The variety of worldview profiles among Finnish upper secondary school students: a latent class analysis

In recent decades, the religious landscape in Europe, including Finland, has witnessed increasing secularisation and pluralisation. In this article, we investigate the diversity of worldviews among Finnish upper secondary school students from a person-centred perspective. By conducting latent class analysis on the survey responses of 973 students, we distinguish five different worldview profiles: the Culturally Moderate are characterised by average scores on all worldview-related items. The Secularly Active distance themselves from clearly religious or spiritual items, yet they are very engaged in existential and ethical reflections. The Communally Passive show limited interest in spiritual or value-based activities, while the Existentially Indifferent tend to have minimal engagement with worldview-related issues. The Religiously Active are the smallest class in the data and the only ones to show marked involvement in distinctly religious concerns. Personal ethics and meaning are important across the classes and are also relatively important in classes otherwise uninterested in worldview-related issues. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion of the educational implications of the findings for Religious Education and Ethics instruction.