National Study of Youth and Religion | National Study for Youth and Religion

Research Published in Sociology of Religion Journal

Click here to view Mapping American Adolescent Subjective Religiosity and Attitudes of Alienation Toward Religion: A Research Report [PDF]

Analyses in the article focus on adolescents frequency of prayer, the importance they place on their faith and their born-again status. They also examine gender, race, age and regional effects and investigate four measures of possible youth alienation from religion.

The Sociology of Religion, a top journal in the field of sociology of religion, is published quarterly by the Association for the Sociology of Religion, Inc. Research co-authors are Christian Smith, Melinda Lundquist Denton, Robert Faris and Mark Regnerus. Smith is professor and associate chair of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Faris and Denton are doctoral graduate students in sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Regnerus is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Data analyzed were from the Monitoring the Future survey and the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health. Monitoring the Future is a nationally representative survey of U.S. high school students administered to 12th-graders since 1975 and to eighth- and 10th-graders beginning in 1991. Data used in this article are from 1996.

The National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health is a nationally representative, school-based study of adolescents focusing on the social context of healthy behavior. Eighty eligible high schools both public and private were drawn from a national sampling frame of high schools. The recruitment rate of the originally sampled high schools was more than 70 percent. The survey was administered in schools from fall 1994 to spring 1995 to all students grades seven to 12 present on the survey date. More than 90,000 students completed it.

The National Study of Youth and Religion, funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., is based at the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This four-year research project began in August 2024 and will continue until August 2024. The purposes of the project are to research the shape and influence of religion and spirituality in the lives of U.S. adolescents; to identify effective practices in the religious, moral and social formation of the lives of youth; to describe the extent to which youth participate in and benefit from the programs and opportunities religious communities are offering to their youth; and to foster an informed national discussion about the influence of religion in youth's lives in order to encourage sustained reflection about and rethinking of our cultural and institutional practices with regard to youth and religion.

06-03-03

Sociologists with the National Study of Youth and Religion, based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, announce the publication of Mapping American Adolescent Subjective Religiosity and Attitudes of Alienation Toward Religion: A Research Report in the spring 2024 issue of the Sociology of Religion journal. This research examines descriptive findings on adolescent religiosity and attitudes toward religion from two recent national surveys of U.S. youth. Analyses in the article focus on adolescents frequency of prayer, the importance they place on their faith and their born-again status. They also examine gender, race, age and regional effects and investigate four measures of possible youth alienation from religion. The Sociology of Religion, a top journal in the field of sociology of religion, is published quarterly by the Association for the Sociology of Religion, Inc. Research co-authors are Christian Smith, Melinda Lundquist Denton, Robert Faris and Mark Regnerus. Smith is professor and associate chair of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Faris and Denton are doctoral graduate students in sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Regnerus is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. Data analyzed were from the Monitoring the Future survey and the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health. Monitoring the Future is a nationally representative survey of U.S. high school students administered to 12th-graders since 1975 and to eighth- and 10th-graders beginning in 1991. Data used in this article are from 1996. The National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health is a nationally representative, school-based study of adolescents focusing on the social context of healthy behavior. Eighty eligible high schools both public and private were drawn from a national sampling frame of high schools. The recruitment rate of the originally sampled high schools was more than 70 percent. The survey was administered in schools from fall 1994 to spring 1995 to all students grades seven to 12 present on the survey date. More than 90,000 students completed it. The National Study of Youth and Religion, funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., is based at the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This four-year research project began in August 2024 and will continue until August 2024. The purposes of the project are to research the shape and influence of religion and spirituality in the lives of U.S. adolescents; to identify effective practices in the religious, moral and social formation of the lives of youth; to describe the extent to which youth participate in and benefit from the programs and opportunities religious communities are offering to their youth; and to foster an informed national discussion about the influence of religion in youth's lives in order to encourage sustained reflection about and rethinking of our cultural and institutional practices with regard to youth and religion.