Religion and secularization in daily life practices (An intergenerational perspective)

Religion is one of the most deeply rooted institutional structures within social life. As a result of the transition to a positivist understanding of social philosophy, the institutional identity and authority of religion have been questioned and transformed institutionally. This transformation has been defined as secularisation and considered as a consequence of modern society. Sociology, with its approaches to religion and secularization, seeks to understand the direction of this change in religion within the social sphere. While the positivist understanding suggests that religion will disappear in modern society, there are also approaches which argue that the rise in subjective religiosity will influence the structure of modern society through the agency of individuals, thus reviving the religion. These approaches, representing the two extremes of the structure-agency relationship, have been criticised for being too excessive. It is also important at this point to consider the relationship between secularisation and religion from an eclectic approach and in terms of the structure-agency dialectic. In this study, the relationship between religion and secularisation in Turkey will be examined across generations, and the transformation of religiosity in everyday life in Turkey will be addressed in a structural relational context. The universe of the research is Turkey, and in order to achieve a 95% confidence interval and a 0.3 margin of error, the study was conducted with 1119 people in 12 provinces at IBBS Level 1 to ensure representativeness of the universe. Religion and secularisation in everyday life in Turkey were examined in the context of generations. The findings of the research reveal differences between generations in terms of religious affiliation, religious attitudes, religious behaviour, the place of religion in everyday life choices, and other elements within the context of everyday life practices. As the study examines religiosity in daily life practices in Turkey within a macro context of generational groups and reveals the structural transformation of generational groups through secularisation analysis, it is thought that the study will contribute to the field.