Religion and American youth : with emphasis on Catholic adolescents and young adults PcW1'*^ . H- . {Isutcyon aAi VovA^ Act22>13 RELIGION AND AMERICAN SIRVTTE FATHERS GUMPTION CHUBOa ££& mm$ ILLINOIS STRESS gggg&m .ILLINOIS 60SIQ YOUTH: with Emphasis on Catholic Adolescents and Young Adults by Raymond H. Potvin Dean R. Hoge Hart M. Nelsen The Boys Town Center for the Study of Youth Development The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. Commissioned by Office of Research, Policy and Program Development Department of Education United States Catholic Conference Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/religionamericanOOpotv RELIGION AND AMERICAN YOUTH with Emphasis on Catholic Adolescents and Young Adults by Raymond H. Potvin Dean R. Hoge Hart M. Nelsen The Boys Town Center for the Study of Youth Development The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. Commissioned by Office of Research, Policy and Program Development Department of Education United States Catholic Conference 1976 Publications Office UNITED STATES CATHOLIC CONFERENCE 1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 Copyright® 1976. Publications Office, United States Catholic Conference CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 PART I: Ages 13 to 18 3 Religious Belief and Behavior 3 Factors Related To Religiosity 8 Conclusion 21 PART II: Young Adults 18 to 29 22 Introduction 22 College Students’ Religion and Values 22 Catholic Students’ Religion and Values 33 The Pentecostal Movement and Religious Cults Among Students 38 Explanations for the Changes 40 Non-College Young Adults 43 Age and Gender Differences 45 Acceptance of Ecclesiastical Authority Among Catholics 47 Humanae Vitae and Social Climate 48 PART III: Projections 50 FOOTNOTES 53 REFERENCES 55 APPENDIX A. Guide in Interpreting Statistical Notation .... 62 TABLES Table Page 1 Percent of Adolescents Reporting on Selected Religious Beliefs and Practices 4 2 Percent of 13 to 16 Year Olds Reporting on Selected Behavior Items: 1967, 1972, 1975 7 3 Mean Scores, Standard Deviation and Range on Religious Indices by Age for Total Population and Catholics 10 4 Mean Scores and Standard Deviation on Religious Indices for Catholics by Type of School and Religious Instruction 12 5 Mean Scores and Standard Deviations on Religious Indices by Sex 14 6 Mean Scores and Standard Deviation on Religious Indices by Social Class 15 7 Mean Scores and Standard Deviation on Religious Indices by Size of Residence 17 8 Correlation Matrix of Selected Items and Religious Indices ... 19 9 Standardized Regression Coefficients (/3 ) between Selected Variables and Religious Indices (N = 1121) 20 10 Percent of AM College Freshmen Agreeing with Value State- ments 25 11 Percent of All College Freshmen Responding “Essential" or “Very Important” to Selected Statements 26 12 Percent of All College Students Evaluating Personal Values as “Very Important” 28 13 Percent of All College Students Believing Certain Activities to be Morally Wrong 28 14 Percent of All College Students Welcoming Particular Social Changes 29 15 Responses of Undergraduate Men at Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan to Four Religious Items (in Percent) ... 30 16 Responses of Undergraduate Men at Williams College to Five Items on Religion (in Percent) 31 17 Responses of Undergraduate Men at Williams College to Three Items on Home Religious Teachings (in Percent) 32 18 Percent of Marquette University Undergraduates Saying Various Actions are “All Right” To Do 34 19 Responses of Freshmen Women to Items in the 1975 Survey of the American Council on Education: Saint Mary’s College, All Catholic Colleges, and All Colleges (in Percent) 36 20 Percent of Population 18 to 29 Attending Religious Services in Average Week by Religion, Education, and Year (Gallup Surveys) 44 21 Percent of Population 18 to 29 Believing in Life after Death by Religion, Education, and Year (1957 and 1968 Gallup Surveys and 1972 Survey Research Center, University of Michigan, Study) 45 22 Percent of Catholics Attending Church Regularly on Sundays by Sex and Education: 1971 46 23 Percent of Catholics Reporting that the 1968 Encyclical Has Made Them Question More the Pope’s Authority (1971 Gallup Catholic Data), by Sex and Education 48 Introduction In the United States there are approximately 67 million adolescents and young adults between the ages of 13 and 29. They constitute an estimated 39 percent of the total population (Current Population Reports, Series P-25, No. 601). In terms of sheer numbers, the youth apostolate remains a major challenge for organized religion. But the challenge is even larger and more complex than numbers alone suggest. American society is experiencing rapid change, which implies an increase in the complexity of value systems and behavior patterns often leading to agonizing moral ambiguities. Catholics have not been ex- empted from the impact. If religious teachers and/or institutional resources are too few or unprepared to meet this challenge, the religious development of youth may well be determined by other influences. The data presented here suggest that organized religion should consider an extended commitment of personnel and resources to the youth apostolate. This study was commissioned by the United States Catholic Con- ference and carried out by the Boys Town Center for the Study of Youth Development at the Catholic University of America. It profiles the current religious attitudes of Catholic youth and young adults in the United States. In addition, it clearly identifies areas in which further research is needed. (In this connection, it should be noted that a study similar to this one concerning the religious attitudes of children 6 to 13 is now underway and will be published in the near future.) The present study attempts to describe the religious situation of adolescents and young adults in the United States, with emphasis on Catholic youth. It outlines the parameters within which an apostolate to youth must be carried on. It reviews the pertinent literature on religious attitudes, beliefs and behavior of young people between the ages of 13 and 29, and supplements the results of previous studies with findings from recent research by the Boys Town Center. 1 Sources are identified briefly in the text and described more fully in the list of resources. Whenever possible, attention is given to changing trends, to the determinants of these characteristics of youth, and to their possible development in the immediate future. The study focuses on two age groups: adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18, mainly junior and senior high school youth; and young adults between the ages of 18 and 29. There are considerable gaps in our knowledge about the religious beliefs and behavior of youth. While much research has been conducted, few samples have been national in scope and these few have been limited 1 to narrow areas of the religious spectrum. Nonetheless some valid insights are possible. We base our generalizations on the best data available. Readers who are not familiar with statistics may wish to refer to Appendix A, which includes a short guide for interpreting statistical notation. (Msgr.) WILFRID H. PARADIS Associate Secretary Office of Research, Policy and Program Development Department of Education 2 RELIGION AND AMERICAN YOUTH with Emphasis on Catholic Adolescents and Young Adults Part I: Ages 13 to 18 There are approximately 25 million adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 years of age in the United States ( Current Population Reports Series P-25, No. 601). The great majority are in junior or senior high schools. According to Keniston, a basic, conscious issue during youth is the tension between self and society: the adolescent struggles to define his or her identity and in so doing recognizes the possibility of conflict between emerging selfhood and the social order; the result is often a pervasive ambivalence toward both self and society (Keniston, 1970). Certainly such tension affects the adolescent’s orientation to religion. RELIGIOUS BELIEF AND BEHAVIOR In 1975 about 70 percent of American youth aged 13 to 18 believed firmly in a personal God; 20 percent were doubtful but reported belief in a higher power of some kind; and another 10 percent did not believe or felt they would never know whether God or some higher power exists (Boys Town Survey, 1975). Since the early 1950s doubt or non- belief in a personal God has increased more than 10 percentage points, most of the change having occurred during the last decade (see Table 1). Furthermore, belief in divine retribution is becoming increasingly un- popular. At present only 56 percent believe that God will punish people who sin, while in the early 1960s as many as 76 percent reported that they believed God would reward or punish them for what they did (Bealerand Willets, 1967:439). The notion of divine punishment is least acceptable to Jews and less acceptable to Catholics than to Protestants (see Table 1). The same trend is observable about belief in life after death. 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E ® E2$ CO — - V) . Z3 si a +3 o CO W +> c g. ap 0) c c gign “ < Co a, c S " g ^ c in co ^ E c_ nn C C W) <0 O 75 £ cu .y -c c e ,M o 5 a> a> £ .c E o ~ o i_ c (/) o O (/) § 0) 00 3 S = e-° i O o u> o H ? W E - +-> 13 »_ 0 X o -C O +-» s- O 3 _ Oo^l- s_ - 4— (/) . - o c : |f I c - o =j CM X (/)£<» _ 03 — St s •2 0 CO £ ^30-0 o) cr x: c- -*- 2 .2. > v. 00 £ £5 o-oo TO CO p 2 O o gE^ CO C - CO R :c5 4-. .2 co 3 s §• s 1 " -M E -o o CO o at o vw ^ w $ £ | 8 I § u 0 tf> w CO 4-= co o O . o o >. +-> co <0 "O *- T3 | g CO ^ co -aN Q. co co c a o> g .9. ,_1 O -X o gl° **” a3 .. g **Q-o E CO - rv « E 03 2 o o tram c c »- O <0 4_| c/> 9 o co a. j_ c/> ra 3 c S*8 S?§£ >£ : "co c tr CO 00 O ,3 • E o-i x: ~ <0 O 44 . a co co ! s$ <0 c i— 1 > £ X5 . 0 -a co to s- c 9-1- JX 3 CO ~ _ o : in CO 60- E - >> , 1° co r 00 b c in c«* § « ?? ' 3 jd -c E t QJ O ' 3 -H O CM > II g 2 00w c M -2 "D CO 0-° CO c >> 00 co-E CO 00 - k ino (0 X^ CO o a -Q S | I Shi'S i5 CO 1(1 cr S = b ' -C O o 3S: a 2 * E M- C CO CO au E”.. to 3 t/> co Crt O s 5 TO m co c co ^ o n .E W £ co "co 5 0 ojn o 0 03 « CO % u 0) o u> 0- to 7 to get something by lying about who you were or how old you were”; “Hurt someone badly enough to need bandages or a doctor” or “Attacked someone with the idea of taking his/her life”; "Drunk beer, wine, or liquor without permission”; “Used marijuana”; “Used any drugs or chemicals to get high or for kicks except marijuana”. Percents are for those between ages 13 to 16 reporting that they had done this once or more in the last year. M = Male; F = Female These and other data indicate a trend away from ascetic morality, less concern with property rights and more sensitivity to personal rights. For example, over 75 percent of 13 to 18 year olds now believe that treating persons of other races or nationalities as inferiors is always wrong (Boys Town Survey, 1975). A Gilbert poll in 1974 conducted for the National Association of Secondary School Principals discovered that the large majority of high school youth are satisfied with their country, families, and school. Nonetheless, over two-fifths say they would be “happier” living away from their families and find it difficult to communicate with their parents. Over half claim that school administrators do not understand them, and a third feel their teachers do not take an interest in them (NASSP, 1974) . This ambivalence or unease with the adult world may explain the increasing number of run-aways cited previously and the surprisingly large number of adolescents, 23 percent, who now believe that in some circumstances it is not wrong to take one's own life (Boys Town Survey, 1975) . Recent statistics show that this attitude toward suicide should be taken seriously. It is estimated that adolescent suicides rose nearly 250 percent between 1954 to 1973. In the last decade the rate increased from 4.9 to 10.9 per 100,000. Many experts believe the main cause is an increasing feeling of isolation and loneliness. Others point to changing attitudes toward sex, religion, politics, and social relationships as important factors creating awesome pressures and responsibilities which young people are not prepared to face alone. Adolescents seek freedom but, according to Dr. Daniel Lettieri, a research psychologist, suicide is sometimes an attempt to escape from that freedom ( Washing- ton Post , June 4, 1976:C1). Perhaps religion, by creating a sense of community among believers, can help to relieve some of this tension. In spite of these statistics, one major survey of high school youth concludes: “They are determined, ambitious, and committed to their own individual goals . . . they are down to earth and practical. They realize the problems that lie ahead in their lives: completing their educa- tion, getting a job, embarking on careers. And while this pragmatism may not be described as ‘sparkling,’ ‘activist,’ or even ‘new,’ it is an honest method of building futures” (NASSP, 1974:62-63). Adolescents will continue to have strong interests in the pragmatic dimensions of life. FACTORS RELATED TO RELIGIOSITY A considerable literature exists relating age to religiousness. Argyle and Beit-Hallahmi have suggested that adolescence, which they describe as the period between the ages of 12 to 18, “is a period of 8 religious awakening, during which time people either become converted or decide to abandon their childhood faith, if they had one’' (1975:59). Goldman has documented that age 13 or thereabout marks a radical change in religious thinking, with a “tendency to see much of previous teaching as ‘childish’ and to reject it at that level because the authori- tarian literalism of the Junior [2nd to 6th grades] child is unacceptable and no coherent alternative has been presented" (1964:240). There is a suggestion in much of this research that an increase in religious doubt is related to growth in understanding, to mental age, and that this con- flict between faith and reason reaches a peak at about age 17 and is generally resolved one way or the other by age 20 (Argyle and Beit- Hallahmi, 1975:62-63). Newer studies indicate that this resolution of conflict is now occurring at earlier ages. The Boys Town Survey data of 1975 did not reveal any particular age for the occurrence of such a crisis. Generally the data show a progressive decline in traditional religious beliefs and practices as one grows older. While the number of females who do not believe in or doubt the existence of a personal God increased slightly with age, as many as 44 percent of males aged 16 to 18 doubt or do not believe in a personal God, an increase of 15 percent over the 13 to 15 age category. This change in belief is mirrored in religious practice. For example, 48 percent of 9th graders attend religious services every week, but only 27 percent of the 12th graders. The Purdue Polls of 1951 and 1962 as well as the work of Fritsch and Hetzer (1928), Bose (1929), MacLean (1930), and Hollingsworth (1933), document that this change over age is not a recent phenomenon. However, the magnitude of the decline has increased. Catholics have not been an exception, 63 percent attending weekly at ages 13 to 15 but only 45 percent at ages 16 to 18. The age differential in daily prayer is also evident, especially among Catholics, with 34 percent praying daily or more often at ages 13 to 15 but only 22 percent doing so at ages 16 to 18. 