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Relation of Spiritual Development to Youth Health and Well-Being: Evidence from a Global Study

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Handbook of Child Well-Being

Abstract

This chapter explores the intersection of spirituality and positive youth development outcomes to shed a new perspective on our understanding of youth well-being. The lion’s share of the literature on the spiritual development of young people has been based on Western, mostly Christian samples. Although a small but significant linkage has been documented between components of spiritual development and youth well-being, it is unknown whether this relation holds, or indeed, even may be stronger, in samples that are more globally and religiously diverse, nor have the associations between youth spiritual development and well-being been examined extensively on the basis of gender or age. Furthermore, the great majority of studies rely on extremely narrow definitions of spiritual development, essentially asking youth about the importance they attach to religious or spiritual beliefs, and how often they attend religious services. This approach conflates religion and spirituality, and effectively ignores the more universal, developmental processes—such as connecting to others and discovering meaning—that we posit are the core, underlying factors of spirituality. Our conceptual model of youth spiritual development advances the theory that spiritual development consists of both developmental processes and spiritual-religious engagement opportunities that, together, impact youth well-being. Using data from 7,000+ 12–25-year-olds in eight countries, we examine correlations between spiritual development constructs and outcomes in the physical, psychosocial, civic, and academic domains of well-being. We then present a series of analyses showing that higher scores on the Youth Spiritual Development Index are linked with successively better well-being outcomes for youth of diverse cultures and spiritual and religious beliefs.

Peter L. Benson: deceased

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Acknowledgments

Angela Hackel, former Research Assistant at Search Institute, contributed significantly to the early development of this chapter and her contribution is gratefully acknowledged. Funding from the John Templeton Foundation supported the research described in this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Search Institute, c/o 940 Chestnut Ridge Road, Manchester, MO, 63021, USA

    Dr. Peter C. Scales

  2. Search Institute, 615 First Avenue NE, Minneapolis, MN, 55413, USA

    Dr. Amy K. Syvertsen & Eugene C. Roehlkepartain

  3. Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Dr. Peter L. Benson

  4. St. Catherine University, 2004 Randolph Avenue, St. Paul, MN, 55105, USA

    Dr. Arturo Sesma Jr.

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  1. Dr. Peter C. Scales
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  2. Dr. Amy K. Syvertsen
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  3. Dr. Peter L. Benson
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  4. Eugene C. Roehlkepartain
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  5. Dr. Arturo Sesma Jr.
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Correspondence to Peter C. Scales .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Asher Ben-Arieh

  2. Research Institute of Quality of Life, University of Girona, Girona, Spain

    Ferran Casas

  3. Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Ivar Frønes

  4. Department of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

    Jill E. Korbin

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Scales, P.C., Syvertsen, A.K., Benson, P.L., Roehlkepartain, E.C., Sesma, A. (2014). Relation of Spiritual Development to Youth Health and Well-Being: Evidence from a Global Study. In: Ben-Arieh, A., Casas, F., Frønes, I., Korbin, J. (eds) Handbook of Child Well-Being. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_41

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