Changes in religious attitudes and behaviors of Euro‐Turk students with theology education

Abstract

This paper studied a new dimension of international students, who are citizens of another country but came back to Turkey for religious education where their parents or grandparents are citizens. Did a five‐year religious education process based on the main sources of Islam lead to a change in these students' religious attitudes and behaviors, and if yes to what extent did these changes occur? A panel survey is conducted on these students in pre‐education and post‐education periods to answer this question. Without ignoring the effect of the social environment outside of education on religious attitudes, we found that students exhibit a more tolerant, nonstrict attitude toward both their coreligionists and those who have negative attitudes toward their religion. Additionally, in parallel with the deepening of religious knowledge, a questioning and critical perspective was formed with a decrease in superstitions. We found that the attitude change in female students was generally higher than that of male students.