The fluidity of Finnish youths’ Personal worldviews

ABSTRACT

This article aims to understand the personal worldviews of Finnish youths. The fluidity of young people’s personal worldviews has been highlighted in a number of previous studies, and this study presents more information by focusing on possible spiritual and religious elements in the personal worldviews of young people and on the influences that affect their personal worldviews. The data of this study consist of a quantitative questionnaire acquired from Finnish upper secondary school students (N = 973). The results show that young people’s personal worldviews are not fixed but are fluid and that nominal membership in a religious community does not explain their worldviews. Young people do not see religion as important to them, and they see religion more as a part of culture and their environment than as a part of their personal worldview. The most important sources of information for the construction of their personal worldview are school and the Internet.

KEYWORDS:

• Youths
• youths’ personal worldviews
• worldviews

Introduction

The aim of this article is to generate an up-to-date understanding of how young people in Finland describe their personal worldviews and what sources they use when constructing their personal worldviews. For instance, gender, sexuality, language and personal worldviews are often fluid and mixed in nature and contribute to the identity of young people. The fluidity of young people’s personal worldviews has been previously highlighted (e.g., Francis, Laycock, and Penny 2016; Halafoff and Gobey 2018; Kuusisto and Kallioniemi 2017; Singleton et al. 2021; Wallis 2019; Åhs, Poulter, and Kallioniemi 2019). Fluidity in this study refers to the complexity of personal worldviews and to continuously changing and developing non-fixed views of life. Though possibly in somewhat varying degrees for different contexts or individuals, these views are embedded in and influenced by their sociocultural and historical circumstances and their values and traditions, such as religion/s, science or culture. The Finnish National Board of Education (2021) defines a personal worldview as a constantly developing part of a person’s identity. Personal identity can be strongly attached to a particular group identity (e.g., a religious community or tradition), or it can be more hybrid, deriving elements from various traditions (Helve 2015; Kuusisto and Kallioniemi 2017). Some scholars also argue that personal identity includes spirituality as a possible innate capacity distinct from religious belief (see e.g., Robinson 2020).

There is considerable variation how young people define themselves using the terms ‘religious’ and ‘spiritual’ (Francis, Laycock, and Penny 2016; Singleton et al. 2021). It has also been noted that it is difficult to research the concepts of religion and spirituality because of the various or overlapping nature of these definitions (Francis, Lankshear, and Eccles 2021). Hence, we do not wish to use one or the other of these terms and instead employ the term ‘worldview’ as an umbrella term when researching youngsters’ spirituality, non-spirituality, religiosity and non-religiosity. Lee (2020) points a kind of holistic approach when concluding approaches researching spirituality. This study focuses on understanding how young people in Finland evaluate their personal worldview and its fluidity (including all its religious, non-religious and spiritual and non-spiritual elements) and what sources of information they utilise when constructing their personal worldview. People’s worldviews have traditionally been based on their nominal membership of religious communities and divided based on the binary between religious and non-religious views of life. This totally ignores the lived reality of worldviews and their spiritual elements, which are not always linked to a religion (Westbrook et al. 2018). Young people have been noted to conceptualise spirituality as part of religion or as being separate from it (Francis, Laycock, and Penny 2016). This study exhibits the fluidity of young people’s personal worldviews, which we, alongside of other scholars, believe to be more complex than just ticking a box regarding nominal membership of a religious community or the alternative, ‘non-religious’.

