Parental Religiosity Research Articles

Parental influence on career choice in Jos North Islamic Secondary Schools, Nigeria

This study sought to analyzed parental influences on career choice in Jos North Islamic secondary schools. A sample of ten schools was selected using simple random sampling technique and total of 323 student participated in the research. The data obtained was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The result shows that there is positive but non-significant relationship between parental religiosity and career choice of their children. The result also reveals that there is positive and significant relationship between parental socio-cultural and economic influences and their children career choices at 5% and 10% significant level respectively. The study recommends the need to uplift career counseling unit in Islamic secondary schools. It also recommends the development of good relationship between parent and school counsellors towards guiding the students to Islamic career choice preference.

Stage 2 Registered Report: Parental and Children’s Religiosity in Early Childhood: Implications for Transmission

ABSTRACT Religiosity in early childhood is an important, but underexamined, area of research, particularly in terms of parental influence. This study examines potential “transmission enhancers” in the association between parental and children’s religiosity in early childhood, ages 3 to 6. Overall, we hypothesized that parental religiosity will be positively associated with children’s religiosity. We examined religiosity for 235 dyads from Roman Catholic families through three dimensions: religious social identity, prayer, and God concept. We further tested four potential moderators which can enhance the association between parental and child religiosity, i.e. transmission. We considered one child variable (i.e. child age) and three familial variables (i.e. internalized parental religious motivation, active parental-child involvement, and credibility-enhancing displays). We expected that child age, internalized parental religious motivation, active parental-child involvement, and credibility-enhancing displays would strengthen the association between parental and children’s religiosity. However, for parents with lower religiosity, we hypothesized that none of these variables would moderate the link to child religiosity. Multivariate regression analysis of moderators with interactions did not show a significant effect of transmission enhancers but highlighted the importance of the child’s age as a predictor of children’s religiosity. Implications of transmission enhancers in the context of family religiosity are discussed.

Maternal religiosity and adolescent mental health: A UK prospective cohort study

BackgroundPrevious research has examined associations between parental religiosity and offspring mental health, but findings are inconsistent, and few studies have focused on late adolescence when mental health problems are more common. This study examines the prospective relationship between maternal religiosity and offspring mental health in late adolescence. MethodsWe used data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children to examine the prospective association between latent classes of maternal religiosity (Highly Religious, Moderately Religious, Agnostic, Atheist) and self-reported mental health problems including common mental disorders, ICD 10 depression, depressive symptoms, generalised anxiety symptoms, self-harm acts, self-harm thoughts, and disordered eating outcomes at age 17–18 years (n = 7714). We used multivariable logistic regression analysis adjusted for maternal mental health, maternal adverse childhood experiences, and socioeconomic variables. ResultsCompared with adolescent offspring of parents in the Agnostic class, offspring of the Atheist class had increased odds of depressive symptoms ((1.31[1.03,1.67]) and offspring of the Highly Religious class had increased odds of self-harm thoughts (1.43[1.04,1.97]). There was also weak evidence (95 % confidence intervals crossed the null) of increased odds of depression in the offspring of Moderately religious and Highly religious classes (1.26 [0.97,1.65], and 1.30 [0.99,1.70], respectively)) and self-harm acts in the offspring of the Highly religious class (1.31[0.98,1.74]). There was no evidence of associations with the disordered eating outcomes or generalised anxiety disorder symptoms. ConclusionsWe found evidence that adolescents whose mothers are Atheist, Moderately Religious, and Highly Religious are more likely to have depressive symptoms than those whose mothers are Agnostic. There was also evidence for an increased likelihood of self-harm (thoughts and acts) amongst adolescents of Highly Religious parents. Further research is needed to examine possible mechanisms that could explain these observed associations as well as a repetition of our analyses in a non-UK sample.

Revisiting Associations Among Parent and Adolescent Religiosity and Early Adolescent Suicide Risk in the United States.

