While today's college students have a very high level of interest and involvement in spirituality and religion, there are important differences among student subgroups, most significantly between African Americans and Whites, and between men and women, according to new research released today.

• A survey of 112,232 students at 236 colleges and universities found that the biggest differences between African American and White students was in their levels of
  • Religious Commitment,
  • Ethic of Caring,
  • Religious Engagement, and
  • Spiritual Quest.
• African Americans are also far more likely than Whites to believe in God, pray, and attend religious services frequently.
  
• Women score higher on 11 of 12 "scales" that measure various aspects of students' spirituality and religiousness.
  • The most marked differences are in women's higher levels of Charitable Involvement and Religious Commitment.
• Of the 112,232 students surveyed, 76% are White, 8% African American, 7% Asian American, 5% Latino, 2% American Indian/Alaska Native, and 1% Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.
• Ninety-five percent of African Americans believe in God, compared to 84% of Latinos, 78% of Whites, and 65% of Asian Americans .
• Ninety-one percent of African Americans pray, compared to 75% of Latinos and 67% of Whites .
• Fifty-three percent of African Americans attend religious services frequently, compared to 42% of Whites, 39% of Latinos, and 35% of Asian Americans.
• Forty-seven percent of African Americans have a high level of Religious Commitment, compared to 25% of Whites and 22% of Asian Americans. 
• Thirty-two percent of African Americans have high levels of Religious Engagement, compared to 16% of Latinos and 19% of Whites.

About one-third of African Americans consider it essential to seek opportunities to grow spiritually and say that it is essential for them to follow religious teachings in their everyday life, while less than one-fifth of Whites and Asian Americans say the same.

According to HERI researchers, some of these racial/ethnic differences can be explained, in part, by the students' religious preferences since students of different religions differ notably on the various measures of spirituality and religiousness.

• Nearly half of the African American (47%) respondents are Baptist, compared to only 11% of Whites and 5% of Latinos.
• Nearly a third of Whites (30%) and more than half (53%) of Latinos are Roman Catholic, compared to about one-tenth of African Americans (11%).
• Asian Americans are the most likely to say that they have no religious preference (28%). By comparison, only 8% of African Americans and 17% of Whites indicate no religious preference.

Gender Differences

• Men score higher than women on only one of the 12 major dimensions: Religious Skepticism (21% of men versus 14% for women are high scorers). On each of the other 11 scales, women score higher than men.
• The largest gender differences are on:
  • Charitable Involvement-- a 10 point difference in high scorers (20% of women and 10% of men),
  • Religious Commitment-- a 9-point spread (30% of women and 21% of men),
  • Religous Engagement-- a 6-point gap (22% of women and 16% of men).
  • Six-point gender differences are also evident on Equanimity (25% of women versus 19% of men) and Ecumenical Worldview (16% of women and 10% of men).
• Women are also more likely than men to pray (75% versus 62%) and to score high on Religious/Social Conservatism (18% versus 13%), and being on a Spiritual Quest (27% versus 22%).
  

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Fact Sheet

The Spiritual Life of College Students: A National study of College Students' Search for Meaning and Purpose, Full Report.  Spirituality in Higher Education, Higher Education Research Institute, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA

Executive Summary

More studies

• "Re-examination and Renaissance" Key markers in the 20th century story of religious higher education.  In 1998, Lilly Endowment commissioned the authors to conduct a major external evaluation of its funding in the area of religion and higher education during the 1990s.
• The Impact of the Lilly-funded Research on Catholic Campuses.   Alice Gallin provides an overview of literature that examines what it means to be a Catholic college or university in today’s multi-cultured world as well as outlines recent efforts to foster a Catholic identity in these institutions of higher education.
• Revitalizing Religion in the Academy.  This report provides an evaluation of the research and conversations on religion and higher education that the Lilly Endowment has sponsored. Chief among the report's findings is the emergence of a movement to revitalize religion in higher education that gathered momentum in the 1990s.