Forms and Dynamics of Religiosity in the U.S. Adolescent Population

In this talk, Pearce will highlight key findings from her book A Faith of Their Own: Stability and Change in the Religiosity of American Adolescents, coauthored with Melinda Lundquist Denton (Clemson). Drawing on debates over the definition and operationalization of religiosity in the sociology of religion, Pearce and Denton offer a revised view of religiosity as a person-based, or categorical variable, rather than a low-to-high continuous concept. Using survey and semi-structured interview data from the first two waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion, Pearce and Denton describe five general forms of religiosity in the U.S. adolescent population, and track transitions between these forms during adolescence.