How Has Religion Changed Among High School Seniors?
Tracking data from 1995 through 2022 paints a bleak picture
I bet that when I look at a graph, I'm searching for something different from the average person. For me, it’s always a peek at the bottom corners - trying to find any information about the source of the data that was used to generate the visualization. Here’s a pro-tip - if they don’t list the source in the graph or make it readily apparent in the text, you should keep on scrolling. Pointing readers to the title of the survey and hopefully a link to get a closer look at the data is just basic data journalism at this point.
Well, I was reading a great book by Jean Twenge. She’s a psychologist at San Diego State University. It’s called Generations and, I bet you can guess the topic of the manuscript. Well, that work relies heavily on a data source that I had never heard of before, a survey called Monitoring the Future. It’s been conducted by a research team at the University of Michigan since 1975 and focuses specifically on students in 8th, 10th, and 12th grade.
I need to point out that the purpose of Monitoring the Future is not primarily religious. The real goal is measuring other concepts like career and educational aspirations, values, and drug use. In fact, I can only find two questions about religion in the entire instrument. But that’s more than enough to provide some insights! So, I grabbed the data from 1995 and 2022. I am specifically looking at high school seniors here. How much has religion changed in this age group over the last 27 years? The answer is clear: religious attitudes among high school seniors have undergone significant changes over the last couple of decades.