3 The religious questions included in the Boys Town Survey of 1975 were reduced through factor analysis to three factors: 1) a personal- experiential dimension defined by closeness of God, frequency of prayer, and the importance of religion in one's own life; 2) a religious practice dimension focusing on attendance at religious services and participation in church activities; 4 and 3) a traditional or fundamentalist orthodoxy dimension measuring agreement with the beliefs that God punishes people who sin, that the Bible is God’s word and must be obeyed, that the church or religious authorities represent God in this world, and that God controls everything that happens. On the basis of another factor analysis two scales on moral issues, named according to a distinction made by Middleton and Putney (1962), were also constructed: 1) ascetic morality, including items on whether getting drunk, smoking marijuana, 9 MEAN SCORES, STANDARD DEVIATION AND RANGE ON RELIGIOUS INDICES BY AGE FOR TOTAL POPULATION AND CATHOLICS 10 having sexual intercourse before marriage are wrong; and 2) social morality, including items on whether lying, stealing, taking one’s own life, and treating persons of other races or nationalities as inferior are wrong. Table 3 presents the mean scores, the range, the standard deviations for the total population and for Catholics by age. The higher the mean score for each scale, the more the group experiences personal- experiential religion, participates in formal services or activities, is more traditionally orthodox in belief, accepts an ascetic morality, or accepts what we have defined as social morality. The data of Table 3 confirm the impact of age on religious orienta- tion and behavior. On every index except social morality there is a significant decrease for the total population and for Catholic adolescents. The personal-experiential dimension seems affected the least, indicating that for some adolescents as they grow older communion with God is not tied up with formal practice or traditional beliefs. There is no inherent reason why increasing age should lead to loss of faith. Certainly exposure to competing world-views and value systems increases, but religious education can be adapted to mental age and to the market place of ideas. In fact, Goldman believes that how adolescents are taught is as im- portant as what they are taught, and that most adolescents “have stopped thinking about religion long before they consciously reject it. The cause of this is a tangle of boredom, the association of religion with fairy tales, ‘science has proved religion isn’t true,’ its apparent remote- ness from life . . . , and a confusion with much of the language and thought used in the Bible” (1970:165). Some of these problems may be remedied by sound teaching programs adapted to the mental age of the developing adolescent, who often feels the need to question beliefs pre- viously accepted, to discuss and to explore. If such personal confronta- tion with religious truth is encouraged, the decline in religiousness as the adolescent grows older may be arrested to some extent. A not unrelated factor is that young people drop out of religion courses. According to the Boys Town Survey of 1975, 90 percent of the 13 to 18 year olds have studied religion at some time or other in their lives, but only 44 percent are now doing so. The same percentage applies to Catholics. 5 Table 4 presents the mean scores on the religious scales for Catholics: (1) in Catholic school, (2) in public school currently attending CCD classes, and (3) in public schools having previously studied religion but not doing so now. First we compared groups (1) and (2). Catholic school youths score slightly higher than public school youth now attending CCD classes on religious practice, the personal- experiential, and social morality scales but slightly lower on the tradi- tional orthodoxy and ascetic morality scales. None of these differences is statistically significant. Controlling for age does not change these findings substantially. Because of the national scope of the sample, 11 MEAN SCORES AND STANDARD DEVIATION ON RELIGIOUS INDICES FOR CATHOLICS BY TYPE OF SCHOOL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 12 1 These students attended CCD in the past but have dropped out. Only 4 percent (N = 12) never attended and are not included in the table because of the small N. some numbers are small, but the same results were obtained in a North East sample of 1,500 Catholic public and Catholic school students. The important factor is whether adolescents continue studying religion or not. On all the religious dimensions, except the index of social morality, being enrolled in religion classes makes a significant difference. However, it should not be concluded that religion classes cause this difference, since the data may simply reflect the fact that the adolescent who is “already more religious" for whatever reason tends to enroll in religion classes or go to a Catholic school. Nonetheless the data raise certain questions about the Greeley, McCready and McCourt finding that “there is no evidence that the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine discussion classes can function as an adequate substitute for Catholic schools" (1976:218). Our data suggest they might so function if the adolescent remains enrolled over his or her school years. One reason for the discrepancy between the Greeley finding and ours is that the samples are not comparable. We studied 13 to 18 year olds; they studied adults 18 or over. It may well be that education in Catholic elementary and secondary schools has a delayed effect which manifests itself only in later years. Or it may be that these schools had an effect years ago when today’s adults were in school, an effect which no longer exists, at least to the same extent. 6 In any case, the relative effect of Catholic school education and CCD classes remains an open question, at least until panel data are collected. It is generally asserted that women are more religious than men (Argyle and Beit-Hallahmi, 1975:71-79). Some writers attribute this to basic psychological differences between the sexes (Garai, 1970), others to differences in upbringing (D'Andrade, 1967; Hutt, 1972), to women’s greater deprivation or lack of status-rewards (Bourque and Back, 1968; Campbell and Fukuyama, 1970) and to lack of work involvement (Luck- mann, 1967). Unfortunately, much of gender theory in this area is frankly speculative. The fact remains, however, that sex differences in religiosity exist, not only among adults but among adolescents as well (see, for example, Weigert and Thomas, 1970). In the Boys Town Survey of 1975 females 13 to 18 scored significantly higher than males on the personal-experiential dimension of religion, on religious practice, and on social morality, but not on ascetic morality and traditional orthodoxy (see Table 5). Whether because of temperament, upbringing, or depriva- tion, adolescent females report greater closeness to God and frequency of prayer than do males. Though less prone to anti-social acts against persons and property, they are equally as anti-ascetic as males. There is some evidence in the literature that social class influences religious orientation (Demerath, 1965; Mueller and Johnson, 1975) but the relationship is not always clear. Generally members of the lower 13 £5 (O >- m to LU o Q Z to 3 O o —I LU CCL z o to z o < 14 15 classes are less likely to attend church services. If they are church members they tend to have fundamentalist religious beliefs. Their lower religious participation is often explained by a general disinclination to participate in all types of voluntary organizations (Lenski, 1963) and by preferences in style of religious expression (Demerath, 1965) which in turn are related to social deprivation (Campbell and Fukuyama, 1970). When the adolescents of the Boys Town Survey were dichotomized into lower and higher social class on the basis of their fathers' occupations, significant differences were obtained on the personal-experiential dimen- sion of religion and on traditional orthodoxy, with the lower class scoring higher, but not on the religious practice, social morality or ascetic morality indices (see Table 6). The hypothesis that social class affects religious practice is not sustained for adolescents. Nor is the hypothesis that moral values differ by class. However, lower class adolescents are more traditionally orthodox or fundamentalist and tend to pray and “experience God" more. Whether or not size of the town or city in which one resides is a factor in religious orientation is a matter of some dispute (Argyle and Beit-Hallahmi, 1975). Nelsen et al. (1971) found little difference over various dimensions except for the ideological. Small town residents tended to be more conservative. On the other hand Lenski (1953) found evidence of more church attendance in smaller communities. Back and Bourque (1970) reported that residents of smaller communities admit to more mystical experiences than residents of larger cities. Certainly social-class differences account for some of these findings. Nonetheless the adolescent sample from the Boys Town Survey showed that on all dimensions except religious practice small town or city residents scored significantly higher than residents of large cities, 50,000 and over (see Table 7). Not only are residents of areas with less than 50,000 popula- tion more traditionally orthodox or fundamentalist and more conservative on moral issues, but they report more personal closeness to God and frequency of prayer than their metropolitan counterparts. A major factor which influences the religiousness of youth is their parents' orientation to religion. Parental religious practice is an im- portant index of parental commitment to socialize their children within a particular religious tradition, and is related to adolescents’ beliefs and behavior (Greeley and Rossi, 1966; Carrier, 1965; Allison, 1969; Argyle and Beit-Hallahmi, 1975:30). Moreover, social scientists have noted the importance of parent-child relationships and parental images in the formation of God concepts (Potvin, 1976; Spilka et al., 1975; Deconchy, 1968) and of religious orientation (Weigert and Thomas, 1970;1972). The implication in this literature is two-fold. Parents influence their children's religion overtly by socialization and indirectly by the way they relate to their children. 16 LU O 17 Table 8 shows that parental religious practice 7 is strongly cor- related with the adolescent's religious practice (r = .49) and moderately correlated with the personal-experiential (r = .37) and the traditional orthodoxy dimensions (r = .25). The impact is slightly less (r = .22) on ascetic morality and negligible on social morality (r = .06). While parental religious practice is related to whether the adolescent is cur- rently studying religion (r = .38), when the latter is partialed out of the relationship, the association between parental religious practice and adolescent religion remains significant on all dimensions except social morality. 