Abstract:
Identity development is a primary task of human development that begins in childhood and continues through emerging adulthood. Relative to racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, social class, and gender identity development, there has been less attention to religious and spiritual identity development. Positive correlates and outcomes associated with religious and spiritual identity for both youth and emerging adults include closer family ties and relationships, as well as effective coping strategies for overcoming emotional and interpersonal stressors. For marginalized youth, in particular, religious and spiritual identity serves as a protective factor in coping against racial discrimination.
Sociopolitical development is another developmental process that can serve as a protective factor for marginalized youth and promote civic engagement for non-marginalized youth. Fostering sociopolitical development can assist youth in recognizing the negative impact of structural inequalities and how systemic barriers constrain well-being and personal agency. Scholars have hypothesized that sociopolitical development can be fostered through mechanisms of religious and spiritual identity, but this has not yet been empirically tested. The present study examined this possible relationship, as well as other possible factors that may impact global religiosity and religious and spiritual identity.
I used an existing data set from Project Alliance 2 (PAL-2), a large-scale, longitudinal study. Participants for the current study (n = 415) are a subsample of the 593 families who participated in the Family Check-Up (FCU), a school-based intervention targeting substance-use prevention; both the intervention and control groups were used in the present study. I performed 12 path models to examine the stability of global religiosity over time, the possible relationship between family indicators and global religiosity, as well as the possible relationship between religiosity and sociopolitical development in emerging adulthood. Findings suggest that global religiosity is stable over time, positive family relationships as a family indicator is not associated with global religiosity or religious and spiritual identity, childhood parental monitoring as a family indicator shares a negative relationship with adolescent global religiosity, and adolescent global religiosity is positively associated with emerging adult sociopolitical development.