Which of the following is not a characteristic of religion as an agent of socialization?
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Lisa D. Pearce, in
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015 A major line of research in the area of religion and youth is the importance of influential others in shaping one's religious beliefs and practices, otherwise known as religious socialization theory (Sherkat, 2003). When it comes to the religious socialization of youth, we most often think of parents and peers. Studies repeatedly find parents to be the most important religious influence in the lives of youth
(e.g., Cnaan et al., 2004; Pearce and Denton, 2011; Smith and Denton, 2005; Spilka et al., 1985). And there is considerable research identifying the impact of peers on religious commitments (Desmond et al., 2010; Gunnoe and Moore, 2002; Regnerus et al., 2004). Social institutions are also important for religious socialization, and considerable research has examined the importance of educational
institutions and religious organizations for influencing religious commitments (Sherkat, 2003). From childhood through emerging adulthood, one's religious affiliation is highly correlated with the tradition in which one was raised (Sherkat, 1998; Smith and Snell, 2009). Religious beliefs and practices are also closely associated with those that parents modeled and encouraged during childhood (Gunnoe and Moore,
2002; Ozorak, 1989; Smith and Denton, 2005; Wuthnow, 1998). When parents cultivate an understanding that the family attends religious services, youth tend to believe they should attend (Lytch, 2004). Having religious parents makes one less vulnerable to dramatic religious declines during youth (Regnerus and Uecker, 2006). Furthermore, any decline in youth religiosity happens later for youth whose parents provide consistent
religious messages (Petts, 2009). Although both parents matter, studies suggest that mothers' beliefs and practices are more influential than fathers' (Acock and Bengtson, 1978; Benson and Eklin, 1990). Research suggests that religious socialization tends to be most successful when families are close and relationships are harmonious, when youth live with two parents, and when parents share the same religious affiliation, beliefs, and practices (Myers,
1996; Petts, 2009; Sherkat, 1991). Part of how religious parents influence their children is by encouraging them to choose more religious peers and be involved in religious institutions (Erickson, 1992; Sherkat, 2003). The influence of religious socialization from parents takes on special importance in the case of immigrant families, in which immigrant or second-generation youth must contend with multiple cultures and identities
(Warner and Williams, 2010). Not surprisingly, socialization and religious influence do not just work in one direction. Children also influence their parents. Sherkat (1991) finds that there are reciprocal relationships between parent and child religious participation and belief from childhood through adulthood. Peers also play a role in the socialization of religious commitments; since much of youths' lives are spent in educational
or extracurricular activities segregated by age, their identities evolve in some measure according to what they perceive as acceptable to their peers. When it comes to peers and religion, having schoolmates or peers with higher levels of religious affiliation, belief, practice, and salience is, not surprisingly, related to higher levels of these dimensions of religiosity in youth (Desmond et al., 2010; Gunnoe and Moore, 2002; Regnerus et al.,
2004). Also, having more religious schoolmates and peers is protective against dramatic religious decline and apostasy (Regnerus and Uecker, 2006). Pearce and Denton (2011) find that adolescent peers do not report talking to each other about religion much, so either less direct methods of socialization are occurring, or these associations may be spurious, explained by other characteristics that peers tend to have in common. Read full chapter URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080970868840313 Religion, Sociology ofDavid Voas, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015 Religion and the Life CourseWhether or not humans are inclined by nature to be religious, it is clearly the case that taste for religion is cultivated within families and the social environment. If one wants to predict someone's religion and religiosity, two pieces of information will take one most of the way: where the person grew up and how religious his or her parents were. The amount of effort parents invest in the religious socialization of their children is strongly associated with the importance they themselves attach to the religion. As children emerge into adulthood, they may diverge from the family path; in the Western world, the motor of declining affiliation and attendance has been a drift away from religion at this point. Within any given generation, the average level of religiosity appears to be fairly stable over the life course; contrary to common belief, there is little evidence that people become markedly more religious with age. Exceptions are most likely to occur as a result of family formation, when people use their own upbringing as a model for how children should be raised. Read full chapter URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080970868840416 ReligiosityDarren