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Conferences and Presentations

Understanding Youth and
Christian Youth Work in Civil Society

The Second International Conference on
Confirmation and Christian Youth Work in Europe

KIFO, Centre for Church Research
Oslo, Norway
29 – 30 May 2012

 

Plenary Speakers:
Professor Friedrich Schweitzer (Department of Protestant Theology at Tübingen University)
Researcher Dag Wollebæk (Uni Research/Institute for Social Research, ISF)
Professor Heid Leganger-Krogstad (Norwegian School of Theology, MF)

After decades of looking at religion as a private matter, recent studies show that religion contributes to social interaction and social participation. Religion creates networks of personal relationships within religious organizations, bonds of trust, knowledge and competencies with the potential to strengthen the conditions for collective actions. The new public role that religion has to come to play in terms of social, ethical and political involvement appears to influence people in Western societies. These general theses must be evaluated in the light of confirmation and Christian youth work. Do confirmation and Christian youth work create civic engagement and social connectedness? Do confirmation and Christian youth work introduce young people to and activate them for voluntary work? What kind of impact does the church have on young people's social life and personal wellbeing? Do confirmation and Christian youth work give young people an individual quest for meaning and values?
This interdisciplinary conference is bringing academics and practitioners together to discuss this theme. Abstracts are invited on the conference theme, especially on:

  • Investigation of confirmation and Christian youth work from a societal perspective
  • The impact of confirmation on individual outcomes, e.g. in attitudes, prosperities, deviance
  • The social processes of experiences of belonging and marginalization in Christian youth work
  • The impact of individualism on institutional religion
  • The religious orientation and worldviews of young people
  • Methodological approaches to study confirmation and Christian youth work
  • Christian youth work  and socialization into democratic values
  • The impact of the resurgent secularism and ‘the New Atheism’ on Christian youth work
  • Confirmands' learning processes
  • Changes in attitudes to voluntary work
  • Ethical commitment of young people in Christian youth work

Please submit abstracts (300 words max) by 1 February 2012 to Ida Marie Høeg at: ida.marie.hoeg@kifo.no Abstracts for 25-minute papers and a response of 15 minutes are welcomed. Acceptance notification: 1 March 2012
Please check the network’s home page for conference updates: www.confirmation-research.eu

invitation and call for papers

preliminary programme of the Oslo conference 2012

 

Presentations in the past

see Publications