Family trajectories on beliefs ans religious attitudes in Argentina

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to understand the role of family in the transmision and the development of religious identities in contemporary Argentina. We will analyze some of the results of the Second National Survey on Religious Beliefs and Attitudes in Argentina, taken by CEIL-CONICET. We will show that family presents a significative role in religious transmission and that most Argentinians come from families where religion was present. This is expressed in the amount of people that acknowledge their families as the origin of their orientations in religious matters, the identification of fathers and mothers with institutionalized religions, the levels of baptisms and marriages in temples, and the perceptions about religiosity in the families of origin. We will also show the coexistence between a tendency towards baptisms and other types of initiation rituals, and a growth in the value given to children’s autonomy from the religion of their parents in relation to the 2008 survey.