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.
Spirituality is experienced in your own being. Most of religion is forced. Being spiritual means standing on a mountain with the wind blowing through your hair, and the feeling of being free.
(Youth, Africa)
I think spirituality is the way you look at something: the way you look at pictures, the way you look at nature, the way you read books, what kind of movies you like to look at.
(Youth, Israel)
Religion is more of a place … it’s there, [where] you’re supposed to find spirituality.
(Youth, U.S.A.)
Spirituality strengthens the bond between the members of society … it also strengthens the relationship between me and my Lord.
(Youth, Syria)
As these four quotes suggest, young people throughout the world have wisdom to share about a domain of human experience about which, as yet, the scientific community wrestles.
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Kimball, E.M., Mannes, M., Hackel, A. (2009). Voices of Global Youth on Spirituality and Spiritual Development: Preliminary Findings from a Grounded Theory Study. In: de Souza, M., Francis, L.J., O’Higgins-Norman, J., Scott, D. (eds) International Handbook of Education for Spirituality, Care and Wellbeing. International Handbooks of Religion and Education, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9018-9_18
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