Summary Of Christian Smith's Soul Searching
Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith and his colleagues have followed up his Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of
American Teenagers (2009) with this portrait of 18-23 year olds beset by problems including a lack of moral reasoning, consumerism, alcohol and drug use, a culture of hooking up, and civic and political disengagement. This age period of “emerging adulthood” (or arguably “extended adolescence”) has developed from social forces including the rise in college attendance, the delay of marriage, and career exploration that often leads to several job changes in their young adulthood. Additional factors delaying maturity include the generous resources children receive from their parents between the ages of 18-37 (an average …show more content…
of $38,340), the ability (and tools) to disconnect sex from procreation, and postmodern thinking.
In addition to these social issues, those serving in higher education should be aware of the verbal message emerging adults hear throughout adolescence. “The entire time we were growing up we were taught ‘that when you get to college, you’re supposed to party, be wild, get crazy, have fun, drink a lot.
Their answer, in short, is: we do exactly what we were told to do” (142). Christian educators already know where this party culture leads: “…not far beneath the surface appearance of happy, liberated emerging adult sexual adventure and pleasure lies a world of hurt, insecurity, confusion, inequity, shame and regret” (193).
RENEWING MINDS BOOK REVIEWS
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Higher education is well suited to be a part of the solution
Smith prescribes; “teenagers and emerging adults desperately need other mature and concerned adults who genuinely care about and for them” (7). Though most American colleges and universities shifted from in loco parentis to in loco “grandparents” (teens now come to the ivy halls, make a mess and leave, with the institution smiling and cleaning up after them), Smith asserts “there is no reason why colleges and universities could not play a more proactive role in promoting and enforcing more responsible, healthy, and respectful lifestyles among their students than they do” (240). Perhaps in loco grandparents is too generous a term to describe what Smith discovers.
Nowhere is there any wise, cookie-making grandmother, drawing these emerging adults to the kitchen table to talk. Smith
explains:
American Teenagers (2009) with this portrait of 18-23 year olds beset by problems including a lack of moral reasoning, consumerism, alcohol and drug use, a culture of hooking up, and civic and political disengagement. This age period of “emerging adulthood” (or arguably “extended adolescence”) has developed from social forces including the rise in college attendance, the delay of marriage, and career exploration that often leads to several job changes in their young adulthood. Additional factors delaying maturity include the generous resources children receive from their parents between the ages of 18-37 (an average …show more content…
of $38,340), the ability (and tools) to disconnect sex from procreation, and postmodern thinking.
In addition to these social issues, those serving in higher education should be aware of the verbal message emerging adults hear throughout adolescence. “The entire time we were growing up we were taught ‘that when you get to college, you’re supposed to party, be wild, get crazy, have fun, drink a lot.
Their answer, in short, is: we do exactly what we were told to do” (142). Christian educators already know where this party culture leads: “…not far beneath the surface appearance of happy, liberated emerging adult sexual adventure and pleasure lies a world of hurt, insecurity, confusion, inequity, shame and regret” (193).
RENEWING MINDS BOOK REVIEWS
90 91
Higher education is well suited to be a part of the solution
Smith prescribes; “teenagers and emerging adults desperately need other mature and concerned adults who genuinely care about and for them” (7). Though most American colleges and universities shifted from in loco parentis to in loco “grandparents” (teens now come to the ivy halls, make a mess and leave, with the institution smiling and cleaning up after them), Smith asserts “there is no reason why colleges and universities could not play a more proactive role in promoting and enforcing more responsible, healthy, and respectful lifestyles among their students than they do” (240). Perhaps in loco grandparents is too generous a term to describe what Smith discovers.
Nowhere is there any wise, cookie-making grandmother, drawing these emerging adults to the kitchen table to talk. Smith
explains: