Team receives grant for research on Boy Scouts

Feb. 19, 2010

By Sara Tirrito
Staff Writer

A two-year, $992,000 grant from the John Templeton Foundation has been awarded to Dr. Byron Johnson and Dr. Rodney Stark, co-directors for the Institute of Studies of Religion at Baylor University.

The grant will allow them to research what effects boy scouting has on men's' lives.

"The foundation is of the opinion that this is an extremely important research project that will empirically allow us to test the impact of becoming an Eagle Scout on the future of the young men who go through the rigorous process of becoming an Eagle Scout," Dr. Kent R. Hill, vice president for character development at the John Templeton Foundation, said. "There has never been a study of scouting that is as sophisticated or thorough as this one is."

The research will compare Scouts to non-Scouts, and Eagle Scouts to Scouts who participated for shorter periods of time.

Stark and Johnson will be working with the Gallup organization to identify national samples of men who have and have not participated in scouting.

Then surveys and interviews will be administered.

Johnson said it would be interesting to answer questions about whether the religious component of scouting affects character development, and about which parts of scouting do or don't contribute to the character building process.

"It's exciting; they [Boy Scouts of America] are 100 years old, and it's about time there's some rigorous research done on boy scouting," Johnson said. "We hope to learn not only something about scouting and the connection between scouting and character development, but also the connection -- if any -- between religion and spirituality. There's clearly a religious aspect that runs clean through the whole scouting experience."

Becky Oppermann, Longhorn Council Boy Scouts of America field director for Central Texas, said she was excited that this topic was being looked into.

"To think that a university would be interested in researching the effects of scouting on boys as they get older is amazing to me," Oppermann said. "For me it signifies that we take for granted what scouting means for some people. For the university to want to do this is a tremendous stepping stone for scouting."

Stark said the research could be helpful to Boy Scouts if it provides positive evidence about the organization.

"The scouts have taken a lot of flak over all kinds of things, like the fact that the religion figures into the scouting and that sort of thing, and it wouldn't hurt for them to have some evidence that scouting makes a difference," Stark said. "But we don't know that that's what it'll come out."

Johnson said he does hope that the research will have a positive outcome.

"I don't try to indicate that I'm value-neutral on these things. I hope we find that Boy Scouts makes a huge impact on people, especially achieving the rank of Eagle," Johnson said. "Anyone that's had any kind of exposure seems to have nothing but positive [things] to say, so it's one of those things where you go into it and you have some ideas about what the findings might look like."

However, Johnson said he doesn't want to make assumptions.

"It's important not to assume anything and to go in there and give it a good look," Johnson said.

Stark said this particular research project is not as closely connected to religion as is typical for his and Johnson's projects, but that scouting does have a religious aspect.

"There's clearly a religious element to scouting," Stark said. "The scout law talks about 'I'll do my duty for God and my country.' It'll be interesting to see, for example, if Scouts are more religious than non-Scouts. Clearly, there are a lot of people assuming that religion is going to jump up in this study and be one of the important factors."

Johnson said Baylor is an appropriate place for this research because there are many studies in which faith is considered as a factor.

"I'm not saying this research couldn't be done at another place that's completely secular, but here I think there's an appreciation for the idea that faith might matter," Johnson said, "And I just think that gives us kind of a distinct advantage."

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