Comparison of national and religious identities of secondary school students in Croatia and Slovenia

• Project leader (Croatia): Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Centre for Research in Social Inequalities and Sustainability
• Project leader (Slovenia): School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana
• Project duration: 1st January 2020 – 31st December 2022

After initially using the comparative quantitative data of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), this project is a self-standing research study based on a qualitative sociological and anthropological insight into diverse identities of secondary school pupils in Croatia and Slovenia. The bilateral collaboration between Slovenia and Croatia includes an upgrade to the ISSP quantitative methodological approach, consisting of mutual qualitative research. Based on existing collaboration, this research will focus on two mutually connected research concepts – the national and the non/religious identity of the young, and their development among youth in both countries.
The aim of the project is to enrich scholarly knowledge on the national identity of youth in Croatia and Slovenia through the prism of their personal non/religiosity. The interrelations between the ethnic and national identities, and the European identity, will be explored. The existing knowledge, acquired from various research, suggests that both countries share many contextual similarities (besides the common historical experience during the previous system and country, they share close demographic characteristics and the political and cultural development in the previous decades), and significant specific differences that contribute to different outcomes regarding the construction of various social identities of the young. One of them is religiosity, which is much underrepresented among the young in Slovenia, while among the young in Croatia it is a rather significant characteristic of individual and social identification. Hence, our research questions are focused on the dominant cultural values in both milieus that shape the specificities and connectedness of the national and non/religious identity in Croatia and Slovenia.