The question regarding the fluidity and construction of young people’s worldviews is important and insufficiently understood in Finland, where Lutheran roots are strong. Simultaneously, however, Finnish citizens are relatively secular (see e.g., Furseth 2018) and are conceptualised as being ‘Secular Christian’ or ‘Secular Lutheran’ (Poulter, Riitaoja, and Kuusisto 2016; Riitaoja, Poulter, and Kuusisto 2010). It has been suggested that religion (e.g., religious symbols, traditions, etc.) in Western countries has been reduced to culture because it is too difficult to detach oneself from religious history (Joppke 2018, 238). The Lutheran religion and the Finnish nation have always been strongly connected (see e.g., Furseth 2018; Sinnemäki et al. 2019). Berglund (2013) has described Nordic religiosity as being ‘marinated in Lutheranism’, which means that religiosity is diluted by traditions. Even though Finland is statistically a relatively monoreligious country where almost 70% of Finns belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Official Statistics of Finland OSF 2018), membership in has decreased during the 21^st century, especially among young adults (OSF 2018). According to Niemelä (2015), one reason for this is that the Church is not seen to be in line with the beliefs and life views of young adults. The youth who live in Finland live in an environment where the worldview landscape is more diverse than ever before (Ketola 2020), and the statistics do not fully reflect peoples’ personal worldviews (see e.g., Furseth 2018; Ketola 2020). This complexity of personal worldviews leads to a situation where researching worldviews should start from a non-binary approach. What is religious and what is non-religious are not always opposites, and what is non-religious is not always secular or without religiosity or spirituality (Bråten 2021).

The young people in this study are Finnish general upper secondary school students. In Finland, students can choose either to continue to general upper secondary school or to a vocational college after completing their 9 years of comprehensive schooling. Every year over 50% continue to general upper secondary school, girls more often than boys, most of them being between the ages of 16 and 19 (Vipunen – Education Statistics Finland 2018). As in Finnish comprehensive school, the general upper secondary school syllabus includes compulsory religious and worldview education, which is organised in teaching groups according to the students’ nominal religious membership or a secular alternative. The majority (89.8% in 2017) attended Lutheran religious education. Attendance especially in the secular ethics education class has, however, increased every year over the last decade (Vipunen – Education Statistics Finland 2017). It has been argued that the Finnish (as well as the Swedish) core curriculum only presents relatively fixed views on religious and worldview identities (Zilliacus, Paulsrud and Holm 2017). Furthermore, the Finnish worldview education system has been criticised for not allowing students to attend the alternative of their own choosing (e.g., Åhs, Poulter, and Kallioniemi 2019) and for its design in teaching worldview education without acknowledging the fluidity of the students’ individual worldviews (e.g., Kuusisto and Kallioniemi 2017; Lipiäinen et al. 2020).

Hence, this study aims to understand how young people describe the nature of their personal worldviews by focusing on possible spiritual and/or religious elements, fluidity and the influences that affect their personal worldviews. The study seeks to answer the following research questions: 1. How do young people conceptualise the possible spiritual and/or religious elements in their own worldview? 2. How do they evaluate the fluidity of their personal worldviews? and 3. From where do young people perceive they have gained influences to construct their own personal worldviews?

The personal worldviews of young people

The diversity of worldviews has increased in all Western countries. Reasons vary from country to country, but they include, for instance, transnational migration, the weakened influence of organised religion, and an increased interest in new religions and alternative spirituality. Vertovec (2015) distinguishes between ‘old’ and ‘new’ diversities, and he refers to the ‘diversifying diversities’ within society with his notion of ‘superdiversity’ (Vertovec 2007). Beyer and Beaman (2019, 2) focus on this ‘new diversity’ and point out that it includes an increased number of people with ‘no religion’ as well as people who reject old-style religions (see also Bouma 2017). People are also more interested in new models and moderations of spiritualism, which can be linked to some religions, but are often separated from religiosity (Furseth 2018; Robinson 2020; Woodhead 2017). In addition, they want to construct their own religious identity (Beyer and Beaman 2019).

