Voices of Global Youth on Spirituality and Spiritual Development: Preliminary Findings from a Grounded Theory Study

Abstract

This chapter presents wisdom from international youth about their lived experience of spirituality and its relationship to religion. Eight robust constructs (themes) describing spiritual development in the lives of young people (12–19 years) emerged from a grounded theory analysis of context-sensitive data collected in 27 focus groups with 171 youth in 13 countries. The youth participants self-identified with a wide range of religious traditions, and a few had no religious affiliation. The theoretical constructs are offered with rich illustrative quotes and a through discussion of this preliminary study’s contribution to the emergent field of adolescent spiritual development. In addition the study strongly suggests that young people desire more opportunities for intentional spiritual engagement, and it identifies the role of choice in active, sustained spiritual awareness. Both of these findings have significant implications for formal and non-formal educators.KeywordsFocus GroupTheoretical ConstructReligious TraditionSpiritual ExperienceSpiritual DevelopmentThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.