As I continue to research youth development, one of the major institutions that has an influence is religion. In this post, I am going to discuss some of the areas and effects religion plays in the realm of youth development especially as it relates to volunteerism and civic engagement.
Many studies surrounding youth civic engagement and volunteering show a high correlation with religion, suggesting that religious youth are more likely to volunteer and be engaged. It is a natural progression to hypothesize that religion has a positive impact on youth development.
There has not been a large amount of research specifically into the area of youth psychosocial development and religion in recent years. The focus has been on religion as it relates to negative actions such as smoking, sexual behavior, drug use, and suicide among teens. However the research that has been done shows a positive correlation between religious involvement and physical and emotional health among adolescents.
More extensive research has occurred surrounding the relationship between religion and education. It is important to note that religious affiliation and involvement has a positive influence on educational outcomes among adolescents. It is also important to note there are identifiable differences between girls and boys, especially depending on the type of religious affiliation. Another important finding of a study by Regnerus and Elder (2003) using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health found that regular church attendance among high-risk youth had a much higher positive impact on academic achievement than youth in a middle class neighborhood.
The next important finding that directly affects my questions of how do we relate religious involvement with service attitudes is shown in a study conducted by Muller and Ellison (2001) used data from the National Education Longitudinal Study. The authors found that “religious involvement-measured as a summed score of religious service attendance, participation in religious activities, and conceiving oneself as a religious person is associated with social capital in the community and in the family.”
Religion has an influence on youth development and especially the affecting their involvement in positive social and community activities. The healthy development of youth will result in a healthy family, community, and nation. (Well at least that’s my argument!)
Information used in this post is listed below. I am currently using the references from this review to identify the relevant empirical studies that can be used as support in our Background Paper.
Religion and Positive Adolescent Outcomes: A Review of Research and Theory Mark D. RegnerusReview of Religious Research, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Jun., 2003), pp. 394-413
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2 comments:
It would be interesting to see a comparison of youth involved in churches compared to youth involved in secular non-profits and gauge the differences in perspectives. As we all know, the president's "faith-based initiative" is controversial, but it may very well be the case that for a service program to be truly effective, it would need to engage the churches. I hypothesize that any service effort will be suboptimal if it fails to engage all of the existing social institutions, and that includes the church. How to do that without violating the seperation of church and state is an interesting problem.
The issue for us is not church, per se. Rather, it is if and how a particular set of behaviors (norms/standards of social behavior) and values (ethical sentiments) are embedded in key social institutions. Religion, and its institutionalized form, the church, is a key institution.
Most religions, in theory if not practice, have a version of the 'my brother's keeper' ethic. (the senior A. Hobbs made this point about Christianity in his interview).
We'd like to find an expression of a particular kind of ethical behavior and sentiment in each social institution we argue is critical to healthy youth development and maturation.
If youth develop to maturity through stages, then the 'service' ethic can/should be found in each critical institution and appropriatedly match to stage of (moral, ethical, social) development.
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