Why Religious Norms Matter: Diverse and Developing Religious Norms in Practice, Conflict, and Tolerance

Session Type: Conversation Roundtable

Abstract

All religions have norms for how to act. Religious norms guide and regulate religious practices. Many norms are unique to each religion, telling adherents how to worship, when to fast, or how to dress. But religious norms can also cause conflict (e.g., when they are applied to members of other religions) and discrimination (e.g., when women and men are subject to different norms).

Children and youth who grow up in or around religious communities acquire, apply, follow, and sometimes reject religious norms. These processes pose particular challenges for children in pluralistic societies: A Muslim youth may wonder why they are supposed to fast during Ramadan when their Hindu or Jewish classmates are free to eat.

Recently, much research and debate has centered on the acquisition and application of religious norms across development. What is the importance of norms for children? Do children conceptualize religious norms differently from moral norms or social conventions? How do religious norms contribute to, and interact with, group identity? In what ways do children justify why they should follow religious norms? And how do religious children’s inter- and intra-group experiences and religious beliefs shape their views of norms?

Here, four cross-cultural scholars with differing perspectives on religious norms will discuss current controversies. The panelists will identify points of consensus and articulate outstanding questions about how children and youth acquire and apply religious norms, and how these developments shape life, conflict, and tolerance in their communities.

Moderator: Audun Dahl, University of California, Santa Cruz

Sub Unit

• Moral Development

Session Organizer

• Gil Diesendruck, Bar Ilan University

Moderator

• Audun Dahl, University of California - Santa Cruz

Panelists

• Larisa Heiphetz Solomon, Columbia University

• Tamar Kushnir, Duke Univeristy

• Cristine H. Legare, University of Texas at Austin

• Mahesh Srinivasan, University of California - Berkeley