Exploring Adolescent Spiritual and Religious Development: Current and Future Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

摘要

Spirituality and religion are central dimensions of human experience. Youth and adults alike report high levels of religiosity. A Gallup International Association (1999) poll of 50,000 adults in 60 countries found that 87% of respondents report being a part of a religious denomination, 63% indicate that God is highly important in their lives, and 75% believe in either a personal God or "some sort of spirit or life force." Other data (Gallup & Bezilla, 1992) show that 95% of American youth aged 13-17 believe in God, and 75% "very much" or "somewhat" agree with the statement "I try to follow the teachings of my religion." In addition, 42% of American youth claim that they frequently pray alone, and 36% report participating in a church youth group and 23% in faith-based service projects. Adolescence may be a particularly important time period in which to study spiritual and religious development (Donelson, 1999; Gorsuch, 1988). In adolescence, many youth turn toward religion and greater civic involvement, and yet many others who turn away from religion join either gangs or hate groups, or become antisocial in other ways. Thus, adolescents' spirituality and religiosity can be articulated and engaged, stifled and thwarted, or misdirected. This is an age period of intense ideological hunger, a striving for meaning and purpose, and desire for relationships and connectedness (e.g., Erikson, 1968). Adolescents "move beyond concrete childhood impressions of religion to reflect on issues and concepts that are embedded in existential and transcendental realms" (Markstrom, 1999, p. 205). From one theoretical perspective (Fowler, 1981), most young people in adolescence progress from having a tacit commitment to the views of important reference groups around them to possessing a more "owned" and personalized faith, one that arises from critical introspection of one's own beliefs and values.