Attitudes toward Civil Human Rights among Italian Students of Sociology: The Effects of Religion and Theology

Leslie J Francis,Ursula Mckenna,Olga Breskaya

doi:10.3390/rel11120643

Abstract

Connecting with and building on the research tradition established by The International Empirical Research Programmes in Religion and Human Rights, this study explores the power of two measures shaped within empirical theology (the Theology of Religions Index that distinguishes seven ways in which religions may be viewed and the New Indices of God Images that distinguishes between the God of Grace and the God of Law) to predict individual differences in attitude toward civil human rights among students of sociology under the age of thirty who had lived in Italy all their lives, after taking into account the effect of baptismal status (Catholic or not Catholic) and frequency of mass attendance. Data provided by 1046 participants demonstrated that more positive attitudes toward civil human rights are associated with being male, with not being baptised Catholic, with not attending mass, and with the God of Grace, but not with the God of Law. Five of the positions identified within the framework of the theology of religions are significant predictors of attitude toward civil human rights: the most positive attitude is associated with atheism and the least positive attitude is associated with exclusivism.

Highlights

International Empirical Research Programme in Religion and Human Rights 2.0, as illustrated by the following monographs and edited collections: van der Ven (2010); van der Ven and Ziebertz (2012, 2013); Ziebertz and Ballin (2016); Ziebertz and Črpić (2015); Ziebertz and Sterkens (2018); Sterkens and Ziebertz (2018); Ziebertz and Zaccaria (2019); and Ziebertz (2020a) Three important conclusions emerging from these independent yet interrelated studies are that the connections between human rights and religion may vary according to the specific human rights under discussion, according to the specific conceptualisations and operationalisations of religion employed in empirical enquiry, and according to the populations studied
International scholars have explored the embeddedness of civil freedoms, human dignity, and equality into the cultural codes of national societies, and identified the predictive power of individual religiosity, the role of religious institutions, and broader socio-political contexts vis-à-vis attitudes towards human rights
Our aim in this study was to explore among a sample of 1046 Italian University students of sociology the connection between attitudes toward civil human rights and both religious variables and theological variables

Summary

Introduction

The complex patterning of relations between human rights and religion has been richly illuminated by independent yet interrelated empirical studies conducted within the two sequential programmes, The International Empirical Research Programme in Religion and Human Rights 1.0, and TheInternational Empirical Research Programme in Religion and Human Rights 2.0, as illustrated by the following monographs and edited collections: van der Ven (2010); van der Ven and Ziebertz (2012, 2013); Ziebertz and Ballin (2016); Ziebertz and Črpić (2015); Ziebertz and Sterkens (2018); Sterkens and Ziebertz (2018); Ziebertz and Zaccaria (2019); and Ziebertz (2020a) Three important conclusions emerging from these independent yet interrelated studies are that the connections between human rights and religion may vary according to the specific human rights under discussion, according to the specific conceptualisations and operationalisations of religion employed in empirical enquiry, and according to the populations studied.During the span of the two international research programmes on religion and human rights, the range of national contexts studied included: Belarus (Breskaya and Döhnert 2018), Chile (Silva and Manzi 2018; Manzi and Silva 2019), Croatia (Miloš and Novak 2018), England and Wales (Francis and Robbins 2013, 2016; Francis et al 2016, 2018a, 2018b, 2019b, 2020), Georgia (Unser et al 2020), Religions 2020, 11, 643; doi:10.3390/rel11120643 www.mdpi.com/journal/religionsGermany (Ziebertz and Reindl 2012, 2013; Gennerich and Ziebertz 2016; Ziebertz et al 2018; Ziebertz2019, 2020b), Indonesia (Sterkens and Hadiwitanto 2016), Italy (Zaccaria et al 2018a, 2018b, 2019; Anthony et al 2020), Lithuania (Ališauskienė and Maslauskaitė 2019), Moldova (Unser et al 2020), Nigeria (Adimekwe and Ziebertz 2018a, 2018b; Fumbo et al 2019, 2020), Norway (Botvar 2013, 2018; Botvar and Sjöborg 2018; Botvar et al 2019), Palestine (Webb et al 2012; Webb and Asa’d 2018, 2019; Webb et al 2020), Poland (Botvar et al 2019), Romania (Rogobete and Reisz 2018; Rogobete and Vitelar2020), South Africa (Dreyer and Aziz 2020), Spain (Oviedo and Canteras 2018), Sweden (Sjöborg 2012; Botvar and Sjöborg 2018), Tamil Nadu (Anthony 2013; Anthony and Sterkens 2018, 2019), Tanzania (van der Tuin and Fumbo 2012; Fumbo and Sterkens 2018; Fumbo and Ziebertz 2018; Fumbo et al 2019, 2020), and Turkey (Ok and Eren 2013; Ok et al 2020).In comparative studies, van der Ven (2013, 2016, 2020) drew on data from Belgium, England and Wales, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden; Unser et al (2016) drew on data fromGermany, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Sweden; Unser et al (2018) drew on data from Belarus, Croatia, Georgia, Germany, India, Italy, Lithuania, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, and Tanzania; and Breskaya et al (2019) drew on data from Belarus, Norway, Romania, and Sweden.Within the family of studies conducted within the two international research programmes on religion and human rights, different sets of studies have focused on civil human rights (Ziebertz and Sterkens 2018), political and judicial rights (Sterkens and Ziebertz 2018), rights to life (Ziebertz and Zaccaria 2019), and socioeconomic rights (Ziebertz 2020a). Van der Ven (2013, 2016, 2020) drew on data from Belgium, England and Wales, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden; Unser et al (2016) drew on data from. India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Sweden; Unser et al (2018) drew on data from Belarus, Croatia, Georgia, Germany, India, Italy, Lithuania, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, and Tanzania; and Breskaya et al (2019) drew on data from Belarus, Norway, Romania, and Sweden. Within the family of studies conducted within the two international research programmes on religion and human rights, different sets of studies have focused on civil human rights (Ziebertz and Sterkens 2018), political and judicial rights (Sterkens and Ziebertz 2018), rights to life (Ziebertz and Zaccaria 2019), and socioeconomic rights (Ziebertz 2020a).

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