Uncertainty, reconstruction and resistance: young adults’ responses to religious diversity in Spain and the UK

Abstract

Young people in diverse societies routinely encounter worldviews different from their own, but we know relatively little about how these encounters affect them. This study investigated how young adults in Britain and Spain respond to encounters with other worldviews, focusing on whether and how their existing worldviews were affected. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 participants. Thematic and narrative analyses revealed three main responses: uncertainty, reconstruction and resistance. Encounters with alternative worldviews often led young people to feel uncertain about their own beliefs, particularly those which they understood to be contradicted by the alternative worldview. Reconstruction occurred when participants adopted elements of newly encountered worldviews to create an idiosyncratic religiosity or spirituality. Resistance captured those instances where participants dismissed alternative worldviews as epistemologically or morally problematic. The findings indicate that young people in the UK and Spain are responding in several distinct ways to religious diversity.