A new study shows that college students who are strongly religious tend to identify themselves as politically conservative and hold traditional views about sex, abortion, homosexuality and drugs.

However, the same college students lean in a liberal direction when it comes to issues such as gun control and the death penalty, according to results released July 28 from "Spirituality in Higher Education: A National Study of College Students' Search for Meaning and Purpose."

The results also shows that women report significantly higher levels of spirituality and religiousness than men and are more apt to be involved in charity work.

The national study, conducted last year by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, surveyed 3,680 third-year college students at 46 colleges and universities.

About one-fifth of the students described themselves as "highly religious." About the same number indicated they had low levels of religious engagement, which was defined as attending religious services, reading sacred texts, attending religious/spiritual workshops or retreats, and joining a religious organization on campus.

The students who said they were highly engaged religiously differed from their less religious classmates in attitudes about a number of social issues. The largest gap in attitude was about casual sex, with 7 percent of highly religious students finding it acceptable, compared to 80 percent of the least religious students.

The most and least religious students also differed significantly in their views on legalized abortion. Twenty-four percent of the more religious students agreed that abortion should remain legal compared to 79 percent of the least religious students. Regarding the legalization of marijuana, 17 percent of religious students were for it, compared to 64 percent of the less religious students.

Thirty-eight percent of the more religious students also said they would support "laws prohibiting homosexual relationships," compared to 17 percent of the less religious students.

A different pattern emerged with regard to gun control and the death penalty.

Seventy-five percent of the most religious students and 70 percent of least religious students felt that the federal government should do more to control the sale of handguns. Thirty-eight percent of the most religious students said they supported abolition of the death penalty, compared to just 23 percent of the least religious students.

"The nation's cultural and political divide is on college campuses too," Alexander Astin, director of the Higher Education Research Institute.

"But the study also shows that there is no simple, one-to-one relationship between religious and political beliefs," he added. "While highly religious students tend to be more conservative than less religious students on certain issues, they can also be more liberal on other issues."

Students who identified themselves as politically conservative were more likely to show high levels of religious commitment, 50 percent, and religious engagement, 37 percent. Of those who described themselves as liberal, only 18 percent showed high levels of religious commitment and 10 percent, religious engagement.

Twenty-one percent of the women showed high levels of charitable involvement, compared to only 8 percent of the men. By contrast, 33 percent of the men and only 12 percent of the women showed little or no charitable involvement.

According to an analysis of the results, political engagement --- defined as voting in student elections, frequently discussing politics, wanting to influence the political structure, and participating in student government --- is only weakly related to religious engagement and unrelated to religious commitment.

However, it said, students who are highly engaged politically, compared to those students who are politically disengaged, showed much higher levels of charitable involvement, social activism, growth in global/national understanding and self-esteem, and were much more likely to be engaged in a spiritual quest.

For the study about 250 third-year students on average were chosen at random at each of the 46 participating schools. About 150 colleges and universities were contacted between late February 2003 and late March 2003. Forty-six of them said they could participate within the timeframe laid out by researchers.

In early April 2003 a four-page questionnaire was sent to 12,030 students. Researchers received usable questionnaires from 3,680 students.

---CNS