Young people's attitudes to religious diversity : socialising agents and factors emerging from qualitative and quantitative data of a nation-wide project in the UK

This article is based on data arising from focus group discussions with young people in British schools, to draw out socialising influences and factors that shape their approaches to religious diversity. It explores questions such as: is religious socialisation taking place in the home, with active participation in religious communities, or is religious socialisation weakening from generation to generation? How does religious socialisation (or its lack) differ between and within religions and between particular localities? Which factors facilitate or impede socialising processes? These questions are addressed in the light of discussions with young people and survey results. The data arise from a project (2009–2012) in the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit at the University of Warwick, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council/Arts and Humanities Research Council Religion and Society Programme, which applied a mixed methods approach to explore the attitudes of 13–16-year-old pupils across the UK towards religious diversity

Prayer, personality and purpose in life : an empirical enquiry among adolescents in the UK

The linkage between religion and purpose in life is a matter of theoretical interest within the two fields of empirical theology and psychology of religion. Empirical evidence for this linkage remains vulnerable according to the measures of religion and purpose in life employed. Conceptually prayer provides an interesting test of this linkage in light both of the personal nature of this religious activity and of the persistence of prayer among individuals who do not attend worship services. This study draws on data provided by 10,792 13- to 15- year-old students from five different parts of the UK (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and London) to test the connection between prayer and purpose-in-life (assessed by an established single-item measure) after taking into account personal differences (age and sex), psychological differences (Eysenck’s three dimensional model of personality), and religious differences (affiliation, and worship attendance). The data demonstrate that prayer frequency adds additional prediction of enhanced levels of purpose in life among young people after taking all other variables into account, and that prayer frequency is a stronger predictor of purpose in life than religious affiliation or worship attendance

Implicit religion, explicit religion and attitude toward substances : an empirical enquiry among 13- to 15-year-old adolescents

A recent research tradition has employed Bailey’s (1997, 1998) notion of implicit religion to explore the ways in which Christian believing in the UK may be persisting in spite of declining levels of church attendance. Working within this framework the first aim of this study is to explore the prevalence of implicit religion, operationalized as attachment to traditional Christian rites of passage, among young people living within the UK. The second aim of this study, following the analytic model proposed by Francis (2013a, 2013b) exploring the psychological functions served by explicit religion and implicit religion, is to test the hypothesis that explicit religiosity (operationalized as church attendance) and implicit religiosity (operationalized as attachment to Christian rites of passage) are both associated with proscriptive attitudes toward substances among young people. Data provided by a sample of 12,252 13- to 15- year-old young people support this hypothesis

Christian affiliation, Christian practice, and attitudes to religious diversity : a quantitative analysis among 13- to 15-year-old female students in the UK

Within the context of the “Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity” project at the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, this study examines the association between self-assigned Christian affiliation, self-reported Christian practice, and attitudes towards religious diversity among a sample of 5,748 13- to 15-year-old female students attending schools in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The two hypotheses being tested are that, among female students, nominal Christians do not differ in their attitudes towards religious diversity from unaffiliated students and that church attendance leads to less tolerance of other religious groups. The data partly support the first hypothesis but not the second. Churchgoing Christian female students are more interested in and more tolerant of other religious groups. The data also draw attention to the perceived importance of religious education in schools for shaping views on religion and on religious diversity among unaffiliated students, nominal Christians, and practising Christians. Both the Christian churches and religious education in school seem to have an important part to play in nurturing a tolerant and inclusive religiously diverse society in the UK

Assessing peer and parental influence on the religious attitudes and attendance of young churchgoers : exploring the Australian National Church Life Survey

Drawing on data from the 2011 Australian National Church Life Survey, this study was designed to assess peer and parental influence on frequency of church attendance, attitude toward church, and attitude toward Christianity among a sample of 6,256 young churchgoers between the ages of 8 and 14 years, attending a range of denominations, including Catholic, Anglican, Uniting, Pentecostal, and other Protestant Churches. The data indicated the power of parental example on frequency of church attendance. Frequent attendance among young churchgoers occurred when both parents attend as well. Parental influence worked differently on shaping attitude toward church. The most positive attitude was found among young churchgoers who had the opportunity to talk about God with their parents and who did not feel that their parents made them go to church. Young churchgoers responded to parental encouragement better than to parental pressure. Although peer influence within the church did not make much contribution to frequency of attendance, it made a contribution to shaping positive attitude toward church

Freedom of religion and freedom of religious clothing and symbols in school : exploring the impact of church schools in a religiously diverse society [monographic series]

The Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project was established to compare the attitudes of students (13- to 15-years of age) educated within the state-maintained sector in church schools (Catholic, Anglican, joint Anglican and Catholic) and in schools without a religious foundation. Data provided by 2,385 students recruited from England, Wales and London who self-identified as either ‘no religion’ or as Christian demonstrated that personal factors (especially sex), psychological factors (especially psychoticism) and religious factors (especially personal prayer) were all significantly related to attitude toward freedom of religious clothing and symbols in school. After controlling for sex and for individual differences in personality and in religiosity, students attending church schools hold neither a more positive nor a less positive attitude toward freedom of religious clothing and symbols in school (according to various religious traditions), compared with students attending schools without a religious foundation

Dimensions of personality and preferred ways of coping : an empirical enquiry among rural Anglican clergy

The present study was designed to test the thesis that preferred ways of coping assessed by the Ways of Coping (Revised) Checklist are related to two major dimensions of personality proposed by Eysenck, extraversion and neuroticism. Data provided by 613 Anglican clergy serving in rural ministry in England demonstrated that: two ways of coping were significantly correlated with both extraversion and neuroticism (escape-avoidance, and self-controlling); two ways of coping were significantly correlated with neuroticism (accepting responsibility, and confronting); three ways of coping were significantly correlated with extraversion (planful problem solving, seeking social support, and positive reappraisal); and one way of coping was independent of both neuroticism and extraversion (distancing). The implications of these findings are discussed for three fields: the connection between personality and ways of coping; the construct validity of the measures proposed by the Ways of Coping (Revised) Checklist; and the role of personality in predicting and interpreting individual differences in clergy behaviours and work-related psychological health

Does religious education as an examination subject work to promote community cohesion? An empirical enquiry among 14- to 15-year-old adolescents in England and Wales

This study begins by examining the way in which, in both England and Wales, Religious Education has become implicated in political discussion regarding the role of education in promoting community cohesion. The relationship between taking Religious Education as an examination subject and attitude towards religious diversity (as an affective indicator of community cohesion) is then explored among 3052 14- to 15-year-old students. After controlling for contextual factors (school type and geographical location), personal factors (sex and age), psychological factors (psychoticism, neuroticism and extraversion) and religious factors (Christian affiliation, worship attendance, personal prayer and belief in God), a small but significant positive association was found between taking Religious Education as an examination subject and attitude towards religious diversity. This finding may be interpreted as supporting the view that Religious Education works to promote community cohesion, although the wider debate that the community cohesion agenda has generated among religious educators needs further exploration