Measuring Religiosity in East Asia

Session Formats: Regular session

Session description:

When measuring religiosity, scholars from Western societies have traditionally focused on the three “B”s ––belief, behavior and belonging–– as indicators. However, in East Asia, where its main features of religious cultures are embedded in morals and customs (such as Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism), the traditional indicators are not sensitive enough for measuring religiosity. Accordingly, the development of alternative measures of religiosity has attracted much attention in recent years among scholars. Perhaps, religious embeddedness in daily lives is not so particular in East Asian religiosity but rather a basic factor of religions in general, unless one takes the perspective of a confessional church that demands strong belief, consistent behavior and formal membership. Then other than focusing on the three “B”s, what methodological advance to measuring religiosity can be taken? We might be able to gain some insight through examining (in)equivalence of existing measures between East Asian and Western societies, or we might need to start from constructing new measurement theories which can lead us to develop completely new survey instrument.

Our core question is how we can measure religiosity in societies where there is no dominant historic religion. Not only scholars on East Asian religions but also scholars on Western religious cultures are also welcome to join this session. We invite scholars to bring empirical survey data for the discussion as well as to share their theoretical/methodological ideas on the question.