8 Furthermore, the data of Table 8 indicate that parental impact is not only through overt socialization. Adolescents with parents defined as affectionate and supporting 9 score higher on most of the religious dimensions, especially the morality scales and the personal-experiential dimension. Adblescents with parents defined as controlling and non- permissive 10 tend to score higher on the traditional orthodoxy dimension. It is also known that loving parental images facilitate the develop- ment of a personal God image in some adolescents (Potvin, 1976). This may result from projection of parental love. But it may also mean that affectionate parents are more effective in transmitting beliefs to their children. Some evidence exists to support this interpretation (Martin, 1975:502). On the other hand, parental control and non-permissiveness are related to an image of a punishing God, suggesting some projection of parental images upon God (Potvin, 1976). The fact remains that parents and parent-child relationships are important factors in the religious orientation of adolescents. This suggests that religious instruc- tion may increase in value if religious teachers can involve parents in the process. However, Loveless and Lodato (1967) discovered a convergence of values in individuals from different religions during adolescence, reflect- ing a decline in the influence of parents and a growing influence of the peer group. Whitam (1968) performed a follow-up study on teenagers who had “decided for Christ” and documented the importance of friends in the retention of a religious commitment. The relevance of the peer group in explaining values and behavior has been amply demonstrated (see, for example, Elder, 1975; Kandel & Lesser, 1972). The correla- tions of Table 8 indicate that adolescents with friends who are acceptable to their parents score higher on most of the religious dimensions and that those with friends who are not acceptable to parents score lower. Again the data by themselves do not show causality but they point to a relationship which is of some interest to religious educators. Many of these variables which are related to religious orientation are also related among themselves (see Table 8). Do they all predict independently of each other? What is their relative importance? Table 18 CORRELATION MATRIX OF SELECTED ITEMS AND RELIGIOUS INDICES 10 CD CO CO rv LD CO Cv LD h- 00 A)j|eJow |Bjoo$ 0 O O 0 1 0 rH O 1 i-H i-H CM CO 00 ID ID 00 CM 0 CO 0 CT> IV. O CO Aihbjo in oijaosv CM 1 O r-H 1 0 1 CM CM 0 1 CM CM CO CO CM IV. IV. CO CO l\ LD O in |B!iU3U3dX]-|BU0SJ9d O 1 rH 1 0 1 CO 0 CO LD 1^ CO CO CM CT> CO in in i-H sojiOBJd sno|3!|3H r-H 1 r-H 0 1 O 1 0 LD Axopoij)JO •|BU0|)!PBJ1 -.15 .03 in i-H 1 -.23 .25 O CM rH .09 .31 uo|3!|3y LD CO 00 00 in CsJ i-H 1 0 O 1 0 CO 0 0 i-H SujApnis mon SPU3UJ JO SAOJddv S)U3JBd i-H 0 .07 -.02 00 0 .09 .27 CO i-H 1 CD 0 CM 00 I0JJU03 |BJU3JBd O 1 i-H O 0 1 0 i-H 1 poddns CO CM cn 0 0 O q -UOJJ03JJV |BlU3JBd r f \ 33j;3BJd rH 0 CM 0 q O q sno;3j|3y iejusjed l' r 10 r-H CO UOjiBOnp] |BiU3JBd 0 r q rH CO 3ZJS Alio 0 f q r-H X3S 0 l' 0 0 t «/> D 0 C 0 CL 03 2 CL CL 3 CO ‘l. Ll. H- c 0 'cuo X 0 "to Q O CD cr W) 0 -C 0 ’+-> 0 03 ’i_ CD >* +-J a> N T3 LlI "to Id cc "(0 CD !J= < c 0 O "to Q. Q. < V) c T3 13 O "to c: O 2 CL (/> ZJ 0 CL X LlI "to L. O O 2 0 CO c c c c: "c CO M 0 +» CO V >> 03 03 CD CD CD £ T3 C/> 03 0 0S) CL) (5 to to TO <5 0 2 "cd a) V) < CO b Q. CL CL CL Q. 2: 1- o: CL < 00 19 STANDARDIZED REGRESSION COEFFICIENTS (/}) BETWEEN SELECTED VARIABLES AND RELIGIOUS INDICES (N = 1121) Social Morality (3 * * * * * * * * * * * * 00 LO CO CO (/> W (/> 00 CMO O O ^ 7 h Q h... .25 .06 Ascetic Morality 13 # * # * * * O (/) CM h 00 CM CO ^ 00 CM -p- H !—1 »—1 i—1 -pr i—1 r— 1 1 1 1 .45 .21 Traditional Orthodoxy (3 * * # # # # ***## »—i CO O LOCOi-hCOCOH 2 cm < O *—i O CM 1 1 1 .49 .22 Religious Practice /3 * * * * * * * * * * * # # Oi-HLOIO 00 GO GO C"" O >—i i-h O O 00 ^ Z O ^ i* ' i r .67 .43 Personal Experiential (3 * Ji jf. 4J. si. Jt CO CO 00 O 00 CM cO CO LO2^0—1 CM H 2 2 CO \ I .55 .31 Age Sex City Size Parental Education Parental Religious Practice Parental Affection-Support Parental Control Parents Approve friends Now Studying Religion II II CM cn cr 20 * p < .001 ** p < .01 *#* p < .05 NS = non-significant 9 presents the standardized regression coefficients (Beta’s) for each variable which partial out the contribution of other variables related to it. The R's in the table give the total association between the variables and each measure of religiousness. The R2 ’s give the percentage of variance explained. It is obvious from the data of Table 9 that the most important predictors of religiosity as measured by these indices are parental religious practice and whether or not the adolescent is currently studying religion. Age is also a major factor in ascetic morality (the older the youth, the less ascetic the orientation) and social class as measured by parental education is important in predicting traditional orthodoxy (the lower the parental education, the more traditionally orthodox is the adolescent). Parental affection and support are the most important factors related to social morality. Nonetheless there appears to be no substitute for a religious home environment and for religious instruction if adolescents are to remain committed to their religious heritage. CONCLUSION The problems of religion usually associated with college youth have now become the problems of high school youth. Concern for basic values of autonomy and independence has reached within their ranks and affected their religious orientation. They appear less traditional than in the past and a confrontation with faith appears to occur much earlier. Religion seems more peripheral to their lives but the great majority are not alienated from organized religion. They are children of the times who will insist on religious dialogue and not simply religious indoctrination. They are also confused by the very freedom they demand. Support systems of the family and/or peer groups will be important factors in how they react to this freedom. Organized religion, in union with these support systems, can be a major force but today’s adolescent will assess it more critically than in the past. 21 Part 1 1: Young Adults 18-29 INTRODUCTION In this section we review information on college students who are mostly 18 to 21 years of age and on young adults 18 to 29, with special emphasis on the non-college population. In the middle-1970s college students comprised about 46 percent of all persons in the U.S. popula- tion 18 to 21 years old, 11 and 34 percent of the total population 18 to 29 were college students or graduates. 12 College students in the United States have changed in religious beliefs and behavior more rapidly than virtually any other group; and so this section stresses changes and trends. Campus ministers never tire of saying to sociologists that data gathered two or three years ago on campus are now totally out ofxdate due to the rapid shifts in mood. While we should not rush to draw Conclusions about the significance of these rapid movements, it is a fact that the phenomenon is more prevalent among college students than among adults. Projections about the future are, as we shall see, difficult with regard to college students' religion. What follows is organized into five parts: (a) data on all college students’ religion and values; (b) Catholic students’ religion and values; (c) the Pentecostal Movement and the rise of religious cults among students; (d) explanations for the changes; and (e) some comments on non-college young adults. COLLEGE STUDENTS’ RELIGION AND VALUES There have been many studies of college students’ religion and values. Two recent comprehensive reviews depict the basic findings. One, by Feldman and Newcomb (1969), looks mostly at research on the impact of college on students’ attitudes and values. In summary, it concludes that college education usually has a liberalizing effect on students’ religious and political attitudes, though colleges vary in their impact. The other review, by Hoge (1974), covers trend data and examines possible explanations for the trends. Its overall conclusions about trends among students are instructive for an understanding of the situation today. 13 Hoge finds two distinct trends in 50 years of data on college students’ religion and values. First is a single linear trend occurring in the same direction over all five decades. It has three visible com- ponents. (1) Increased individual freedom and personal autonomy of students. College students have more freedom and more personal 22 responsibility today than ever before, and they are treated more like adults today than ever before. (2) Changes in moral orientations, mostly from detailed moral codes to more generalized and flexible moral orientations relating to dominant values. The new moral views also include greater tolerance regarding details of moral codes. (3) The rise of a self-conscious youth culture. This occurred mostly after World War II, though earlier indications of it were found in student life of the 1920s. The idea that youth are a distinctive portion of the population and the years of youth form a distinctive segment of the life cycle is a relatively new development, essentially a product of the 20th century. The rise of a self-conscious culture growing out of this newly defined portion of the life cycle is a product of the middle 20th century. In addition to this linear trend visible over all five decades, Hoge found a pattern of back-and-forth shifts in college students' religion and values, in response to short-term events and pressures. In the area of religion, traditional Christian commitment was relatively strong in the middle 1920s, then weakened greatly to a low point in the middle or late 1930s. Starting about 1938-41, there was a return to traditional Christian commitment which continued until a highpoint in 1952-55. Thereafter, with the demise of Cold War anxieties, the campus mood shifted again toward individualism, with a weakening of traditional commitments which has continued until the most recent research find- ings. In the middle 1970s there were some new indications of a halt to the downward trend, as we shall see below. But there has been no over-all reversal of the weakening of orthodox beliefs and support for the institutional church ever since the middle 1950s. The reasons for the short-term changes must in themselves be time specific. An analyst cannot explain five-year developments by citing 50-year trends. Hoge looked into a series of short-range factors which might have caused the back-and-forth changes and found that when traditional religious commitments were strong, other kinds of values also tended to be strong, and vice versa. Traditional religious orthodoxy is associated with fear of Com- munism, with commitment to family life, with commitment to military duty and patriotic war, and with commitment to dominant social norms. The extent to which it is associated with other- direction is not clear; our direct measures show little association, but historical accounts and other research suggest an association at least indirectly. We have also seen that religious unorthodoxy is associated with political action toward radical social change (1974:180). It might be said that the middle 1920s and early 1950s were conservative periods and the middle 1930s and late 1960s were liberal periods. The concerns of college students in the middle 23 1920s and early 1950s were relatively personal and privatistic, while in the middle 1930s and late 1960s they were more social and political, oriented to achieving social change or national policy change (1974:182). Put in sociological terms, traditional religious commitments have been strongest when other traditional commitments—to family, to nation, and to the social status quo—have been strongest. When, for any reason, these other traditional commitments weaken, religious commit- ment is also bound to be affected. To understand religious change, one must start with a view of the total system of values and commit- ments held by an individual, not just of religious commitments and beliefs by themselves. This is because religious commitments (and especially church commitments) are only one component of a broader structure of commitments, and pressures from various sides change the total structure. This theoretical conclusion reached by Hoge has two implications which should be noted here. First, religious leaders should recognize that the determinants of college students’ religious commitments are much broader than just the clergy, the church, or the schools. Many factors influence religious life, and many of them are beyond the control of church leaders. Pervasive social forces in modern society are difficult to perceive and identify precisely, but nevertheless their effect is strong. Second, the overall pattern of commitments to family, community, and nation are more important determinants of religious commitments in any decade than the economic situation. By comparing college students and the total adult population, Hoge found that vacillations in students’ religious commitments were much more pronounced than in the total population. Generally in the total population, the younger, more affluent and more closely tied in with national intellectual culture a person is, the more he or she is subject to short-range changes in religious commitment. In reviewing all available data through the end of the 1960s, Hoge concluded in summary that religious commitments are closely related to other important commitments in college students’ lives, and when social changes take place, religious commitments will also change. In the past, religious trends have been understandable in terms of broader social commitments, and this will be true in the future also. Research on changes in college students' values has improved in the past decade. At the same time the campus climate has taken a new turn, away from the activism of the late 1960s and toward a more tradi- tional pattern. Some persons have asked if there is a "return to the 1950s.” Today we have three sets of data which depict college students’ values since the 1960s. 24 TABLE 10 PERCENT OF ALL COLLEGE FRESHMEN AGREEING WITH VALUE STATEMENTS 1967 1968 1970 1974 1975 People should not obey laws which violate their personal values. * * * 34 32 A couple should live together for some time before deciding to get married. * * * 45 48 Parents should be discouraged from having large families. 42 * * 60 57 If two people really like each other, it’s all right for them to have sex even if they've known each other for only a very short time. * * * 46 50 Marijuana should be legalized. * 19 38 47 47 Realistically, an individual can do little to bring about changes in our society. 33 32 39 44 48 Student publications should be cleared by college officials. 52 56 43 33 34 College officials have the right to ban persons with extreme views from speaking on campus. 40 32 33 23 24 Students from disadvantaged social backgrounds should be given preferential treatment in college admissions. 