Religiosity and Sustainable Development Among Youths

Abstract

Sustainable and resilient development refers to sustained competent functioning despite severely challenging circumstances. Resilience also implies effective coping, which includes thought and action as the person puts effort to restore or maintain equilibrium under certain threat. This paper attempts to test empirically the model of resiliency and the importance of religiosity in developing resilient youth by using structural equation modeling (SEM). The adolescents’ conception of resiliency measures dimensions such as active skills, future orientation, risk taking and independence while religiosity is examined through one’s ability to cope and involve in religious activities. This study was done on a total sample of 608 youths from the east-coast of peninsular Malaysia. Cross-validation was done using two sub-samples of 160 and 148 youths respectively. The Resiliency Belief Scales1 and Religiosity Scale2 were employed in this study. The instruments consisted of 53 items and the items were hypothesized to have non-zero loadings on all dimensions in the model. Analysis of the items resulted in a well-fitting model (Χ2/df = 1.318; GFI = 0.967; CFI = 0.991; RMSEA = 0.02). The direction and magnitude of the factor loadings were substantial and statistically significant. This shows that the model fits with the sample of data in this study. Religiosity explains 65% of variance in resiliency