Gemma Penny

Does Religious Education as an examination subject work to promote community cohesion? An empirical enquiry among 14- to 15-year-old adolescents in England and Wales

Abstract This study begins by examining the way in which, in both England and Wales, Religious Education has become implicated in political discussion regarding the role of education in promoting community cohesion. The relationship between taking Religious Education as an examination subject and attitude towards religious diversity (as an affective indicator of community cohesion) is then explored among 3052 14- to 15-year-old students. After controlling for contextual factors (school type and geographical location), personal factors (sex and age), psychological factors (psychoticism, neuroticism and extraversion) and religious factors (Christian affiliation, worship attendance, personal prayer and belief in God), a small but significant positive association was found between taking Religious Education as an examination subject and attitude towards religious diversity. This finding may be interpreted as supporting the view that Religious Education works to promote community cohesion, although the wider debate that the community cohesion agenda has generated among religious educators needs further exploration.

Defining and Assessing Spiritual Health: A Comparative Study among 13- to 15-Year-Old Pupils Attending Secular Schools, Anglican Schools, and Private Christian Schools in England and Wales.

This article argues that the nations commitment to young people involves proper concern for their physical health, their psychological health, and their spiritual health. In this context the notion of spiritual health is clarified by a critique of John Fishers model of spiritual health. Fisher developed a relational model of spiritual health, which defines good spiritual health in terms of an individuals relationship to four domains: the personal, the communal, the environmental, and the transcendental. In the present analysis, we make comparisons between pupils educated in three types of schools: publicly funded schools without religious foundation, publicly funded schools with an Anglican foundation, and new independent Christian schools (not publicly funded). Our findings draw attention to significant differences in the levels of spiritual health experienced by pupils within these three types of schools.

Why are women more religious than men? Testing the explanatory power of personality theory among undergraduate students in Wales

This study tests the explanatory power of personality-based psychologically grounded theories to account for the well-established finding within the psychology of religion that within Christian and post-Christian contexts women are more religious than men. A sample of 1682 undergraduate students in Wales completed the short form of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised together with the adult form of the Francis Scale of Attitude towards Christianity and measures of frequency of church attendance, and frequency of personal prayer. These data confirm that women record higher levels of religiosity and lower levels of psychoticism, and demonstrate that psychoticism is the strongest predictor of individual differences in religiosity. Multiple-regression analyses show that, when individual differences in personality are taken into account, biological sex adds no further impact on religiosity. This finding suggests that higher levels of religiosity among women may be interpreted as a function of basic psychological differences in levels of psychoticism rather than as a sociological function of being female.

Christian Affiliation, Christian Practice, and Attitudes to Religious Diversity: A Quantitative Analysis among 13- to 15-year-old Female Students in the UK

Abstract Within the context of the “Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity” project at the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, this study examines the association between self-assigned Christian affiliation, self-reported Christian practice, and attitudes towards religious diversity among a sample of 5,748 13- to 15-year-old female students attending schools in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. The two hypotheses being tested are that, among female students, nominal Christians do not differ in their attitudes towards religious diversity from unaffiliated students and that church attendance leads to less tolerance of other religious groups. The data partly support the first hypothesis but not the second. Churchgoing Christian female students are more interested in and more tolerant of other religious groups. The data also draw attention to the perceived importance of religious education in schools for shaping views on religion and on religious diversity among unaffiliated students, nominal Christians, and practising Christians. Both the Christian churches and religious education in school seem to have an important part to play in nurturing a tolerant and inclusive religiously diverse society in the UK.

Assessing peer and parental influence on the religious attitudes and attendance of young churchgoers: exploring the Australian National Church Life Survey

Abstract Drawing on data from the 2011 Australian National Church Life Survey (NCLS), this study was designed to assess peer and parental influence on frequency of church attendance, attitude toward church, and attitude toward Christianity among a sample of 6256 young churchgoers between the ages of eight and 14 years, attending a range of denominations, including Catholic, Anglican, Uniting, Pentecostal, and other Protestant Churches. The data indicated the power of parental example on frequency of church attendance. Frequent attendance among young churchgoers occurred when both parents attend as well. Parental influence worked differently on shaping attitude toward church. The most positive attitude was found among young churchgoers who had the opportunity to talk about God with their parents and who did not feel that their parents made them go to church. Young churchgoers responded to parental encouragement better than to parental pressure. Although peer influence within the church did not make much contribution to frequency of attendance, it made a contribution to shaping positive attitude toward church.

