I came across a couple of interesting studies today – whether there is any kind of correlation, I’ll let the reader decide.
In a poll done by the Knights of Columbus, the religious attitudes of the so-called Millennial generation are compared to the older surviving generations, breaking out the Catholics among the generations as well. This is a bit of a fluffy presentation – looking more like a PowerPoint deck than a real study – but the results are intriguing, in a morose way. I must say that I question some of the analysis, as presented on the KoC site, since they seem to be able to take as “good news” that 66% of Millennial Catholics consider abortion morally wrong (and an even smaller number considering euthanasia morally wrong). I can’t help focusing on the 1 in 3 who don’t find abortion morally wrong – that’s like Holocaust survivors thinking the Final Solution must not have been all that bad!
The second one, the American Civic Literacy 2010 Report, from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, explores the relationship between civic knowledge and college education, and reports some disturbing, if unsurprising, results concerning the state of civic knowledge in the country. [Note: The actual civic literacy test being reported on is available for taking on-line at the site linked – please go see how easy this was.]
Why am I not encouraged by any of this?