美国青年的宗教信仰状况研究

本文通过对美国青年宗教信仰状况相关研究的梳理,呈现了美国青年宗教信仰的一些典型变化和发展。美国青年的宗教信仰状况体现了20世纪以来西方社会宗教世俗化、私人化的整体发展趋势。借鉴美国的情况,我们应坚守自身立场,扎根本土、结合时代,以一种严谨科学的态度推进我国青年的宗教信仰状况研究。     

Prospective Associations Among Youth Religiosity and Religious Denomination and Youth Contraception Use

This study prospectively investigates associations among youth religiosity, religious denomination, and contraception use. Associations between youth religiosity and religious denomination, and type of contraceptive used and consistent contraceptive use among sexually active youth (N = 757) were analyzed using multinomial and binomial logistic regression. Identifying with a religious denomination was a predictor of dual contraceptive use relative to using no method of contraception (AOR = 2.17). There was no association between youth religiosity and type of contraceptive use or contraceptive consistency. Religious leaders and public health practitioners should collaborate to develop strategies to engage in conversations with sexually active youth about contraceptive use.

     

Family and Contextual Predictors of Depressive Symptoms in Inner-City African American Youth

Family and contextual predictors of depression in inner-city, African American youth have rarely been examined. In this study we explore the contribution of current and historical life events, family conflict, perceived social support from mother, maternal depression, and maternal explanatory style to the depressive symptoms of inner-city African American school-age (M = 10.7 years) children. Home interviews were conducted with 89 mother and child dyads living in moderate- to high-violent areas of a southeastern city. Regression analyses revealed that the children in this sample with higher levels of depressive symptoms had higher levels of child-reported everyday stress, were more likely to have been abused at some point in their past, came from homes with mothers who were less well educated, and had mothers who reported higher levels of depression, a past history of domestic abuse, as well as a less pessimistic explanatory style. Implications for interventions with inner-city African American families are discussed.     

Religious Activity and Pastoral Counseling Among Protestant Youth with SED

The past decade has shown a surge of interest in faith-based resources for a variety of social problems. However, these resources have not been systematically studied for children with emotional and behavioral problems. We investigated religious activity and use of pastoral counseling among Protestant youth with serious emotional disorders (SED) (N=464) and examined associated youth and caregiver characteristics. Findings indicate that the majority of SED youth do participate in religious activities, but do not frequently receive pastoral counseling for their problems. Youth with fewer externalizing problems as well as minority youth had an increased likelihood of participation in religious activities, while youth with more psychosocial impairment had an increased likelihood of using pastoral counseling. Implications of this study for research and practice are discussed.     

Religious Affiliation and Attendance Among Immigrants in Eight Western Countries: Individual and Contextual Effects

This study examines the religious affiliation and participation of immigrants from a large-scale, comparative perspective. I propose a "specific migration" framework, in which immigrants' religiosity is an outcome of both individual characteristics and contextual properties related to immigrants' country of origin, country of destination, and combinations of origin and destination (i.e., communities). I use notions discussed in the religion and migration literature that fit into this scheme. To test these ideas, I collected and standardized 20 existing surveys on immigrants in eight Western countries, yielding about 38,000 immigrants. Applying multilevel models, I found, among other things, that: (1) immigrants from countries with higher levels of modernization express lower levels of religious commitment; (2) immigrants in religious countries are more religious themselves; and (3) the well-documented higher levels of religious commitment among women is not generalizable to immigrants.     

Denominational Differences in US Synagogues' Promotion of Youth Physical Activity Programming

Journal of Religion and Health - Less than 25% of US children 6–17 years of age are sufficiently active. Faith-based settings are one of the nine societal sectors tasked with promoting...     

论恢复性司法模式中的宗教因素与我国宗教文化资源的本土困境

恢复性司法模式是一种极具宗教色彩的全新司法理念,其自身所具有的宗教因素对其运行和发展起到了至关重要的作用。比较而言,这些宗教因素的系统性和优质性是我国现有宗教文化资源因素所不具备的,短期内恢复性司法模式这颗种子在中国很难找到可以生根发芽的宗教土壤,利用我国现有宗教文化资源为恢复性司法服务也是困难重重。因此,中国对恢复性司法模式的引入不宜操之过急。     

Youth Group Cliques: How Religious Goals Can Disguise Discriminatory Group Dynamics

This paper provides an in-depth, qualitative analysis of two Christian youth groups. Researchers conducted personal interviews with participating youth and their youth ministers and collected extensive field notes on participant observations of youth group events. Findings indicate the presence of youth group cliques with clear delineations about which participants are youth group insiders and which are outsiders. Results show that insider participants are typically socioeconomically-advantaged youth, while outsiders are typically youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. Despite the existence of these exclusionary practices within both groups, leaders in the two cases demonstrate differing levels of awareness of and response to these dynamics. This paper explores the specifics of both cases, illuminating who is targeted for exclusion within these groups and how this targeting varies across the two congregational contexts. Implications of these findings are that religious youth groups may perpetuate broader socioeconomic divisions. Specifically, the analysis reveals that rather than forming benign cliques, youth group members may be discriminating against others based on their relative socioeconomic advantage.     

