From the Staff of the Center for Spiritual Development
Benson, P. L., Roehlkepartain, E. C., & Rude, S. P. (2003). Spiritual development in childhood and adolescence: Toward a field of inquiry. Applied Developmental Science. 7 (3), 205-213.
This article proposes a working definition of “spiritual development” and invites scholarly inquiry into the field by arguing that spiritual development is an understudied, complex and multifaceted subject. Authors contend that spiritual development is a process grounded in a human propensity, overlapping religious development, shaped by individual capacities and ecological influences, and which has the potential to be an important resource for positive human development.
Benson, P. L. (2004). Emerging themes in research on adolescent spiritual and religious development. Applied Developmental Science, 8(1), 47-50.
In his commentary on articles found in this special issue of Applied Developmental Science, Benson identifies the treatment of religion and spirituality as multidimensional constructs, and the consideration of developmental, ecological and strength based perspectives as emerging themes in the study of adolescent spiritual development. Ongoing challenges in the field include definitional and measurement clarity, accounting for cultural and religious diversity, as well as the need for global perspectives and specific in-depth investigations.
Benson, P. L. (2006). The science of child and adolescent spiritual development: Definitional, theoretical, and field-building challenges. In E. C. Roehlkepartain, P. E. King, L. Wagener, & P. L. Benson (Eds.), The handbook of spiritual development in childhood and adolescence (484-499). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Three challenges to the study of spiritual development are: how should we define spiritual development? What theoretical framework will best explain spiritual development and drive research? And how should the field be built? Benson offers architecture for a definition, a theory and for further field development and suggests criteria to help evaluate early attempts.
Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Sesma, A., & Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2005). Adolescent spirituality. In K. A. Moore, & L. H. Lippman (Eds.), What do children need to flourish? Conceptualizing and measuring indicators of positive development (pp. 25-40). New York: Springer.
Currently the most prominent measures of religiosity and spirituality are salience of belief and participation. These measures predict many important aspects of developmental success, but their predictive and explanatory power is quite modest. Any new measures will need to account for spiritual and religious diversity, enhance the prediction of developmental outcomes beyond the current measures, and concise, practical and usable.
King, P. E., & Benson, P. L. (2006). Spiritual development and adolescent well-being and thriving. In E. C. Roehlkepartain, P. E. King, L. Wagener , & P. L. Benson (Eds.), The handbook of spiritual development in childhood and adolescence (pp. 384-398). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
This summary of current theory and recent empirical studies connecting spiritual development and thriving in adolescents suggests that religion and spirituality are associated with positive developmental outcomes in young people. The most prominent current theories explain that the positive developmental outcomes associated with religious involvement are mediated through developmental resources such as developmental assets or social capital. Several studies associating religious or spiritual involvement with positive developmental outcomes such as: health, academic achievement, civic engagement, developmental assets, the resolution of identity, finding meaning and purpose in life, are identified in this exploration of the relationship between spiritual development and thriving in adolescence.
Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2004). Exploring scientific and theological perspectives on children’s spirituality. In D. Ratcliff (Ed.), Children’s spirituality: Christian perspectives, research, and applications (pp. 120-132). Eugene, OR: Cascades Books.
An initiative launched by Search Institute in 2003 with the support of the John Templeton Foundation, mapped the field of spiritual development in the first two decades of life. This chapter describes this work with special attention paid to the overlap of scientific and theological perspectives. The challenge of defining spiritual development and Search Institute’ work on the definition is explored as is the work of expanding the dialogue about children’s spirituality across traditions, continents and cultures is also described.
Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2003). Making room at the table for everyone: Interfaith engagement in positive child and adolescent development. In D. Wertlieb, F. Jacobs, & R. M. Lerner Handbook of applied developmental science: Promoting positive child, adolescent, and family development through research, policies, and programs; volume 3, Promoting positive youth and family development: Community systems, citizenship, and civil society (pp. 535-563). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
After identifying the strengths and challenges that congregations and religious youth workers bring to positive youth development, this article points to the emerging diverse religious a cultural context in the United States. This increasingly diverse cultural context suggests interfaith engagement will become and increasingly important resource in youth development. A discussion of recent efforts and strategies for interfaith youth development conclude the article.
Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2003). Faith communities: Untapped allies in service-learning. NYLC Generator, 21 (3), pp. 20-24.
Judging by current knowledge including the finding that youth active in a faith community are almost twice as likely as their nonreligious peers to be involved in service, it seems congregations play an important role in service, and service learning. Faith communities have embraced service learning as aspect of programming but have yet to embrace principles and practices of service learning. This article details the state of service activities and service learning in U.S. congregations and suggests way to strengthen faith based service efforts.
Roehlkepartain, E. C., Benson, P. L., King, P. E., & Wagener, L. M. (2006). Spiritual development in childhood and adolescence: Moving to the scientific mainstream. In E. C. Roehlkepartain, P. E. King, L. Wagener, & P. L. Benson (Eds.), The handbook of spiritual development in childhood and adolescence (pp. 1-15). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Spiritual and religious development has been marginalized from the mainstream of academic study, and as of yet no consensus definition of spirituality has emerged. However there is an extensive body of theoretical literature that can guide inquiry in the field ranging from psychoanalytic theories, to stage theories, to developmental systems theories. Proposed assumptions for future study include: spiritual development is a universal human process, spirituality is a multidimensional domain, spirituality involves interaction between person and context, and spirituality is a life shaping force.
Roehlkepartain, E. C., & Patel, E. (2006). Congregations: Unexamined crucibles for spiritual development. In E. C. Roehlkepartain, P. E. King, L. Wagener, & P. L. Benson (Eds.), The handbook of spiritual development in childhood and adolescence (pp. 324-336). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
The authors propose an open systems model for understanding the ecological impact a congregation may have on adolescent spiritual development and illustrate it with a case study of a young Muslim’s experience in a congregation in London. A review of existing research is also included along with an outline of a research agenda that would use multiple methods to understand spiritual development of adolescents throughout a wide range of places, cultures and religious traditions.
Yust, K. M., Johnson, A. N., Sasso, S. E., & Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2006). Traditional wisdom: Creating space for religious reflection on child and adolescent spirituality. In K. M. Yust, A. N. Johnson, S. E. Sasso, & E. C. Roehlkepartain (Eds.), Nurturing child and adolescent spirituality: Perspectives from the world’s religious traditions (pp. 1-14). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
This chapter introduces the volume of essays, which seeks to provide a baseline of knowledge on childhood and adolescent religious spirituality through an international, interfaith discussion among scholars and practitioners from multiple disciplines. The authors present evidence that such a conversation is needed and then wrestle with the difficulty of the task including the issue of defining spirituality and negotiating similarities and differences between various perspectives.
Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2002). Building strengths, deepening faith: Understanding and enhancing youth development in Protestant congregations. In R. M. Lerner, F. Jacobs, & D. Wertlieb (Eds.), Handbook of Applied Developmental Science, vol. 3 (pp. 515-534). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Youth ministry and especially its impact on youth development have been understudied. While there is evidence to link faith and healthy development, it is not clear what it is about religious involvement that promotes healthy development. Moreover, little research has been devoted to understanding how congregations influence religious development in young people. Roehlkepartain proposes a theoretical model for how congregations potentially influence youth development, but notes that this potential remains largely untapped with congregations mostly remaining inattentive to developmental issues.
Wagener, L. M., Furrow, J. L., Ebstyne King, P., Leffert, N., & Benson, P. (2003). Religious involvement and developmental resources in youth. Review of Religious Research, 44 (3), 271-284.
The religious involvement of young people has been associated with positive developmental outcomes. But is the relationship between religious involvement and positive development outcomes direct or does religious involvement provide youth with developmental resources that in turn lead to more positive outcomes? The results of the study support the hypothesis that the effect of religious involvement on positive youth development outcomes is primarily mediated through developmental resources.