Freedom of religion and freedom of religious clothing and symbols in school : exploring the impact of church schools in a religiously diverse society

The Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project was established to compare the attitudes of students (13- to 15-years of age) educated within the state-maintained sector in church schools (Catholic, Anglican, joint Anglican and Catholic) and in schools without a religious foundation. Data provided by 2385 students recruited from England, Wales and London who self-identified as either ‘no religion’ or as Christian demonstrated that personal factors (especially sex), psychological factors (especially psychoticism) and religious factors (especially personal prayer) were all significantly related to attitude toward freedom of religious clothing and symbols in school. After controlling for sex and for individual differences in personality and in religiosity, students attending church schools hold neither a more positive nor a less positive attitude toward freedom of religious clothing and symbols in school (according to various religious traditions), compared with students attending schools without a religious foundation.

Prayer, personality and purpose in life : an empirical enquiry among adolescents in the UK

The linkage between religion and purpose in life is a matter of theoretical interest within the two fields of empirical theology and psychology of religion. Empirical evidence for this linkage remains vulnerable according to the measures of religion and purpose in life employed. Conceptually prayer provides an interesting test of this linkage in light both of the personal nature of this religious activity and of the persistence of prayer among individuals who do not attend worship services. This study draws on data provided by 10,792 13- to 15- year-old students from five different parts of the UK (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and London) to test the connection between prayer and purpose-in-life (assessed by an established single-item measure) after taking into account personal differences (age and sex), psychological differences (Eysenck’s three dimensional model of personality), and religious differences (affiliation, and worship attendance). The data demonstrate that prayer frequency adds additional prediction of enhanced levels of purpose in life among young people after taking all other variables into account, and that prayer frequency is a stronger predictor of purpose in life than religious affiliation or worship attendance.

Christian Commitment and Personal Well Being: Exploring the Connection Between Religious Affect and Global Happiness Among Young Churchgoers in Australia

ABSTRACT Drawing on data from the 2011 Australian National Church Life Survey, this study was designed to assess the connection between religious affect (as a measure of Christian commitment) and global happiness (as a measure of personal well being) among a sample of 6,194 young churchgoers in Australia between the ages of 8 and 14 years, attending a range of denominations, including Catholic, Anglican, Uniting, Pentecostal, and other Protestant churches. Employing the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity and the Powell Index of Global Happiness, the data demonstrate a significant positive correlation between religious affect and global happiness, after controlling for individual differences in sex and age.

Implicit Religion and Psychological Wellbeing: A Study Among Adolescents Without Formal Religious Affiliation or Practice

This study examines Bailey’s notion of the persistence of implicit religion among a sample of 8,619 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15 years in England and Wales who have no formal religious affiliation or practice. Implicit religion is operationalised as attachment to traditional Christian rites of passage. Young people who remain attached to these aspects of implicit religion display higher levels of psychological wellbeing, suggesting that implicit religion serves similar psychological functions to explicit religion.

Dimensions of Personality and Preferred Ways of Coping: An Empirical Enquiry among Rural Anglican Clergy

The present study was designed to test the thesis that preferred ways of coping assessed by the Ways of Coping (Revised) Checklist are related to two major dimensions of personality proposed by Eysenck, extraversion and neuroticism. Data provided by 613 Anglican clergy serving in rural ministry in England demonstrated that: two ways of coping were significantly correlated with both extraversion and neuroticism (escape-avoidance, and self-controlling); two ways of coping were significantly correlated with neuroticism (accepting responsibility, and confronting); three ways of coping were significantly correlated with extraversion (planful problem solving, seeking social support, and positive reappraisal); and one way of coping was independent of both neuroticism and extraversion (distancing). The implications of these findings are discussed for three fields: the connection between personality and ways of coping; the construct validity of the measures proposed by the Ways of Coping (Revised) Checklist; and the role of personality in predicting and interpreting individual differences in clergy behaviours and work-related psychological health.