Abstract
Growing Up Godless: Non-Religious Childhoods in Contemporary England is an interesting, lively, and innovative study of the lives and experiences of nonreligious children (ages 7 to 11) in England. The qualitative methods used are exemplary and well-rounded, drawing on multiple schools as research sites and employing a combination of interviews, ethnography, and visual anthropology. In addition to the children who serve as the focal point of the study, the authors also draw on extensive interviews with parents, providing a rich, textured analysis of religious change and transmission across generations.
Anna Strhan and Rachael Shillitoe chose their different research sites with the goal of studying diverse educational settings to see how religion (or secularism) is infused into different kinds of schools. Consequently, they selected an urban location, a middle-class suburban location, and a rural location. The authors engaged in ethnographic fieldwork at each site, followed by interviews with children and their parents from each school. For interviews, a screening question was used to select for children who reported that they did not believe in God. In all, the authors conducted interviews with 117 children and 55 parents/caregivers. They also used interesting visual methods drawn from studies of lived religion, asking the children to take photographs of places or things that were important to them and then asking about those photos in interviews. The book is structured into chapters focused on beliefs and worldview, the views of parents, the role of education and school environment, the aesthetic substance of secular beliefs and identity, and views of morality and ethics.
The book does an excellent job outlining the substantive content of kids’ beliefs about religion, ethics, and the world around them. A particularly interesting aspect of this is what the authors call small-h humanism, as contrasted with philosophical, historical, and organized forms of Humanism. Rather than identifying with explicitly humanist traditions, the children in the study instead implicitly identify with humanist ethics and ideas about individual rights and autonomy. The authors show how these views are derived from social resources both at home and at school. At home, secular parents’ insistence on letting children “make up their own minds” about religion effectively modeled the principles of autonomy and authenticity. At school, scholastic emphasis on math, science, and the humanities, along with ethical principles of pluralism and tolerance, often derived from religious education, provided students with the necessary ingredients for forming (de facto) secular humanist outlooks that were diffuse and diverse, rather than organizational and staid.
This not to say that children’s worlds are devoid of enchantment. Indeed, one of the most interesting aspects of the study is its exploration of subjunctive beliefs on matters such as ghosts, aliens, and magical creatures. The authors show how disbelief in God does not necessarily mean disbelief in all things supernatural, and they illustrate how such beliefs play an important role in social connections to others, particularly in terms of entertainment and fun.
Regarding processes of secularization, the study provides an on-the-ground look at how the receding of traditional religion inevitably leads to a disenchanted world in some ways, but also opens up space for the exploration of a variety of non-institutionalized forms of supernaturalism. It would truly be fascinating to check back with these same students as adults to see whether their worldviews remain populated with paranormalism, or whether those interests fade as the children grow up.
Speaking of secularization, another useful aspect of the study is its rich and detailed look at changes in religious transmission across generations. The interviews with parents provide an informative contrast to the kids in a number of ways. Notably, many of the parents were openly opposed to organized religion as a response to the intensive forms of religious socialization they received as children. In contrast, the current generation of children exemplified a much more casual form of secularity that was not particularly bothered about religion. In the differences shown across the views of parents and children we can see interesting evidence of religious change across cohorts in Britain, as well as key differences in the outlooks toward religion expressed by apostates as compared to “cradle nones.”
Another innovative and helpful aspect of the study is how it outlines the role of schools in general, and religious education in particular, in helping children define what it means to be non-religious. The way the study sits at the intersection of the sociology of religion and the sociology of education is particularly insightful. For instance, many of the children do not seem to have definitive ideas about themselves as secular until they are, in effect, confronted by their own differences within the rituals and teachings delivered through public religious education. In other words, their secularity is often tacit and unproblematic until they are forced to participate in religious education efforts that make their differences with religion visible, tangible, and visceral to the students. This (rather ironic) consequence of compulsory religious education—making secular students more aware of their own nonreligious identities—is detailed with careful nuance, using interesting examples and stories.
Lastly, the study does an excellent job detailing the actual substance of secular worldviews, and thus positively moving beyond the conceptualization of nonreligion as the absence of something. Instead, the authors carefully document the presence of positive beliefs, practices, and morals among secular young people. We see how the children in the study value lateral transcendence, prioritizing their relationships with family and friends as the most important aspects of their lives. We see how they typically value and socially extol individual rights, social equality, and environmentalism. We see how they are reflexive and thoughtful, leading lives that are not devoid of meaning, but rather rich and socially engaged.
Overall, the book makes an extremely valuable addition to the research literature on secularization and secular identity by virtue of its rigorous methods and unique study population. Children are vastly understudied in general, and in secular studies especially. Beyond secularity, the book is a fascinating study of the social functions of belief more generally. This is perhaps ironic, given that the subject is ostensibly nonbelief, but the authors do an excellent job of showing that disbelief in God does not preclude other kinds of beliefs, and also demonstrating that secular worldviews are not empty, but rather full and vital, with strong moral orientations focused on social equality, individual autonomy, and environmentalism.
The book will be of great interest to social scientists who study religion, education, family dynamics, and British culture. It is eminently readable and does an admirable job distilling an immense amount of research into coherent yet nuanced themes and narratives. Highly recommended.