Aspects of Spirituality in Adolescents (original) (raw)
Related papers
Gender and age differences in spiritual development among early adolescents
European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 2018
The current study examined age and gender effects on spiritual development among early adolescents. A total sample of 416 Czech adolescents, age ranged from 11 to 15 years, was analysed for the study. Data was collected employing a non-experimental survey design by utilizing a self-administered questionnaire. A series of independent t-tests were performed to determine whether there were significant age and gender differences across the spirituality indicators: spiritual well-being, spiritual belief, and experiential spirituality. Results indicated that 11-year-old adolescents were more likely to demonstrate a higher level of spiritual well-being and spiritual belief compared with those 15-year-old; while 15-year-old adolescents were more likely to score high in experiential spirituality than their younger counterparts. Regarding gender, girls were more likely than boys to demonstrate a higher level of spirituality score. Practitioners in education and psychology should be mindful of the use of spirituality interventions applying the respective forms and practices according to age and gender to better promote positive youth development.
Spiritual well-being among adolescents
Spirituality and faith provide an opportunity to detach from circumstances and observe life with clarity and integrity. This study is conducted to assess the level of spiritual well-being among adolescents. Descriptive research has been adopted for this project. The study was conducted among 11 th std students of both urban and rural backgrounds. The researcher selected two schools from both urban and rural areas respectively in Tiruchirappalli. There were 224 students in both the schools formed the universe. Among the students of the above schools, 100 respondents were selected by using stratified disproportionate random sampling technique. 50 students from each school were selected to form the sample. The researcher used standard questionnaire on Spiritual well-being by Hall, T.W & Edwards, K.J. (1996) along with a self-prepared questionnaire covering socio demographic profile of the sample. The findings of the study revealed that majority of the respondents perceived low level of...
Religions, 2024
Religiosity and spirituality (R/S) have been suggested to be positive factors in adolescents’ well-being and development. The aim of this study is to explore the relationship of R/S and images of God with meaning in life and self-esteem in adolescents in a secular environment. A sample of Czech adolescents (n = 984, mean age 16.61, SD 1.21; 28% male) participated in an online survey. We measured religiosity, religious affiliation (Raf), religious attendance (Ratt), spirituality, images of God (IMG), meaning in life (ML), subdivided into components of presence (ML-P) and search (ML-S), and adolescents’ self-esteem (ASE). Religiosity, Raf, Ratt, and a higher level of spirituality were associated with ML-P, with odds ratios (OR) ranging from 1.56 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.34–1.80) for spirituality to 1.88 (1.27–2.80) for church affiliation. ML-S was associated with religiosity, OR 1.41 (1.10–1.82), and spirituality, OR 1.73 (1.51–2.00). No associations were found for self-esteem. The combination of spirituality with Raf and Ratt led to associations with ML-P, ML-S, and ASE for those who were spiritual and affiliated/non-affiliated, with ORsof 2.14–6.00, as well as for those who were spiritual and attending/non-attending, with ORs of 1.84–4.84. Respondents who reported positive images of God were more likely to report an increase in ML-P, ML-S, and ASE, whereas those reporting negative images were more likely to report a decrease. Our findings suggest that R/S, in particular their mutual interactions with higher levels of spirituality and images of God, are associated with adolescent development and encourage the internalisation of R/S values among youth.
Journal of Religion and Health, 2021
This study aims to map the selected literature on students' spirituality and well-being to reveal the current and historical research trends in the relevant literature. Bibliographic coupling of the journals, countries, authors, and organizations, and co-occurrences of author keywords were illustrated through VOSviewer. Moreover, citation analysis was done, and h-classics publications were reviewed. The researchers did the initial search on 5 January, 2020 and updated all the records on 14 August, 2021. Most of the studies showed that students' spirituality was positively associated with their well-being. Most of the researchers preferred to work on samples of adult and adolescent students rather than children. The current and historical trends in the relevant literature are discussed in the paper.
♦ Abstract: Now a day's most of the researchers focused on adolescents that are the most crucial and critical stage of their life. In this study we want to know to what extent does spirituality and psychological well-being play a vital role in adolescent's life, and to what extent both are correlated. Objective to examine the relationship between spirituality and psychological well-being among male and female students and to explore the gender difference with respect to spirituality and psychological well-being. The participants of the present study comprised N=100 students which is further divided n=50 male and n=50 female and they were from senior secondary schools and recruited from Metropolitan cities, their age ranged from 13 to 18 years. Data were collected through Spirituality questionnaire and Psychological well-being questionnaire. Results showed that there was insignificant difference between male and female students on spirituality and significant difference between male and female students on psychological well-being. Relationship showed that there was positive correlation between spirituality and psychological well-being. Result was analyzed by SPSS version 20.0 software.