E. Sherkat, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015 Microlevel Processes and ReligiosityMost social scientific studies of religion focus on individual religiosity and the microlevel processes that inform the intergenerational transmission of religiosity, variations in religiosity over the life course, and the consequences of personal religiosity across a range of social behaviors and institutions. Life course processes are an important focus of research examining variations in religiosity, and the connections between religion and marriage, fertility, and career trajectories are the focus of a substantial body of research, particularly in the United States and Europe. Religious participation and devotion are often linked to life course events such as marriage, childbirth, childrearing, and death. The formation of a family through procreation is sacralized through religious rituals of marriage, and religiously sanctioned marriage is an aspect and indicator of religiosity. Children are often dedicated to religious traditions at birth or in early childhood through ceremonies of baptism or ritual cleansing, and through training and confirmation of religious fealty. Life course transitions like school graduations, obtaining employment, and purchasing a home or a car are also often marked by religious rituals. Religious funerals are another indication of religiosity, and many religious traditions have particular prescriptions and proscriptions regarding the burial or disposal of dead bodies of the faithful. The socialization of children often gives rise to higher levels of religious engagement, particularly in traditions where congregational styles of worship predominate. Longitudinal studies show that marriage and childrearing have a positive impact on religious participation, particularly when the age of marriage and the timing of children follow a normative pattern for these life course events (Stolzenberg et al., 1995; Sherkat, 2003). Religious identifications, beliefs, and patterns of participation are passed from parents to children, and the family of origin is the most important source of religious socialization (Sherkat, 2003; Sherkat and Wilson, 1995). Religious socialization also happens within religious institutions, and some sectarian religious groups demand higher levels of public religious expression and more exclusive religious beliefs. Retirement and the departure of adult children from the household may also provide opportunities for religious participation and pilgrimage, and even to join religious societies or train for the clergy. Aging also appears to be positively associated with the certainty of beliefs about gods (Sherkat, 2010); however, it is uncertain whether this is true outside of the United States. Individual-level religiosity is also structured by ethnicity and gender. In many areas of the world, religion is a cultural marker of ethnic status, and religious participation is often highly valued or mandated in those groups (Ellison and Sherkat, 1995). In many religious traditions, women are substantially more active than men, particularly in Western Christianity (Sherkat, 2003), and there has been considerable debate in the literature about the origins of gender differences in religiosity. Educational institutions and attainment processes also influence religiosity and religious beliefs. In the United States, higher levels of education are associated with higher rates of participation and less exclusivist and more secular religious beliefs (Sherkat, 2003). Religious schools play a role in securing particular religious commitments through childhood socialization and the homogenization of social networks. Individual or family religiosity will influence educational choices, and can lead to higher or lower levels of attainment depending on how religiosity is seen to conflict or correspond with educational goals (Sherkat, 2010). In the United States, sectarian Protestants consistently show educational disadvantages, while Jews and liberal Protestants have high levels of attainment (Lehrer, 2004; Fitzgerald and Glass, 2008). These educational trajectories also influence occupational attainment, income, and wealth, and are linked to patterns of early marriage, patriarchal gender norms, large family size, and anti-intellectualism (Keister, 2011; Darnell and Sherkat, 1997; Sherkat, 2010). Religiosity also plays an important role in political engagement, structuring preferences for political goods and influencing ties to political organizations. Individuals’ social networks are strongly influenced by religiosity, and the pattern and strength of these ties can be used as resources by political movements (Sherkat, 2005). Religious beliefs are increasingly important for informing beliefs about political goods associated with modern states – particularly the value of education; equality across ethnic, religious, and gender groups; and the sanctity of religious strictures and regulations on social life (blasphemy laws, regulation of food and drugs, clothing regulations, limitations on the depiction of sex, and the like) (Jurgensmeyer, 2008). Read full chapter URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080970868840209 Personality and ReligionVassilis Saroglou, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015 Personality Influences on ReligiousnessLongitudinal studies from the United States, Australia, and Belgium indicate that personality has chronological priority and an impact on religiousness (studies by Heaven, McCullough, Wink, and colleagues cited in Saroglou, 2010; see also Duriez et al., 2008). Across these studies, religiousness in late adolescence, adulthood, and late adulthood was predicted by high conscientiousness or low psychoticism, measured when the participants were children or adolescents. In addition, high versus low agreeableness in adolescence predicted respectively an increase versus decrease of religiousness throughout adulthood; and openness to experience in adolescence predicted spirituality in late adulthood. Finally, high versus low exploration in adolescent identity status later influenced, respectively, the symbolic versus literal way one approaches religious ideas. Therefore, from a five-factor theory perspective, religiosity can be seen as one of many other characteristic adaptations, that is, later in life, and narrower in focus (like identities, values, social attitudes, and ideologies), contextual, and cultural adaptations of early basic personality predispositions – here a combination of agreeableness with conscientiousness and low impulsivity. Of course, there is no direct, mere transformation of personality traits to religiosity: value hierarchies and specific social attitudes, themselves being characteristic adaptations of basic personality traits, are stronger predictors of religiosity; additional individual differences (see below) may complement personality and value influences on later religiosity; and individual differences do not predict religiosity alone, but in addition to or in interaction with environmental factors, in particular religious socialization. Indeed, in addition to basic personality traits, values, and social attitudes, religiosity is associated with (1) other personality characteristics that are located beyond the five factors such as honesty, conservatism, low sexiness, and low humorousness (Saroglou, 2014, for review), as well as (2) individual differences, beyond personality, that are more cognitive in nature, such as low intelligence (Zuckerman et al., 2013) and holistic and intuitive rather than analytic thinking (Gervais and Norenzayan, 2012). More importantly, there is substantial evidence that an important, if not the major, predictor of religiosity is parents' attitudes toward religion. Religious socialization in general (mainly parents' influence, but also broader socialization) importantly undermines future religious attitudes. Finally, negative life events and also some self-transcendent positive experiences play a role in amplifying interest and investment in religion and spirituality (Saroglou, 2014, for review). Consequently, an integrative theoretical model that better identifies the role of personality in religiousness is one that puts personality in interaction with global environmental factors and personal life events (see Figure 3). Siblings' differential trajectories with regard to religion is the typical example attesting the influence of individual differences beyond, or in interaction with, environmental influences such as religious or atheist family socialization. Figure 3. Theoretical model describing the genetic and environmental influences on religiousness and the role of personality characteristics: basic traits and other individual differences. Therefore, people who are agreeable and conscientious, if religiously socialized (family and society's influences), and especially if they had developed a secure attachment to their parents, will tend overall to remain religious because religious ideas, emotions, and norms solidify their prosocial and conscientious tendencies. Religion emphasizes ideals of compassion, social harmony, social cohesion, personal stability, and self-mastery. Even if these people experience religious doubts and no longer believe, for example because of their cognitive and social development, their personality predispositions may prevent them from totally abandoning religion due to their desire to minimize conflict and maintain harmony with their religious families and peers. Agreeable and conscientious people who are nonreligiously socialized, in principle, would tend to develop attitudes and endorse secular ideologies in favor of secular humanism, social justice, and pro-environmental concerns to express and solidify their personality dispositions and respective values. If however they have experienced insecure attachment to parents or in adulthood, or if they are confronted with significant negative life events, their agreeableness and conscientiousness may make them more predisposed than their nonagreeable and nonconscientious peers to be interested and invest in spirituality and religion in order to (re)-establish personal stability, meaning, trust, and faith to their values. Beyond the above pathways, people who, in addition to agreeableness and conscientiousness, are also characterized by low openness to experience may turn to conservative and fundamentalism religious forms, whereas those with high openness and extraversion, especially in secular countries, will be more in osmosis with modern forms of spirituality. Read full chapter URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080970868250800 Ethnicity and Migration in EuropeKaren Phalet, ... Kaat Van Acker, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015 Minority Perspectives on Ethnic Diversity: Acculturation and AdjustmentMinority Acculturation: Culture Maintenance and Religious IdentityIn this last