Divine Direction: How Religion and Spirituality Inform Political Efficacy and Critical Action Among Black Emerging Adult Women

Abstract

This study investigates how spirituality and religion influence the sociopolitical development of Black emerging adult women. Six Black emerging adult women participated in qualitative, semi-structured, in-depth interviews that focused on religiosity, spirituality, identity, and sociopolitical development. Using a critical thematic analysis and adapted consensual qualitative research techniques, the research explores religiosity and spirituality in participants’ sociopolitical development. The findings reveal that religiosity and spirituality enhance political efficacy through religious resources and orientation toward justice, spirituality enhancing a sense of purpose, spirituality functioning as a mechanism for stress reduction, and spirituality providing a sense of interconnectedness that ties social justice to a transcendent sense of collectivity. Importantly, this finding about interconnectedness was also gendered and may prompt more gender-specific and relational studies of sociopolitical development. Broadly, this study helps to elucidate the ways that religiosity and spirituality may shape Black women’s sociopolitical development and reveals nuanced insights into the complex relationship between religiosity, spirituality, and activism.