Applied research of religious identity in the process of selfcategorization of students’ identity

Abstract

The article presents the results of applied research of religious identity conducted on the basis of the Law Department of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and “Turan” University. Research object – students. The defining moment in case of a choice of an object of a research was that due to specific psychological conditions, aggravated perception of social injustice, dynamism, presence of protest potential, students can easily fall under the influence of politicians or religious radicals. Subject of research – is the religious identity as a social and psychological phenomenon. The research hypothesis – religious identity takes the important place in self-characteristics of students and is determined by personal, ethnic, gender, and age features. Research aim –is to study the role of religious identity as important social and psychological construct which characterizes the processes of individual’s subjective reflection in the social reality. Research methods – the “Self-attitudes test” developed by M. Kuhn and T. McPartland. Extrapolating E. Eriksson’s conclusions that crises become the turning points in development of the personality and forms the elements of new identity, and S. Moskovichi’s idea that in a certain life situation one of identities becomes the leading in the hierarchy of person’s social identities, we have built modified group identification matrix, in accordance with the purpose and aims of our research context. During the research we have received a palette of answers which quantification has given us the chance to make idea of a priority status – role identities of students in as representatives of a certain ethnic group. Having generalized results of the conducted research, we came to a conclusion that today religious identity takes the important place in system of a self-categorization of the identity of students and determined by personal, ethnic, gender, and age features.