How to Operationalize Religious Development?

Streib H. How to Operationalize Religious Development? Presented at the Virtual Summer School "Research in Religious Development. Theory, Methodology and Praxis", Internet

Faith development research revisited: Accounting for diversity in structure, content, and narrativity of faith

Streib H. Faith development research revisited: Accounting for diversity in structure, content, and narrativity of faith. The international journal for the psychology of religion. 2005;15(2):99-121.Based on the recent proposal in this journal (Streib, 2001a) to revise James Fowler’s (1981) faith development theory, the article argues for a revision of faith development research to account not only for structural diversity, but also for narrative and content diversity. Therefore, it suggests the inclusion of content-analytical and narrative-analytical procedures into faith development research. The argument develops in light of a review of 53 empirical studies that all have used Fowler’s faith development instrument or a variation thereof; this review pays attention to the instruments that have been proposed for quantitative research in faith development, but especially to the empirical studies that have already included narrative- and content-analytical approaches. The article concludes with a proposal for a revised research design that integrates attention for structure, content, and narrative and suggests a coherent methodological procedure for future research in faith development

Faith Development, Religious Styles and Biographical Narratives: Methodological Perspectives

Keller B, Streib H. Faith Development, Religious Styles and Biographical Narratives: Methodological Perspectives. Journal for Empirical Theology. 2013;26(1):1-21.Narrative study of religious lives has formed part of numerous projects at the Bielefeld Research Center for Biographical Studies in Contemporary Religion. An essential instrument in our designs, which mostly combine qualitative and quantitative methods, is the Faith Development Interview (FDI). In response to longstanding criticism its cognitive structural framework has been revised in respect of styles and schemata. The religious styles perspective examines the self as articulated in narratives and associates it with affectivity and emotion. This article gives an overview of our theoretical and methodological revisions, which take cognizance of current developments in lifespan developmental and clinical psychology such as attachment, mentalization and wisdom. We illustrate the implementation of these advances with a case study from our current study of ‘spirituality’ , which we locate in the complex multi-method design, and outline the triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data

Religious Socialization and Faith Development of Adolescents in Turkey and Germany: Results from Cross-Cultural Research

Streib H, Aygün A. Religious Socialization and Faith Development of Adolescents in Turkey and Germany: Results from Cross-Cultural Research. CIRRuS Working Papers.; 2008

Components of the Semantic Field of "Spirituality" and "Religion" Emerging from Semantic Differentials

Streib H. Components of the Semantic Field of "Spirituality" and "Religion" Emerging from Semantic Differentials. Presented at the International Seminar on Religious Education and Values (ISREV), York, UK.The Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study on "Spirituality" had a special focus on the semantics of "spirituality" and "religion," and for this purpose has included a semantic differential approach. Two semantic differentials were part of the questionnaire and have been completed by 1,082 US-American and 703 German respondents: one of Osgood's "classical" instruments with 18 pairs of opposite adjectives, which had revealed a three-dimensional structure (Evaluation, Potency, Activity) in previous cross-cultural research; The second instrument was a contextual semantic differential with 30 pairs of opposite adjectives that has been constructed for this study. Both semantic differentials have been included twice in the questionnaire: first for "spirituality," then for "religion." Results are based on Paired t-tests comparing associations with "spirituality" and associations with "religion" for all adjectives, and on ANOVAs with focus groups in the US and the German samples. Results are visualized in line figures and scatter plots, which represent the semantic fields. Results generally indicate high regard for "spirituality" and rather negative evaluation of "religion." They reveal relatively little differences between Germany and the U.S., but considerable differences between respondents who self-identify as "more religious", "more spiritual," "neither religious nor spiritual" or "atheist" in the respective focus groups. We conclude that the semantic differentials yield insight in the surplus of "spirituality.

Neues Sehen: Methodische Innovationen und religiöse Novitäten

Streib H. Neues Sehen: Methodische Innovationen und religiöse Novitäten. Presented at the Workshop Emeritierung H.-G. Heimbrock "Irritierter Blick - wahrnehmende Orientierung", Frankfurt/M

Spiritualität – und die Frage nach der verlorenen Dimension

Streib H. Spiritualität – und die Frage nach der verlorenen Dimension. Deutsches Pfarrerblatt. 2016;116(11)

Xenosophie und Religion in Deutschland. Einstellungen Jugendlicher zum Fremden

Streib H. Xenosophie und Religion in Deutschland. Einstellungen Jugendlicher zum Fremden. Journal für politische Bildung. 2017;2017(3):42-47

Zur Differenz zwischen Religion und Religiosität bei jungen Menschen. Ein Problemaufriss

Streib H. Zur Differenz zwischen Religion und Religiosität bei jungen Menschen. Ein Problemaufriss. In: Meier U, Kropac U, König K, eds. Zwischen Religion und Religiosität. Regensburg: Pustet; 2015: 27-40

Deconversion

Streib H. Deconversion. In: Rambo LR, Farhadian CE, eds. The Oxford Handbook on Religious Conversion. Oxford handbooks. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2014: 271-296.To include a chapter on deconversion in a handbook on conversion is not only appropriate, but, as I argue, necessary for various reasons: It is no longer possible to ignore the fact that a growing number of contemporaries chose to convert more than once in their lifetime; multiple conversions are unavoidable in cultures in which religion occurs no longer as singular in a mono-religious environment, but as plural. Multiple conversions, however, involve deconversion(s). While some contributions use the term “conversion” for both the disaffiliation and the re-affiliation, I focus on “deconversion” in order to include disaffiliations without re-affiliation – which responds to the growing attention to atheists and apostates in the US (cf. Streib & Klein, 2011). Disaffiliation processes constitute an independent field of study that deserves special scientific attention. And here, the term “deconversion” may serve as a reminder of the depth and intensity of biographical change and the new orientation of one’s life that eventually is associated with disaffiliation and is not reserved to conversion. In this chapter, I will start with a conceptualization of deconversion, discuss recent quantitative and qualitative research, and finally draw conclusions and suggest directions for future research