section, the authors turn to minority perspectives. Generally, restrictive majority attitudes impose pragmatic constraints on the acculturation options that are open to minority members (the viability question); and they affect the trade-off between psychological costs and rewards attached to bicultural integration (the adaptivity question). Berry's ‘integration’ type of acculturation attitudes refer to the preference to combine both minority and majority cultures and identities, in contrast with monocultural preferences, either for the minority culture (‘separation’) or for the majority culture (‘assimilation’). Cross-cultural research with immigrant minorities shows that the second generation most often continues to attach high importance to the minority culture. In addition, they also report some measure of belonging to the majority culture, albeit levels of national identification among minorities are lower on average than among the host majority (Berry et al., 2006). While there is considerable variation in the self-relevance of the majority culture and identity, the psychological reality of most minority members and of the second generation in particular, is thus bicultural. More precisely, the majority culture becomes psychologically significant against the background of a continued and strong attachment to the minority culture (Verkuyten and Martinovic, 2012). This is best illustrated by a major cross-cultural study of the acculturation experiences of minority youth (Berry et al., 2006), which includes historical immigration countries as well as West, South, and Central European countries. The comparative findings confirmed that bicultural integration was indeed most preferred overall; and that integration predicted equally or more positive adjustment outcomes for minority youth relative to separation or assimilation. Minority acculturation and adjustment vary considerably with the warmth of welcome in intergroup relations, however. To take into account different intergroup climates, recent research on acculturation and intergroup relations develops a multigroup perspective that combines majority and minority acculturation attitudes in particular intergroup settings. This research yields converging evidence of mutual influence between (‘perceived’) majority and minority acculturation attitudes; and relates diverging minority and majority attitudes (e.g., between majority Dutch preference for assimilation and minority Turkish preference for separation) to increased threat feelings and more negative intergroup attitudes (Brown and Zagefka, 2011). In European migration contexts, minority integration is often at odds with majority demands of assimilation. In these contexts, therefore, minority and majority cultures were more often experienced as conflicting; and separation was sometimes preferred over integration (for instance, by Turkish minority youth). Taken together, the evidence qualifies the psychological viability of integration, especially in more recent and less diverse European migration contexts. One example of minority culture maintenance despite restrictive majority attitudes and discrimination is the importance of religion among second-generation Muslims in Europe. Sustained religiosity is well documented for the Turkish and Moroccan second generation in several European countries (Güngör et al., 2011). Religious continuity was related to the religious socialization of the second generation within close-knit immigrant families and communities. Immigrant parents purposefully and successfully instilled Islamic religious attachments, practices, and beliefs in their children. In parallel, coethnic peer networks further reinforced religiosity. Religious socialization in childhood predicted religiosity later in life through orientating children toward heritage culture maintenance. In line with an integration type of acculturation, religious socialization was unrelated to mainstream culture adoption. Depending on different diversity climates in European societies, religiosity may also take on a reactive edge, however, opposing religious maintenance to mainstream culture adoption (Voas and Fleischmann, 2012). Cross-national comparisons provide evidence for more strict or reactive forms of religiosity in acculturation contexts that are antithetical to multiculturalism (for instance, in Germany (Fleischmann and Phalet, 2012)). Similarly, and in line with reactive religiosity, some evidence associates personal experiences of discrimination with increased religious identification and more strict forms of religious practice among second-generation Muslims. At the same time, there is also evidence of integration, combining sustained religiosity with majority culture contact and adoption. For instance, the religious attachment of second-generation Turkish-Belgian Muslims was compatible with positive attitudes toward adoption of the Belgian majority culture (Güngör et al., 2011). To conclude, the evidence on the psychological viability of strong religiosity in bicultural Muslims is mixed and likely to vary with the prevailing diversity climate. Minority Adjustment: Bicultural Integration and School PerformanceTurning to the adaptivity question, the adaptive value of minority acculturation attitudes, and of integration in particular, depends crucially on the acceptance of diversity by host majorities (Brown and Zagefka, 2011). To document the interplay of majority attitudes with minority acculturation