December 16, 2002

Study: Religious youth
report higher self-esteem
___CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (RNS)--A national study examining connections between religion and the nation's youth shows that religious 12th graders hold more positive attitudes about life and have significantly higher self-esteem than less-religious seniors.
___The findings were released this month by sociologists with the National Study of Youth and Religion based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
___The report, "Religion and the Life Attitudes and Self-Images of American Adolescents," found that 31 percent of 12th graders attend religious services weekly and 30 percent of high school seniors believe religion is very important.
___Teens in those two categories were more likely than non-attenders and non-religious peers to feel like their lives are useful, feel hopeful about their futures, feel like life is meaningful and enjoy being in school.
___But Christian Smith, principal investigator for the ongoing national study, said there were some causes for concern in the findings.
___"Although highly religious 12th graders generally have better life attitudes and self-images than non-religious 12th graders, it is still noteworthy that a minority of highly religious 12th graders in fact do have negative life attitudes and self-images," he said. "Religion is no cure-all for everyone when it comes to these issues."
___Researchers found that 13 percent of 12th graders who attend religious services at least weekly and 15 percent of those who say faith is important in their lives agree that life often seems meaningless and that the future often seems hopeless.
___Eighteen percent of 12th graders who attend religious services weekly or more often and an identical percentage of seniors who say faith is important in their lives also agree that they sometimes think they are no good at all.
___The National Study of Youth and Religion analyzed 1996 data from Monitoring the Future, a nationally representative survey of U.S. high school students that has been taken since 1975. The analysis focused on data about 2,423 12th graders. The examination of ties between religion and youth, funded by the Lilly Endowment, began in 2001 and is scheduled to conclude in 2005.

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