Solidarity is core to Europe's societal organisation and was intensively addressed in recent research. Using data collected before and during the lockdown in spring 2020, we examine whether value orientations towards solidarity changed in three countries (Spain, Hungary, and Romania). Before the pandemic, people in Spain expressed higher solidarity than people in Hungary and Romania. Our argument claims that when facing uncertainty, people react negatively, and turn to egocentric values. However, successful state intervention decreases uncertainty and boosts solidarity. Personal experience of a crisis increases caring for others, at least in the short term. Our findings reveal increasing solidarity in Hungary and Romania and stagnant levels in Spain, thus decreasing the distance between these societies. Direct exposure to the virus and the negative experiences associated with it are related to higher solidarity but in different ways across countries. In Spain and Romania, personally knowing someone who is infected corresponds to higher levels of solidarity, while in Hungary being in confinement is associated with increased solidarity. The duration of the lockdown matters. In Romania and in Hungary, high levels of solidarity at the beginning of the lockdown decreased over time but started to increase again after several weeks into the lockdown.

Az elmúlt évtizedek alatt az egyházi fenntartású oktatási intézmények oktatási rendszerbeli aránya fokozatosan nőtt. Mivel csökkenőben van a magukat az egyház tanítása szerint vallásosnak vallók aránya a fiatalok körében, a szektor növekedésével párhuzamosan nő a vallásos neveltetésben nem, vagy csak részben részesülő tanulók aránya az egyházi iskolákban. Korábbi elemzéseink az egyházi iskola vallásosságra gyakorolt mérsékelt, de szignifikáns hatását mutatták ki. Jelen tanulmányban azt vizsgáljuk, hogy hogyan hat az egyházi iskola a fiatalok vallásosságára és értékrendjére. Az elemzéshez a Magyar Ifjúság 2016 adatbázist használtuk. Eredményeink szerint az otthoni vallásos neveltetés befolyása meghatározó, az egyházi iskolák a fiatalok vallásos identitását és vallásgyakorlatának kialakulását jelentősen támogatják, de a hittartalmak és az értékpreferenciák tekintetében nem gyakorolnak hatást a fiatalokra.

The proportion of people who receive a religious upbringing at home and attend religious educational institutions varies across time and space. It is debatable how effectively various forms of religious socialization contribute to shaping one’s religious identity. In Hungary, the proportion of young people receiving a religious upbringing is declining, but the church-run school sector is growing, which is accompanied by an increase in the proportion of pupils in a church-run school who do not receive a religious upbringing at home. This provides an opportunity to compare the impact of different socialization settings on religiosity. In the present study, we investigate how religious upbringing at home, church school attendance, and participation in religious education affect the different dimensions of young people’s religiosity, hypothesizing that religious education within the family is decisive; but without it, the effect of the church school cannot be observed. For the analysis, we used data from the questionnaire-based Hungarian Youth Survey 2016 and 2020. Our results show that the influence of religious upbringing at home is dominant, but church schools significantly support young people’s religious identity and practice without having an impact on the content of young people’s beliefs and value preferences.

Szekularizáció? Deszekularizáció? Merre tart a vallási változás a világban?

This paper investigates the complex interrelation between national identity and religion in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), moving beyond binary conceptualizations by integrating multiple forms of national belonging, religiosity, and spirituality. Drawing on data from the Pew Research Center’s Religious Belief and National Belonging in Central and Eastern Europe survey across 16 post-communist countries, we performed a k-means cluster analysis that identifies a robust threefold typology of national identity—nationalist, ethnic, and patriotic—arranged along a continuum from exclusivist to inclusive orientations. The nationalist type combines patriotic pride and respect for the country’s laws and institutions with an emphasis on ethnic origin and cultural superiority, and represents the most exclusionary form of national identification. The ethnic type remains exclusivist through its emphasis on ancestry, but lacks chauvinistic elements. The patriotic type, by contrast, embodies an open, non-exclusivist orientation that links national pride to respect for the country’s laws and institutions, while rejecting ethnic criteria of belonging and chauvinistic positions. Overall, exclusivist understandings of national identity predominate across the region, though their prevalence varies systematically according to confessional context, with nationalist identities particularly widespread in countries with an Orthodox majority. The findings also show that religious dogmatism and institutional religiosity reinforce exclusivist orientations, whereas non-religious, individualistic spirituality aligns rather with inclusive patriotism. The study thus provides an empirically grounded typology and highlights the heterogeneous, non-monolithic character of the religion-nation nexus in CEE.