Transformation of normative orders through the formation of generations. The formation of the contemporary youth generation in Germany – comparing eastern German, western German and teenagers with a Muslim family background

Basic data for this project

Description

The Christian occidental development institutionally separating religion and the state led to a differentiation of the spheres of values, that is, above all of (state-endorsed) legal norms on the one hand and of moral, ethical and religious norms on the other. The secularisation thus set in motion entailed the belief that religion and modernity are in the end mutually exclusive and that religion was becoming increasingly private, if not dying altogether. This version of the secularisation thesis has been shaken for a fairly long time as there is clear evidence for a new visibility of religion(s) and its (their) return to the public, which is not least due to the religious diversification caused by immigration. The project intends to investigate, on the one hand, the question whether and how the relation of religious and secular norms is changing in the face of this development and, on the other hand, how religious plurality may be integrated politically and socially within a society that sees itself as being secular. These questions are to be analysed on the basis of the youth generation currently emerging: firstly, with regard to the political order and the national self-conception of teenagers; secondly, with respect to newly emerging cultural, political and religious norms, practices and convictions.