Abstract:

The purpose of this article is to make a literature review (1963-2020) on religious development of adolescence in Turkish psychology of religion studies. In this context, researches on ‘religious development of adolescence’ between the years 1963 and 2020, "books, theses, articles, papers, translations and encyclopaedia article" were grouped together according to the variety of academic products. In this article, which provides the opportunity to observe the development and change that occurred in these studies between 1963 and 2020 with bird’s eye, the method of literature survey was used methodologically. Studies conducted in Turkey on religious development in adolescence; The National Thesis Center, Journal Park Academic, Center for Islamic Studies, Google Scholar, National Library and Islamic Encyclopedia have been scanned using six internet databases. With the Turkish literature in this article, it is also aimed to eliminate the need for resource scanning for researchers who plan to conduct research on 'religious development of adolescence', one of the periods of religious development. As a result, in line with these aims, it was determined that; considering the quantitative distribution of academic products by types, 1% of the scanned sources were books (n = 5), 37% were theses (n = 218), 38% were articles (n = 220), 23% were papers (n = 136) and 1% were found to be translations (n = 5). It has been also determined that there is a very limited level of encyclopaedia article (n = 1) in the scans on the subject. According to all this variety of quantitative product, it was determined that a total of 583 works/resources were scanned. When a general evaluation is made as a result of the literature review on religious development of adolescence (1963-2020), it can be said that many studies have been conducted on this developmental period. To this situation; the effects of abstract thought development on the religious life of adolescence, the critical importance of religious identity development in this period in addition to other identity developments and crises, and the high intensity of religious conflicts and doubts can be shown as reasons. In addition, it has been observed that religion pedagogues and psychologists of religion do a lot of work in this field, but sociologists of religion do less. Also, researchers working in the field of psychology of religion can be offered the following suggestions: (i)-In order to enrich the Turkish psychology of religion literature, some suggestions and principle decisions should be made at the annual psychologists of religion meeting to encourage thesis studies and publications on religious development of adolescence. (ii)-Furthermore, bibliography and literature studies should be continued in order to update the studies conducted in the mentioned period of development at regular intervals. Thus, it may become easier for psychologists of religion to study on this subject to access the mentioned resources and overcome problems related to the lack of literature.

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