Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or Not? Religious Self-Disclosure in Social Media

This study measured the prevalence of religious self-disclosure in public MySpace profiles that belonged to a subsample of National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) wave 3 respondents (N=560). Personal attributes associated with religious identification as well as the overall quantity of religious self-disclosures are examined. A majority (62 percent) of profile owners identified their religious affiliations online, although relatively few profile owners (30 percent) said anything about religion outside the religion-designated field. Most affiliation reports (80 percent) were consistent with the profile owner’s reported affiliation on the survey. Religious profile owners disclosed more about religion when they also believed that religion is a public matter or if they evaluated organized religion positively. Evangelical Protestants said more about religion than other respondents. Religiosity, believing that religion is a public matter, and the religiosity of profile owners’ friendship group were all positively associated with religious identification and self-disclosure

The Dynamics and Correlates of Religious Service Attendance in Adolescence

This study examines changes in religious service attendance over time for a contemporary cohort of adolescents moving from middle to late adolescence. We use two waves of a nationally representative panel survey of youth from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) to examine the dynamics of religious involvement during adolescence. We then follow with an analysis of how demographic characteristics, family background, and life course transitions relate to changes in religious service attendance during adolescence. Our findings suggest that, on average, adolescent religious service attendance declines over time, related to major life course transitions such as becoming employed, leaving home, and initiating sexual activity. Parents’ affiliation and attendance, on the other hand, are protective factors against decreasing attendance

Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or Not? Religious Self-Disclosure in Social Media

This study measured the prevalence of religious self-disclosure in public MySpace profiles that belonged to a subsample of National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) wave 3 respondents (N=560). Personal attributes associated with religious identification as well as the overall quantity of religious self-disclosures are examined. A majority (62 percent) of profile owners identified their religious affiliations online, although relatively few profile owners (30 percent) said anything about religion outside the religion-designated field. Most affiliation reports (80 percent) were consistent with the profile owner’s reported affiliation on the survey. Religious profile owners disclosed more about religion when they also believed that religion is a public matter or if they evaluated organized religion positively. Evangelical Protestants said more about religion than other respondents. Religiosity, believing that religion is a public matter, and the religiosity of profile owners’ friendship group were all positively associated with religious identification and self-disclosure

“I Feel Like More of a Man”: A Mixed Methods Study of Masculinity, Sexual Performance, and Circumcision for HIV Prevention

Ethnographic studies from numerous societies have documented the central role of male circumcision in conferring masculinity and preparing boys for adult male sexuality. Despite this link between masculinity, sexuality, and circumcision, there has been no research on these dynamics among men who have received a circumcision for HIV prevention. We employed a mixed methods approach with data collected from recently circumcised men in the Dominican Republic (DR) to explore this link. We analyzed survey data collected 6-12 months post-circumcision (N = 293) and in-depth interviews with a sub-sample of those men (n = 30). We found that 42% of men felt more masculine post-circumcision. In multivariate analysis, feeling more masculine was associated with greater concern about being perceived as masculine (OR = 1.70, 95% CI: 1.25-2.32), feeling more potent erections post-circumcision (OR = 2.25, 95% CI: 1.26-4.03), and reporting increased ability to satisfy their partner post-circumcision (OR = 2.30, 95% CI: 1.11-4.77). In qualitative interviews, these factors were all related to masculine norms of sexually satisfying one's partner and men's experiences of circumcision were shaped by social norms of masculinity. This study highlights that circumcision is not simply a biomedical intervention and that circumcision programs need to incorporate considerations of masculine norms and male sexuality into their programming

A Person-Centered Examination of Adolescent Religiosity Using Latent Class Analysis

Empirical studies of religion’s role in society, especially those focused on individuals and analyzing survey data, conceptualize and measure religiosity on a single measure or a summary index of multiple measures. Other concepts, such as “lived religion,” “believing without belonging,” or “fuzzy fidelity,” emphasize what scholars have noted for decades: humans are rarely consistently low, medium, or high across dimensions of religiosity including institutional involvement, private practice, salience, or belief. A method with great promise for identifying population patterns in how individuals combine types and levels of belief, practice, and personal religious salience is latent class analysis. In this paper, we use data from the first wave of the National Study of Youth and Religion’s telephone survey to discuss how to select indicators of religiosity in an informed manner, as well as the implications of the number and types of indicators used for model fit. We identify five latent classes of religiosity among adolescents in the United States and their socio-demographic correlates. Our findings highlight the value of a person-centered approach to understanding how religion is lived by American adolescents

