Some of the religious contexts in which teachers, children and young people encounter one another in Catholic schools are illustrated in the following data from the NCEC and Putting Life Together^ surveys.
| Knowing Jesus helps make me a better person | Religious faith helps shape how I live my life | |
| Definitely true | 23% | 15% |
| Probably true | 20% | 13% |
| Not sure, don’t know | 24% | 21% |
| Probably not true | 11% | 18% |
| Definitely not true | 22% | 33% |
Mean Scores on a Scale of 1 to 10 of Students’ Rating of Various Influences on their Thinking about Life, and Percentage Scoring the Influence Strongly (Table 2).
| Influence | Mean Rating on a Scale of 1 to 10 | Percentage Indicating They are Strongly Influenced |
| Family | 8.5 | 78% |
| Friends | 8.3 | 76% |
| What is learnt at school | 7.2 | 53% |
| Reading a book | 6.4 | 39% |
| School camps and retreats | 5.9 | 33% |
| Teachers | 5.8 | 28% |
| Leadership programs and opportunities | 5.5 | 30% |
| Community and social justice programs | 4.8 | 21% |
| Religious education | 4.8 | 22% |
| Church | 4.4 | 23% |
| School liturgies and services of worship | 4.2 | 16% |
References
^ Hughes, P. (2007). Putting Life Together: Findings from Australian Youth Spirituality Research. Fairfield, Victoria: Fairfield Press, p. 68