Structural Relations Among Spirituality, Religiosity, and Thriving in ADOLESCENCE1
Using the randomly selected subsample of 1,000 youth (472 males, mean age = 12.2 years, SD 1.5; 528 females, mean age = 12.1 years, SD = 1.4), drawn by Dowling, et al. (in press) from a Search Institute archival data set, Young Adolescents and Their Parents (YAP), this research employed structural equation modeling procedures to appraise the structural relations among second-order factors of religiosity, spirituality, and thriving. Three hierarchically-related models were tested: the first model was a complete mediation model that involved a direct effect of spirituality on thriving and an indirect effect of spirituality on thriving, mediated by religiosity; the second model only consisted of the mediated effect; and the third model only consisted of the direct effects of spirituality on thriving and religiosity on thriving. Consistent with expectations, the complete mediation model provided reasonably good fit to the data and was significantly better than either of the alternative models. The importance of the present findings for the future study of youth thriving using either the YAP data set or new, longitudinal studies is discussed.
Spiritual Development in Children and Adolescents
Children's thoughts about God or other spiritual themes appear to be a natural part of human development, a search for some force in the universe that represents eternity and the absence of change. Even children who are not raised in a religious home are likely to ask spiritual questions. Kohlberg proposed 3 stages of Moral Development in children, and Elkind proposed 3 stages of Faith Development. Similarly, Thompson and Randall, and Fowler suggest 6 Stages of Faith Development, 3 of which refer to children. All children seem to have a capacity of forming moral judgements and Carl Rogers believed that children and adults are able to reach their full potential as people if the core conditions of warmth, empathy and positive regard are met. Moreover, Erik Erikson gave great attention to the potential role of religion and spirituality in development. For example, he suggested that the successful resolution of the first stage of development brings about the virtues of 'hope', 'faith', and 'trust'… (1964). Hopefulness over time is transformed into mature faith, allowing one to believe that the universe (or God) is trustworthy…With this study we try to investigate children's thoughts and expressions about God and other spiritual themes and to suggest specific ways for promoting spirituality in children/adolescents by educating the 'whole child', and not neglecting this aspect of their development.
Spirituality, Religiousness, and Happiness in Children Aged 8–12 Years
Journal of Happiness Studies, 2010
The relation between spirituality and happiness was assessed in 320 children aged 8-12 from public and private (i.e., faith-based) schools. Children rated their own spirituality using the Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire and 11 items selected and modified from the Brief Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality which reflected the children's practices and beliefs. Children's happiness was assessed using self-reports based on the Oxford Happiness Scale short form, the Subjective Happiness Scale, and a single-item measure. Parents also rated their children's happiness. Children and parents rated the children's temperament using the emotionality, activity, and sociability temperament survey. Children's spirituality, but not their religious practices (e.g., attending church, praying, and meditating), was strongly linked to their happiness. Children who were more spiritual were happier. Spirituality accounted for between 3 and 26% of the unique variance in children's happiness depending on the measures. Temperament was also a predictor of happiness, but spirituality remained a significant predictor of happiness even after removing the variance associated with temperament. The personal (i.e., meaning and value in one's own life) and communal (quality and depth of interpersonal relationships) domains of spirituality were particularly good predictors of children's happiness. These results parallel studies of adult happiness and suggest strategies to enhance happiness in children.
Current Psychology
Purpose: To investigate the structure of spirituality among teenagers, who live in a secular country, employing a QoL assessment, the EORTC QLQ-SWB32. Methods: Japanese high-school students, 15 to 17 years of age, answered EORTC QLQ-SWB32, which had 5 scales: Relationships with Others, Relationship with Self (RS), Existential, Relationship with Someone or Something Greater (RSG), and Change. It had “skip” items 22 and 23 (score range:0–200), which distinguished non-believers (score:0), light believers (score:33–66), and deep believers (score:100–200). Cronbach’s alpha and principal component analysis (PCA) were investigated. Correlations between item-32 (global spiritual well-being (SWB)) scores and 5 scale-scores were estimated. Global SWB scores were compared among groups via one-way ANOVA. Results: Among 283 male students, there were 142 non-believers (50%), 98 light believers (35%), and 43 deep believers (15%). Cronbach’s alpha values of the five scales were above 0.7 for deep b...