To understand the worldviews of young people in a multidimensional sense, we emphasise the personal and lived dimensions of the worldviews in this study. The concept of a worldview is context- dependent and widely discussed in education (Benoit, Hutchings, and Shillitoe 2020; Bråten 2021), and we wish to remain open to the insights introduced by empirical data. Focusing on the worldviews of youths from a personal perspective, a worldview is understood in this study by distinguishing between organised or institutional, and personal or private worldviews (see e.g., van der Kooij, de Ruyter, and Miedema 2013, 2017) and by focusing on its personal perspective. A personal worldview is a person’s unique vision and way of life (Valk and Tosun 2016), their alias and their ‘ontological and ethical orientation to the world, humanity, and life questions’ (Riitaoja, Poulter, and Kuusisto 2010, 87). A personal worldview can be religious, non-religious, or something in between (see e.g., Helve 2015; Kuusisto 2017; Woodhead 2017). It can be spiritual, non-spiritual, religious and spiritual, or religious and non-spiritual simultaneously or separately (see e.g., Halafoff et al. 2020). It operates as a philosophy of life, and it is critical for understanding the world and for finding answers to the importamt questions of life (Poulter, Riitaoja, and Kuusisto 2016; Kuusisto 2017).

Because of the personal perspective that a worldview has, its spirituality (religious or not) is defined by individuals themselves. In order to understand an individual’s worldview across cultures, the distinction between religion, spirituality and non-religiosity is not the primary point. In contextualising spiritual development, Westbrook et al. (2018) defined four possible sources of spirituality. Only one of them (theistic) was related to religion, while nature, human, and transcendent sources were not. Individuals define themselves by what they see as sacral or spiritual, and therefore the spirituality of a personal worldview is highly complex and is not as context dependent as religion (Murphy 2017). Definitions of a personal worldview are close to Michaelson’s (2021) definition of spiritual health. Like spiritual health, a personal worldview is also different for everyone: it can, for example, involve a purpose in life, or it can be related to religious. However, spiritual health can have an impact on a personal worldview (Michaelson 2021), but a worldview is not necessarily spiritual.

When characterising young people’s personal worldviews in the Australian context, Singleton et al. (2021) identify six worldview types of teenage worldviews. These worldviews are: ‘this worldly’/non-religious (23%); indifferent (15%); spiritual but not religious (18%); religious and spiritual (8%); nominally religious (20%); and religiously committed (17%). Similar findings have been found when researching the spirituality of young people in England and Wales (Francis, Laycock, and Penny 2016). Here, 41% of young people defined themselves as neither religious nor spiritual; 8% religious and spiritual; and 40% were unsure about these categories. However, Francis, Laycock, and Penny (2016) also found a group of young people who defined themselves as religious but not spiritual. In the Netherlands as well, defining worldviews as a binary between religious or non-religious was recently noted to be unsuitable in research. Although the Finnish landscape of religions and worldviews is different from what it is in Australia, England and Wales, similar tendencies are likely to be seen in the Finnish context.

Diverse Finnish society in the 21st century

The young people who are the subjects of this study were all born and grew up in the post 9/11 world, when religion re-entered the public sphere through media and social media coverage. For them, the society they know did not change because of globalisation or digitalisation, and the superdiverse society of today (Vertovec 2007) is the only one they know and have experienced. In fact, changes in society had already taken place before they were born. After 2001, religion has become more visible in public discussions, and fundamentalist religion has increased in many parts of the world (Sinnemäki et al. 2019). Intercultural understanding and the countering of violent extremism have become some of the main foci of many Western governments, most notably in Europe as part of its re-oriented diversity policy (Council of Europe 2008).

To these young people, Finland has become more diverse than ever before for the following four reasons. The first concerns visible statistical changes. Every fourth child under school age in the Helsinki metropolitan area has a foreign background, the number of immigrants almost doubling over the last ten years (OSF 2018). The increased number of asylum seekers in Finland and in other Western countries has increased the need to understand religions to an even greater extent (Sinnemäki et al. 2019). Moreover, young people in Europe are more likely to encounter other youths with foreign backgrounds, especially Muslims, and as a result their attitudes towards religious diversity are more likely to be positive than those of older people (Yendell 2016).