The contributions of religion to reduced suicide risk have been studied in adults and adolescents, though to our knowledge no comprehensive investigation has been conducted in early adolescents, at a time coinciding with emergence of suicide risk trajectories. In this largest study to date on this topic, we aimed to characterise the contributions of various measures of "private" and "public" religiosity to early adolescent suicide ideation (SI) and suicide attempt (SA) histories using information from a large, epidemiologically informed U.S. sample of adolescents (N = 7068; mean age = 12.89years, 47% female) and their parents. In all youth, parent-reported adolescent religious importance was associated with reduced odds of SA (OR = 0.75, CI = 0.61-0.92, P = .005). Muslim youth were more likely (OR = 1.52, CI = 1.02-2.22, P = .033), and Catholic youth were less likely (OR = 0.80, CI = 0.67-0.95, P = .014), to report SI. A variety of sex differences were noted, with significant protective associations of adolescent self-reported religiosity on SI and SA, religious service attendance on SI, and religious importance on SI, in female-but not male-youth; and significant protective associations of religious importance on SA in male-but not female-youth. Against expectations, there was no evidence that parent religiosity moderated the link between youth religiosity and SI or SA. These results shed light on the roles of cultural and familial context in youth suicide risk, which may ultimately be targeted in screening and interventional approaches.

Parental opposition to comprehensive sexuality education in Australia: associations with religiosity and school sector.

To empirically examine associations between parental opposition towards comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) and religiosity. A nationally representative survey of Australian parents (N = 2,418) examined opposition towards 40 CSE topics, by parental religiosity and secular/religious school sector. Whilst opposition to most CSE topics correlated positively with religiosity, even amongst very religious parents, disapproval was minimal (2.8-31.2%; or 9.0-20.2% netted against non-religious parents). Parents with children enrolled in a Catholic school were less likely than secular-school parents to oppose CSE. Those with children at other-faith-schools were more likely to oppose CSE, but again disapproval was minimal (1.2-21.9%; or 1.3-9.4% netted against secular-school parents). Only small minorities of very religious parents and parents with children in religious schools opposed the teaching of various CSE topics. Decision-makers should therefore be cautious about assuming that CSE delivery is not widely supported by particular families.

Features of the Worldview of Pediatric Palliative Care Physicians: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Pediatric palliative care is a multidisciplinary branch of medicine and health care that includes both biomedical techniques of patient care and social and psychological practices. At the same time, its goal differs from that of curative approaches in medicine and is predominantly to alleviate patients’ suffering. We used the qualitative method of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), which allows us to uncover the «inside», emotional and existentially significant dimensions of respondents’ personal and intersubjective experiences. This method provides an «insider» perspective of the community under study. The article presents the results of IP. interviews with nine doctors of pediatric palliative care working in the Russian health care system and taking specialized advanced training courses. The goals of the study were to identify the most subjectively significant factors for physicians of palliative care for children, influencing the ethical and communicative aspects of interaction with patients and their parents, and to identify the most important problems and issues of concern to specialists, with an emphasis on worldview. Semi-structured interviews were conducted using a specially designed questionnaire and mainly addressed the topics and issues of worldview of palliative care physicians (including the role of faith and religion) in the context of communication with patients and their parents. As a result, it was found that doctors typically assess their work as a vocation (in a number of cases — with explicitly religious attribution), and this is used by part of the respondents as a justification of their activities in front of a critically minded environment. A common view of a hospice is that of a place that needs to be comfortable, home-like. Subjectively, the majority of respondents evaluate themselves as Orthodox Christians, but emphasize the «non-fanatical» nature of their faith. At the same time, respondents note the significant influence of parental religiosity on communication patterns and acceptance of inevitable disease outcomes. Most respondents noted a high need for a spiritual counsellor in the hospice. Respondents do not necessarily insist that the counsellor be a priest, but his or her figure in the physicians’ descriptions has distinct confessional features.

Religiosity and educational attainment among the Roma: Shedding an oppositional identity?

The Roma have faced poverty, discrimination and persecution since emigrating from India centuries ago. Persistent disparities between Roma and non-Roma throughout Europe have prompted many integration efforts. Using data from 12 Eastern European countries, we construct religiosity measures for the Roma and their non-Roma neighbors and use LASSO to explore predictors of religiosity in Muslim and Christian communities. We then estimate the effect of religiosity on educational attainment and expectations using lifetime parental exposure to communist-era religious restrictions as an instrument. Parental religiosity tends to increase educational attainment and expectations, but with differences by historical Ottoman Empire influence. A placebo test among non-Roma households reveals no similar religiosity effects on educational outcomes. These results are consistent with a model of religious engagement softening oppositional identities in favor of mainstream education norms and expectations. The role religious institutions may play in stagnant Roma integration efforts merits further attention.

