Abstract
Using a complex religion framework, this study examines how and why three dimensions of religiosity—biblical literalism, personal religiosity, and religious service attendance—are related to young women’s reproductive and contraceptive knowledge differently by social class and race. We triangulate the analysis of survey data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life study (RDSL) and semi-structured interview data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) to identify and explain patterns. From the quantitative data, we find that all three dimensions of religiosity link to young women’s understandings of sex, reproduction, and contraception in unique ways according to parental education and racial identity. There is a lack of knowledge about female reproductive biology for young women of higher SES with conservative Christian beliefs (regardless of race), but personal religiosity and religious service attendance are related to increased contraceptive knowledge for young black women and decreased knowledge for young white women. From the qualitative data, we find that class and race differences in the meaning of religion and how it informs sexual behavior help explain results from the quantitative data. Our results demonstrate the importance of taking a complex religion approach to studying religion and sex-related outcomes.
Highlights
Accepted: 15 December 2020Even as teenage pregnancies decline, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have been on the rise across age groups, prompting scholars to continue investigating social and cultural factors shaping adolescents’ knowledge of contraception and reproductive health (Martin et al 2018)
The response rate for the baseline interview was 84 percent, resulting in a total of 1003 young women. We use these data because they include unique measurement of reproductive and contraceptive knowledge combined with measures of biblical literalism, religious service attendance, and personal religiosity
We have used a concurrent mixed-methods approach to analyze how religion plays a role in young women’s contraceptive and reproductive knowledge and how that role varies by race and social class
Summary
Even as teenage pregnancies decline, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have been on the rise across age groups, prompting scholars to continue investigating social and cultural factors shaping adolescents’ knowledge of contraception and reproductive health (Martin et al 2018). It is important to explore whether specific religious beliefs or practices might be related to the accuracy of one’s reproductive and contraceptive knowledge Another largely unexplored aspect of the link between religion and sexual behavior is how social class and race modify the impact of religiosity on sexual behavior and knowledge (Pearce et al 2019). We use a complex religion framework to examine how young women’s religious beliefs and public and private religiosity relate to their reproductive and contraceptive knowledge. To analyze how religious influence might be moderated by social class and race, we examine religion’s role separately by levels of parental education and by comparing White and Black women. In our discussion of the findings, we integrate the two sets of results for a fuller understanding of social class and racial complexities in how religious beliefs and practices are related to young women’s understandings of sex, reproduction, and contraception
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