Lisa D. Pearce and Melinda Denton: A Faith of Their Own: Stability and Change in the Religiosity of America’s Adolescents

Excerpt

In A Faith of their Own, Lisa Pearce and Melinda Denton seek to identify and categorize changes in religiosity that occur during adolescence. They contest the often and erroneous assumption that adolescents’ religiosity decreases, when in fact “youth are overwhelmingly likely to say they have remained or gotten more religious during adolescence” (Pearce and Denton 2011, p. 2). Their study makes use of data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR). They present results from semi-structured interviews and surveys of American youth who were interviewed in 2002 when they were between the ages of 13 and 17 and again in 2005, when they were between the ages of 16 and 21. The objective was to identify the development of individual religiosity between middle and late adolescence. To make sense of their data, the authors begin by defining religiosity and spirituality by identifying multiple dimensions and profiles. They refer to the dimensions as the three C’s, include the context of religious belief, the conduct of religious practices and the centrality of religion in an individual’s life. They argue that the variation in the three C’s results in the five religious profiles defined as Abiders, Adapters, Assenters, Avoiders and Atheists. Pearce and Denton are quick to explain that these five profiles are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive as religion and spirituality are personal values continuously changing with the ebb and flow of life. But, they argue that unique and shared characteristics exist between the five profiles. The book dedicates itself to examining these characteristics. …