Books by Christian (William R. Kenan Smith

Christian Smith, Kyle Longest, Jonathan Hill, and Kari Christoffersen examine the development of the religious and spiritual lives of American Catholic teenagers as they grow up, graduate from high school, and leave home.

Emerging adulthood is fraught with more problems than most people realize. The bright side of freedom, growth, and opportunities for emerging adults is accompanied by a darker, more troubling side. Based on a major, national study of emerging adults ages 18-23, this volume gives readers an inside view of some of the unsettling aspects of emerging adulthood and seeks to understand the deeper roots of such problems.

In 2005 OUP published Christian Smith's groundbreaking study, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Smith's new book will be based on the follow-up studies. Mirroring Soul Searching, it will offer a big-picture overview of the religious and spiritual lives of emerging adults in the U.S. It will also provide updates on most of the specific teen cases covered in the first book. It will contain a cultural analysis of emerging adultreligion, based on the follow-up interviews, trying to describe and understand the contours, textures, and complexities of the cultural categories, narratives, discourses, attitudes, and norms of young adult faith and religious and spiritual practice.