ABSTRACT
Prior studies exploring and understanding young peoples’ relations with what is called religion have mainly focused on institutionalized forms of religiosity with a propensity for an interest in propositional beliefs and ritualized behaviour. In quantitative studies, one argument for continuity in the way of putting questions is the possibility for comparisons. In this chapter I discuss ways in which ‘traditional’ questions from the sociology of religion have been renewed. Suggestions for further methodological development, with theoretical implications, are made. The chapter makes use of two large-scale quantitative Swedish surveys among youth and young adults where we strived to develop previous questions to enable a richer image of ‘ordinary’ young peoples’ relation to religion. Such an image is necessarily more complex and nuanced, and for that reason of both methodological and theoretical value.
