Black students are most religious

Black students have the highest levels of religious practice on America’s campuses, according to a survey of 112,232 students at 236 colleges being released today.

The study, conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute, which is affiliated with the University of California at Los Angeles, said black students led white, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian and Hawaiian students in seven out of 12 spirituality categories.

One-third of the black students polled said spiritual growth and following religious teachings are both essential, compared with fewer than one-fifth of the white and Asian students polled. Black students also reported higher levels of church attendance, prayer and belief in God.

Phil Bowling-Dyer, director of Black Campus Ministries for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a college student ministry based in Madison, Wis., said he sees “a lot” of black students involved in spiritual pursuits as a way of replacing absent parents.

“There’s a high amount of spiritual involvement among black students,” he said, “plus a high amount of community involvement among the religious students.

“Spirituality is just part of the black community,” Mr. Bowling-Dyer added. “It plays out with college students, too. For instance, whenever the NAACP meets, they always start out with a prayer.”

Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders came in second in four of the 12 categories: charitable involvement (27 percent), spirituality (25 percent), ecumenical worldview (24 percent) and religious struggle (15 percent).

Asians were the least religious, leading in only one category — religious skepticism — and polling at the bottom of five other categories, including spirituality and religious commitment.

White, Hispanic and American Indian students polled in the middle of most categories. Whites were the lowest in charitable involvement, helping others, ecumenicity, spiritual quest and compassion. Hispanics were the lowest in religious struggle and religious activities.

Funded by a $1.97 million grant from the Templeton Foundation, the survey is the largest done to date on the spiritual lives of college students.

Rhys Williams, a University of Cincinnati sociology professor who has researched the church involvement of black students, said black collegians tend to re-create on campus the church life they knew back home.

“Church is an enormous social and psychic support for these students, especially if they are on white campuses,” he said. “So they try to re-create at their college something similar to the church where they grew up.”

White students, in contrast, tend to separate themselves from anything to do with their parents, including the church they grew up in.

“They wish to distinguish themselves from their parents and establish their own religious identity,” he said.

He also professed some surprise at the low rates of religious behavior reported by the Asian students in the survey.

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