Belief and Affiliation, Contextual Impacts on

In any human life, many factors help to determine the multiple contexts that influence one's religious affiliation and beliefs. Certainly, one's religious affiliation will impact one's religious beliefs, as will one's beliefs influence decisions made throughout life about religious affiliation. To better understand the impact of context on religious affiliation and beliefs in childhood and adolescence, it is important to also consider how contexts interact with individual developmental characteristics. A person's age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, and family background all help to form all interact with a young person's context to define issues of religious development and identity.

It is also important to consider that adolescence can be a time of religious doubt, a time when young people pull away (often for just a short while) from affiliating themselves with the religious beliefs and tradition of their family, or indeed any religious tradition and/or beliefs at all. The experiences and interactions that one has with the contexts which influence religious affiliation and beliefs will have a significant impact on if and how doubt affects a young person's religiosity. A few of these contexts which can influence religious affiliation and belief are considered below.

Young people typically identify/affiliate with the context of those closest to them (e.g., the religion of their parents) and share their religious beliefs. Participating in the religious traditions and beliefs of one's parents involves young people growing up in religious communities and peer groups—all of which influence a young person's connection to that tradition. Some young people are brought up in families where religious beliefs are strong and where participation in religious worship and practice is part of family life. In other families, religious beliefs may be weak and attendance at a place of worship will be rare or nonexistent. Some young people may be part of families and religious traditions that present a positive image of God and others may be exposed to a more authoritarian and punishing image of God. These environmental or contextual experiences are just a few examples of the many that might impact a young person's religious affiliation and beliefs.

Contexts that impact religious affiliation are broader than one's immediate familial environment. Some young people are brought up in an environment where everyone around them belongs to a single religious community. Others are brought up in a society where there are a range of religious communities and beliefs: as a result they will likely meet people from different religious communities who hold different beliefs and attitudes to their own. Some young people grow up in a society or culture where religious belief is strong. In other societies and cultures belief in religion may be weak. Some young people are educated in schools where one single religion is taught. Some are educated in schools where a variety of religions are taught. Others attend schools where religion is not taught at all.

An example of the differences in religious belief and affiliation that can be found within a country is identified and explained in research that finds that young people living in Great Britain who are from families that originally came from the Indian subcontinent are likely to have a stronger religious affiliation than a Caucasian young person in Great Britain. Hence, it is not surprising that most young Muslim Asians in Great Britain seek out and become involved in religious practice and traditions (e.g., attending a religious school—a mosque school—where they learn Arabic, the Qur'an, and about Muslim religious traditions) more so than their white peers.

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