Explaining religious differentials in family-size preference: Evidence from Nepal in 1996

This paper presents an examination of how religio-ethnic identity, individual religiosity, and family members’ religiosity are related to preferred family size in Nepal. Analyses of survey data from the Chitwan Valley Family Study show that socioeconomic characteristics and individual experiences can suppress, as well as largely account for, religio-ethnic differences in fertility preferences. These religio-ethnic differentials are associated with variance in particularized religious theologies or general value orientations (like son preference) across groups. In addition, individual and family religiosity are both positively associated with preferred family size, seemingly because of their association with religious beliefs that are likely to shape fertility strategies. These findings suggest improvements in how we conceptualize and empirically measure supra-individual religious influence in a variety of settings and for a range of demographically interesting outcomes

The Increasing Diversity and Complexity of Family Structures for Adolescents

The structure of adolescents’ families, and thus parental forms, in the United States, have become more heterogeneous and fluid over the past several decades. These changes are due to increases in never‐married, single parents, divorce, cohabitation, same‐sex parenting, multipartnered fertility, and co‐residence with grandparents. We document current diversity and complexity in adolescents’ families as important context for rethinking future parenting theory and research. We also discuss how understandings of adolescents’ families are somewhat limited by current methods used to measure characteristics of families. We recommend social network and profile‐based methods as alternatives to capturing key dimensions of family structure and processes. Understanding the diversity of households and families in which adolescents are raised can improve theory and research on parenting

Protect the Player, Protect the Game: Reflections from Ex-Professional Rugby Union Players on Law Changes, Protective Equipment, and Duty of Care in the Professional Game

The emphasis of this study was to interview ex-professional male rugby union players (n = 23, mean age 35.5 ± 4.7 years) and discuss concussion management during their careers. In this study, two major themes were identified: (1) the duty of care to professional rugby union players by medical personnel, coaching staff, and owners of professional clubs and (2) the use of protective equipment and law changes to enhance player safety. In total, twenty-three ex-professional rugby union players were interviewed, and the majority (61%) had represented their countries at international test-level rugby. These interviews highlighted the belief that medical teams should be objective, independent entities within a professional rugby club. Furthermore, medical teams should not be in a position of being pressurised by head coaches, members of the coaching team, or club owners regarding return-to-play (RTP) protocols specific to concussion. The interviewees believed that they were pressured by coaches or members of the coaching team to play with concussion or concussive symptoms and other physical injuries. The results indicated that they had manipulated concussion testing themselves or with assistance to pass standard concussion testing protocols. The interviewees indicated that club owners have a duty of care to players even in retirement due to the high incidence of physical and mental injuries endured as a professional rugby player. Most participants indicated that a reduction in match playing time and reducing the amount of time engaged in contact training (workload volume) may assist in reducing concussion incidence. The participants suggested that changes to the current laws of the game or the use of protective equipment did not mitigate against concussion risk in the game of rugby union. The main limitation to the study is that participants had retired in the past ten years, and conditions for players may have changed. This study has highlighted that additional efforts are required by professional clubs to ensure the highest duty of care is delivered to current players and recently retired players

Religious Identity, Religious Attendance, and Parental Control

Using a national sample of adolescents aged 10–18 years and their parents (N = 5,117), this article examines whether parental religious identity and religious participation are associated with the ways in which parents control their children. We hypothesize that both religious orthodoxy and weekly religious attendance are related to heightened levels of three elements of parental control: monitoring activities, normative regulations, and network closure. Results indicate that an orthodox religious identity for Catholic and Protestant parents and higher levels of religious attendance for parents as a whole are associated with increases in monitoring activities and normative regulations of American adolescents

Measuring Five Dimensions of Religiosity Across Adolescence

This paper theorizes and tests a latent variable model of adolescent religiosity in which five dimensions of religiosity are interrelated: religious beliefs, religious exclusivity, external religiosity, private practice, and religious salience. Research often theorizes overlapping and independent influences of single items or dimensions of religiosity on outcomes such as adolescent sexual behavior, but rarely operationalizes the dimensions in a measurement model accounting for their associations with each other and across time. We use longitudinal structural equation modeling (SEM) with latent variables to analyze data from two waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion. We test our hypothesized measurement model as compared to four alternate measurement models and find that our proposed model maintains superior fit. We then discuss the associations between the five dimensions of religiosity we measure and how these change over time. Our findings suggest how future research might better operationalize multiple dimensions of religiosity in studies of the influence of religion in adolescence