Religious and spiritual markers in community involvement

This article reports on some of the research findings of a major, multi-site case study of character formation in young people in England. Religion was not the focus of this research, but emerged as significant in each case study. In particular, the religious and spiritual beliefs and practices of young people were positively connected with their level of community involvement. The research provides evidence that indicates an association between young religious believers and those who are constructively engaged in both their communities as well as being politically minded. The main methods of data collection for this article included semi-structured discussions/interviews together with semi-structured individual and questionnaire surveys.