Abstract
The aim of this study is to examine religion’s effect on the political engagement of the youth using data from a sample of undergraduate students at the North-West University in South Africa. The logit regression model analysis showed that contrary to what the participation literature would expect, socio-economic factors such as parental education, age and gender were not significant predictors of the political engagement of the youth. However, consistent with the study’s conceptualisation of political engagement as a multi-dimensional concept, gender, race, ethnicity and family structure were all significantly predictive of different aspects of political engagement of the youth. Males were more likely than females to engage in politics, while black Africans were politically more active than the white and mixed race South Africans. While both self-rated religiosity and importance of religion in the life of the youth predicted their political engagement, their influences were in opposite directions. Finally, civic skills acquired in non-religious contexts were positively associated with every aspect of political engagement of the youth.
Highlights
Despite the age-old debate about the schism between church and state, the empirical evidence about religion’s effect on civic engagement of the youth is thin
Sixty per cent of the respondents live with both parents at home, while 29% live with a single parent
The underlying question we sought to answer in the study is: If religion is increasingly contributing to moving youth away from anti-social behaviours such as alcohol and drug use and abuse, is it diverting them towards pro-social behaviours such as political engagements? We sought to answer this question with a sample of undergraduate students across the three campuses of the North-West University in South Africa
Summary
Despite the age-old debate about the schism between church and state, the empirical evidence about religion’s effect on civic engagement of the youth is thin. This relative paucity of empirical evidence on the effect of religion on the political participation of the youth is questionable in the face of what appears to be the increasing importance of religion in the lives of young people, in modern, secular society (Smith 2003; Smith & Denton 2005). Religiosity has been found to be associated with lower levels of depression and hopelessness (Smith & Denton 2005; Wright, Frost & Wisecarver 1993)
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