• To what extent is the above negative reaction to 'obvious Christianity' governed by the perception of Christianity portrayed in the dominant culture?

Students have demonstrated that they do not like confrontation. The following responses indicate this trend.

The Church, when viewed as working on issues which do not necessarily involve students feeling confronted, is seen as a positive influence.

In fact, the Church' qualities here, match the qualities which featured mainly in their response to Question 11. "What do you look for in a friend". Interestingly, very little in the response corresponded to some of the negative definitions of coolness given in question 1.

Some qualities, which occurred in many responses, were:

• honesty - kindness - understanding
• friendliness - humour
• love - trust

Students should be made aware of this because they often hold to the perceived revered definition of 'coolness' a firmly as a falling mountain climber holding on for dear life. (Responses indicated being cool was following trends and doing what was bad).

Likewise, the negative influence of the media, which counteracts this Positive Church image, is not always appreciated. .

As seen above you can see the confidence that the students have in the music industry. You can also see that 64% were happy to join a movie club as opposed to the 13% happy to join a book club. They are definitely non-print media literate. (98% found watching the latest movies to be cool.)

The following chart demonstrates how many students want to be like their favorite celebrity. See item 14 on the survey.

 The first five bars represent the following people in order .

1. Favorite Celebrity

2. Pope

3. Mandela

4. Mother Teresa

5. Parents

However, it is important to stress again, that students seem to have a little appreciation of the impact of the media. Only 25% of the entire group (compared to the 38% of students in my class), considered the negative images of Religious concepts portrayed on television as a factor in their attitude towards the Religious Education topics taught.

The following table presents the results of student perceptions of the Television's attitude towards certain groups and virtues and vices and different groups in society. Whilst some responses seem realistic, others don't. (Those in question, which I suggest are a result of an uncritical view of the television shows, are in RED. See item 6 of the survey

Another contradiction?

Despite the fact that many students preferred to be like their favourite star, parents still play a very important part in their formation. The following chart portrays this clearly. Students were asked at Question 13 to rank certain figures according to whom they most admired and whose actions they imitated. Contrary to their response to Question 14, parents and peers played a prominent role as opposed to their 'stars'. The first column represents those whom students most admired and the eighth column respresents the figure they least want to follow. Chart two shows how many ranked the Church as number 8.

 1. Peers

2. Parents

3. Church

 Church - 60% said least admired, but only 40% of control group.

I was surprised to find that students feel that they model themselves more on their parents than on a television character. If this is in fact true, then, as the literature available demonstrates, the impact that Parents have is even more crucial than first thought. As Leavey states a search for identity and the contemporary crisis of faith in significant others is very important in the spiritual development of youth (Leavey et.al, 1992.p 217).