October 24th, 2005

Asian American Students are Least Religious

The Christian Science Monitor (which is an independent, non-religious journalism organization despite its name) has a very interesting article that describes the results of a multi-year survey of college freshmen nationwide on how religious they are. The results generally show that based on their measures, Asian American students are the least religious of all the major racial groups:

Some of the biggest differences in the study emerge in the following categories:

“Religious commitment” (following religious teachings in everyday life and gaining strength by trusting in a higher power): Forty-seven percent of African-Americans scored high on this scale, compared with 25 percent of whites, 23 percent of Latinos, and 22 percent of Asian Americans.

“Spiritual quest” (interest in finding answers to the mysteries of life and developing a meaningful philosophy of life): African-Americans scored the highest on this (36 percent), with other groups ranging from 23 to 34 percent.

Measures of spirituality by racial group

Most interesting. My slightly educated guess is that Asian American students tend to be more focused on academic performance, rather than religious or spiritual activities. This is not to say that it is either good or bad, but the results are quite interesting.


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