43 42 44 38 37 Current Religious Preference: None * 10 10 11 10 * Question was not asked. Source: Astin, et a/. (1975:48). The first set of data comes from the annual survey of freshmen conducted in over 500 American colleges by the American Council on Education (see Astin, et ai, 1975; Bayer and Dutton, 1976). This information has been collected since 1966, and many items have been repeated from year to year. See Tables 10 and 11. Table 10 presents a selection of attitude statements used since 1967 or 1968. It shows major increases in those agreeing that couples should be discouraged from having large families and that marijuana should be legalized. The percentage of students saying that college officials should regulate 25 student life decreased markedly from 1967 to 1975. Fervor for social change weakened: more students in 1975 believed that an individual can do little to bring about social change, and fewer supported preferential treatment of disadvantaged persons by colleges. TABLE 11 PERCENT OF ALL COLLEGE FRESHMEN RESPONDING “ESSENTIAL” OR “VERY IMPORTANT” TO SELECTED STATEMENTS 1966 1969 1970 1974 1975 Becoming an authority in my field 66 * 67 62 70 Obtaining recognition from colleagues 43 * 40 39 43 Influencing social values * 34 34 27 30 Raising a family * 71 68 55 57 Having administrative responsibility for the work of others 29 * 22 26 31 Being financially very well off 44 * 39 46 50 Helping others who are in difficulty 69 * 65 61 66 Writing original works 14 * 14 12 12 Creating artistic work 15 * 16 14 14 Being successful in a business of my own 53 * 44 38 44 Developing a meaningful philosophy of life * * 76 61 64 Participating in a community action program * * 29 28 30 Keeping up to date with political affairs 58 * 53 37 39 * Question was not asked. Source: Astin, et a/. (1975:52). Table 11 presents a series of items considered by freshmen as “essential” or “very important” to them. The most noteworthy trends are decreases in some traditional values—raising a family (down 14 points from 1969 to 1975), being successful in business (down 9 points from 1966 to 1975), and keeping up to date with political affairs (down 19 points from 1966 to 1975). This table demonstrates the withdrawal 26 from political activism so often observed, starting about 1970 or 1971. The table does not tell us very clearly, however, in what direction the new commitments are moving while some traditional commitments diminish. The second set of data available on recent trends was gathered by Daniel Yankelovich (1972;1974). From 1967 to 1973 he carried out large nationwide surveys of college students, and some of the surveys used identical items. His reports stress changes in values from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. With the cessation of the Vietnam War the major energies impelling student protests waned, and campus values reverted to more familiar patterns. The generation gap between students and adults narrowed. At the same time some new, more permanent value trends became visible: The major value changes under this heading are (1) changes in sexual morality in the direction of more liberal sexual mores; (2) changes relating to the authority of institutions, such as the authority of the law, the police, the government, the boss in a work situation, etc., in the direction of what sociologists call ‘deauthorization’, i.e., a lessening of automatic obedience to, and respect for, established authority; (3) changes in relation to the church and organized religion as a source of guidance for moral behavior; and (4) changes associated with traditional concepts of patriotism and automatic allegiance to the idea of ‘my country right or wrong’. The second category of New Values relates to social values, primarily to changing attitudes toward the work ethic, marriage and family, and the role and importance of money in defining the meaning of success. The third category of New Values concerns the meaning of the value concept of self-fulfillment. Self-fulfillment, is usually defined by people today in opposition to concern with economic security. At issue is the individual’s feeling that there must be more to life than a slavish devotion to keeping one’s nose to the grindstone. . . . Stress on the theme of self-fulfillment is the indi- vidual’s way of saying that there must be something more to life than making a living, struggling to make ends meet, and caring for others. The self-fulfillment concept also implies a greater preoccu- pation with self at the expense of sacrificing one’s self for family, employer, and community. (1974:6) Yankelovich argues that the political alienation of the 1960s was a phenomenon specific to that decade, and the campus mood of the 1970s is a return to a more normal, less radical pattern. But the trends in sexual morality, self-fulfillment orientation, distaste for authority, religious individualism, and reduced patriotism are more basic to youth today and probably more permanent characteristics of the 1970s. 27 TABLE 12 PERCENT OF ALL COLLEGE STUDENTS EVALUATING PERSONAL VALUES AS “VERY IMPORTANT” Percent Saying “Very Important” 1969 1971 1973 Love 85 87 87 Privacy 61 64 71 Doing things for others 51 59 56 Living a clean, moral life 45 34 34 Religion 38 31 28 Money 18 18 20 Changing society 33 34 24 Patriotism 35 27 19 Source: Yankelovich (1974:66). TABLE 13 PERCENT OF ALL COLLEGE STUDENTS BELIEVING CERTAIN ACTIVITIES TO BE MORALLY WRONG 1969 1971 1973 Taking things without paying for them * 78 84 Extramarital sexual relations 77 57 60 Having an abortion 36 27 32 Relations between consenting homosexuals 42 26 25 Casual premarital sexual relations 34 25 22 * Question was not asked. Source: Yankelovich (1974:67). Tables 12, 13, and 14 depict value changes from 1969 to 1973. In Table 12, “living a clean, moral life,” religion, changing society, and patriotism have receded in importance. In Table 13 all areas related to 28 TABLE 14 PERCENT OF ALL COLLEGE STUDENTS WELCOMING PARTICULAR SOCIAL CHANGES 1969 1971 1973 More emphasis on self-expression 84 80 83 More acceptance of sexual freedom 43 56 61 More emphasis on law and order 56 50 51 More emphasis on traditional family ties * 45 51 More respect for authority 59 45 48 Less emphasis on working hard 24 30 31 * Question was not asked. Source: Yankelovich (1974:66). sexual activities have lost their moral intensity. In Table 14 there is a desire for greater sexual freedom, less obedience to “authority,” and less emphasis on “working hard.” In summary, Yankelovich expects recent trends in individualism, desire for autonomy, and emphasis on personal fulfillment to continue in the years ahead. At the same time, obedience to authority, personal sacrifice, and traditional sexual morality will progressively weaken. The third set of data is much smaller, made up of replication studies at only three colleges done by Hoge and his associates (Hoge, 1976a; Hastings and Hoge, 1976). At Dartmouth College and the Uni- versity of Michigan the same attitude items were used in identical surveys in 1952, 1968-69, and 1974. At Williams College the same items were asked in 1948, 1967, and 1974. Table 15 depicts the trends in religious attitudes at Dartmouth and Michigan. The percentage feeling the need for some religious faith or philosophy fell from 1952 to 1974, and the percentage feeling that they now have an adequate religious faith or philosophy rose (considerably at Dartmouth, slightly at Michigan). The percentage with belief in a Divine God, Creator of the Universe, fell at both colleges. Church attend- ance fell sharply—church attendance monthly or more often fell 23 points at Dartmouth and 28 at Michigan from 1952 to 1974. Another item (not shown in the table) asked for present religious preference. The percentage saying “none” rose from the late 1960s to 1974: at Dart- mouth from 24 percent to 35 percent; at Michigan from 33 percent to 39 percent. 29 TABLE 15 RESPONSES OF UNDERGRADUATE MEN AT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE AND THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN TO FOUR RELIGIOUS ITEMS (IN PERCENT) Dartmouth Michigan 1952 1968 1974 1952 1969 1974 Feeling of need for some religious faith or philosophy Yes 77 70 61 81 72 66 Have adequate religious faith or philosophy now Yes 53 54 68 62 62 65 Ideas about the Deity3 Believe in a Divine God, Creator of the Universe 35 26 25 47 30 31 Believe in a power greater than myself 30 26 22 27 22 24 Other responses 35 48 53 27 47 45 Attendance at religious services Once a week or more 20 12 12 30 17 14 Once or twice a month 23 9 8 31 23 19 Less than monthly or never 57 79 81 39 59 67 a Responses are abbreviated here. Source: Hoge (1976:159). On the basis of a large number of items, Hoge concluded that the 1974 data showed, in most respects, not a “return to the 1950s” but a continuation of trends in the 1960s. Church attendance and the felt need for religion continued to drop, as did fear of Communism, support for nationalism and the armed forces, and enthusiasm for collegiate extracurricular activities. But there were a few reversals after the 1960s —privatism gained in the early 1970s at the expense of political com- mitments, educational goals turned away from liberal education to voca- tional pursuits, and some attitudes about economics and government became more conservative. The overall pattern in religion was an un- changed level of traditional Christian beliefs but a continued dropoff in church participation and support for organized religion. The studies at Williams College agreed in most respects. In 1974 Hastings and Hoge found no change in religious beliefs since 1967, but a continued drop in expressed support for the organized church. 30 TABLE 16 RESPONSES OF UNDERGRADUATE MEN AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE TO FIVE ITEMS ON RELIGION (IN PERCENT) 1948 1967 1974 “The nature of the Deity” 3 Infinitely wise omnipotent Creator. 29 11 12 Infinitely intelligent and friendly Being. 27 24 23 Vast, impersonal spiritual source. 13 13 12 1 neither believe nor disbelieve in God. 18 13 15 The only power is natural law. 1 8 13 The universe is merely a machine. 1 1 2 None of these alternatives. 11 28 23 “Immortality” 3 Personal immortality. 38 17 22 Reincarnation. 3 2 1 Continued existence as part of a spiritual principle. 9 11 15 Influence upon children and social institutions. 23 39 30 1 disbelieve in any of these senses. 2 7 7 None of these alternatives. 25 24 25 “Organized religion” 3 The church is the one sure and infallible foundation of civilized life. 8 1 1 On the whole the church stands for the best in human life. 56 41 30 There is certain doubt. Possibly the church may do some harm. 12 19 20 The total influence may be on the whole harmful. 3 11 20 Stronghold of much that is unwholesome and dangerous to human welfare. 2 4 5 Insufficient familiarity. 5 7 11 A different attitude (written in). 14 18 14 During the past six months 1 have prayed: Daily or fairly frequently (combined here) 39 24 16 Less often or never 61 76 84 During the past six months 1 have experienced a feeling of reverence, devotion, or dependence upon a Supreme Being: Daily or frequently (combined here) 27 19 18 Less often or never 73 81 82 3 The responses in this item are abbreviations. Source: Hastings and Hoge (1967). See Table 16. It shows that belief in an omnipotent Creator decreased from 1948 to 1967 but did not change from 1967 to 1974. Belief in personal immortality fell sharply from 1948 to 1967 and then continued 31 unchanged to 1974. Positive attitudes toward the organized church fell sharply from 1948 to 1967 and again from 1967 to 1974. Prayer life dropped considerably, while feelings of reverence dropped slightly until 1967. The authors also asked about home religious background and present choice of traditions. The “holding power” of both Catholic and Protestant home backgrounds weakened over the decades. In 1948, 93 percent of those from Catholic homes and 58 percent of those from Protestant homes gave those traditions as their present choice. In 1967 the figures were 75 percent for the Catholics and 33 percent for the Protestants. In 1974 the figures were somewhat lower. TABLE 17 RESPONSES OF UNDERGRADUATE MEN AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE TO THREE ITEMS ON HOME RELIGIOUS TEACHINGS (IN PERCENT) 1948 1967 1974 “If you were brought up under some religious influence, has there been a period in which you have reacted either partially or wholly against the beliefs taught?” Yes 57 72 79 (If so:) “When did the doubts start?” (median age) 16.4 15.5 14.4 (If so:) “Would you say that at the present time you:” Are in substantial agreement with the beliefs taught. 24 15 10 Are in partial agreement with them. 70 67 70 Wholly disagree with them. 6 18 21 Source: Hastings and Hoge (1976). Table 17 shows three questions about religious development. From 1948 to 1974 the percentage who reported some reaction against the beliefs taught them at home rose from 57 to 79 percent, and the median age when the doubts started fell from 16.4 to 14.4 years. There was also a decline in the respondents’ current agreement with beliefs which they had learned as children. These data seem to indicate that the formative period when religious commitments are formed and re-examined is occurring earlier and earlier in the life cycle. As a crucial time for religious development, college is giving way to high school. 