Discussing Religion: Exploring the Link between Parental Religious Socialization Messages and Youth Outcomes

Abstract

This study explored the relation between adolescent reports of parental religious socialization (i.e., cultural socialization, promotion of mistrust, and pluralism) and their religious out-group evaluations, externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Crosssectional data were obtained from 730 12- to 15-year old Belgian adolescents through questionnaires. Results from multilevel and ordinary linear regression analyses indicated that pluralism was associated with higher religious out-group evaluations whereas promotion of mistrust was associated with lower religious out-group evaluations and higher externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Cultural socialization interacted with the importance adolescents give to religion to influence youth externalizing behaviors. Despite its limitations, this study presents a complex picture of the association between religious socialization practices and adolescent outcomes and offers an alternative pathway to understand parental religious socialization.

Haitian Children’s Disaster Trauma: Validation of Pictorial Assessment of Resilience and Vulnerability

“…The answer is that children imbibe religion from their parents and local climate (Thompson, 2018). According to Bebiroglu, Roskam, and Waillet (2015), religion is socialized in children by parents saying prayers, singing hymns, and going to places of worship, which is many times weekly in Haiti. Parents channel their children's resources by encouraging them to turn to religious peers, mentors, schools, and activities (Regnerus, Smith, & Smith, 2004).…”

Exploring daily mediating pathways of religious identity in the associations between maternal religious socialization and Muslim American adolescents’ civic engagement.

“…Adolescents reported on their perceptions of maternal religious socialization during the past 12 months using an adapted version of the Cultural Socialization subscale of the Ethnic-Racial Socialization Scale (Hughes & Johnson, 2001). Similar to previous studies which have validated this measure for the use of religious socialization practices (Bebiroglu, Roskam, & van der Straten Waillet, 2015), the 4 items of the subscale were reworded to reflect mothers’ religious socialization practices (e.g., “My mother talked to me about important people or events in Islamic history”; see Appendix) and were answered on a 5-point scale ranging from Never to Very often . A composite mean score was created with higher scores indicating greater perceptions of maternal religious socialization (α = .87).…”

“…The combination of various forms of civic behaviors into one scale is another limitation because adolescents' momentary religious identities could be related to certain civic behaviors but not others. Finally, although previous studies have validated the use of the cultural socialization scale for the use of parents' religious socialization practices (Bebiroglu et al, 2015), the scale may not assess unique nuances of parents' religious socialization, particularly among religious minorities. Therefore, a more focused examination of how religious minority parents transmit their religious history, values, and practices to their children is needed.…”

Trauma coping of mothers and children among poor people in Haiti: Mixed methods study of community-level research.

“…In addition, positive religious copers were more protected against depression, anxiety, and distress than those who did not use religious coping strategies. Parental communications are the most important ways that children learn about and internalize religion (Bebiroglu, Roskam, & van der Straten Waillet, 2015). The more religious behaviors that parents displayed (i.e., church attendance-external religiosity) and the more positive their attitudes were toward religion (i.e., how important they believed religion to be-internal religiosity), the greater was the transmission of religiousness to their children.…”