Braskamp, L. A. Forthcoming. “The Religious and Spiritual Journey of College Students.” In The American University in a Postsecular Age: Religion and Higher Education, edited by D. Jacobsen and R. H. Jacobsen. New York: Oxford University Press.
This chapter provides a useful overview of research on college student spirituality. Identifying three types of students—“millenials,” “post-modern,” and “missionary,”—Braskamp argues that there is no single type of college student spirituality. He surveys prior research about the religious and spiritual journey of college students through the university, year by year, and then identifies four important factors that impact these journeys: culture, curriculum, co-curriculum, and communities. Braskamp concludes that students “experiment with a variety of avenues and approaches, and they tend to be more consumer-oriented, selecting from existing forms of worship and spirituality and adapting it to meet their unique needs and life style.” The chapter concludes with a consideration of how these findings should influence student affairs theory, as well as policy and practice in the academy.