and adjustment, the authors discuss in some more detail recent research on minority acculturation and school success. Schools are intergroup contexts that can make distinctive minority identities salient; and that attach more or less value to minority cultures and identities. When the school context explicitly or implicitly conveys the message that one's minority identity is valued and accepted, the school becomes an ‘identity safe’ learning environment for minority students. On the contrary, when the school disregards or devalues minority identities, this amounts to an ‘identity threatening’ environment. From the perspective of minority students, the school composition (e.g., ethnic segregation), the quality of intergroup contact (e.g., discrimination experiences), as well as salient negative stereotypes about the academic competence of minority groups are possible sources of identity threat (Baysu et al., 2013). In a field experiment in ethnically diverse Belgian schools, experimentally induced stereotype threat increased test anxiety and decreased minority performance on a verbal analogies test, but only among participants who had experienced discrimination in school (Baysu, 2011). The interaction of chronic and situational forms of identity threat on minority performance suggests that early experiences of discrimination may have long-lasting consequences by making minority children vulnerable to stereotype threat in the classroom. Integration often (although not always) predicts better psychological adjustment for minority members, including school success (Berry et al., 2006). In identity threatening contexts, however, when the majority rejects the double membership claims of minorities, integration may have less positive consequences for minority well-being and success. Accordingly, Turkish minority members who were high on integration were found to be more vulnerable in discriminatory school environments (Baysu et al., 2011). Thus, integrated Turkish students who reported more personal experiences of discrimination in school were more likely to leave school early and less likely to enter higher education than their assimilated or separated peers. In contrast, integrated Turkish pupils who had little or no experiences of discrimination had better chances of school success than their separated or assimilated peers. An experimental follow-up study similarly assessed the acculturation attitudes of Turkish and Moroccan minority members in Belgian schools (Baysu, 2011). Rather than using self-reported discrimination experiences, however, this study experimentally induced identity threat. Immediately preceding a verbal ability test, the experimental condition activated negative stereotypes of minority students as lacking in Dutch language mastery. Again, integrated participants showed worse performance, lower state self-esteem, and more negative feelings of frustration and anxiety under threat. In contrast, in the absence of threat, they were doing much better and they outperformed their peers with separation or assimilation attitudes. Finally, a study in British schools found longitudinal evidence of the psychological costs of integration in an achievement context (Brown et al., 2013). Asian minority children with an integration strategy of acculturation, while reporting higher levels of self-esteem and peer acceptance, also evidenced more emotional symptoms of social anxiety in school than children with either separation or assimilation strategies. To conclude, the findings suggest that integration is a two-edged sword (see also Chryssochoou and Lyons, 2011; Simon et al., 2013; Wiley and Deaux, 2011), enabling sustained school engagement and better performance in the absence of identity threat, yet yielding most negative outcomes under identity threat. This is especially relevant for a better understanding of minority acculturation and adjustment in European migration contexts, which are generally less welcoming and less sympathetic to multiculturalism. In the words of a second-generation Turkish-Belgian youngster: “However hard we try, as long as Flemish society does not accept us and always, whatever we do or say, underlines that ‘They are Turks, they are Muslims anyways’, we cannot fully integrate. We will always be called, and defined as, Turk and Muslim. …Still, I live here. I work here. I have everything here. Turkey is my motherland. Belgium is my fatherland. I should be equally part of both.” Read full chapter URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080970868240403 Which of the following is not an agent of socialization?The correct answer is Shopping.
What are the agents of socialization religion?Research on the role of family in religious socialization has been conducted with white samples, and findings indicate that parents are the primary agents of religious socialization for their children (Gutierrez et al.
What are the 4 main agents of socialization?Four of the most influential agents of socialization during that phase of our lives are the family, school, peers, and mass media. Family is usually considered to be the most important agent of socialization.
What are the 5 agent of socialization?An individual usually learns these aspects of culture and society social groups called agents of socialization. There are five main agents of socialization: family, education, peer groups, religious organization and mass media.
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