Second is the visibility of diversity in the statistics. Diversity of gender and sexuality has become visible, while the compilation of statistics has changed. For example, new models of spiritualism and the possibility of defining one’s own personal worldview apart from nominal memberships has diversified the Finnish worldview landscape (Ketola 2020). This is related to the third reason, which is individualism and the need to define one’s own identity. As an example, personal worldviews have become more private (van der Kooij, de Ruyter, and Miedema 2013, 2017), and people have come to reject all kinds of ‘packaged religions’ (Bouma 2017), such as big world religions. They want to define for themselves their connection to spirituality, which has not statistically decreased (Ketola 2020). Finally, the fourth reason is diversity in public discussions. Public discussions about the diversity of sexuality, gender and equity are more broadly visible (Lehtonen 2019). Religiosity is more visible in politics and the media (Furseth 2018; Sinnemäki et al. 2019) even though the discussion in the Finnish context has mainly focused on the religiosity of other societies rather than the religiosity of their own society (Sinnemäki et al. 2019).

Sample and methods

The data of this study consist of 973 Finnish upper secondary school students’ answers to a quantitative survey. The majority of the participants (N = 580; 60%) described themselves as female, 40% (N = 388) as male, and 0.5% (N = 5) as something else. The participants came from different upper secondary schools in Finland, and both national languages, Finnish and Swedish, were represented. The Finnish-speaking youths (N = 575; 59%) constructed three groups based on the cities they came from. Two groups were medium-sized, one from the city of Pori (N = 176; 18%), which is on the west coast of Finland, and one from Joensuu (N = 175; 18%), from the eastern side of Finland. The largest group of students were from the capital city, Helsinki (N = 224; 23%). Swedish-speaking young people (N = 408; 41%) divided into two groups: students from the medium-sized cities of Kotka and Pori (N = 70; 7%), and students from Helsinki (N = 328; 34%). From the three-year Finnish upper secondary school, 542 students (56%) in this study were first-year students, 405 (42%) were second-year students, and only a few were third-year students (N = 26; 3%). The ages of the participants varied between 15 and 19, and three different age groups were calculated. These groups were those who were 16 years old or younger (N = 374; 38%), those who were 17 years old (N = 468; 48%), and those who were 18 or over (N = 130; 14%).

Participants answered the questionnaire anonymously during school lessons. The principals in the school organised the data based on what was collected by researchers in spring 2017 and 2018. In the survey, the students were asked to evaluate their spirituality and religiosity and their religious behaviour, the fluidity of their personal worldview, and the sources they used to construct their personal worldview. More detailed questions were presented along with the results. The material was analysed using the quantitative software, SPSS Statistics. The sample was analysed by basic statistical analysis (including frequencies, means, standard deviations, t-tests, factor analysis and sum variables).

Results

The aim of this study was to understand how young people evaluate their worldviews; how they conceptualise the possible spiritual and/or religious elements in their worldview; how they evaluate the fluidity of their personal worldviews; and where the influences for the construction of their personal worldviews come from. First, we present the results of the young people’s evaluations relating to religion by comparing our results with previous research. In the next section, we present the results on how young people evaluate the fluidity of their personal worldviews, and then we present the results on the sources of information for the construction of their personal worldviews.

The religiosity of Finnish youths’ personal worldviews

Overall, our analysis and recent studies by the Church Research Centre (Salomäki et al. 2020) of Finland show that young people’s personal worldviews do not correspond to nominal membership rates. In other words, the lived spirituality and religiosity of Finns is not occurring within the boundaries of institutional religion. Students were asked to evaluate their religiosity and religious behaviour by answering different questions (1 = not important at all, 5 = very important).

Our analysis shows that, overall, students consider that religion is not particularly important for them (M = 2.1; s = 1.1). Religion was a little more important for female students (M = 2.2; s = 1.2) than for male students (M = 2.0; s = 1.1). The difference between genders is highly significant (t = 3.5; df = 943; p = 0.000). Similar results have been found when researching the religiosity of Finns more broadly. More than 50% of Finns define themselves as religious, but identifying oneself as non-religious was five times more common among members of Generation Z than the oldest generation. Religion was important to only one out of five among those who were born between 1990 and 1999 (Ketola 2020, 40–41, 43). In addition, nominal membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church was more common among women than men (Sohlberg and Ketola 2020).

