A Sneak Peek of Our Next Report . . .
Welcome to a sneak peek (!) of The State of Religion & Young People 2021: Navigating Uncertainty. This report will be available in print and as a digital download in mid-October, and you can be the first to see it by signing up. Here’s how it begins…
Welcome! This is Springtide’s flagship report, one that annually explores the religious lives of young people ages 13 to 25. The 2021 report is the product of a full year of research, over 10,000 surveys featuring questions about young people’s beliefs, practices, behaviors, relationships, and this year’s focus: ways young people are navigating uncertainty. In addition to surveying, we conducted qualitative interviews with young people along the same themes, listening for the nuance that emerges only through conversation.
Our passion for listening to young people extends beyond quantitative and qualitative research. We invite more young people to participate in our work and weigh in on our research. Our Springtide Ambassadors Program brings a cohort of young people together with the Springtide team to discuss their lived experience in light of reports, to formulate research questions, to interpret and discuss data, and to provide insight, often in unforeseen ways, through wide-ranging conversations.
We release a season of our Voices of Young People Podcast to augment each report with reflections from young people. Finally, Springtide interns, who serve in many areas—research, publicity, publishing, and community engagement—help us assess our work as an institute, and they contribute their own insights and wisdom to this endeavor. This combination of data and lived experiences enriches everything you read from Springtide.
Last year we published the first of these reports, The State of Religion & Young People 2020: Relational Authority. In that report, we introduced the concept of Relational Authority: a framework for building bonds of trust amid new cultural, social, and religious realities. We recognize the continued importance of this framework, especially the need for adults in the lives of young people to practice integrity, transparency, listening, care, and expertise in a year in which so many young people expressed broken trust, political polarization, a sense of isolation, and more. This 2021 report builds on that framework.