Still Soul Searching? Remapping Adolescent Religious Commitment

Abstract Sociologists know very little about the religious lives of the current generation of American adolescents. This study provides an updated portrait of adolescent religious commitment and direct tests of religious change across cohorts by comparing data from the 2017–2018 National Survey of Moral Formation to the 2002–2003 National Study of Youth and Religion. There has been a significant growth in the percentage of adolescents who are not at all religious (by multiple measures). There has been a less substantial decline in the percentage of adolescents who are highly religious. Changes in religiosity have occurred across sociodemographic groups, though not always at the same rate, resulting in new patterns across gender, race, regional, and socioeconomic lines on some aspects of religiosity. Despite declines in religiosity, however, parental transmission of religion is similar to what it was in the previous generation. The decline in adolescent religiosity, notably, reflects a decline in parental religiosity.

Individual‐Level Determinants of Religious Intergenerational Transmission: Evidence from Catholic Europe1

Although there is a rich body of research on religious transmission, relatively little attention has been given to studying this within specific religious traditions such as Catholicism, especially in Europe. Using data from the 2018 round of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), this study uses regression analysis to investigate individual‐level determinants of religious transmission in 12 European countries with a Catholic tradition. We find support for the idea that parental religious socialization impacts adults' religiosity. More specifically, we find that childhood religiosity has explanatory effects separate from the impact of parental religiosity and that the religiosity of the father has a greater impact on offspring religiosity than the religiosity of the mother. We also find that childhood church attendance has a stronger effect in former communist countries than in western European countries. Overall, this study suggests the religious socialization perspective should be considered more in religious group‐specific terms.

The interactive roles of religion, parenting, and sex communication in adolescent sexual risk-taking

The present study used longitudinal person-centered analyses to understand how parent religiosity, parenting styles, and parent-adolescent sex communication interact in predicting adolescent sexual risk-taking over time. The sample included 681 adolescents and their parents (Mage = 15, at wave 5) from Waves 5 and 6 of the Flourishing Families Project. Variables capturing parent religiosity, parenting styles, and parent-adolescent sex communication were used as class indicators in a latent profile analysis. Three classes emerged: (1) Non-religious Authoritative families, (2) Religious Authoritarian families, and (3) Religious Authoritative families. The Non-religious Authoritative and Religious Authoritarian families did not significantly differ on later adolescent sexual risk-taking (controlling for prior sexual risk-taking), while the Religious Authoritative families had adolescents with significantly lower subsequent sexual risk-taking. These results demonstrate the complex ways in which religion, parenting, and sex communication interact in predicting adolescent sexual risk-taking. Thus, both the content and process of sexual socialization may be important.

Emerging Adult Risky Sexual Behavior: The Influence of Perceived Parental Religiosity and Perceived Parent-Child Relationship Quality in the USA.

In the southern USA, where religiosity is higher than in other parts of the country, many researchers have questioned if the religiosity of parents plays a role in emerging adults' risky sexual behavior (RSB). Specifically, research suggests that certain aspects of religiosity (i.e., conservatism) are especially detrimental when examining RSB. In the current study, college students (N = 585, 65.5% women, 69.2% White, 25.0% Black) completed the following self-report measures: the Stearns-McKinney Assessment of Religious Traits - Short Form, the Parental Environment Questionnaire, and the Student Sexual Risks Scale. Results of path analysis (reported statistics have p < .05) indicated that perceived maternal relationship quality had a significant negative association with RSB in emerging adult women, β = -.27, and men, β = -.20; perceived paternal relationship quality also associated negatively with RSB in women, β = -.12, and men, β = -.20. Of all the parental religiosity variables, only perceived maternal conservatism had a significant effect, where it demonstrated a positive association with RSB in women, β = .34, and men, β = -.20. These results suggest that perceived parent-child relationship quality and perceived maternal conservative religiosity influence emerging adult RSB. This study presents novel insight into the specific aspects of perceived parental religiosity that, at least in the current study, are found to influence RSB.

A Death in the Family: Links between Religion, Parenting, and Family Communication about Death

The present study assessed the frequency and nature of parent–child communication about death and identified predictors of such communication. The sample comprised 24 families who had recently lost a family member. Parents completed survey measures of global parenting dimensions (warmth/acceptance, psychological control, behavioral control), parental coping (religious and secular coping), parental religiosity, and parent–child communication about death. Almost 80% of parent–child dyads discussed death at least once a week, and children initiated approximately half of these conversations. Parental warmth/acceptance was positively associated with the frequency of parent–child communication about death, whereas psychological control, negative religious coping, private religious practices, and religious focus were negatively associated with the frequency of parent–child communication about death. Results from hierarchical linear regression analyses suggest that even when controlling for parental warmth/acceptance and psychological control, parents’ private religious practices and religious focus negatively predicted the frequency of parent–child communication about death.

