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Mapping American Adolescent Religious Participation
Author(s) -
Smith Christian,
Denton Melinda Lundquist,
Faris Robert,
Regnerus Mark
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal for the scientific study of religion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.941
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1468-5906
pISSN - 0021-8294
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5906.00148
Subject(s) - religiosity , redress , descriptive statistics , attendance , descriptive research , sociology , religious organization , psychology , gender studies , social psychology , political science , social science , law , statistics , mathematics
Sociologists know surprisingly little about the religious lives of adolescents in the United States. This article begins to redress that unfortunate lack of knowledge by examining descriptive findings on adolescent religious participation from three recent, reputable national surveys of American youth. We present descriptive statistics on three fundamental aspects of youth religious participation: religious affiliation, religious service attendance, and involvement in church youth groups. We also examine the influences of gender, race, age, and region on these religious outcomes. This descriptive inquiry should help to heighten broader understanding of and to lay down a baseline of essential information about American adolescent religious participation. Further research is needed to investigate the social influence of different kinds of religiosity on various outcomes in the lives of American youth.