An Empirical Examination of Youths' Perceptions of Spirituality as an Internal Developmental Asset During Adolescence

Relations between youths' conceptions of spirituality and their developmental outcomes☆

“…Thus, we constructed a smaller number of broader groupings of spirituality that both subsume the 10 spiritual categories from James et al (2012) and align with how scholars typically conceptualize youths' spirituality.…”

“…One possible explanation is that spirituality is the source that helps these youth orient their lives in a way that promotes educational achievement and socioemotional development (Hyde, 2008;Nye & Hay, 1996). Thus, it makes sense that this type of spirituality was highly related to each of the C indicators of the PYD model (James et al, 2012).…”

Temporal Relation Between Youths’ Perceived Spirituality and Indicators of Positive Development

“…Adding to the scholars theorizing links between PYD and adolescent spirituality (e.g., Lerner et al., ; Roehlkepartain, King, Wagener, & Benson, ), several empirical reports have provided strong support for associations between the two constructs (James & Fine, ; James et al., ; King et al., ; Warren et al., ). Although neither of the two aforementioned PYD models (i.e., five Cs and 40 assets) specifically note the role of religion in youths’ spirituality, a RDS model that emphasizes person↔environment interactions would certainly support the assumption that religious contexts can be developmental assets that support the development or nurturance of youths’ spirituality (Dowling et al., ), much in the same way as intraindividual processes and/or supportive family environments (James et al., ; King et al., ).…”

Spirituality across Disciplines: Research and Practice:

“…Both James et al (2012) and Warren and colleagues (2011) provide empirical support regarding the relation between youths' spirituality and their positive development. Specifically, James et al (2012) study found concurrent positive correlations between youths' perceived spirituality with each of the six Cs of the PYD model (Lerner et al 2009), with their spirituality scores being linked to their character scores 1 year later. The conclusion was that spirituality is an additional internal asset that is linked to youths thriving behaviors.…”

“…In a mixed method study, using data from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development, James et al (2012) found that youth also define spirituality in many ways. Their qualitative analysis revealed that youth conceptualize being spiritual in ten, somewhat mutually exclusive, ways: possessing keen consciousness, selfconfidence, high religious involvement, being connected, belief in a higher power or force, having purpose, exuding radiance, being virtuous, unarticulated spirituality, the same as being religious.…”