Parental Involvement and School Choice in Hungarian Primary Schools

ABSTRACT In this study, we examine the features of school choice by comparing parental involvement between denominational and public schools. In Hungary, denominational schools reemerged after the fall of communism in 1989, and their share increased further after 2010. The survey data, we employ, refer to primary school children’s parents and were focused on parental involvement at home and at school. Our hypothesis is based on the work of Epstein and Coleman and suggests a prominent role for denominational schools in parental involvement. However, our results show that Hungarian denominational schools differ in terms of parental involvement and school choice from what theory or practice in other western countries suggests. School choice of Hungarian parents is primarily driven by the intention to ensure a more culturally and economically homogeneous and safer environment for their children. Parental involvement tends to be stronger at home and at school due to higher parental religiosity, regardless of the school sector. The novelty of our findings is, that opposite to the literature, mostly not the school type but parents’ religiosity increase both the home based and the school based parental involvement.

Features of the religious education of a child in the family based on the views of V. Zinkivsky

Modern conditions of life remove the child from religious upbringing in the family, since all Orthodox upbringing is completely contained in the general rule of Christian life: the Spirit of peace will prevail, and thousands around you will be saved. On the contrary, the father’s desire to have a pedagogical manual in his hands and be guided by it in relation to his son or daughter is a sign of how artificial parental religiosity is, how impoverished is the personal attitude towards children and the spirit of love, which is the true essence of the patriarchal tradition, the center of all Orthodox spirituality. The purpose of the research is to determine the peculiarities of the religious upbringing of children and youth in the pedagogical heritage of V. Zinkivskyi, based on the analysis and literature, as well as archival sources. Research methods: hermeneutic (for studying and commenting on pedagogical ideas of V. Zenkivskyi); phenomenological (for the objective disclosure of historical facts); biographical (for studying the creative work of a scientist); synergistic (to determine changes in the evolution of the teacher’s views); paradigmatic (to characterize the religious and pedagogical ideas of V. Zenkivskyi); comparative-historical (to reveal and compare pedagogical-historical ideas); bibliographic (for analysis and archival and library funds). The work presents arguments in favor of strengthening the religious component of family upbringing of children. Based on the views of V. Zenkivskyi, it was noted that it is necessary to establish and strengthen the spiritual connection of children with their parents. For this purpose, V. Zinkivskyi suggests constant communication with children, involving them in the world of family worries and difficulties, assigning responsible and urgent tasks, generally involving children in active work for the family. If they are not under compulsion, but go for it themselves, then with a properly created spiritual atmosphere, it is not difficult to achieve this. A family can give religious education to its children, but for this it must itself acquire the religious power that is communicated to it in the sacrament of marriage. Beyond this, only the socio-psychological reality of the family remains, and its religious-ontological basis is hidden in an inacces- sible depth, and therefore children grow without involvement in spirituality, which contains the necessary forces for their growth. According to V. Zinkivskyi, the problem of religious education in the family is the problem of returning the family itself to its religious basis. Religious upbringing of children is carried out mainly by personal example and a prayerful atmosphere of love in the home.

Using a biopsychosocial approach to examine parental sense of burden and competency associated with raising a child with a physical disability.

Parents report both positive and negative experiences associated with raising a child with a physical disability. However, distinctive factors may affect children and families differently. Using a biopsychosocial approach, the current study expands on the existing literature on the general impact of raising a child with a disability. Participants were 98 parents of children/youth with a physical disability. Parents reported on child's level of physical disability, the impact of the disability on the family (financial, social, personal strain and mastery) and their general health. Data were analysed to examine how different biopsychosocial factors are associated with raising a child with a physical disability. Parents reported that child's disability had a higher social impact, compared with the financial and personal burden, as well as compared with their sense of competency and mastery. Child's level of disability was associated with financial burden, whereas parental emotional distress was associated with parents' personal and social burden, with the latter also associated with parent's religiosity. Total impact was associated with parental emotional distress and educational level. Altogether, parental characteristics, but not child's characteristics, were associated with greater caregiver burden. Furthermore, the social impact a child's physical disability has on the family exceeded other sources of burden within the family. Providing parents social and emotional support, tailored to their unique biopsychosocial needs, may mitigate burden and distress, and increase sense of competency among families of children with a physical disability.

