Religious Socialization: A Test of the Channeling Hypothesis of Parental Influence on Adolescent Faith Maturity

Abstract

Recent research on intergenerational faith transfer has argued that (a) parents have a direct effect on the adolescence acquisition of religiosity and (b) parental effects are mediated through congregation and peers. This study tests the channeling hypothesis, which argues that parental influences are mediated through both peer selection and congregation selection. It examines both direct and indirect effects that parental influence has on the religiosity of offspring. A national survey of 11,000 adolescents and adults in six Protestant denominations produced a subsample of 2,379 youth. Contrary to the channeling hypothesis, the research showed that peer influence and parental influence remained stable during the adolescent years. Parental influence did not dramatically increase or decrease with age. Some findings support the channeling hypothesis, particularly the mediating effect of parents through peer influences. The findings of this study are discussed in light of the contradictory findings from other studies.

Religiosity, Developmental Context, and Sexual Shame in Pornography Users: A Serial Mediation Model

“…Many studies show that the faith attitudes and behaviors of parents strongly predict those of their children (Bader & Desmond, 2006;Flor & Knapp, 2001;Heaven, Ciarrochi, & Leeson, 2010;Holden, Bayan, Baruah, & Holland, 2013;Martin, White, & Perlman, 2003;Petts, 2015), and this predictive relationship holds true for both the public and private components of faith (Leonard, Cook, Boyatzis, Kimball, & Flanagan, 2012). Parental religiosity is associated with healthy and unhealthy faith attitudes and practices (Holden et al, 2013;Power & McKinney, 2013).…”

“…Several theoretical models about transference factors and processes are postulated as predictive of transmission, each of which is cited as needing further empirical exploration (Martin et al, 2003;Petts, 2015;Power & McKinney, 2013). Among these is the quality of parental faith, features of the parent-child relationship, parenting style, and family environment/structure.…”

Social Networks and Religion: The Role of Congregational Social Embeddedness in Religious Belief and Practice

“…A considerable literature shows connections between the religious composition of friendship networks and religious activities (Barrett et al 2007;Erickson 1992;Kadushin and Kotler-Berkowitz 2006;Martin et al 2003;Mears and Ellison 2000;Regnerus et al 2004). Unfortunately, these studies are mainly limited to adolescents and are also limited in that they do not consider the consolidation of friendships in the respondent's congregation, but rather measure the religious composition of general friendship networks.…”

A felekezeti oktatás új negyedszázada

“…A szakirodalom három meghatározó tényezőt azonosít a szocializációs folyamatban (pl. Greeley & Rossi 1966;Cornwall 1988;Martin et al 2003). Ezek a család, a vallási intézmények és a kortársak.…”