The dynamics of religiosity among provincial students

The article analyzes the main characteristics and trends in the dynamics of religiosity among provincial students using the example of students at National Research Mordovia State University. Based on a comparison of the data from the 2027 and 2025 questionnaires, changes in the level and degree of religiosity are characterized according to the main parameters of the multidimensional approach of C. Glock and R. Stark, the subjective significance of religious norms of behavior is assessed, and the main trends in students' assessment of the role and functions of religion in modern Russian society are identified. The authors of the article characterize the religiosity of students as a whole as “fuzzy”, privatized and distanced in relation to the institutional forms of religion with which individuals identify themselves on the basis of cultural tradition, and conclude that the identified complex of characteristics of religiosity among students is stable. Despite a slight decrease in religiosity noted by researchers in other regions, religious students as a whole remain above average in terms of faith and experience, while remaining relatively low in terms of ritualistic, intellectual and behavioural dimensions (though not lower than in the region as a whole). In particular, the consistently declared recognition by students of the public role of religion as a social regulator and a means of transmitting cultural values does not give grounds to conclude that it is possible to change their behavior in everyday life through the authority of traditional religions and micro-level relations with their bearers. Using the example of this social category, it is clearly seen how modern believers consider religion not as a set of ready-made prescriptions, but as a guideline for individual moral choice and a means of solving an individual's existential problems.