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In the face of an increasingly amoral and secularized culture, it often seems that American teenagers have forgotten about religion altogether. To determine if this is true, three sociologists from the university of North Carolina, along with another from the University of Texas at Austin sifted through the results of three major surveys of youth behaviors to glean an idea of what adolescents' participation looks like.
Confession being good even for sociologist's souls, the authors admit: "Sociologists know surprisingly little about the religious lives of adolescents in the United States."
Analyzing data based upon three previous studies, Monitoring the Future (1996), Survey of Adolescent Health (1995, known as "Add Health"), and The Survey of Parents and youth (1998), the sociologists found that the largest groups of religious teenagers are Catholic, (24 percent) and Baptists (23 percent). In addition, according to 1995 figures, 13 percent of American youth claimed to have no religion.
However, things are changing. From 1976 to 1996, "...the proportion of Protestant youth has declined by 10 percent. Close inspection shows that much of the Protestant decline appears to have been located among Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, and the United Church of Christ. The proportion of Catholic youth has declined very slightly, and the proportion of Jewish youth grew slightly." Meanwhile, both "other religions" and "no religion" each grew five percent over the same 20 years. "Although the vast majority of American youth remain within the Christian tradition, proportionally more youth both consider themselves not religions and are affiliating with non-Christian traditions over time."
Claiming adherence to a faith is one thing, actually taking part in its practice is quite another. By analyzing the service attendance of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, it was found that "38 percent attend weekly, 16 percent attend one to two times a month, 31 percent attend rarely, and 15 percent never attend religious services." However, for individual teens, their service attendance tends to tail off as they age, with weekly attendance dropping 10 percent over the four years of high school.
Moreover, over the twenty years from 1976 to 1996, there has been a "slight but noticeable decline" in worship service attendance, with weekly service attendance decreasing 8 percent. Those who "never' or "rarely" attend each increased by 4 percent.
The authors note, "...that more conservative groups, and those with larger proportions of African Americans...have higher rates of attendance. Youth in mainline religious groups for the most part exhibit moderate amounts of church attendance. And youth in minority religious groups---Jewish, Quakers, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslims, Unitarian, Christian Science, and 'other' religions-appear to attend the least."
Another measure of participation that was examined was youth group involvement. With almost half of American teenagers participating, youth group is a strong indicator of religious faithfulness. "Among 12th graders...one-quarter have been involved in a religious youth group for their entire four years of high school. Another 31 percent have been involved for one to three years. Forty-four percent of 12th graders have never been involved in a religious youth group."
Yet again, it is the conservative and predominantly black denominations that have the greatest rate of participation: "...among all Protestants, youth with an evangelical (especially) or fundamentalist parent were most likely to be involved in a religious youth group (74 and 52 percent, respectively), followed by mainline Protestants (44 percent) and liberal Protestants (28 percent). Among Catholics, youth with a 'traditional' Catholic parent were most likely to be involved in a youth group (at 43 percent)..." with charismatic, and liberal catholic parents following at 38 and 33 percent. "Youth with a parent who was self-identified as 'just Catholic' were the least likely Catholics to be involved in a religious youth group (27 percent)." The researchers uncovered a bit of a surprise, as well: about a third of "nonreligious teenagers are attending religious youth group activities."
Furthermore, the authors found that church attendance and youth group participation were "highly correlated...72 percent of 12th grades who have been involved in a religious youth group for six or more years also attend church once a week or more (90 percent attend once a month or more); by contrast, only 13 percent of 12th graders who are not involved in a religious youth group attend church weekly."
Like service attendance, youth group participation tends to decline over time. While 50 percent of 13 year olds say they participate in youth group, only 28.6 percent of 18 year olds report youth group involvement.
Even in light of some rather disturbing trends, perhaps the authors' first conclusion is the most powerful: "The majority of American youth are religious insofar as they affiliate with some religious group or tradition. Only 13 percent in 1995 say they have no religion." The glass is more than half full.
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