National Survey of Youth and Religion

Take a look at the website for the research project that Smith describes in the book. Write a review of one element that you think is interesting and significant.

https://youthandreligion.nd.edu/

This forum will be open for credit until W 5/7.

I find it fascinating how the purpose for this website is to guide and shape religion on young American adolescents. We don't see many organizations speaking out to young adults on how important religion influences children in today's society. The project layouts to understand how religion plays on young adulthoods.

I agree. When it comes to religion, adolescents are often overlooked or not taken serious. It's good to see an organization dedicate their research on the religious lives of adolescents.

After visiting the website I think that it is imperative to look at all angles of a situation. Commonly people might assume in the American society that the youth is unconcerned with religious practices, but actually they value and accept the direction that faith practices are taking their lives even if they mismanage their efforts.

I agree with you on that the perspective on how we observe religion on American youth is important because many important cofounding factors we may have previously not had considered as significant in their involvement with religion, may indeed have a huge effect; like access to social media and our continuously evolving American societal norms.

I agree after viewing the website and seeing that it is there to inform and provide a platform for youth and adolescent into relgious practices. Many believe that the youth is unconcerned with relgion now that times have changed but there has been a great deal of relgious pluralism since the post- modern era and I found it interesting that the website is making a space for those adolescent intrested in religion.

I was interesting how this website is constructed as a guiding tool which is shows religions impact on young American adolescents. However, in today's society we only very rarely see organizations intended to educate to young adults on how significantly religion has the capacity to have impact on children in today's society. The project provides a clear understanding of how religion is utilized on toward adults.

I also enjoyed the outline and setup of the website.It surely is a guiding tool in terms of displaying religious impact on the American Youth.I do feel we need more education on this topic in educational institutions since it is lacking!

What I found interesting is the depth of research that went into the construction and compiling of the studies on the way teenagers interact in religious activity. The increasing scope of the research from the pilot interviews that seemed to focus on a particular region to the eventual expansion to a larger surface area through the use of survey's and multi-stage interviews with recurring subjects give the articles on the website a comprehensive feeling. I'd love to see them tackle new growing questions that relate to how the influx of technology from beyond social media will possibly affect kids interaction with religion on a wider scale in the future.

This website and their research were interesting. Beyond looking at social media influences with the younger generation and religion I think it is important to look at social institutions influence on religion with the younger generation specifically in America. I like that he looked at family relationships, social media, and social institutions like public and private schools. I think church locations, how religion/church is displayed in the media is important.

I agree that it is important to look at social institutions' influence on religion because that is where the youth spend their time outside of school. I also liked that he looked at other things like social media.

The research that the website describes is very interesting because the researchers had noticed that the measures previously used to measure religiously among the younger american generation no longer works; like their sampling methods. Previously very superficial data was being collected and didn't really give a proper explanation to how and why religion affects american youth, hopefully this will give a better answer since society has drastically changed since religion was first being studied.

I found the research methodology page the most interesting part of the website. Along with the general user-friendly navigation allowing you to further understand the purpose of whats been written.The difficulty of studying the youth populace due to varying nuances informs for future study.

I felt this research that the website speaks about is extremely interesting considering it looked at social institutions and its effect on the youth.The data mentioned was very helpful in terms of giving the audience a broader view of how religion affects society and the ways in which it has changed !

i thought the website was quite interesting, being that it strictly delivered its message to the youth. many young Americans do not hold religious faith for a various amounts of reasons and trying to connect with them and bring them closer together is an important step for the development of unity within a religious standpoint. its a different generation coming up and clearly the rules are much different and less strict than when we were growing up or when our parents were. people are choosing to live a non-religious life and stray away from religious topics, especially adolescents who had little to no religious influence within their early childhood.

One significant and interesting thing is that the research project is looking at the macro and the micro. The macro being the "big-picture" (quantitative) connection between youth and religion, but also the micro that is focused on the qualitative. This is important because it allows the researchers to analyze patterns within responses to find generalizable information that a solely qualitative approach would miss. This research is also intended to produce a longitudinal analysis by maintaining contact with the youth they sampled. This longitudinal study enables the researchers to make claims about the causal effects of religion in the the lives of the youth.

I liked the website's approach to surveying the youth and religion was very inclusive. I can see that they tried very hard in surveying religious lives from adolescence into young adulthood, which is a large time span. There has clearly been very hard dedicated work put into the site. It played into many different regions such as social media and other religious topics. Overall, the website was done very well.

I agree! I also loved the websites approach to surveying the youth and their religion! The social media, I thought, was very relative and definitely is something that needed to be discussed and covered.

Surveying the youth and religion was very inclusive because of the time they devoted to their research. That is a very important factor is conducting sociological studies and I am sure they will get good results out of it.

One of the most relevant observations we can make that will ultimately give us an idea of what our future will look like is the observation of the youth and their behavior. I think that this institute is a very informative source on how the youth engage with religion overall. I particularly like how they have sources that discuss adolescents and their risk behavior levels. It would be interesting to read about their findings on this topic with a focus on students who grew up in religious households but do not consider themselves religious.

The website was very unique. The efforts that went into their surveys did not go unnoticed! From adolescents to young adults they covered a large array of interesting and very relative topics that need to be spoken about! The data they gave was clear and explanative. Overall lovely job.

I agree! It is a very interesting project that they're conducting. The connection between religion, which is an important influence on a person's way of life must be studied more thoroughly in youth because the theme of secularization is seen more prevent in the present than in times before; so it's effect on youth is definitely a point of interest to dive deeper into.

The layout of the website is quite interesting, however i thinks whats most interesting about it is the nature of the resource.Social religious information is often quite difficult to gather and having a space dedicated to exactly that is no easy feat. Understanding the place of religion in the lives of youth informs a great deal about the way a country will lean so i think it's fitting.

I agree with you because it is very difficult to capture teenagers and adolescent views just approaching them on their beliefs have to be a slight bit intimidating. If a teenager were to read this book it might influence a them to want to adapt ways of faith based practices. It may also allow them to feel a sense of belonging.

I find it interesting that there arent many studies done on adolescents and their religiosity, and i think this study found the right gap to fill in literature and in reality of our world. The purpose section clearly explains the need for more studies to fill the gap and undertakes the journey. Through an extensive line of questions and thoughtful research the team is able to show how religion is socialized and why teens do matter in our contemporary society.

The lengths they went to conduct in-depth interview were interesting. First starting off with surveys, the interviewees were sampled from among their survey respondents, for follow-up, in-depth discussions about their religious, spiritual, family, and social lives.