Youth On Religion

Reviews / Votes

'Madge (Child Psychology, Brunel Univ., UK) and her coauthors offer an actor-centric approach in this welcome addition to a timely and important topic... The book's language is theoretical, but the volume will be of interest to students specializing in the sociology of religion or sociology of youth. Summing Up: Recommended.' - Y. Nesen-Cassino, Montclair State University, in CHOICE, November 2014.

'This unique book is the result of the Youth on Religion project - a major research effort in Britain concerning the prevalence of both faith and non-faith among young British people. Youth on Religion is the only holistic examination of the entire range of beliefs (including non-belief) among contemporary British youth. The scholarship in this definitive study is outstanding, and the book is sure to have wide appeal.' - Ralph W. Hood, Jr., University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA

'Youth on Religion presents findings from a large-scale, mixed methods project funded in the Youth phase of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme investigating young people's religious identities... The data are framed by classic sociological theorizing... The authors highlight the need for further research seeking teachers' parents' and communities' views as well in order to check the gap between rhetoric and reality. Such work could nuance the contrast between the West and other places drawn by participants and adopted by the team... [This] is an insightful, thorough and rich new resource on young people's religious and non-religious identites. The concluding call to listne to young people's own views on what will work in terms of Religious Education, cohesion and integration is a powerful one." - Rebecca Catto, Coventry University, UK, Sociology Journal

"YOR provides an excellent resource on a generation in transition amid a cultural context that at once provides a secularizing tendency to religiosity and an emergence of religious diversity through globalization and immigration. In this context of change, religion presents necessary community cohesion and divisive conflict." Patricia Snell Herzog, University of Arkansas, USA 'This unique book is the result of the Youth on Religion project - a major research effort in Britain concerning the prevalence of both faith and non-faith among young British people. Youth on Religion is the only holistic examination of the entire range of beliefs (including non-belief) among contemporary British youth. The scholarship in this definitive study is outstanding, and the book is sure to have wide appeal.' - Ralph W. Hood, Jr., University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, USA

'This excellent study collected survey data from 10,500 adolescents and then subsampled 160 17-18-year olds to participate in interviews, discussion groups, and diary reports. The goal of the study was to investigate religiosity in a changing society. As Grace Davie says in the book foreword, religion remains important to young people but in varied ways that highlight the important role of individual agency within larger discernable patterns. The complex reality of religion in the United Kingdom, Davie states, is such that the nation is becoming both more secular and more religiously diverse, and she applauds young people for yearning to build a more harmonious society amid their myriad differences.' - Patricia Snell Herzog, University of Arkansas, USA