Little Gem

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 07 January 2006 11:57:57

Every so often a study is published which gets picked up on and is v. influential, although it takes a while to filter through. It appears that Soul Searching by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton is one of those studies. From what I've seen (only from articles below, haven't got hands on the study yet) the size of sample and nature of questions asked are the main strengths of this study into the religious beliefs and practices of American teenagers.

This is an academic article on the study, from Sociology of Religion (?), exploring the methodology and so forth.

However for the quick look go to this review from America (The Catholic Weekly) which reviews the book from a Catholic perspective or this article from the American Family Association, which is based upon the study and uses its findings to do a bit of scaremongering amongst the US evangelical community, (not all of which appears to be completly unjustified).

The key theme appears to be that if you ask certain questions American teenagers seem to be v. traditional in their attitudes, but their definitions of key terms is what appears to differ when they asked specific questions relating to meaning.

Think it is a study worth looking at sooner rather than later because increasingly over the years it appears that social science is influencing "strategies" adopted by churches and US strategies do influence UK strategies,particularly within evangelical churches, to some extent, (Willow Creek and Purpose Driven, etc !!!). So with groups such as the AFA using this study to push for changes in the way young people are socialised into Christianity, and basing their understanding of teenagers on it I think it will / is having an influence within the church in the US (and through the trickle down, paperback effect, is likely to influence thinking in the UK).

Also due to the methodology I believe it may become a standard text within the teaching of the Sociology of Religion in a few years.

(By the way thanks to Dave (for his post on Religion on the TV, which led me to Bene Diction and the post there on The Book of Daniel, which linked to the AFA site) without whom I wouldn't have been able to start the chain of links that led me to discover this gem.)