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Friday, November 21, 2003
Most Students Care Strongly About Religion or Spirituality,
Survey Finds
By JEFFREY R. YOUNG
More than two-thirds of college students have a strong
interest in religious or spiritual matters, according to a
survey report scheduled to be released today.
Seventy percent of students who responded to the survey said
they had attended religious services in the past year, and 78
percent said they had discussed religion or spirituality with
friends. Seventy-three percent said their religious and
spiritual beliefs had helped develop their identity.
The students also expressed a high degree of religious
tolerance and acceptance of nonbelievers. Seventy percent said
people can grow spiritually without being religious.
The survey was conducted last spring by the Higher Education
Research Institute of the University of California at Los
Angeles. It drew responses from some 3,680 students, most of
them juniors, at 46 public and private colleges across the
country.
Researchers decided to conduct the survey after noticing a
shift in the attitudes of students in an annual survey of
college freshmen that the institute has administered since
1966. The results showed a sharp decline over the past 30
years in the number of freshmen who listed "developing a
meaningful philosophy of life" as a primary objective. That
goal was ranked first by students in the late 1960s, but it
ranks eighth today, with being "very well off financially"
topping the list.
Based on those findings, researchers did not expect students
today to care much about spirituality.
"We were most surprised by the high level of spiritual and
religious interest displayed by the students," said Alexander
W. Astin, director of the research center at UCLA and a leader
of the survey.
"Higher education is often seen as a bastion of secularism,"
he said, "but the fact is that students are very interested in
these issues."
Professors should do more to encourage students to explore
spirituality, Mr. Astin said, although he suggested that such
encouragement be done "without preaching any particular gospel
except 'Know thyself.'"
Fifty-eight percent of students said they had participated in
discussions about spirituality or religion in college classes,
and 8 percent said professors had provided frequent
opportunities to talk about the meaning of life. Some
professors may find those numbers high, but Mr. Astin felt
they should be higher.
"It's dangerous to have a society of people who don't look
inward, who have a one-sided focus on the material exterior,"
he said. "Making sense and meaning and purpose of your studies
and your life ought to be at the core of a liberal education."
The researchers plan to add the questions about religious
attitudes to the freshman survey, although students at only
some colleges participating in the survey will be asked those
questions.
The spirituality survey was financed with a $1.9-million grant
from the John Templeton Foundation, which supports research
into science and religion.
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Copyright 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
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