Occupation and Religious Practice in Italy: The Thesis of "Working-Class Alienation"

Abstract

A major theme of empirical investigation in the sociology of religion has been the distribution of practice in societal populations-particularly variations according to the occupational stratification of the population. One commonly reported research finding has been a difference (presumably significant) in rates or degrees of participation-in the sense of associational involvement (cf. Lenski, 1963: 18-24)1-between urban manual workers, on the one hand, and those employed in urban nonmanual and agrarian or agricultural occupations, on the other. The finding has been reported in investigations conducted in several different countries in the North Atlantic area-among others, studies reported by Wickham (1957: 217), Argyle (1958: 130), and Willmott (1963: 83) for England; by Robertson (1968: 17) for Scotland; by Michonneau (1949), Pin (1956: Chapter 14), and Isambert (1961: 43ff) for France; by Gustafsson (1958: 30) for Sweden; by Lenski (1963: 48-49), Lazerwitz (1961, 1964), Moberg (1962: 387), Zimmer and Hawley (1959: 351), Goode (1966), and Schuman (1971) for the United States (cf. also Demerath, 1965: 4-25). Isambert (1961) and Houtart and Pin (1965: 170-175) have cited apparently similar results from studies conducted in Latin American countries. Indeed, after reviewing several investigations of the question, Isambert has concluded (with a reserve of caution) that the religious abstention of the urban working classes is a rather general phenomenon, perhaps one that qualifies as a sociological law.2