Parental religiosity is associated with changes in youth functional network organization and cognitive performance in early adolescence

Parental religious beliefs and practices (religiosity) may have profound effects on youth, especially in neurodevelopmentally complex periods such as adolescence. In n = 5566 children (median age = 120.0 months; 52.1% females; 71.2% with religious affiliation) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, relationships between parental religiosity and non-religious beliefs on family values (data on youth beliefs were not available), topological properties of youth resting-state brain networks, and executive function, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility were investigated. Lower caregiver education and family income were associated with stronger parental beliefs (p < 0.01). Strength of both belief types was correlated with lower efficiency, community structure, and robustness of frontoparietal control, temporoparietal, and dorsal attention networks (p < 0.05), and lower Matrix Reasoning scores. Stronger religious beliefs were negatively associated (directly and indirectly) with multiscale properties of salience and default-mode networks, and lower Flanker and Dimensional Card Sort scores, but positively associated with properties of the precuneus. Overall, these effects were small (Cohen’s d ~ 0.2 to ~ 0.4). Overlapping neuromodulatory and cognitive effects of parental beliefs suggest that early adolescents may perceive religious beliefs partly as context-independent rules on expected behavior. However, religious beliefs may also differentially affect cognitive flexibility, attention, and inhibitory control and their neural substrates.

Religiosity as a Factor Supporting Parenting and Its Perceived Effectiveness in Hungarian School Children’s Families

The impact of a family’s socio-economic status on parenting activities has been a thoroughly researched topic. Parental involvement, which refers to parenting that supports school achievement, may be home-based and school-based, as typified by Epstein and Sanders. Earlier findings suggest that a more favorable socioeconomic status results in more active and effective parental involvement. Only a few studies show low-status parents can be more effective, whereby some factor compensates for the negative impact of low status. Our hypothesis is that parents’ self-identified religiosity can reduce the disadvantages arising from the family’s unfavorable socio-economic status. We use data from a survey conducted in 2020 among the parents of fourth-grade Hungarian primary school children, which is geographically and socially representative with a sample size of 1156. Our results show that religiosity has a significant positive influence on parenting activities and their perceived effectiveness, even after controlling for other variables. In addition, our indicator of home-based parental attention in itself is also strongly supportive of parents’ perceived effectiveness in parenting. Our findings suggest that parental religiosity and home-based parental attention are important factors that can make parenting effective despite social and cultural disadvantages.

Parental religiosity and human capital development: A field study in Pakistan

In developing countries, a child’s human capital development often depends on a trade-off between attending school and engaging in work activities. While the emphasis placed by religion on education means that parents may assign more importance to schooling, parents engaging in time-consuming religious activities may require their children to work more to compensate. Given these countervailing forces, we conduct a field study in Pakistan to assess the impact of parental religiosity on children’s educational attainment and work activities. We find that parental religiosity has a robust positive impact on children’s school outcomes and reduces their work activity, and parents with less time-consuming religious practices drive these results.

Higher parental socioeconomic status accelerates sexual debut: Evidence from university students in Italy

In this paper we analyze how the timing and type (protected or unprotected) of sexual debut are influenced by parental socioeconomic status (SES). We argue that depending on whether a "parental control" or a "cultural openness" mechanism prevails, one could find a postponing or an anticipating effect of higher parental SES on children's timing of sexual debut. By applying event-history techniques to unique data from the two releases of the Sexual and Emotional Life of Youths survey (2000 and 2017), we found a clear accelerating effect of higher parental SES-parental education and father's social class-on the sexual debut of Italian university students. The effect is partly mediated by family characteristics related to the cultural openness mechanism, such as low parental religiosity, greater communication about sex, and parental permissiveness; on the contrary, we only found weak support for the parental control explanation. Higher parental education is associated with a higher likelihood of protected first sexual intercourse-and especially of condom use-even if more precocious. Our results dispute the North American- and Anglo-Saxon-driven finding that high-SES children postpone their sexual debut.

Perceived parental religiosity as a predictor of depression and substance use among LGBTQ+ individuals: The mediating role of perceived familial stigma.

Perceived parental religiosity as a predictor of depression and substance use among LGBTQ+ individuals: The mediating role of perceived familial stigma.