Young adulthood is a life stage that includes exploring numerous identities. Emerging young adults (ages 18-29) report a range of ease and difficulty in going through the transitions of acquiring psychological, social, and physical identities (Schwartz, Zamboanga, Luyckx, Meca, & Ritchie, 2013). Religious identity acquisition is also an important development process for many young adults. Professionals from a broad range of professions may help Catholic emerging adults to navigate identity formation processes. However, there is insufficient knowledge of how young people develop religious identities, particularly from specific cultural and/or religious groups (NASW, 2017; Roehlkepartain, Benson, & Scales, 2011). There is a great need to explore how the subgroup of Catholic emerging adults develops a religious identity. There are 12 million Catholic emerging adults in the United States, who vary widely in their beliefs and behaviors, such as Mass attendance (Smith, Longest, Hill, & Christoffersen, 2014). The lack of information about Catholic emerging adults' reported experiences of exploring their religious identity is a significant gap within the human development knowledge base and the professional services literature.The overarching research question that guided this grounded theory study was "how do Catholic emerging adults describe their faith journey?" Faith journey was defined as emerging Catholic adults' reported religious-related thoughts, feelings, and behavioral experiences. Grounded theory studies often aim to understand processes (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). This study employed a grounded theory approach to try to understand the process of how religious identity development is incorporated into a person's identity. Sampling and Recruitment: This study used purposive and theoretical sampling techniques. Thirty-one Skype or Zoom interviews were conducted. The sample was composed of 31 emerging Catholic adults, ages 18-29. They identified as White, Middle Eastern, Mayan, Black, Hispanic, and Asian. The participants were geographically distributed across the United States. Analysis: The data was analyzed using open, axial, and selective coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). The researcher and a trained research assistant used open coding to identity and define main constructs, or themes, arising from the data. The core category that emerged was the journey, which the participants defined as gradual and ongoing, with various influences that made the journey harder or easier. The main themes that emerged were the influences on the journey: external influences, internal influences and choices/action. There were several subthemes under each of the themes that specified the influences, for example, family, peers, thinking/learning.This research added to previous research by broadening the understanding of religious development as reported by this sample of participants that described a more gradual process of faith development. Interviewees said that their faith journeys were not broken down into steps, stages, or categories. Some of the reported influences on the journey were consistent with previous research including family, peers, religious leaders, doubts and questioning, and personal traits. However, there were additional insights, especially regarding the role of choices and thinking and learning in religious development. The findings could prove useful in helping social workers respond in more culturally competent ways to Catholic emerging adults and give insight to Church leaders about the needs of Catholic emerging adults and potential responses they could make to these needs.
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