Based on the analysis, participation in religious activities was not common among Finnish youths. The majority of students participate in religious activities either very seldom or not at all (N = 710; 73%), and few of them participate often or very often (N = 111; 11.3%). Participation in religious activities and services has also decreased among Finns in general. One explanation for this is that religiosity is more likely to be seen as an individual matter than before, and religious traditions are not felt to be as important in life as significant turning points, such as birth and death (Salomäki 2020). This fits van der Kooij, de Ruyter, and Miedema’s (2013) idea about a more private personal worldview.

Religious upbringing within homes has decreased in Finland. Previous research indicates that parents raise their children to observe ‘traditional behaviour’, such as visiting the graves of relatives at Christmas and the baptism of infants, which they do not always see as religious, rather than giving them a religious upbringing. Previous research also highlights the confusion regarding the limits of religious upbringing when parents are not certain what is religious and what is culture (Hytönen, Ketola, and Salminen 2020). The conception of religious symbols and traditions as pertaining to culture (see Joppke 2018) was also found in our study. The majority of students (N = 588; 61%) seldom have a religious upbringing at home, and only a few students (N = 79; 8%) replied that religion is often visible in their home. One-third of the students (N = 294; 31%) estimated that religious practices had not been taught in their homes.

The fluidity of Finnish youths’ personal worldviews

The fluidity of the personal worldviews of young people was ascertained in the questionnaire by two questions. Students were first requested to evaluate why they consider themselves to belong to their particular religion or worldview, and second, they were asked how they consider themselves from the perspective of certain dimensions of religions or worldviews.

For the first question, there were seven different statements that students evaluated on a five-point scale (1 = totally disagree, 5 = totally agree). When considering all the students’ evaluations, the variation between means is notable (from 2.7 to 3.9). Figure 1 presents all the answers to these statements with means and a more detailed table with standard deviations. All the responses can be found in Table 1. Students strongly emphasised that their religion or other worldview is their own choice (M = 3.9; s = 1.1), with 68% (N = 628) of them agreeing or totally agreeing with the statement. Finnish young people’s emphasis on the importance of freedom in choosing and constructing one’s personal worldview has also been found in other studies about the worldviews of youths (Wallis 2019). Students also strongly agreed with the statement that they were born as members of the religion or other worldview that they nominally belong to (M = 3.6; s = 1.1). The majority of them (N = 621; 66%) chose between the two highest options. However, the students were not of the opinion that a nominal religion or other worldview defines who they are (M = 2.7; 2 = 1.2) or that their religion or other worldview tells them things that are important to them (M = 2.9; s = 1.2). It is obvious that the students do not emphasise these components in their personal worldview because they are not very religious and they do not practise religion, as has been previously shown.

Figure 1. Reasons to belong to a religion or other worldview.

Table 1. Why do you belong to your religion or worldview?

	Frequencies and percentages
Statement	1	2	3	4	5	M	SD	N
1. My religion/worldview is a part of my culture	96 11%	103 11%	227 25%	416 43%	94 10%	3,3	1,1	936
2. I was born as a member of this religion/worldview	77 8%	77 8%	170 18%	411 44%	210 22%	3,6	1,1	935
3. I share my religion/worldview with my family	138 15%	144 15%	214 23%	313 34%	118 13%	3,1	1,3	927
4. My religion/worldview is my own choice.	45 5%	77 8%	173 19%	293 32%	335 36%	3,9	1,1	926
5. My religion/worldview defines who I am	207 22%	184 20%	279 30%	181 20%	72 8%	2,7	1,2	932
6. My religion/worldview gives me help, joy and benefit	138 15%	152 16%	340 37%	207 23%	82 9%	3,0	1,1	919
7. My religion/worldview tells me things that are important to me	183 17%	140 15%	338 37%	210 23%	73 8%	2,9	1,2	924

