Ambitious National Research Articles

Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers

Reviewed by: Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers John A. Coleman SJ (bio) Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. By Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 346 pp. $25.00 Soul Searching represents social science at its very best. Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame, conducted an ambitious National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) through telephone surveys of a representative national sample of 3,370 English and Spanish speaking teenagers between age 13 and 17, and of their parents, the largest and most comprehensive such survey ever done of American teenagers. From their national survey, Smith and Denton paint the big picture of American teenagers' religious and spiritual lives. But surveys, even highly sophisticated ones like this NSYR survey, yield only so much. Forced choice questions and sheer demographic data do not tell us the nuances of meaning and the narratives in the lived experience of teenagers. So, Smith and Denton followed up with in-depth personal interviews of 267 teens. They did close multi-variant analyses of the independent roles of race, class, gender, marital status of parents, denominational family, region of country, etc., on religious behavior. After giving us the big picture of the religious and spiritual lives of teenagers, Smith and Denton raise some larger cultural issues for religion and spirituality in the United States. First, the big picture. In general, very few American teenagers are dabblers or switchers in religion. Only a small sample (roughly 2%) can be said to be "spiritual but not religious." American teens are open to other religions (most do not think only one religion is true) and permissive of others experimenting with religion; but, in fact, few do so themselves. Indeed, the most significant movement toward eclectic adoption of another religion comes from the non-Christian members of the sample, some 37% of Jewish, Muslim, or other religions' teens adapt spiritual practices from Christianity. The majority of American teenagers are Christian, fairly conventional in their spirituality, their practice and beliefs closely mirroring that of their parents. A substantial minority practice their religion regularly (worship attendance, private prayer, or scripture reading, etc). Approximately 17% are sporadic in their religious practice. Half of the sample claim a strong identification with their religion. Among those who claim to be non-religious (16% of the sample), at least half have chosen to be non-religious for fairly passive reasons. Another 40% cite more substantive reasons based on skepticism or bad experiences with religion. In general, however, many of the non-religious still believe in God and pray. They are not anti-religious as such and admit that religion can be good for other people. Presumably, under favorable circumstances, many of these non-religious youth could be potential recruits or converts to religious organizations. Ten or so percent of the sample are highly devoted. This sub-sample correlates strongly with the following factors: (1) parents are also highly devoted; (2) teens have a good relation with their parents; (3) parents are married; ( 4) parents are highly educated; (4) teens are socially connected in other associations, clubs, volunteer groups etc.; (5) girls are more highly devoted than boys; and (6) the highly devoted are more likely to have close friends who are also practicing and/or highly devoted. Religious families differ in the degree in which they yield highly devoted [End Page 113] or regularly practicing teens. Mormons and conservative Protestants do best, followed by Black Protestants. Mainline Protestants anchor the middle, and Catholics and Jews and members of other religions do worse in inculcating devotedness and regular practice among their teenagers. Parental marriage status and parental religious practices are highly correlated with teen religiosity. Parents seem clearly to continue to have a major influence (even if they doubt it) on their teenagers. So strong is this correlation that Smith and Denton even suggest that perhaps the best way to get more devout youth is to work on their parents! A chapter on adolescent religion and life outcomes correlates being devoted or regularly practicing of religion to behavioral outcomes. The devoted and the regularly practicing differ noticeably, from...

Globalisation and higher education studies in South Africa

Globalisation and its impact on higher education will be discussed, while globalisation as a critical external influence on the South African higher education system in its development towards a national higher education system will also be explained. The establishment and development of higher education as a field of study are described as being critical in understanding globalisation in relation to national planning in higher education. The implementation of the ambitious National Plan for Higher Education of the Department of Education expects the unstinting commitment and scientific work of all constituencies to be successful. It is argued that reliable support of the National Plan should also be in the form of developing, establishing and implementing learning programmes of high quality in higher education studies as the basis for research into higher education. The field of higher studies is then discussed with specific reference to the position and standing of higher education studies in South Africa. Finally, critical comments and observations on higher education studies in South Africa that might lead to quality growth in the research and learning programmes of this field of study are shared. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol.16(1) 2002: 91-98

Primary care prevention of cardiovascular disease in diabetes

In the United Kingdom about 8% of National Health Service (NHS) resources are presently taken up by diabetes care, the cost of type 2 diabetes consuming 80% of that total. General practitioners are actively commissioning routine diabetes care for type 2 diabetic patients. This shift to primary care management has been accompanied by an overall change in focus for the NHS, with the introduction of evidenced-based medicine, clinical governance and National Service Frameworks in important clinical areas including diabetes. Diabetic patients have a 2 to 5 fold higher risk of dying from coronary heart disease. In order to be most effective practices will want to prioritize patients for risk reducing interventions. People with diabetes may be stratified into three groups: those with established CHD or other atherosclerotic disease; diabetic patients who are at high risk of developing CHD or other atherosclerotic disease due to a combination of risk factors including: smoking, obesity, hypertension, hyperlipidaemia and proteinuria and close relatives of patients with early onset CHD or other atherosclerotic disease. There are now a number of clear evidence-based interventions, which can prevent this. The ambitious National Service Framework (NSF) for coronary heart disease and the anticipated NSF for diabetes will underline the importance of these inventions, and present the primary care team with a considerable challenge. Effective protocols and audit will have to be agreed and implemented. Clinical governance is designed to ensure and improve clinical standards throughout the NHS. It could include action to ensure that risk is avoided; inappropriate clinical management is rapidly detected, openly investigated and lessons learned; good practice, such as demonstrated in the UKPDS, is rapidly disseminated; and systems are in place to ensure continuous improvements in clinical care. Adequate resources will have to be identified for these important interventions to be implemented. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

SPACE FLIGHT PROBLEMS--MECHANICAL, MEDICAL, AND MORAL.

People BY NATURE are competitive. At its best, this characteristic takes the form of an individual competing with himself to achieve technical, artistic, or moral excellence. At its worst, competition takes the form of war between nations. The problem of guiding the competitive spirit into constructive channels is age old. The ancient Greeks sought an alternative to war in the Olympic games. Today we may hope that the so-called space race will provide a noble and peaceful outlet for the competitive spirit of the great powers. Certainly the problems in the conquest of space are gigantic enough to absorb the competitive energy of the most ambitious man or nation. The material wealth required is substantial. Each family represented here already is contributing about $1,000 per year to space conquest. The mechanical or equipment problems are at the outer limit of the properties of materials and of our technical capabilities in