David Dollahite (david_dollahite@byu.edu), is Professor of Family Life at Brigham Young University where he teaches classes and conducts research on the links between religion and family life. At BYU, he has twice been an Eliza R. Snow University Fellow and has served as an Associate Director of the School of Family Life.
Professor Dollahite obtained a bachelor’s degree in family life and a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from BYU (1985) and a doctorate in family studies from the University of Minnesota (1989). He has been a visiting scholar at the Stanford Center on Adolescence, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Dominican University of California, and was the Jawaharlal Nehru Visiting Scholar at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India.
His scholarship focuses on religion and family life in the Abrahamic faiths, Latter-day Saint family life, religion and adolescence, and faith and fathering. He is Co-Director (with Dr. Loren Marks) of the American Families of Faith Project in which 200 Christian, Jewish, and Muslim families (including 80 adolescents) from 10 states have been interviewed. Findings from this ongoing project have resulted in nearly 40 scholarly articles and chapters and Dr. Dollahite and Dr. Marks are currently writing a book on their findings.
He has published nearly 70 scholarly articles and chapters and has edited or co-edited four scholarly books including Generative Fathering (Sage, 1998) and three scholarly volumes on LDS family life: Successful Marriages and Families (BYU Studies, 2012), Helping and Healing Our Families (Deseret Book, 2005), and Strengthening Our Families (Bookcraft, 2000).
He also enjoys writing hymn texts and two of his hymns (“May Thy Face of Shining Splendor” and “As Families in the Latter Days”) have received awards from The LDS Church and have been performed at the LDS Music Festival on Temple Square in Salt City. He was raised in the Episcopal Church and served for three years as an acolyte (altar boy). When he was 19 years old he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and then served a two-year LDS mission in New England (1979-81).
David and his wife, Mary Kimball Dollahite, J.D. have been married since August of 1983 and are the lucky parents of seven terrific kids—Rachel, Erica, Camilla, Kathryn, Spencer, Jonathan, and Luke and are grandparents of David and Edward Lambourne (sons of Rachel and Collin Lambourne).
Here are some of Dr. Dollahite’s recent publications on religion and adolescents:
Layton, E., Hardy, S. A., & Dollahite, D. C. (2012). Religious exploration among highly-religious American adolescents. Identity: An International Journal of Theory and Research, 12, 157–184.
Layton, E., Dollahite, D. C., & Hardy, S. A. (2011). Anchors of religious commitment in adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research, 26, 381-413.
Dollahite, D. C., Layton, E., Bahr, H. M., Walker, A. B., & Thatcher, J. Y. (2009). Giving up something good for something better: Sacred sacrifices made by religious youth. Journal of Adolescent Research, 24, 691-725.
Dollahite, D. C., & Thatcher, J. Y. (2008). Talking about religion: How religious youth and parents discuss their faith. Journal of Adolescent Research, 23, 611-641.
Brigham Young University