Based on the factor analysis with the principal component analysis, we structured two sum variables: religion as a part of one’s personal worldview and religion as a part of one’s culture or environment. The varimax solution produced the most interpretative solution (see Appendix). The sum variables are shown in Table 2. Students emphasise their religion/worldview more as a part of their culture and environment (M = 3.4; s = 0.9) than as a part of their personal worldview (M = 2.8; s = 1.1). The difference is highly significant (t = 14.2; df = 878; p = 0.000). The gender-distinguishing evaluation shows that females (M = 3.4; s = 0.9) emphasise religion as part of their environment more than men (M = 3.2; s = 0.9). The difference is significant (t = 2.9; df = 907; p = 0.004). Furthermore, students’ language differentiates their evaluations: Finnish-speaking students (M = 3.0; s = 1.0) emphasise religion as a part of their personal worldview more than Swedish-speaking students (M = 2.6; s = 0.9). The difference is highly significant (t = 4.5; sd = 894; p = 0.000).

Table 2. Sum variables of students’ evaluations, how they see themselves as belonging in their religion or worldview: Means, standard devotions and alpha coefficient.

Sum variables	M	s	α
SUM 1 Religion/worldview is a part of my personal worldview	2,8	1,1	0,9
SUM 2 Religion/worldview is a part of my environment and culture	3,4	0,9	0,7

In the second question, students were required to evaluate how they see themselves from the perspective of certain dimensions of religions or worldviews (1 = not at all, 5 = very much). Our analysis shows that students did not strongly attach themselves to any dimensions of worldviews (see Figure 2). Only being tolerant was emphasised (M = 3.5; s = 1.3). They highlighted themselves as seekers (M = 1.6; s = 1.0) or as spiritual (M = 1.7; s = 1.1) least of all. Regarding oneself as religious (M = 2.0; s = 1.2) and as a believer (M = 2.0; s = 1.0) also received low evaluation rates. Being an atheist (M = 2.4; s = 1.4) or an agnostic (M = 2.4; s = 1.4) were evaluated as mildly popular and had the highest deviations.

Figure 2. Evaluations of dimensions of religions or other worldviews with regard to belonging.

The differentiation between the sum variables was also found between gender and language. Gender differentiated between students’ answers in many dimensions. For instance, girls (M = 2.2; sd = 1.1) regarded themselves as more religious than boys did (M = 2.0; sd = 1.0). The difference is highly significant (t = 3.4; df = 938; p = 0.001). Also, more girls (M = 2.0; sd = 1.2) considered themselves to be believers than boys (M = 1.8; sd = 1.0.) The difference is significant here as well (t = 2.7; df = 921; p = 0.007). Girls (M = 2.2; sd = 1.1) also evaluated themselves to be more spiritual than boys did (M = 1.8; s = 1.1), and they (M = 3.7; s = 1.2) thought of themselves as more tolerant than boys did (M = 3.2; s = 1.3). In both of these cases, the difference is highly significant (t = 4.9; df = 910; p = 0.000, and t = 5.2; df = 897; p = 0.000). Based on these results, it seems logical that boys (M = 2.9; sd = 1.3) evaluated themselves to be more agnostic than girls did (M = 2.6; sd = 1.2). The difference is highly significant (t = 3.6; p = 0.000; df = 908). Furthermore, more boys (M = 2.5; s = 1.2) saw themselves as atheistic than girls (M = 2.5; sd = 1.2). The difference is significant here as well (t = 3.2; p = 0.002; df = 920). Comparing these results to an Australian study shows that boys do not believe in God as much as girls, but girls define themselves as seekers more often than boys. However, in many cases gender does not explain the differences between personal worldviews (Singleton et al. 2021).

Language also distinguished students’ opinions: the Finnish-speaking students (M = 2.2; sd = 1.2) evaluated themselves to be more spiritual than the Swedish-speaking students did (M = 1.8; s = 1.0), and the Finnish-speaking students (M = 3.8; sd = 1.1) considered themselves more tolerant than the Swedish-speaking students did (M = 3.0; sd = 1.3). The difference is highly significant in both cases (t = 4.0; df = 915 and t = 10.3; df = 920; p = 0.000). More detailed information, including all the means and deviations, can be found in Table 3.

