A New Report
Melinda Lundquist Denton of Clemson University conducted a study of the spiritual impact of divorce which offers a new way of looking at the spiritual impact of divorce. The results were released in the article, “Family Structure, Family Disruption, and Profiles of Adolescent Religiosity” published in Journal For The Scientific Study of Religion.
How Is This Study Different?
The report explains that many of the reports that have been done thus far on the spiritual impacts of divorce on kids have utilized a “variable-centered” approach. In other words, they have measured the effect of divorce on one individual measure of religion. In other words, previous studies, for example, might have asked “What is the impact on divorce on a child’s religious attendance?” or “How does divorce affect a child’s prayer life?”
By contrast, Denton’s current report takes a “person-centered” approach to studying the impact of divorce which accounts for the varied ways in which children understand and practice their religious faith. As such, it is better able to capture and analyze the “complex religious profiles of adolescents.”
