Reflexive Identity Formation in University-Aged Irish: A Selective Sample from Catholic and Non-Catholic Groups

This study was undertaken with the intent to discover rich and in-depth personal details involved in the process of reflexive identity formation in a small, selected group of university-aged Irish young people. Under the basic canopy of Tom Inglis’ (ISSC Working Paper 2004, hereafter “IWP 2004”) research concerning Irish Catholic identity formation, this study was geared toward augmenting Inglis’ (IWP 2004) findings and fleshing out some of the details concerning the generation to which many of Inglis’ respondents were referring when discussing the rehgio-philosophical habits of their children. Two groups of participants were chosen, totalling in 7 people as one respondent changed his mind and decided not to participate. One group were those individuals who identified themselves as “Catholic” and the other was comprised of people of various faith forms but who had actively disaffiliated from Catholicism. Respondents aged from 20-23 and all were either attending or had completed undergraduate study. Each participant was asked the same series of semi-structured, open-ended questions pertaining to life history details and the nature of their relationship with their spirituality or faith system and their identities. All respondents save one originated from various Dublin or outlying Dublin suburbs, the one exception originated from the West of Ireland Overall, the data was gathered through in-depth, life history style interviews and showed support for several of Inglis’ (IWP 2004) findings concerning Catholic identity. The data gave great insight into various non-institutionalised faith systems. The findings also support other theorists’ work in the area of religion and identity formation, including Verter’s (2003) research on spiritual capital as well as that which was conducted carried out by Kelley and De Graaf (1997) on the affects of parental socialization on value system