Table 3. Students evaluate how they see themselves from the perspective of certain dimensions of their worldview.

I consider myself to be … .	Frequencies and percentages
	1	2	3	4	5	M	SD	N
religious	325 34%	315 34%	198 21%	77 8%	30 3%	2,0	1,2	945
a seeker in worldview questions	512 55%	214 23%	138 15%	51 6%	11 1%	1,6	1,0	926
a believer	440 47%	236 25%	128 14%	87 10%	37 4%	2,0	1,0	928
spiritual	394 43%	243 27%	158 17%	92 10%	31 3%	1,7	1,1	917
an atheist	339 37%	229 25%	137 15%	149 16%	73 8%	2,4	1,4	927
a sceptic in worldview questions ‘an agnostic’	178 20%	285 31%	189 21%	167 18%	96 10%	2,4	1,4	915
tolerant	93 10%	107 12%	196 22%	274 30%	234 26%	3,5	1,3	904

Sources for constructing one’s personal worldview

The third aim of this research was to study what sources influence the students in the construction of their personal worldviews. Students were asked to evaluate how important different people or sources were when constructing their personal worldviews (1 = not important at all, 5 = very important). The most effective sources of information were the Internet (M = 3.6; sd = 1.3) and school (M = 3.5; sd = 1.1). Almost 60% estimated that the Internet (N = 547; 59%) and school (N = 525; 57%) are important or very important sources of information. As can be seen in Figure 3, youths evaluated that all the other sources (family, religious community, social media, friends, newspapers, radio and TV) were not important or were not important at all. More detailed information, including all the means and deviations, can be found in Table 4.

Figure 3. Sources of information for the construction of one’s personal worldview.

Table 4. Sources of information for the construction of one’s personal worldview.

Sources	Frequencies and percentage
	1	2	3	4	5	M	Sd.	N
Family	192 21%	222 24%	247 26%	211 23%	60 6%	2,7	1,2	932
School	73 8%	87 9%	238 26%	410 44%	125 13%	3,5	1,1	933
Friends	216 23%	234 25%	303 33%	125 14%	42 5%	2,5	1,1	920
Religious Community (e.g., congregation or group)	202 22%	159 17%	244 26%	218 24%	100 11%	2,8	1,3	923
Books	171 19%	185 20%	260 28%	241 26%	65 7%	2,8	1,2	922
Newspapers, radio and TV	188 20%	194 21%	320 35%	194 21%	29 3%	2,6	1,1	925
Internet	91 10%	82 9%	212 23%	318 34%	229 25%	3,6	1,3	932
Social media	217 23%	199 22%	287 31%	180 20%	43 5%	2,6	1,2	926

Gender makes a difference in the evaluations: girls clearly emphasised family (M = 2.8; sd = 1.2), friends (M = 2.6; sd = 1.1) and social media (M = 2.8; sd = 1.1) as a source of information more than boys (family M = 2.5; sd = 1.2; friends M = 2.3; sd = 1.1; and social media M = 2.3; sd = 1.1). The differences in all these cases are highly significant (family t = 3.5; p = 925; p = 0.001; friends t = 4.1; df = 913; p = 0.000; and social media t = 6.5; sd = 919; p = 0.000). These differences may be explained by girls’ more general attachment to social relationships than boys’, and they therefore potentially place more emphasis on family, friends and social media as sources of information on worldview issues.

Discussion and conclusions

Overall, the findings that we present here illustrate that nominal membership in religious communities does not explain the personal worldviews and spirituality of young people. Finnish young people do not see religion as important to them, and they seldom or never attend religious services. Similar findings are found among Finns in general, but this trend is more accentuated in the younger generation (Ketola 2020; Salomäki 2020). The majority of young people do not receive a religious upbringing at home, and it is therefore assumed that they will not raise their own children religiously in the future. Religion has in many ways become a part of culture, while religiosity has been described as having been diluted in religious traditions (see Berglund 2013). This is visible especially when parents in Finland raise their children to observe religious traditions but without teaching them religion (Hytönen, Ketola, and Salminen 2020.)