32 In some respects the rate of development seems to be accelerating for these middle-class American youth. Physiological research has found the same acceleration. Measures of the age of onset of menses in American girls show a fall of about one and a half years from 1920 to 1970 (Tanner, 1962; 1971). The trend for boys is similar but more difficult to measure. Although definite proof is lacking, accelerated physiological maturation is probably associated with accelerated emo- tional development and perhaps also with cognitive development. All of the research reviewed so far has included all college students, not just Catholics. It was done mostly in secular colleges and universi- ties, not Catholic colleges. It does, however, include some conclusions specific to Catholics because many of the studies were large enough to include reliable samples of Catholic students. In the studies summarized by Hoge (1974:66ff), the Catholics changed most in beliefs between the early 1950s and the late 1960s. The Jews changed least, and the Protestants were between the other two groups. The direction of changes in the three religious groups was usually the same. 14 CATHOLIC STUDENTS’ RELIGION AND VALUES Information specifically on Catholic college students is available from two sources: studies done at Catholic colleges, and large studies which include large samples of Catholics identifiable as such. We shall look first at several studies done at Catholic colleges. The most interesting trend study was done at Marquette University by Moberg and McEnery (1976). In 1961 and 1971 identical studies were done of freshmen and seniors, including many items about religion and many about the morality of various actions. See Table 18. This table shows a series of items which ask whether specific actions are morally “all right," “wrong," “very wrong," or “the worst thing to do." The table shows the percentage responding “all right" to each. On some of the items in the top half of the table the shifts are very large, almost incredibly large. For example, on the first item the shift in students saying it is “all right” to date non-Catholics with marriage intentions is 75 percentage points! Such large changes over ten years have been found in no other student research known to us. But for Catholics the years 1961 to 1971 span the Vatican Council II and its aftermath, and, as everyone knows, the impact has been immense. The shift on the second item, about having serious doubts about religion was 34 points, In the third item, about missing Mass, the shift is 54 points. And on the fourth item, about not saying prayers, it is 53 points. All of the items in the table—those concerning religion and those concerning other actions—received more “all rights” in 1971. This shows that not only a religious change but also a loosening of specific 33 TABLE 18 PERCENT OF MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY UNDERGRADUATES SAYING VARIOUS ACTIONS ARE “ALL RIGHT” TO DO 1961 1971 Dating non-Catholics with marriage intentions 17 92 Having some serious doubts about religion 48 82 Not attending another Mass on Sunday when one misses a major part by arriving late 1 55 Usually not saying evening prayers 17 70 Saying nothing about misinterpretation of Catholic thought 4 18 Heavy necking with a steady date 6 75 Drinking heavily so as to become high 12 56 Reading an obscene magazine 2 38 Taking just easy courses to get through college 22 37 Wasting a class day doing nothing 11 32 Not returning extra $1 change received in store 7 17 Not contributing to any charity when able 8 15 Source: Moberg and McEnery (1976). moral dicta in college students' lives took place between 1961 and 1971. Among Protestants there have been shifts on these items during the same ten years, as other research shows, but for Catholics the changes have been much greater, and mostly in the areas specific to traditional religious beliefs, commitments and practices. Moberg and McEnery also asked about Mass attendance, and found that weekly attendance had dropped from 95 percent to 45 percent. Going to confession at least monthly had dropped from 67 to 4 percent, a drop of 63 points. The declines in personal religious practices were smaller—persons reporting daily prayer dropped 32 percent, spiritual meditation occasionally or more often dropped 16 percentage points, and those reading spiritual works at least occasionally also dropped 16 points. Moberg and McEnery tell us that beliefs about tenets of the Catholic Church became less dogmatic, but they do not report figures. In attempting to explain the meaning of the large changes they found, the authors discovered that the backgrounds of students at Marquette had not changed much since 1961, so that could not be a cause of the shifts. Nor could the explanation be a “Protestantization,” since many of 34 the shifts are not toward moral positions espoused by Protestants. They concluded that changing concepts of authority and rising individualism are behind the shifts: To be sure, an authority crisis has prevailed in the Church, as well as in the family, politics, education, and other institutionalized areas of social life. Houtart (1969) sees this as resulting from the Church’s change toward an emphasis upon the internal dynamism of the individual, with Vatican II as the turning point. Greater respect for personal conscience, questioning the legitimacy of pontifical authority, and legitimization of democratic in contrast to former strictly hierarchical values have all made emphasis upon individual conscience an increasingly accepted stance within Catholicism. Therefore it is likely that our subjects reflect general changes within Catholicism rather than something unique to their (age group) (p. 59). Analysts of Catholic college students need several more trend studies similar to the Marquette study in order to check on its reliability as a basis for generalization. But we know of no others spanning the years of Vatican Council II in this way. In 1970 Langman and his associates (1973) carried out a study of undergraduates at Loyola University in Chicago, in an attempt to understand defection from the church and current political attitudes on campus. They found that in their sample 57 percent retained the parental religion; 25 percent said they now have a “personal religion”; and 18 percent had rejected all religion and were agnostics or atheists. The students in the sample were predominantly from Catholic homes. The researchers inquired into home relationships to understand patterns of religious defection. In our primarily Catholic sample, the mother was central to the transmission of religious values, while both parents transmit politi- cal and social values. Conflict with the mother reduces the extent of identification and contributes to later rejection of the mother’s religious values. This interpretation is clearly in line with Kotre’s (1971) findings that leaving the Church is strongly related to early parent-child conflict, especially between mother and son (1973, p. 527). In early 1974 Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, under- took a self-study which included a student survey. Saint Mary’s is a women's college with a close relationship to Notre Dame University. Out of 540 questionnaires distributed, 232 were returned. Of the respond- ents, 82 percent said their religious preference was Catholic, 4 percent Protestant, 1 percent Jewish, 2 percent “other,” and 11 percent “no preference.” (Among the freshmen 9 percent said “no preference,” and among the seniors 19 percent.) There was much openness to religious 35 commitment. Seventy-eight percent agreed with the statement "I per- sonally feel a need to believe in a religious faith,” and only 12 percent agreed that “Faith is a poor substitute for assurance and knowledge.” Saint Mary's College also took part in the American Council on Education’s annual freshman survey and compared its freshmen with all women freshmen at Catholic colleges and with all women freshmen at all colleges. See Table 19. This table is remarkable mostly for the small TABLE 19 RESPONSES OF FRESHMEN WOMEN TO ITEMS IN THE 1975 SURVEY OF THE AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION: SAINT MARY'S COLLEGE, ALL CATHOLIC COLLEGES, AND ALL COLLEGES (IN PERCENT) “Indicate the Importance to You Personally of Each of the Following:” Percent marking "Essential” or “Very Important.” St. M. College All Cath. Colleges All Colleges Helping others who are in difficulty 80 77 80 Developing a meaningful philosophy of life 80 72 75 Becoming an authority in my field 72 68 67 Keeping up to date with political affairs 59 37 43 Participating in a community action program 42 38 40 Obtaining recognition from colleagues 42 40 40 Being successful in a business of my own 37 32 32 Being financially very well off 37 37 36 Influencing social values 37 34 36 Achieving in performing art or creative art 36 34 33 Having administrative responsibility for the work of others 28 25 27 Influencing the political structure 19 12 13 Making theoretical contribution to a science 10 10 11 Source: Saint Mary's College Research Office. differences between the middle and rightmost columns. On only one item do the Catholic college women diverge more than 5 percentage points from all college women—the fourth, where the Catholics show less 36 concern for political affairs. Otherwise the similarity is striking, indicat- ing the amount of convergence which has taken place between Catholic colleges and other colleges in America. Catholic colleges and universities number about 250, largely inde- pendent of each other and varying in many ways. About 30 percent of the Catholics in colleges in the U.S. are in Catholic colleges and uni- versities (Hassenger, 1970), and the percentage is gradually dropping. Most Catholic colleges are small, with fewer than 750 students, and the majority of students are women. All research on American colleges has found that Catholic schools have students who are more conservative in social and political attitudes than those in other colleges. After Vatican II all of American Catholicism was lowering the barriers between itself and the rest of American society. The same was true of Catholic colleges. In the late 1960s many Catholic colleges changed their governance structures to provide more lay trustees and less hierarchical control. They also took steps to join mainstream American academia, often at the expense of de-emphasizing their par- ticular Catholic heritage. Their goals turned toward the liberal and academic—scholarly achievement, freedom of thought and investigation, and recruitment of faculty irrespective of Christian or indeed any reli- gious commitment. The role of religion courses, liturgy and the nurturing of a community of faith on campus were endlessly debated, but the main trend was toward giving them decreased attention. Inevitably the identity problem became central. Who are we? Are we different? What does it mean to be a Catholic college or university? As Langman (1973) noted, this was a recapitulation of the same identity crises faced by Protestant colleges during the past half-century. If the Protestant experience is any guide, we should expect a spectrum of diverse resolutions of the problem in various Catholic colleges and universities. The downturn in financial support and enrollments in the 1970s gave the identity problem more urgency, while adding new elements to it. Who will support us? Will our institution survive? This has in general slowed the changes of several years earlier and caused new attention to be given to forging close ties with identifiable constituencies. The specifically Catholic character of the colleges gained favor and some colleges attempted a mild swing back in the opposite direction, but with great variation from college to college. Whether the Catholic college as such has an impact on student values and behavior is still an open question. Data show that in terms of church attendance, self-reported religiosity or indices of religious knowledge and understanding, Catholic college graduates score higher 37 than graduates of non-Catholic colleges (Hassenger, 1970:187). How- ever, as suggested by Westoff and Potvin (1967) some of these differ- ences may well be due to differential selectivity, with “more religious” students going to Catholic colleges in the first place. Greeley and Rossi believe Catholic colleges provide “firmer ideological underpinning for the religious practices and attitudes which were internalized in earlier years” (1966:168). After reviewing the literature Hassenger concludes: “There are a few indications that religiously affiliated colleges do not change their students so much as they reinforce the formation which has occurred in the home and to some extent in primary and secondary school” (1970:193-194). Given the general decline in religiousness over the college years, this reinforcement appears quite important. Studies of Catholic students active in campus Newman Clubs further reinforce this conclusion. For example, a study in two colleges in 1965 found that the active members were from homes in which both parents were active, practicing Catholics, and most had had formal Catholic education on both the primary and secondary levels (Wagner and Brown, 1965). A 1969 study at four colleges found that Newman Club members were more conservative in religious and social attitudes than other students and that the Newman Club seemed to have little impact other than reinforcement on students’ beliefs and behavior. Just as the college experience as a whole has little over-all influ- ence, so do the campus religious groups themselves. Insofar as they differ from the rest of the campus, it seems to be much more a phenomenon of selective recruitment than cumulative influence (Demerath and Lutterman, 1969:137). It should be noted, however, that as in the case of the Catholic college, reinforcement can help in the maintenance of values. THE PENTECOSTAL MOVEMENT AND RELIGIOUS CULTS AMONG STUDENTS The Catholic Pentecostal Movement, also known as the Charismatic Renewal of the Church, began on college campuses in 1967. Its initial growth occurred at Duquesne, Notre Dame, and the University of Michi- gan. By the middle 1970s there were many Pentecostal prayer groups throughout the nation, some based on college campuses. A 1973 estimate held that there were about 1,250 groups, with a membership of 75,000 to 100,000 (Harrison, 1974:50). How many of these are com- prised of college students is not known. The movement is slowly becoming institutionalized; it now has regional and national leaders, annual gatherings at Notre Dame, a Directory, and a monthly