YOUTHFUL CONSERVATISM Baby Boomers' kids take right turn on prayer in school, abortion, survey says Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
Apo logies to Bob Dylan, but the times they may be a-changin' -- again. A new nationwide survey shows today's youth have become more conservative than their elders about religion in schools and abortion.
High-school and college-age youth show stronger support than their parents' generation for school prayer, federal aid to faith-based charities, religious conservatives and government restriction of abortion, according to the survey, released Tuesday by the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center.
But the findings are puzzling because the study also found that young people are less likely to attend religious services or see religion as a guide to daily life, said survey director Douglas Strand.
The findings were included in a broad range of political and "citizen engagement" issues addressed by the survey, which polled 1,258 people from age 15 to 92 by phone. Supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, it was conducted between April 23 and Nov. 20 last year.
Younger people are as liberal or more liberal than older generations on several issues, but religion and abortion stand out because in those areas, "youth do not consistently show the kind of liberalism that one might expect from the writings of some scholars or from those who point to the growing 'permissiveness' of the culture," the study's executive summary said.
"Explaining it is mere speculation at this point," Strand said. "But it could be that politically conservative churches have done a much better job in socializing their young attendees to a conservative political position."
A study released last week, sponsored by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, shows that conservative churches grew faster than other denominations in the past 10 years.
Some Bay Area students sided with the majority in the survey, while others said they are more liberal.
"They wonder why kids are fighting and not listening," said Bryan Douglas, 15, a student at Concord's Mount Diablo High School. "If they don't learn about God at home, they need to have him in school."
UC Berkeley, perhaps the nation's most prominent symbol of campus liberalism, has seen a blooming of recruiting tables by student religious groups on busy Sproul Plaza in recent years.
But Berkeley students interviewed Tuesday were divided over whether the campus reflects the results from the latest poll.
"Not at Berkeley!" declared Briana Lau, 20, as she handed out flyers for the Cal Hawaii Club. But elsewhere could be different, she said: "I always think there's an alternating pendulum where kids tend to rebel against what their parents think. Kids of hippie parents tend to be more conservative."
Student Matt Daugavietis, 22, past president of Victory Campus Ministries, said today's students reject the campus radicalism of the past. "A pattern of rebellion -- dishonoring your parents and dishonoring authority -- doesn't work," he said. "Kids are starting to wake up to that."
Students staffing the Berkeley College Republicans table said they are now the largest group on campus, with nearly 500 members, while ponytailed David Banuelos at the Honor Students' Society table said the survey results don't square with his experience.
"Most of the young people I contact are for abortion rights and against school prayer," Banuelos said.
The results could point to a significant shift in America's "culture wars" over family values, Strand said. As the older generation dies off and the younger generation moves into the mainstream, the difference in attitude "may transform American public opinion as a whole toward becoming more conservative on abortion," he said.
Yet, at the same time, youth expressed more liberal views than older people on sex and violence on television, the environment, and government protections against discrimination based on race, gender and sexual orientation.
And the study found no appreciable generation gap on several other traditional tests of the liberal-conservative divide, including gun control, military defense, taxes and criminal punishment.
The lead researchers on the survey released Tuesday are UC Berkeley political science professors Merrill Shanks and Henry Brady, along with professor Edward Carmines of Indiana University.
Chronicle staff writer Jason B. Johnson contributed to this report.