THE RELIGIOSITY SCALES DEVELOPED ON THE MEASURABILTY OF RELIGIOSITY

Religion has drawn attention of sociologists since in the second half of the 19th century, and it is observed that detailed studies in this field also began in the 20th century. This is because there is no widely accepted and agreed definition on religion, and since definition of religiosity would depend on the former, religiosity has not been universally defined yet. However, it is clear that it is impossible to talk about a single type of religiosity. Measuring an individual's religiosity by collecting data via empirical methods is not very easy. Not only how religiosity would be measured, but also the issue of whether it could ever be measured has been discussed widely as well, and is still being discussed. After 1960s, religiosity has started to be regarded as a multi-dimensional phenomenon and scales measuring religiosity on multidimensional basis have been developed. When examining the studies on measuring religiosity, it could be seen that religion does not have a uni-dimensional, homogeneous structure. Multidimensional religiousity scales, which were formulated after being discussed in relation with the probability of measuring religiousity, were described and analyzed within this study. While analysing and describing religiousity scales, studies about religiousity scales in Turkey were reviewed. Moreover, how and by whom different dimensions of religiousity were formulated were identified. At this point, it can be assumed that religiousity will continue to be measured even if studies of religiousity are hard to be formulated.