magazine, New Covenant. A number of sociological studies have been made 38 already (e.g., Harrison, 1974, 1975; Bord and Faulkner, 1975; McGuire, 1974; Hollenweger, 1972; Samarin, 1972; Fichter, 1975). The main identity of the movement centers on the experience of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and experience of new life in the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit, most notably glossolalia and healing, are central to most of the leadership. Experiences of communal love and support, arising from frequent intimate prayer meetings and sharing of experi- ences, provide for strong group commitment by members. The Pente- costal movement is not a social change movement or a radical move- ment. It is not even a serious revolutionary movement within the Catholic Church—though various interpreters disagree at this point. It is basically a search for new forms of religious piety, identity, and experi- ence within the confines of the Catholic Church. To understand it, one must realize that it arose in social locations of unrest and anomie- campuses and urban centers in the late 1960s. The movement appears to have developed partly as an affirmation of Catholic piety and loyalty in the face of the erosion of these beliefs and forms of devotion during the upheavals that occurred within and outside of the Church during the 1960s. Nevertheless, the movement is not simply a revival of traditional devotionalism. It also embodies the postconciliar search for new forms of religious community and worship, especially through lay participation. The movement also appears to reflect some disillusionment with politi- cal action among college-age youth and a heightened quest for fulfillment through religious and communal experimentation. . . . The movement is especially attractive to people who have strong prior commitments to personal religious devotion as a source of guidance and are seeking religious community (Harrison, 1975:152). All observers agree that the Pentecostal movement was triggered by Vatican II and the general unrest of the 1960s. The movement is best seen as a search for personal devotion and support in face of this unrest —not as radical or revolutionary in its own right. Student participation has been heaviest among those in the most nonsupportive social loca- tions who have the fewest competing commitments: undergraduates are more involved than graduate students, single than married students, residents than commuter students (Harrison, 1974). Participation by priests and nuns is very strong, and most of the groups make no criticism of clergy or hierarchy. It seems to us that the Pentecostal movement will become a rather permanent form of Catholic life in most campus communities. Whether it will wane numerically as the unrest of the 1960s and the shock of Vatican II diminishes, remains to be seen. But undoubtedly it is becom- ing routinized and institutionalized. “The movement seems to be devel- 39 oping into an option within the Catholic Church for loyal Catholics seeking deeper expressions of personal piety and religious community” (Harrison, 1975:159). Media attention has been given to present-day religious cults, both Christian and non-Christian. In 1976 much is written about the Unifica- tion Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon; a few years ago attention was focused on the Jesus People and the Hare Krishna. These movements attract thousands of followers, usually urban young people whose ties to family and conventional culture are broken due to disillusionment and trauma. One psychologist claims that every young devotee of these cults has been through a serious failure of family life. They are recruited through personal relationships on the basis of promises of love, com- munity and meaning. Members of such cults are a small minority of youth, and membership is not stable. Since they are based on young people, not on lifelong family and kinship communities, these cults can be expected to change every few years, with members entering and leav- ing constantly. (See U.S. News and World Report, June 14, 1976). EXPLANATIONS FOR THE CHANGES We shall look first at explanations for religious changes by indi- vidual students, then at explanations for overall trends in college stu- dents' religion over the years. Many researchers have sought crucial factors in individuals’ lives which predispose them toward or away from church commitment. Hoge (1974) extended this field and reviewed all available research. He found that the most important factor determining religious attitudes of college students was the amount of religious influence in the home. Closeness to parents was always associated with students’ religion, in that the students who were closer to their parents had more ties to traditional religion and the church. Students who live at home and commute to col- lege resemble their parents in religious attitudes more than do students living on campus away from home. Kitay (1947) did an extensive study of this relationship and concluded that to a large extent attitudes toward the church are extensions of attitudes about the family. Where family attitudes are supportive and positive, attitudes toward the church tend to be positive, and vice versa. Many other factors have also been studied in relation to college students’ religion. Social class was found to be a weak factor at best. Most studies find either no association between social class and religious commitment, or a weak association between higher class and weaker commitment. Some rural-urban differences exist. Also, whenever the re- searcher measures “cosmopolitanism” versus “localism,” a religious 40 difference is found. Students with more cosmopolitan orientations (de- fined as acquaintance, with and feeling acceptance of, a range of different cultural settings) tend to be a bit weaker in church commit- ment. The reason seems to be that church commitments are often of a local, community or ethnic character, and when an individual transcends these identities, the church loses some of its saliency for him or her (see Roof, 1976 for a discussion of this). The theory which Harvey Cox set forth in The Secular City (1965) has never been supported by sociological research—urban life does not lead inevitably to relativization and secularization of religious commitments. For some city dwellers urban life has this effect, and for some others it does not. The crucial factor is not urban living taken alone but rather the character of one's associations with others and one’s networks of friends. The impact of college experience on students’ religion seems to be less today than it was 30 or 40 years ago. Research prior to World War II tended to find that many students experienced a kind of "shock” when they encountered atheistic professors and lived with students with differ- ent religious beliefs. But recent research has found less indication of any "shock.” The main impacts of secular intellectualism and experience with different religious beliefs occur in high school more often today than several decades ago. Some research has documented that the re- ported age of first religious doubt has dropped an average of two years since 1948 (see Table 17). The most informative research on Catholic students done recently is the study of 100 Catholic graduate students by Kotre (1971). He interviewed 50 who considered themselves in the church and 50 who considered themselves outside it, even though all had experienced Cath- olic upbringing and graduated from Catholic colleges. He looked into many factors which might have caused movement in one direction or the other. He discovered that the most important causal factors which im- pelled many to leave the Church were parents’ religion and home rela- tionships. Those students within the Church (the "Ins”) tended more often to have parents who both were practicing Catholics. Those outside the church (the "Outs”) often had one or more parents who were in- different, or whose attitudes toward the Church had changed. Mothers had greater impact on children’s religion than fathers. The mothers of the “Ins” were seen as more flexible, less rigid, than the mothers of the "Outs.” Home ties of the "Ins” were stronger and warmer than of the "Outs.” Kotre concluded that a-rational factors are primary, that the church is perceived much differently by different persons, and that the perceptions result from interpersonal and social factors more than from intellectual factors. Identification with parents and adult leaders, or lack of such identification, is the most crucial mechanism. 41 We turn now to possible explanations for recent trends in Catholic students’ religious commitments. Such explanations are logical exten- tions of the explanations for individual behavior just reviewed; but the relative frequency and power of the various mechanisms are subject to historical change, and such changes produce trends. Many authors have discussed recent changes in American Catholi- cism. Our explanations for changes among students are little different from the main explanations these authors have set forth. The 1960s were a very crucial period in American Catholicism, perhaps the most consequential decade in American Catholic history (see Cogley, 1974). A number of trends converged for almost revolutionary social effect. The period of assimilation from immigrant status virtually came to an end. Large-scale immigration halted in the 1920s, and after 40 more years American Catholics have risen in social status to equal the Protestants. Greeley et al. (1976) have shown how many Catholic groups—especially the English, Irish, and German Catholics—rose to middle-class status in the 1950s and 1960s. The election of John Kennedy as President in 1960 was a kind of symbolic affirmation of the full-fledged Americaniza- tion of Catholics, and it had some effect on Catholic attitudes toward the larger American society. And, of course, it had an effect on the lingering anti-Catholicism which has characterized American Protestantism since the 1830s. Analysts of recent American Catholicism have spoken of the lifting of the “siege mentality” which characterized Catholic leadership in past decades. Today there is less fear of, and less defensiveness toward, the larger American society. Catholic families more often send their children to secular colleges, where they become firmly integrated into American middle-class society. With movement from older ethnic city wards to new religiously pluralistic suburbs, a major change in Catholicism was inevitable. An appreciation of such underlying social trends is needed if one is to understand the rapid changes which followed Vatican II in America. The effect can be likened to an earthquake—a rapid shift which results from years of gradually-building, yet blocked, pressures invisible to the naked eye. The very positive attitudes which Greeley found among Cath- olics in 1974 toward the innovations of Vatican II clearly reflect these growing pressures and the approval which the institutional shifts found when they finally occurred. To what have American Catholics been assimilating? To the main- line Protestant-dominated middle-class culture. But the change is not just a “Protestantization,” as Moberg and McEnery argued, for much of the new situation is deplored by Protestant leaders as much as by Cath- olics. The source of the changes is not the Protestant church but rather 42 a set of underlying, very strong social forces (discussed earlier) which influence youth in America today. Neither the Protestant nor the Catholic church can function as if these forces were not operating. Attempts to dam them up create other problems and sometimes become counter- productive. Churches have an obligation to speak on issues but they should make an effort to recognize the forces at work and develop an appropriate strategy to deal with them. It is well-established social- psychological theory that if an institution sets itself up in opposition to an existing social practice, a test of commitments ensues in which per- sons must choose between the conflicting claims. Persons strongly com- mitted to the social practice, for whatever reason, will very often reject any institution which opposes it, in order to overcome painful cognitive dissonance. Efforts to define principles of Christian behavior in new social situations are sorely needed. The changes in American Catholicism since Vatican II have been especially great in Catholic colleges. The past 12 years have seen self- study after self-study in the Catholic colleges, change after change in policy and even governance. Today the identity of the Catholic college is the subject of much reflection. In effect many of the leading Catholic colleges and universities now aspire to join the vanguard in American intellectual life. The future will see much more agonizing about the identity of Catholic colleges and universities. As financial support sys- tems change, some church-related colleges will not survive while others will grow. Those which survive will adopt a variety of methods for com- bining Catholic heritage and modern secular disciplines. NON-COLLEGE YOUNG ADULTS In this section the emphasis is on the religious orientations of Catholic young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 with a high school education or less. Data for this segment of the population are sparse. While Andrew Greeley and his associates at NORC have written exten- sively about the Catholic adult population, it is not always possible to isolate information which applies specifically to the under-30 non- college young adults. Yet they are known to differ, in important ways from the college population previously described. As Demerath has noted, “college students are not alone in experi- encing doctrinal apostasy" (1974:20). Though it is generally believed that a college education exerts a secularizing influence on religious prac- tice and belief, the fact remains