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Religion in public schools has long been a controversial issue. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that teachers and administrators cannot lead prayers
Religion in public schools has long been a controversial issue. Where exactly to draw the line between constitutionally protected religious activity and impermissible state-sponsored religious indoctrination remains under dispute. Our new survey looks at the day-to-day experience of public school students across the country and kinds of religious activity they engage in – or see other students engaging in – during the course of the school day.
What exactly are teens doing with their cellphones?
The vast majority of cellphone-using teens say their phone is a way to just pass time, with nine-in-ten saying they often or sometimes use it this way, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 13- to 17-year-olds conducted in 2018. Similarly large shares of teen cellphone users say they at least sometimes use their phone to connect with other people (84%) or learn new things (83%).
Teens now enjoy more than five and a half hours of leisure a day (5 hours, 44 minutes). The biggest chunk of teens’ daily leisure time is spent on screens: 3 hours and 4 minutes on average. This figure, which can include time spent gaming, surfing the web, watching videos and watching TV, has held steady over the past decade. On weekends, screen time increases to almost four hours a day (3 hours, 53 minutes), and on weekdays teens are spending 2 hours and 44 minutes on screens.
Seven-in-ten U.S. teens say anxiety and depression are major problems among their peers. Yet anxiety and depression aren't the only concerns for teens.
Teens spend their time differently than they did a decade ago, but gender differences remain in time spent on leisure, housework and other activities.
Teens today are spending their time differently than they did a decade ago. They’re devoting more time to sleep and homework, and less time to paid work and socializing. But what has not changed are the differences between teen boys and girls in time spent on leisure, grooming, homework, housework and errands, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Academics are at forefront of the pressures teen face
About six-in-ten teens say they feel a lot of pressure to get good gradesMost teens (61%) say they personally feel a lot of pressure to get good grades, and another 27% say they feel some pressure to do so.
Compared with getting good grades, about half as many say they feel a lot of pressure to look good (29%) and to fit in socially (28%). Roughly one-in-five say they face a lot of pressure to be involved in extracurricular activities and to be good at sports (21% each), while smaller shares say they feel a lot of pressure to help their family financially (13%), to participate in religious activities (8%), to be sexually active (8%), to drink alcohol (6%) or to use drugs (4%).
Boys and girls, as well as teens across income groups, generally feel similar levels of pressure in each of these realms, but there are some exceptions. Girls are more likely than boys to say they feel a lot of pressure to look good (35% vs. 23%). And teens in the lower- and middle-income groups are more likely than those in higher-income households to say they feel at least some pressure to help their family financially (42% and 38%, respectively, vs. 28%).
Anxiety and depression are on the rise among America’s youth and, whether they personally suffer from these conditions or not, seven-in-ten teens today see them as major problems among their peers. Concern about mental health cuts across gender, racial and socio-economic lines, with roughly equal shares of teens across demographic groups saying it is a significant issue in their community.
Some 15% of U.S. households with school-age children do not have a high-speed internet connection at home, and this is particularly true in lower-income households. This aspect of the digital divide – often referred to as the “homework gap” – can be an academic burden for teens. Black teens, as well as those from lower-income households, are especially likely to face these school-related challenges as a result.
This Mother’s Day, many moms may enjoy a restful day off, including breakfast in bed, handmade cards and a hiatus from housework and sibling squabbles. But how do moms feel about their roles the other 364 days of the year? The answers vary depending on how old their kids are.
Changing diapers and arranging play dates is a world apart from running the carpool and helping with college applications. And it’s true that moms of young children have different challenges than moms of teens.
Teens and young adults were among the groups hit hardest by the global financial crisis. And while many young people have since regained their footing – as employees, students or both – there are still millions in the U.S. and abroad who are neither working nor in school. Though sometimes referred to as “disconnected” or “detached” youth, globally those young people often are called “NEETs” – because they are neither employed nor in education or training.
Although NEET rates rose both in the U.S. and the EU during and after the crisis, they jumped higher but have fallen faster in the U.S. By contrast, many EU countries’ NEET rates remain well above pre-crisis levels. (While similar, the U.S. and EU measures aren’t directly comparable – in part because the EU begins tracking young people’s labor-force participation at 15 rather than 16, and also because apprenticeships and other workplace-based training is more common in Europe than in the U.S.)
Worrying about your kids is one of the defining traits of being a parent. But what are the chances your child will be bullied, beat up or even shot? We looked at the data.
Getting shot: Relatively few minors (ages 17 and younger) are shot in any given year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s database of fatal and nonfatal injury reports. However, black youths are far more likely than white or Hispanic youths to be injured by gunfire or fatally shot.
Trouble with the law: Overall juvenile arrest rates have fallen by more than half after peaking in the mid-1990s, according to the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. In 2012, nearly four of every 100 youths (ages 10 to 17) were arrested, down from about 8.5 per 100 in 1996.
However, while all racial subgroups contributed to the decline (the OJJDP doesn’t report separately on Hispanics), the arrest rate for black youths is still more than twice that of any other group.
Teen pregnancy: The birthrate for 15- to 19-year-olds (the metric tracked by federal researchers) has been dropping for decades and hit a record low in 2014. There were just 24.2 births per 1,000 teen females that year, compared with 61.8 per 1,000 in 1991 and 41.5 as recently as 2007.
Drugs and alcohol: Overall drug use among young people has been more or less unchanged in recent years after rising sharply in the 1990s, according to the University of Michigan’s long-running “Monitoring the Future” survey. Around 15% of eighth-graders, three-in-ten high-school sophomores and four-in-ten seniors report some use of illicit drugs (either illegal or prescription drugs not under a doctor’s orders) in the past 12 months. Marijuana is by far the most commonly used drug, at all grade levels; 10th- and 12th-graders are next-most likely to report using amphetamines and the prescription drug Adderall, while inhalants are the second-most frequently used drugs among eighth-graders.
A Pew Research Center survey of parents of 13- to 17-year-olds finds that today’s parents take a wide range of actions to monitor their teen’s online lives and to encourage their child to use technology in an appropriate and responsible manner.
