Item Details

Re-framing Religious Identity and Belief: Gen X Women and the Catholic Church

Issue: Vol 30 No. 3 (2017)

Journal: Journal for the Academic Study of Religion

Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies Biblical Studies

DOI: 10.1558/jasr.33612

Abstract:

Gen X women grew up in the Catholic Church in the climate of cultural
and theological change brought about by the Second Vatican Council.
Given the Catholic Church’s attempt to move into the modern world, it
might be expected that such changes would result in an increase of participation
by women in the Church. In fact, the opposite has happened and
the participation of Gen X Catholic women in Church life is at substantially
low levels. This article reviews the current research in this area, and seeks
to contextualise the experiences of Gen X women in the broader social
changes that have characterised late modernity. It contends that current
methods of examining the religious identity of Gen X Catholic women fail
to understand the complexity of reasons for non-participation. Shifting the
research focus beyond a simple model of church participation will shed
important light on the sociology of Catholicism and religious identity in
Australia.

Author: Tracy McEwan, Kathleen McPhillips

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