Religious Involvement and Its Association to Risk Behaviors among Older Youth in Foster Care

This study examined religious involvement and its association to risk behaviors (sexual behavior, marijuana use, alcohol use, and cigarette use) among older youth in foster care (N=383). Three dimensions of religious involvement were assessed—church or religious service attendance, religious practices, and religious beliefs. Findings showed that gender, ethnic group membership, sexual abuse history, and placement type were significantly associated with older foster care youth’s religious involvement. Hierarchical logistic regression analyses showed that religious service attendance was associated with reduced odds of youth’s engagement in sexual behavior in the past 2 months and current use of cigarettes. In addition, greater religious beliefs were associated with a reduction in odds of youth’s use of alcohol in the past 6 months and current use of cigarettes. The consideration of religious involvement as a positive influence and resource that may reduce unhealthy risk behaviors among older youth in foster care is discussed.     

Banal is not Trivial: Visibility,Recognition, and Inequalities between Religious Groups in Prison

Recognizing religious groups is not only a question of granting rights, but also a question of the possibility of being perceived as unproblematic, especially in contexts where religion is a contested issue. Spain is a compelling case to examine this proposition. There, the rise of migration-driven religious diversity and the attacks of 11 March 2004 have led religious minorities into the sensitive terrain of ‘supra-visibility’. Drawing upon research conducted in prisons, we show that, in this situation, being classified as a ‘religion’ becomes more a cause for alarm than a sign of normalcy. The most powerful actors in the field have actively distanced themselves from the category of ‘religion’, either because they are presented as spiritual therapies or because they are embedded in cultural traditions—the banal Catholicism that prevails in many southern European settings. Overall, religious inequalities are not only related to the recognition of rights, but also to the (in)visibility of some social and cultural forms over others.     

Social Affiliation from Religious Disaffiliation: Evidence of Selective Mixing Among Youth with No Religious Preference During the Transition to College

The number of individuals claiming a nonreligious identity in the United States is on the rise, with one‐fourth of the overall U.S. public failing to identify with any of the major religious traditions. In this article, we examine whether religious disaffiliation structures social network formation in a social context in which religious identification (and religiosity) is a salient cultural marker. We take advantage of unique data on the personal networks of youth transitioning into a college where religion is a culturally salient facet of everyday life. We hypothesize that, if there is nonreligious homophily, it may result from an attraction of the disaffiliated to each other or from a repulsion away from the religiously affiliated. Results of exponential random graph models suggest that both mechanisms may be at play. We find that religious “Nones” and affiliated non‐Catholics are disproportionately more likely to form and maintain relationships with one another and are relatively less likely to form and maintain relationships with members of their respective religious out‐groups. We close by outlining the implications of our findings and delineating promising avenues for future research.     

Reassessing the Assessment of Change in At-Risk Youth: Conflict and Coherence in Overall Versus Contextual Assessments of Behavior

This research examined how a contextual approach to personality assessment can reveal change processes that are obscured by measures of overall behavior frequencies. Using field observations of 336 children from three summers at a program for at-risk youth, we illustrate how children’s social experiences change over time, how their reactions to these experiences change, and how both processes contribute to changes in the overall frequencies of their prosocial, aggressive, and withdrawn behavior. Children showing opposite patterns of change in their environments and their reactions to them were nevertheless similar in their overall amount of change. The results clarify how changes in reactions and social experiences can be disentangled and reintegrated in order to deepen our understanding of personality change processes. Implications for change assessments that rely on overall behavior summaries are highlighted for program, individual, and intra-individual levels of analysis.     

Mobilizing Communities for Implementing Evidence-Based Youth Violence Prevention Programming: A Commentary

Evidence-based programs have struggled for acceptance in human service settings. Information gleaned from these experiences indicates that implementation is the missing link in the science to service chain. The science and practice of implementation is progressing and can inform approaches to full and effective uses of youth violence prevention programs nationally. Implementation Teams that know (a) innovations, (b) implementation best practices, and (c) improvement cycles are essential to mobilizing support for successful uses of evidence-based programs on a socially significant scale. The next wave of development in implementation science and practice is underway: establishing infrastructures for implementation to make implementation expertise available to communities nationally. Good science, implemented well in practice, can benefit all human services, including youth violence prevention.     

The Effect of Religious Short‐Term Mission Trips on Youth Civic Engagement

Religious short‐term mission trips are an increasingly popular form of American religious practice, especially among young people. Both organizers and participants often emphasize their transformative nature. However, scholarly efforts to evaluate systematically the social consequences of religious short‐term mission trips are lacking. To address this neglect, our article investigates whether going on a religious short‐term mission trip significantly differentiates youth who engage in civic actions from those who do not. Based on quantitative analysis of Wave I of the National Survey of Youth Religion (NSYR), we find that, controlling for other important factors, taking a mission trip significantly increases the likelihood of adolescents participating in various forms of civic activity, particularly religious‐based volunteer work. Drawing on prior scholarship on religious short‐term mission and similarly focused trips and in‐depth interview data from trip participants, we outline several theoretical mechanisms that likely explain the link between taking a mission trip and civic engagement.