The role of religion in civic engagement of young people from diverse cultures in Hong Kong

Abstract

ABSTRACT Young people have ascribed a key role in social development, and promoting positive youth civic participation is a shared global agenda. Youth with a religious faith tend to be more concerned with social and public issues than their non-religious peers. This empirical study investigates the relationships between religious affiliation and civic engagement outcomes in adolescents from diverse Hong Kong cultures. The psychometric properties of a customised questionnaire instrument were first examined and subsequently administered to 8559 youth (6th – 12th graders) from diverse cultural backgrounds. The findings obtained from one-way MANOVA reveal that religious affiliation, gender, grade level, socio-economic status (SES), parental education level, perceived importance of religion, and spiritual health are all statistically significant predictors of civic engagement. MANCOVA results unfold differential effects of various religions on civic engagement after controlling for family SES and parental education. Additionally, two-way MANOVA reveals the interaction effects of religious faith and the perceived importance of religion on civic attitude and the concept of good citizenship of students. Implications for future research on promoting youth civic engagement from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds are discussed.