Socioeconomic rights include rights with regard to social security, labour and employment, as well as cultural rights which may be regarded as a shield for the protection of human dignity, especially of specific groups, such as women, children and refugees. The enforceability of socioeconomic rights clearly distinguishes them from other rights. These rights need, perhaps more than others, the support of civil society. Because states have leeway in how resources are distributed, civil society has a major impact on what resources are used to fulfil socio-economic rights. One of the actors in the public arena are religious traditions, respective Churches. Most of them have developed ethical standards for individual conduct and rules for living together in society based on their basic scriptures. All three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are marked by a caring engagement for the poor, the sick, the old and the foreign. From an empirical perspective, the general research question of this volume is how young people understand and evaluate socioeconomic rights and to which degree religious convictions and practices are connected with attitudes towards these human rights. Can religion be identified as a force supporting the human rights regime and which additional concepts strengthen or weaken the consent to these rights? The richness of empirical data contributes to a better understanding how socioeconomic rights are legitimated in the opinion of more than 10.000 respondents in 14 countries.

This volume is about the impact of religion (beliefs and practices) on attitudes towards human rights of the first, second and third generation. The first four papers about the impact of Lutheranism, Calvinism, Catholicism and Islam are historical and theoretical of character. The six other papers are based on empirical research in England and Wales, Germany, Turkey, India, Norway and on comparative empirical research in six North-West European countries. From both groups of articles it appears that ‘the’ impact of religion does not exist. In varying historical periods and contexts various religions, c.q. religious denominations, have various effects on attitudes towards human rights, i.e. positive effects (+), ambivalent effects (±), no effects (0), and negative effects (−). Contributors include: Francis-Vincent Anthony, Pal Ketil Botvar, Selim Eren, Leslie Francis, Üzejir Ok, Ruud Peters, Marion Reindl, Mandy Robbins, Rik Torfs, Johannes (Hans) van der Ven, John Witte Jr., Hans-Georg Ziebertz

This volume presents the most recent joint study of the research group Religion and Human Rights. This text is comprised of studies carried out in twelve countries and divided into three parts according to their respective tree continents. Almost 10,000 youths have participated and all chapters deal with the question of whether and to what extent religious or worldview convictions hinder or favor the support of human rights. Studies are comparative on multiple levels because of the many religious groups and countries. The studies take into account personal, religious and socio-cultural differences, showing the ambivalent role of religion in the striving to make the world safer, more democratic, just, and compassionate thru human rights. This text appeals to students and researchers.

This text highlights key aspects of the religion/church-state relationship/debate, and related hitherto marginal topics. The contributions make clear that there is no clear blueprint for an optimal relationship between religion/church and state. Individual states and countries are analysed on the granular level for example, to address mono-religious against poly-religious as well as secular societies. Among others, chapters address education, migration and politics against religion as well as the effect of LGBTQ+ communities on religion and societies. This collected volume appeals to researchers, and students working in religious studies and political science.

In recent years, the relevance of religious freedom has spread well beyond academia, becoming a reference point for international relations, multi-level policy development, as well as interfaith negotiations. Meanwhile, scholarship on religious freedom has flourished on the boundaries of sociology, law, comparative politics, history, and theology. This book presents a systematic sociological analysis of religious freedom, bringing together classical sociological theories and empirical perspectives developed during the last three decades. It addresses three major questions involved in any sociology of religious freedom. First: considering its complex and controversial nature, how can religious freedom be defined? Second: what are the recurrent sociological conditions and relevant social perceptions that will foster an understanding of religious freedom in varying political, legal, and socioreligious contexts? And third, what are the mechanisms of social implementation of religious freedom that contribute to making it a fundamental value in a society? Olga Breskaya, Giuseppe Giordan, and James T. Richardson suggest that a sociological definition of religious freedom requires us to take into account historical, philosophical, legal, religious, and political considerations of a given society-and that the social dimensions of religious freedom are as important as the legal ones.

This book examines the interconnectedness between religion, education, and human rights from an international perspective using an interdisciplinary approach. It deals with compulsory or secondary school education in different contexts, as well as higher education, and has as its common theme the multiplicity of secularisms in different national contexts. Presenting rich cases, the contributions include empirical and theoretical perspectives on how international trends of migration and cultural diversity, as well as judicialization of social and political processes, and rapid religious and social changes come into play as societies find their way in an increasingly diverse context. The book contains chapters that present case studies on how confessional or non-confessional Religious Education (RE) at schools in different societal contexts is related to the concept of universal human rights. It presents cases studies that display an intriguing array of problems that point to the role of religion in the public sphere and show that historical contexts play important and different roles. Other contributions deal with higher education, where one questions how human rights as a concept and as discourse is taught and examines whether withdrawing from certain clinical training when in university education to become a medical doctor or a midwife on the grounds of conscientious objections can be claimed as a human right. From a judicial point of view one chapter discerns the construction of the concept of religion in the Swedish Education Act, in relation to the Swedish constitution as well European legislation. Finally, an empirical study comparing data from young people in six different countries in three continents investigates factors that explain attitudes towards human rights.