Befragung junger deutschschweizer Familien zur Bedeutung von religiösen Ritualen - 2005
Within the framework of the National Research Program 52 "Childhood, Youth and Intergenerational Relationships in a Changing Society", the Institute for Practical Theology of the University of Bern carried out the research project "Rituals and Ritualizations in Families: Religious Dimensions and Intergenerational References". Within this research project, the Swiss Pastoral Sociology Institute (SPI) carried out a written representative survey among young families in German-speaking Switzerland. The study focuses firstly on the description of the religious-ritual practice in young families. The ritual practice of young families is examined using the examples of the three ritual complexes Baptism, Good Night Rituals and Christmas celebration. The young mothers and fathers are questioned about the form and meaning of these rituals. On the other hand, the study is interested in the embedding of the three rituals in the everyday life of young families with their diverse mentality profiles, interpretation horizons and conceptions of a good life. Rituals and their interpretation for people's lives can only be adequately interpreted when they are addressed in the context of modern living conditions. Rituals do not represent a special area of human life, but are based on elementary and vital life activities. The feelings, values, attitudes as well as the participants' conception of the world and mankind and the scope of their relation to transcendence are articulated by these activities, and the life situation is reflected in their own habitual patterns of interpretation. Against this background, the central questions of investigation were:
1. What is the plausibility of religious attitudes and religious-ritual practice for the young parents under the conditions of late modernity? What religious traditions correspond to young families today?
2. What is the complex interplay between the form and meaning of ritual practice and the contextual variables? Can typological patterns be identified?
3. How do the ultimate meanings, subjectivization of life, value preferences, church reference and lifestyle affect the ritual-religious practice of young families?
4. How do young parents view the compatibility of rituals and modernity as a claim to autonomous living?