Podcast: Religious identity development in strictly Reformed contexts

Finding one's own way

In this episode our guest is Anne-Marije de Bruin-Wassinkmaat. She did a qualitative research on a group of eighteen young adults who were raised in strictly Reformed contexts in The Netherlands. In this podcast she will share insights, findings and outcomes of this study, which is called Finding one's own way: Exploring the religious identity development of emerging adults raised in strictly Reformed contexts in the Netherlands.

The voice of young adults raised in strictly Reformed contexts

There is a lot of public debate about strictly Reformed young people, especially in the light of education in strictly Reformed school settings. Many of these debates are based on images, stereotypes and biases, but there is hardly any evidence-based research on strictly Reformed young people. The lack of research on this group was one of the reasons for the research. Her research intended to listen to the voice of young people themselves.

In this podcast you will hear what makes strictly Reformed young people different from any other orthodox group. Also, you will hear why the identity theory of Erikson-Marcia is not working with this group, and how De Bruin came to the distinction of several religious identity commitments. She also shares some unexpected findings in this research: the fact that many emerging adults raised in strictly Reformed do not feel good about themselves in relation to God and others, and we talk about the implications for religious identity development.