Abstract: Institutional religious involvement wanes during young adulthood, but evidence suggests life-course factors such as family formation bring people back to religion. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Waves 1, 3, and 4), we examine how often young adults who were involved in institutional religion as adolescents return—measured by religious service attendance and religious affiliation—after leaving in emerging adulthood, and how this return is patterned by family formation. The majority of young adults who leave do not return to regular religious service attendance, regardless of their family formation. But single parents, married parents, and childless married individuals are more likely, and childless cohabiting couples less likely, to return to religious communities than those who are both single and childless. Only married parents are more likely than childless singles to reaffiliate, though there is marginal evidence that childless married adults may also be more likely. Thus, the institutions of religion and family are still linked, even though overall levels of religious return are not as high as expected.
Abstract: Going to college has long been assumed to liberalize students' religious beliefs. Using longitudinal data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, we compare change in the content of religious beliefs of those who do and do not attend college. We find that, in general, college students are no more likely to develop liberal religious beliefs than non-students. In some cases, collegians actually appear more likely to retain their initial beliefs. Change in religious beliefs appears instead to be more strongly associated with network effects. These findings indicate that college's effect on students' religious beliefs is both weak and fragmented, and suggest that the multiplicity of social worlds on college campuses may help to sustain religious beliefs as well as religious practice and commitment.
Abstract: In light of increased scholarly and public discussion about the proper position of religion in higher education, we take stock of existing social scientific studies to illuminate what we know—and what we don't know—about religion and higher education. We argue that research shows that college students are more religiously engaged than has traditionally been thought, but that this interest appears to be more broad than deep; that the college experience does not lead to apostasy in most students, though its effect on students' religious engagements is still unclear; and that religion has a beneficial effect on some student outcomes, but not on others. We conclude by proposing three new directions for research that offer the potential to expand our understanding of the interaction of religion and higher education.