One of my favorite classes when I was a student at Penn State was Sociology of Religion with Roger Finke. He was a knowledgeable and likeable professor who taught with a passion. I enjoyed the class and Dr. Finke so much that I ended up asking him to write one of my recommendations for seminary!…
Continue reading ➞ Souls in Transition: Historical Perspectives and some Sociology
When writing about emerging adults it is inevitable that the issues of sex and relationships must come up. This is one area that numerous studies, including Christian Smith and Patricia Snell's in Souls in Transition, have found that emerging adults differ from their parents. Emerging adults believe that settling down is for later, now they…
In the book Souls in Transition, researchers Christian Smith and Patricia Snell found that while emerging adults have optimism about their own futures, they lack optimism to influence the greater social and political world. They discovered that few emerging adults are involved in anything to do with the public square. Perhaps this relates to their…
Continue reading ➞ Emerging Adults – Interpersonal Relationships
At least once each semester we like to dedicate our CSF meeting to questions and answers, or at least some attempt at answers, about faith, religion and the like. Sometimes we make this just a regular weekly CSF gathering and thus get most of the normal crowd, other times we advertise and recruit and double…
Continue reading ➞ Emerging Adults: Individualists in Every Way
Newsflash: young people do not have much money! Okay, perhaps not the most ground-breaking finding ever, but it is one of the elements of emerging culture that Christian Smith and Patricia Snell mention in their summary of the cultural world of emerging adults (ages 18-23) early on in Souls in Transition. They admit that such…
I have begun reading Christian Smith and Patricia Snell's study of "emerging adults", those in the 18-23 age group, titled Souls in Transition. It is an extremely thorough study and already considered a must read for those who work with young people. I plan to spend many posts here working through this book and trying…
David Hershey 