A Sociological Explanation for Student's Tendency towards New Quasi-Religious Movements (Case Study: Students in East Azerbaijan Province)

In recent decades, new quasi-religious movements have been a serious threat to the foundations of society and people’ beliefs, especially those of the youth. Hence, this study was undertaken to examine student's tendency towards new quasi-religious movements and its correlates. The current work was a survey-based quantitative research. The statistical population of the study comprised high school students from East Azerbaijan out of whom 570 individuals were selected via random stratified sampling. The data gathering tools were questionnaires with established face validity and reliability indices of higher than 0.8. For the purpose of data analysis, SPSS 24 and LISREL 8.8 were utilized. Descriptive results indicated that 25 out of every 100 students have shown inclination to new quasi-religious movements. Students showed the highest tendency to Sai Baba and Eckankar and the lowest tendency rates were observed for Paulo Coelho and Castañeda. The results showed that level of religiosity, the extent of familiarity with the movements, quality of leisure activities, and the extent of belief in magic and witchcraft have significant effects on student's inclination to such movements. More specifically, level of religiosity and quality of leisure activities play a hindering role and the level of familiarity with the movements as well as belief in magic and witchcraft play a promoting role in the tendency towards new quasi-religious movements.