that among Catholics a college educa- tion in the past has been positively related to greater orthodoxy and religious practice. Tables 20 and 21 show that this continues to be true for Catholics under 30. Fewer non-college youth attend Mass in an average week and fewer believe in life after death than among college 43 youth. To some extent this relationship is a function of the significant number of Catholic youth who attend Catholic colleges. Such attendance, if not always generative of Catholic values, appears to help maintain them (Westoff and Potvin, 1967). Whether this effect will continue in the future is quite problematical. Saldahna et al. (1975) have reported dis- turbingly large net apostasy rates for Catholic college youth under 30 in recent years. A somewhat lower rate is to be found among youth under 30 who did not attend college. TABLE 20 PERCENT OF POPULATION 18 TO 29 ATTENDING RELIGIOUS SERVICES IN AVERAGE WEEK BY RELIGION, EDUCATION, AND YEAR (Gallup Surveys) PROTESTANT CATHOLIC YEAR High School or Less Some College or More High School or Less Some College or More % (Base) % (Base) % (Base) % (Base) 1957 39 49 74 100 (131) (37) (65) (15) 1968 31 36 51 66 (96) (55) (49) (38) 1974 29* 35 36* 53 (**) (**) (**) * The category was simply labelled “High School”. "Grade school only” are not included in the 1974 data reported here. See Religion in America (1975:4). ** N's were not reported. The data of Tables 20 and 21 also document the decline in church attendance and belief in a life after death over the years. Among non- college Catholic youth under 30 attendance at religious services in an average week has dropped from a high of 74 percent in 1957 to a low of 36 percent in 1974. Protestant and Catholic rates are converging. Some decline also occurred among non-college Catholic youth in belief in life after death, but not to the extent that it has among college youth. The differential in orthodoxy between college and non-college youth seems to be narrowing over the years, caused mainly by the increase of doubt and disbelief among the college population. On the other hand, the differential among Protestants seems to be increasing because of an increase in doubt and disbelief among the non-college youth. 44 TABLE 21 PERCENT OF POPULATION 18 TO 29 BELIEVING IN LIFE AFTER DEATH BY RELIGION, EDUCATION, AND YEAR (1957 AND 1968 GALLUP SURVEYS AND 1972 SURVEY RESEARCH CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, STUDY) YEAR PROTESTANT CATHOLIC High School or Less Some College or More High School or Less Some College or More 1957 85 89 66 87 (131) (37) (65) (15) 1968 81 78 69 82 (96) (55) (49) (38) 1972 70 80 60 67 (221) (157) (100) (70) In the area of moral values non-college youth tend to be more con- servative than college youth, but the differences between them have narrowed over the past few years (Yankelovich, 1974:23). Nonetheless they have not disappeared. For example, in 1973 as many as 61 percent of college youth would welcome acceptance of sexual freedom compared to 47 percent of non-college youth; only 32 percent of the former con- sider having an abortion as morally wrong compared to 48 percent of the latter. Generally “living a clean moral life” is a more important value to non-college than college youth (Yankelovich, 1974:25, 67). The data suggest differences in religious orientation between col- lege and non-college youth. While college youth attend religious serv- ices more frequently and appear to be more orthodox in doctrinal mat- ters, non-college youth are more traditional on moral issues. Further- more, they pray to God more frequently (75 compared to 64 percent reporting frequent prayer: 1971 Gallup Newsweek data) and more (42 percent compared to 28 percent) believe that religion is an important value in life (Yankelovich, 1974:26, 66). Certainly, the lower rates of church participation among non-college youth do not necessarily indi- cate less religiousness or less interest in religion but a difference in orientation. This difference, however, seems to have narrowed recently. AGE AND GENDER DIFFERENCES A summary of Gallup surveys over the years ( Religion in America, 1975) shows that young adults under 30 and males are consistently less likely than older adults and females to attend religious services in an 45 average week. The same age differential is not so clearly apparent in the area of belief (Hertel and Nelsen, 1974). When one compares 1965 data presented by Marty et al. (1968) and 1968 data presented by Alston (1972) on belief in life after death and in heaven and hell, the suspicion arises that cohort factors are as important as age in determin- ing the level of belief. Any association between age and religious practice after adolescence must be interpreted with caution (see Wingrove and Alston, 1974). Studies of religious behavior over age categories have traditionally indicated that there is a decline in religious activity between 18 and about 30, followed by renewed activity. These studies relied upon cross- sectional rather than longitudinal, panel data—that is, upon studies of a population at a given time rather than on studies of the same indi- viduals over time. The studies are briefly summarized by Bahr (1970) who proposes that the data selectively suggest four models for the rela- tionship between age and religious behavior and belief: stability (for example, church attendance, based on patterns established early in life, is subject to relatively little change—the faithful keep attending); decline from 18 to 30 (as one leaves the family of orientation); change accord- ing to one's place in the family life-cycle (people with young children have renewed interest in religion); and disengagement as one grows old (with decreasing church attendance following middle age). Concerning church attendance, Bahr was forced to conclude from analysis of cross- sectional and retrospective data that “little confidence can be placed in TABLE 22 PERCENT OF CATHOLICS ATTENDING CHURCH* REGULARLY ON SUNDAY BY SEX AND EDUCATION: 1971 AGE FEMALE MALE High School or Less More Than High School High School or Less More Than High School Under 30 61 41 33 40 (94) (57) (58) (68) 30 plus 65 73 58 75 (283) (81) (191) (95) * The item was: "About how often do you go to church?" The responses were collapsed as follows: Never and occasionally, Regularly on Sundays and Holy Days, and More often than regularly on Sundays and Holy Days. In reporting the data to the analysis, the last two categories are combined above. There were 4 individuals who did not respond to the item. Data on education and age were not available for 23 additional individuals. 46 the extant generalizations about aging and church attendance until ex- tensive retrospective or longitudinal research reveals the degree to which variations now attributed to aging or stage of life-cycle are merely reflec- tions of age-specific patterns of current attendance without direct coun- terpart in the personal histories of older respondents.” The association between age and religious behavior is further com- plicated by gender and level of education. Table 22, based on secondary analysis of 1971 Gallup data on Catholics collected for Newsweek (made available by the Roper Public Opinion Research Center), presents these multiple relationships for church attendance. The age difference is mini- mal among non-college women. It is considerable among the college- educated of both sexes. Females are more likely to attend church than males if they have a high school education or less. This is especially pronounced for young adults under 30. Among those in the college- educated category, gender differences are minimal whether under 30 or over 30 years of age. The implication of these findings is that age and gender differences in religious orientation are often a function of other factors such as education. ACCEPTANCE OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY AMONG CATHOLICS In Catholic Schools in a Declining Church Greeley and his co- authors (1976:28-39) document a decline in religious devotion, moral values and acceptance of the legitimacy of ecclasiastical authority. They identified attitudes toward Humanae Vitae and papal authority as the major factors in this decline, which was found to be most precipitous among the younger generation and least precipitous among those who attended Catholic schools (1976:170; 306). In 1974 nonetheless 60 percent of Catholics under 30 still had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the church or organized religion. Another 38 percent had “some” confidence (Religion in America, 1975:21). The impact of Humanae Vitae on acceptance of papal authority was not evenly dis- tributed among Catholic youth (see Table 23). For the age group under 30, college males were the most affected, non-college males the least. Females reflected an intermediate degree of impact, with college females reporting more questioning of the pope’s authority after Humanae Vitae than non-college females. Given such a differential impact of Humanae Vitae and the finding by Greeley and his co-authors that the impact of Catholic education in arresting the decline in religiousness is greatest (for those under 30, in 1974) when 10 or more years have been spent in Catholic schools, it would be instructive to see two subtables showing scores separately for 47 TABLE 23 PERCENT OF CATHOLICS REPORTING THAT THE 1968 ENCYCLICAL HAS MADE THEM QUESTION MORE THE POPE’S AUTHORITY* (1971 Gallup Catholic Data), BY SEX AND EDUCATION AGE FEMALE MALE High School or Less More Than High School High School or Less More Than High School Under 30 35 47 25 68 (88) (57) (56) (66) 30 to 49 29 45 22 14 (141) (58) (69) (57) 50 and over 13 10 16 18 (115) (21) (101) (34) * The item was: "How has the Pope's 1968 encyclical condemning birth control pills as well as other forms of artificial contraception affected your attitude toward papal authority — do you question it more, accept it more, or hasn't your attitude changed?” The responses were Accept more; Hasn't changed [my] attitude; Question it more. There were 72 individuals who responded "don't know” or who did not respond. Data on education and age were not available for 19 additional respondents. those who have had a college education in Catholic schools and those who have not. Since changes in doctrinal and moral orthodoxy have been greatest among college youth, the conclusions by Greeley and his co- authors on the impact of Catholic education might apply to Catholic higher education more than to parochial or high school education. HUMANAE VITAE AND SOCIAL CLIMATE Reaction to Humanae Vitae as well as lessened religious belief and observance among the young are also a function of the times. Fee (Greeley et al., 1976:83) has noted the increase in the number of Ameri- cans who express no religious affiliation and that “voters show a con- sistent tendency to choose independency in political affiliation as well as independency in religious affiliation.” With rising educational levels and the increase in ideologues—people who have a consistent set of political attitudes—a growing disenchantment with the political system has meant an increase in the number of individuals who are "political independ- ents.” Nie et al. (1976:231) report the increase in the number of politi- cal “independents” among Catholics between 1952 and 1972, especially among younger voters. The fact that these trends occur together over time suggests that the increase in political independency is related to 48 the rise in religious independency and the decline in church attendance. Along with such religious and political independency, from the mid- 1950s on polarization increased among the rest of the population on religious issues (Hertel and Nelsen, 1974; see also Hoge, 1976b) as well as political issues (Nie et al., 1976). The end result is a suggestion that a general mentality of independency is linked to a declining and polariz- ing church. The importance of the changing socio-political climate over time lies in the fact that it has brought disillusionment generally, includ- ing disillusionment with organized religion. The rise in independency set the stage for rejection of Humanae Vitae. In other words, we relate the effects of Humanae Vitae to change that took place more generally. This is a hypothesis worth testing in greater detail. 