Putting a Q into the Study of Religions

Observations from a Global Study with the Faith Q-Sort

Authors

  • Peter Nynäs Åbo Akademi University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33356/temenos.116001

Keywords:

Religion, methodology, typology, family resemblance, Q methodology, Faith Q-sort, Spirituality, non-religion

Abstract

The Young Adults and Religion in a Global Perspective (YARG) research project implemented a cross-cultural, comparative, and mixed-method study of religious subjectivities in twelve countries worldwide. At the core of YARG was the use and development of the Faith Q-Sort (FQS), originally designed by David Wulff (2019). The FQS is based on Q methodology and a novel method in the study. Religion as an object of study has become increasingly evasive, and the FQS met our ambition of finding sensitive ways to assess contemporary religiosity in an international perspective. This article seeks to describe the project with a specific focus on the FQS. I draw here on other publications from the project, and our use of the FQS is further exemplified by two of the main analyses we conducted: the bird’s-eye view of the shared patterns of being religious in the international sample, and the exploration of cross-cultural variations of these patterns across our country-specific cases.

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Published

2022-06-17

How to Cite

Nynäs, P. (2022). Putting a Q into the Study of Religions : Observations from a Global Study with the Faith Q-Sort . Temenos - Nordic Journal for the Study of Religion, 58(1), 7–40. https://doi.org/10.33356/temenos.116001

Issue

Vol. 58 No. 1 (2022): Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion

Section

Temenos lecture

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Peter Nynäs

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