Growing Up Godless: Non-Religious Childhoods in Contemporary England
May 2025 · Princeton University Press
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About this ebook
How children’s non-belief and non-religion are formed in everyday life
The number of those identifying as “non-religious” has risen rapidly in Britain and many other parts of Europe and North America. Although non-religion and non-belief are especially prevalent among younger people, we know little about the experience of children who are growing up without religion. In Growing Up Godless, Anna Strhan and Rachael Shillitoe fill this scholarly gap, examining how, when, where, and with whom children in England learn to be non-religious and non-believing. Drawing on in-depth interviews and extensive ethnographic fieldwork with children, their parents, and teachers, Strhan and Shillitoe offer a pioneering account of what these children believe in and care about and how they navigate a social landscape of growing religious diversity.
Moving beyond the conventional understanding of non-religion as merely the absence of religion, Strhan and Shillitoe show how children’s non-religion and non-belief emerge in relation to a pervasive humanism—centering the agency, significance, and achievements of humans and values of equality and respect—interwoven in their homes, schools, media, and culture. Their findings offer important new insight into the rise and formation of non-religious identities and, more broadly, the ways that children’s beliefs and values are shaped in contemporary society.
The number of those identifying as “non-religious” has risen rapidly in Britain and many other parts of Europe and North America. Although non-religion and non-belief are especially prevalent among younger people, we know little about the experience of children who are growing up without religion. In Growing Up Godless, Anna Strhan and Rachael Shillitoe fill this scholarly gap, examining how, when, where, and with whom children in England learn to be non-religious and non-believing. Drawing on in-depth interviews and extensive ethnographic fieldwork with children, their parents, and teachers, Strhan and Shillitoe offer a pioneering account of what these children believe in and care about and how they navigate a social landscape of growing religious diversity.
Moving beyond the conventional understanding of non-religion as merely the absence of religion, Strhan and Shillitoe show how children’s non-religion and non-belief emerge in relation to a pervasive humanism—centering the agency, significance, and achievements of humans and values of equality and respect—interwoven in their homes, schools, media, and culture. Their findings offer important new insight into the rise and formation of non-religious identities and, more broadly, the ways that children’s beliefs and values are shaped in contemporary society.
About the author
Anna Strhan is reader in sociology at the University of York. She is the author of The Figure of the Child in Contemporary Evangelicalism and Aliens and Strangers? The Struggle for Coherence in the Everyday Lives of Evangelicals. Rachael Shillitoe is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of Negotiating Religion and Non-religion in Childhood: Experiences of Worship in School.
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