49 Part 1 1 1: Projections Any attempt at describing the future is risky business. We are es- pecially wary of projections in an era of rapid social change. While recent years have witnessed a decline in religiousness among youth on most traditional measures of religiosity, we recognize that religion can not be reduced to statistics. Nonetheless there has occurred a radical shift in the religion of youth. First, we do not expect the underlying changes in American society which have occurred over the past five decades to be reversed. We fore- see greater personal autonomy and individualism among youth. We fore- see more tolerance of variation in culture and life style and less adher- ence to detailed, specific codes of moral behavior. The changes brought by the women’s liberation movement, which are by and large consistent with these trends, will probably be permanent in American society. To some extent religion will become more personal, more private, and its communal dimension, its capacity to create a sense of intimacy and belonging, will become more salient than its formal, institutional dimen- sion. Unless some unforeseen social event such as a major war, depres- sion or fundamental change in the political order occurs, these trends will probably continue. Second, the very rapid decline in religious practice and orthodoxy among Catholics in the twelve years since Vatican II is probably over. Recently Greeley and McCready (1973) have written: “The worst is over. There are some signs that the rate of collapse is slowing.” We tend to agree. We have likened the changes of Vatican II to an earthquake, a kind of rapid resolution of pent-up forces. Earthquakes are violent, but they do not last long. Future trends will be gradual, as were most past trends since research began. Nonetheless, at present the picture is mixed and the staff at NORC responsible for the best documentation available on the Catholic scene cautions: “While there is not yet reason to despair over the future of Catholicism in the United States, neither is there reason for easy optimism” (Saldahna, et al., 1975:20). Some of the effects of the past decade are still being felt among adolescents. Moreover, the main impacts of secular intellectualism and experience with different religious beliefs occur more often today in high school than in college or upon entering the world of work. While past research has documented the beginning of religious doubt at about age 17 or 18, more recent research shows that the reported age of first religious doubt has dropped an average of two years since 1948. We expect this drop to continue. Even now some adolescents at 13 and 14 report problems with religious belief. The values of autonomy and inde- 50 pendence popularized by past generations of college students have in- vaded the high schools. Furthermore, age 13 or thereabout marks a radical change in religious thinking which sets the stage for conflict between faith and reason. Instead of waiting until the age of 17 or 18 to resolve this conflict one way or the other, the adolescent is expected to reach his decision much earlier and this trend will continue in the years to come. Religious instruction at that age level will have to adapt itself to serious questioning by the young, and authoritarian answers will be the least acceptable to them. Authority will have to make “sense.” Third, we do not foresee any collapse of the American family in spite of current trends. Though the degree of estrangement between youth and parents is higher than in the past, this is partly a function of evolutionary changes in the family (Bronfenbrenner:1974). Parents re- main the major influence on the religion and religiousness of youth. We expect that this will continue, even though counter-forces will increase in importance. It will be necessary for parents to grow in their under- standing of their religion if they hope to maintain this influence. Re- ligious instruction organized around family roles may be an effective technique to cope with this problem. Fourth, in spite of the media coverage of the Pentecostal Move- ment in the Catholic church, the Jesus Movement among Protestants and religious cults among youth in general, we do not foresee any signifi- cant rise in traditional religious commitment. These groups encompass a small minority. Most adherents are recruited through personal rela- tionships on the basis of promises of love, community and meaning. While these groups are not expected to disappear, they can be expected to change every few years, with members entering and leaving con- stantly. An increase in religious fervor, such as that found by Zanglein and his co-authors (1975), will affect small minorities but is not ex- pected to be widespread. Fifth, we do not foresee any immediate rise in religious practice or traditional orthodoxy among Catholics either. The American Catholic Church is now an integral part of American society. While pockets of its faithful will retain some ghetto-orientation, the majority of its youth will be part and parcel of the world around them. Generally religion has not been central in the lives of most people in modern societies, but instead occupies the role of a resource to be tapped in times of need. While its challenging and prophetic function is basic to its mission, the fullness of religion’s vision usually has been a way of life for a few only. None- theless its comforting and communal functions are essential and can become the springboard for deeper and more extensive religious experi- ence. We expect American Catholic youth to remain identified with the church but in a less formal and traditional fashion. Weekly church 51 attendance will not be an imperative as in the past and a plurality of beliefs will coexist. It will become increasingly important for the church to define the basic core around which these plural beliefs can be integrated. Sixth, we do not believe that science, or modern philosophy, or modern secular world views, seriously threaten the Christian faith if the latter is understood as more than a set of formalisms. Intellectuals in the Enlightenment tradition have been predicting the demise of the church for about two centuries, basing their argument on the supposed effect of modern science, philosophy, or new thought. But it has not happened, and trends in church life are not at all related to these phe- nomena. This view of human behavior is too cognitive, and we have tried to avoid it in our discussion above. An adequate understanding of religion must give more attention to its identity function, its belonging function, its nonrational roots, and its group dynamics. Religion will not disappear, and the church—in some form—will not disappear either. One piece of supporting evidence is that provided by Hertel and Nelsen (1974) who presented Gallup data on beliefs and attendance by age categories. They indicate that level of belief remains relatively high over time and within age catgories. Thus they challenged the prediction by Stark and Glock (1968:204-224) that a demise of core Christian beliefs is occurring. Stark and Glock had written (1968:210): As matters now stand we can see little long-term future for the church as we know it. A remnant church can be expected to last for a long time if only to provide the psychic comforts which are currently dispensed by orthodoxy. However, eventually substitutes for even this function are likely to emerge leaving churches of the present form with no effective rationale for existing. We could not agree less with Glock and Stark. We have found some de- cline in traditional forms of behavior and an increase in doubt or dis- belief in some areas of orthodox doctrine among the youth. But the great majority have not defected from the churches, even though their par- ticipation is at times peripheral. They are there, awaiting a response from the churches to the new forces and values which surround them. Societies change and force change on religious institutions. Though much has been taken away, much also has been given. If the churches try to understand the new social context and discern how to be creative within it, youth will remain faithful to their Christian heritage—perhaps in ways different from the past, but nonetheless authentic. 52 Footnotes * We are grateful to the following research assistants who helped with the review of literature and processing of data: Theodore Barnard, Christina Carton, Kathy Pearce, Joseph Shields, and Mary-Jeanne Verdieck. 1 The data are from a national probability sample of youth, young men and women 13 to 18 years of age living in households in the continental United States in April, 1975. The sample was selected and questionnaires administered by the Gallup Organization for the Boys Town Center. The de- tails of the sampling procedure are available from the authors. 2 These percentages are higher than the 29 percent regular attendance reported by The Gilbert Youth Research Corp. survey of the high school youth in the mid-’70s sponsored by the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Since the exact sampling procedure was not explained in the report, it is impossible to explain what bias may exist in the figures. See “The Mood of American Youth:1974," published by the NASSP in 1974. 3 Zanglein, Vener, and Stewart have reported that religious orthodoxy did not decline dramatically by age in 1973 though it did in 1970 (1975). Their sample was very limited and non-representative of the nation as a whole. In 1975 that decline is still evident in our data. 4 In the original factor analysis the item currently studying religion loaded on this factor. It was dropped from the religious practice scale so as to be able to compare other forms of religious practice by studying religion. s This percentage is lower than that reported by Paradis and Thompson (1976) but our sample does not include children below 13 who presumably are more apt to attend or be sent to religion classes. Our data also show that 4 percent only of Catholics, 13 to 18 years of age, have never studied religion. « In the Greeley and Rossi data of 1963 the “no Catholic school attend- ance” category is not subdivided into those who are and are not attending CCD classes; so this hypothesis cannot be tested. See Greeley and Rossi, 1966:185. f This was measured by frequency of attendance at religious services. s It should be noted that while parental religious practice remains signifi- cant, the current study of religion also does and is in fact a stronger pre- dictor of adolescent religiosity as measured by these scales. ’ Each parent, father and mother, was ranked on a five-point scale rang- ing from very true to very untrue on the following: a) affection-support items: "often is too busy to listen to me”; “always understands me”; “often gives me a hug or pat on the shoulder”; “sometimes seems cold and distant to me”; “listens to my opinions and thinking even when disagreeing”; and b) control items: “expects me to make up my own mind in most things”; “wants to know everything I do or think”; “lets me set my own rules when and what I can do”; “seems to be always watching over me.” The father affect and support score ranged from 0 to 20 with a mean of 11.67 and a standard deviation of 4.43. The mother affect and support scores ranged from 0 to 20 with a mean of 13.04 and a standard deviation of 4.21. The 53 father control scores ranged from 0 to 16 with a mean of 7.57 and a stand- ard deviation of 3.09. The mother control scores ranged from 0 to 16 with a mean of 7.88 and a standard deviation of 3.34. See Potvin and Suziedelis (1969) for factor analytical details of the larger scales from which these items were taken. The scores of both parents were summed to form the parental scores. 10 See footnote 9. 11 The Statistical Abstracts of the United States, 1975, p. 136. 1? See Yankelovich (1974) for nationwide survey data comparing college and non-college youth of comparable ages in 1969 and 1973. His main con- clusion is that the gap between college and non-college youth has narrowed during this period. Attitude trends are in the same direction in both groups. 13 Additional reviews of research have been done by Parker (1971) and by Argyle and Beit-Hallahmi (1975). The latter is a good comprehensive re- view of research on religious attitudes and behavior in the U.S. and Europe. 14 For other studies producing trend data, mostly in agreement with our summary statements, see Morris and Small, 1971; Gorsuch and Smith, 1972; Goertzel, 1972; and Bell and Chaskes, 1970. The Foley College Poll has done a series of college studies which are not widely known. It asked about belief “in God or a Supreme Being" in annual surveys from 1968 to 1972, and found a decrease from 85 percent to 76 percent saying “yes" during that time. It also asked about church attendance during the past seven days and found a four-year decline from 38 percent to 25 percent reporting at- tendance (Foley and Foley, 1972). 54 References Allison, Joel 1969 “Religious Conversion: Regression and Progression in an Adoles- cent Experience.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 8 (Spring):23-38. 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The meanings and names of the various factors are determined by considering the items with the highest “loadings.” The loading is essentially the correlation (see item 7 for “correlation") of the item with the overall factor. the arithmetic average or the total sum of the scores divided by the number of respondents. 3. S. D. the standard deviation is a statistic which indicates the degree to which the series of scores deviate from the mean. If all of the scores were concentrated at the mean there would be no dispersion and the S.D. would equal 0. The greater the dispersion of scores, the greater the standard deviation. 4. range a simple measure of dispersion which includes the lowest score attained and the highest score attained. For example, a range of 5-25 indicates that all of the scores fell somewhere between 5 and 25. 5. F Ratio a statistic which indicates the extent to which any two means differ from each other. 6. P (probability) an indication of the extent to which a statistical find- ing, such as the F Ratio, could have occurred by chance. When P is significant at the .01 level, it is assumed that the finding could have occurred by chance only 1 time in 100. 7. r the correlation coefficient is the degree of corre- spondence or relationship between two variables. The statistic can vary between +1.00 (a positive relation- ship) to —1.00 (a negative or inverse relationship). (For a positive relationship, the plus-sign is normally not shown, but rather assumed). A correlation co- efficient of 0 indicates no relationship between the two variables in the table. 8. R the multiple correlation coefficient indicates the total relationship between the independent (or predictor) variables taken together and the dependent variable (that variable being explained or predicted) in the table. 9. Rz the square of the multiple correlation coefficient. This statistic indicates the precentage of variance explained in the dependent variable by all of the independent variables taken together (for example, .46 would mean 46.0 percent of the variance is explained). Like R, R 2 has a range from 0 through 1.00. 62 10. /3 (Beta) the standardized regression coefficient is a statistic which indicates the relative importance an independ- ent variable has in predicting a dependent variable, while simultaneously partialling out (removing) the effects of other variables. . ;