This study shows that young people see religion more as a part of their culture and environment than as a part of their personal worldview. Sinnemäki et al. (2019) argue that Lutheranism has maintained its position as a national historical and cultural symbol even though religion is no longer considered to be a practical guide for peoples’ personal lives. The changing of religion into culture has been argued to be one of the main reasons why the Christian religion still maintains its special status as the nominal religion of the majority in Western countries (Joppke 2018; see also Furseth 2018). However, Finland is also a statistically more diverse society than ever before. Because of this, and in light of the results of this study regarding the fluidity of young people’s personal worldviews, it is necessary to ask whose religion has turned into culture? Even though young people emphasise religion more as a part of their culture than their personal worldviews, they are very fluid and non-attached to Lutheran religion.

The school’s role in the construction of young people’s personal worldviews is still crucial, and alongside of the Internet, schools are the most important source of information. Our results show that the personal worldviews of young people are fluid and mixed, and nominal membership in religious communities does not describe the lived reality of spirituality, religiosity and worldviews in young people’s lives. In the light of this result, the justification for organising worldview education in Finnish schools based on nominal membership in religious communities is not convincing. Rather, as the findings point to the ‘messiness’ of personal worldviews both among and within individual youths, we argue that the worldview education model should be rethought and revised in order to accommodate better both societal diversity and the needs as well as the active personal choices of pupils. Earlier models are no longer suitable for the diverse society of young people in the 21^st century because they do not represent their religiosity and worldviews. We suggest, based on the results of this study, that schools should continue to provide education about religions and worldviews, but the main focus of this education should be to give tools to support young people’s own worldview construction.

In addition, as Zilliacus, Paulsrud and Holm (2017) have noted, the Finnish curriculum needs to be revisedwith regard to the fluidity of personal worldviews. According to them, the worldview identities represented in the curriculum are still very fixed, and they need to be changed to reflect the diversity and, perhaps even more importantly, the fluidity of personal worldviews. One possible approach to deal with these concepts in Finland, as in Canada (Michaelson 2021), could be to use the term ‘spirituality’ rather than ‘religiosity’, because it allows pupils the opportunity to define the sacral and spirituality for themselves. We recommend that the whole curriculum should be modified to support pupils’ holistic growth, without assuming fixed models for worldviews or any other aspects of identity.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Lipiäinen Tuuli

Lipiäinen Tuuli (M.Ed.) is a lecturer in Normal Lyceum of Helsinki and Doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki. Her research interests include teacher profession, worldviews in educational context, and integrated worldview education. https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/tuuli-kristiina-lipi%C3%A4inen

Kuusisto Arniika

Kuusisto Arniika is Professor (Early Childhood Education) at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, and Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Education, University of Oxford. Her research includes Academy of Finland projects ”Growing up radical? The role of educational institutions in guiding young people's worldview construction” (2018–2023) and ”Child in Time – Existential Resilience in Early Childhood” (2023–2027). https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/arniika-kuusisto

Kallioniemi Arto

Kallioniemi Arto is Professor of Religious Education (since 2001). He also holds the UNESCO chair on Values, Dialogue and Human Rights. He has published several books and articles related worldview education, human rights education and leadership. https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/fi/persons/arto-kallioniemi

Appendix

Factor matrix (Rotated Component Matrix Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization and Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.

Table

	1	2	α
SUM 1 Religion/worldview is a part of a personal worldview			0,87
5. My religion/worldview defines who I am	0,885
7. My religion/worldview tells me things that are important to me	0,883
6. My religion/worldview gives me help, joy and benefit	0,845
SUM 2 Religion/worldview is a part of my environment and culture			0,73
2. I was born as a member of this religion/worldview		0,883
3. I share my religion/worldview with my family		0,778
1. My religion/worldview is a part of my culture		0,667
The variable 4. “Religion/worldview is my own choice” has been left out of the solution