Citation
Tirrell, J. M., Geldhof, G. J., King, P. E., Dowling, E., Sim, A., Williams, K., Iraheta, G., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2018). Measuring spirituality, hope, and thriving among Salvadoran youth: Initial findings from the Compassion International Study of Positive Youth Development. Child & Youth Care Forum, 48(2), 241-268.
Abstract
Background
The more than one billion children living in poverty worldwide are often marginalized from the resources needed for health and well-being, a situation that may create feelings of hopelessness and diminish chances for thriving. Compassion International (CI), a faith-based child-sponsorship organization committed to alleviating child poverty and promoting thriving, uses a strengths-based, positive youth development (PYD) perspective that emphasizes the importance of religious faith as an asset in the lives of youth.
Objective
In an initial assessment of CI’s approach to promoting PYD, we tested measures aimed at comparing youth enrolled in CI to youth not enrolled in CI.
Method
We collected survey data from 888 Salvadoran youth (50% female), ages 9–15 years (M = 11.60 years, SD = 1.7), half (49.9%) of whom were enrolled in CI programs. Examining the relations among spirituality, hope, and PYD, we refined the measurement model for parsimony and robustness across groups and established measurement invariance.
Results
This measure development work allowed us to make meaningful comparisons of latent means and correlation patterns. CI-supported youth were found to report higher levels of Transcendence (spirituality) and Character (one of the Five Cs of PYD) than non-CI-supported youth, and CI-supported youth demonstrated a significant relation between Character and Connection that was not present in non-CI-supported youth.
Conclusions
We discuss implications of these findings for further tests of the CI approach to PYD and, more generally, for applications aimed at enhancing the life chances of poor children around the globe.
Copyright
Year: 2024
Holder: Springer Nature
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-018-9454-1
Continue Exploring
Youth
“We are Protected”: Examining youth perceptions of safety
“We are Protected”: Examining youth perceptions of safety within a faith-based positive a faith-based positive youth development program in El Salvador / Journal of Youth Development
Spirituality
Religion as Fertile Ground
Abstract An extensive body of research points toward spirituality and religiousness as resources for promoting human thriving. People with strong connections to the transcendent and religious meaning in life often view morals and values as central to their self-concepts. Although moral identity theory and contemporary views of virtue development emphasize the importance of narrative identity for habituated moral action, the two are often discussed in isolation of each other. In this chapter, the authors highlight how their commonality is particularly evident when examining the potential of religion to provide a transcendent self-narrative that leads to virtue formation and moral action…
Gratitude
How diverse beliefs shape the experience of transcendent gratitude
Citation Nelson, J., Mangan, S., Baer, R. A., Ramdass, J. V., & King, P. E. et al. (2024). How diverse beliefs shape the experience of transcendent gratitude, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 19(1), 11-24. Abstract As a novel contribution, this study considers transcendent gratitude (e.g. gratitude towards non-human benefactors such as God, Science, or Karma) across diverse belief systems. The sample included 619 participants (M age 37.5, 52.6% female) across the U.S. with beliefs across three distinct categories: a) Theistic; 38.4%), b) Spiritual but not theistic; 26.4%, and c) Non-theistic/Non-spiritual (Other);…
Subscribe to our newsletter and get our Thrive Practices for Spiritual Health PDF!
You Got It!