientific Director of the Guttman Center of Applied Social Research, Israel Democracy Institute, Jerusalem.

Upon his election as Israel’s president in June 2007, Shimon Peres, twice prime minister of Israel, Nobel laureate for peace, former head of the Socialist International, and former head of Israel’s Labor Party, did two things. First, he went to the Western Wall of the Temple in the Old City of Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest site, and second, he paid a call to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual head of Shas, one of Israel’s non-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox parties. The contrasts in this story illuminate the anomalies of religion in Israeli public life. Where are the boundaries? What is Jewish? What is religious behavior? Can one survive politically without paying homage to religious leaders and espousing religious sentiments? What could the word secular mean in that type of context: Non-religious? Anti-religious? Impervious to religion? Without religion?

Israel: The Challenge of a Democratic and Jewish State.