ABSTRACT
The process of socialisation is key to symbolic interactionists as it accounts for how perceptions and understandings of the world develop through interactions with significant others as well as alternative sources of knowledge (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). Religious identity is an important part of this socialisation that evolves as the child grows up, develops cognitive skills (Piaget, 1936) and powers of moral reasoning (Kohlberg, 1976), and increasingly demonstrates personal agency and initiative (James et al., 1998). It might be anticipated on this account that young people would initially adopt the faith positions of their parents but later confirm, discard or adapt these as they achieve greater independence and engage in more rational thought. This chapter explores the trajectories of young people's lives up until the point of their participation in the Youth On Religion (YOR) study, looking particularly at the different pathways of participants from different cultural and faith backgrounds. Significant ‘turning points’ (Glaser and Strauss, 1971), identity transformations (Lindesmith et al., 1999), and ‘switching, matching and mixing’ (Putnam and Campbell, 2010) in faith position are of particular interest.
