Convergence or divergence are two plausible but different views on how local cultures
respond to the forces of globalization. In the present study, a newly formulated value
dimension of secularism was used to investigate the direction of value change induced in
members of national groups over the last two decades by the forward march of recent
history. A culturally equivalent but single dimension of secularism was extracted from the
items tapping the two dimensions of value originally proposed by Inglehart (1997) in the …