This article was downloaded by: [North West University]On: 21 December 2014, At: 01:39Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

Religious Education: Theofficial journal of the ReligiousEducation AssociationPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/urea20

A Review of “Girl Talk, GodTalk: Why Faith Matters toTeenage Girls—and TheirParents”Anne Carter Walker aa Claremont School of Theology ,Published online: 05 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Anne Carter Walker (2009) A Review of “Girl Talk, God Talk:Why Faith Matters to Teenage Girls—and Their Parents”, Religious Education:The official journal of the Religious Education Association, 104:5, 570-572, DOI:10.1080/00344080903294087

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00344080903294087

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BOOK REVIEW

Girl Talk, God Talk: Why Faith Matters to TeenageGirls—and Their Parents. By Joyce Ann Mercer. San Francisco:Jossey-Bass, 2008. 158 pp., $22.95 (hardcover).

In Girl Talk, God Talk, Joyce Ann Mercer offers constructiveinsights for parents, mentors, and ministers who are accompanyinggirls as they explore issues of faith, gender, and vocation during theadolescent years. Fifty youth participants from the Youth TheologicalInitiative (YTI) at Emory University serve as Mercer’s research part-ners, who share honest and poignant narratives about their biggestquestions. These stories and Mercer’s reflections point toward thesignificant ways adults can support the meaning-making of adolescentgirls. Further, as Mercer claims, this work addresses a gap in the cur-rent research on adolescent girls: the particular ways in which religionand faith contribute to the overall construction of selfhood for girls.

Mercer offers an ethnographic research model that she calls “por-traiture,” a significant contribution to the canon of grounded theory-based research methods in religious education. Mercer’s research ap-proach is “grounded in an understanding of interviewing as a relationalpractice in which encounter elicits insights,” an approach that “take[s]snapshots within a specific time frame and context, from which insightsand generative themes can be drawn to provide a way of learning” (3).This research approach is more than mere data-collection; it providesa relational space in which the adolescent girl constructs her world-view as she talks about who she is, what matters, and where she needssupport. Mercer describes this relational interview space as a holy actof contemplation, a practice of deep listening that creates “a spacewhere God might be encountered” (10). As Mercer reminds us in re-flections on her own story as a girl and as a mother, this “holy listening”has the power to change the listener as well.

Mercer’s core chapters describe “girl talk” about faith, gender,mothers, and fathers, weaving together the girls’ narratives with theo-ries of faith development, adolescence, gender, and parenting. Partic-ularly powerful are the girls’ descriptions of their quests for authenticfaith and their desires for conversation partners. They describe faithas an affective process of making meaning amid experiences and rela-tionships; a faith that seeks expression in “their efforts to live out the

Religious Education Copyright C© The Religious Education AssociationVol. 104 No. 5 October–December ISSN: 0034–4087 print

DOI: 10.1080/00344080903294087

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call from God to use their lives in certain ways” (35). In this processof construction, Mercer and her research partners say “there are fewplaces today for girls to explore out loud” (72) signaling the impor-tance of parents, ministers, and mentors in providing spaces for holylistening.

In response, Mercer draws four important insights about the faithlives of adolescent girls: (1) Girls desire parents and other adults to ac-tively engage them with issues of faith and meaning. (2) Girls continueto face gender oppression. They need adult partners to provide notonly space for listening, but also for advocacy for their empowerment.(3) Parents should seek to confirm and bless the identity and faithsearches of their daughters and, if possible, participate with girls inthese practices; and (4) Girls actively construct their faith. They arein search of authentic ways to express their faith in the world (126–127).

Mercer concludes with a number of practical recommendationsfor those who are accompanying adolescent girls in faith construction.Most important, Mercer calls for parents to let go of the fantasy of per-fect parenting. Rather, she encourages parents to be “good enough,”to act as models of persons seeking to live lives of authenticity in aworld of challenge and change. She further identifies the importanceof a constellation of engaged adults with girls, adults who can act asgodparents and who will take on adolescents as apprentices, activelymodeling mature faith and encouraging the faith lives of girls. It is insuch relationships with parents, elders, mentors, and ministers thatholy listening is vital.

The promise of this work is the model of listening that pays at-tention to and honors the particular ways that girls are constructingselfhood, faith, and vocation. As Mercer recognizes, each attempt atethnographic research to understand the faith lives of girls provides aparticular window through which to view these realities. The girls inthis study, as YTI youth scholars, participated in a concentrated set-ting for theological exploration that values strong academic achievers.Further ethnographic research into the faith lives of adolescent girlsshould seek out research partners who do not embody these norms ofsuccess and achievement. In particular, what do selfhood, faith, andvocation look like for girls who have not had the resources availableto envision themselves as successful or gifted? How are they negoti-ating their everyday challenges? How do their experiences contributeto the construction of faith and meaning? What are their sources of

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support, spirituality, and persistence toward vocation? Mercer pro-vides a strong model of the deep, holy care necessary for such anendeavor.

Anne Carter WalkerClaremont School of Theology

E-mail: annecwalker@gmail.com

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