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

Political Theory, Political Science, And The End Of Civic Engagement

Within a span of fifteen years civic engagement has become a cottage industry in political science and political theory, but the term has now outlived its usefulness and exemplifies Giovanni Sartori\u27s worry about conceptual stretching. This article traces civic engagement\u27s ascension as a catch-all term for almost anything that citizens might happen to do together or alone, and illustrates the confusion that its popularity has occasioned. It proposes that civic engagement meet a well-deserved end, to be replaced with a more nuanced and descriptive set of engagements: political, social, and moral. It also examines the appeal of engagement itself, a term that entails both attention and energy. Attention and energy are the mainsprings of politics and most other challenging human endeavors. But they can be invested politically, or in associative pursuits, or in moral reasoning and follow-through, and those types of engagement can, but need not, coincide. We should be asking which kinds of engagement-which kinds of attention and energetic activity-make democracy work, and how they might be measured and promoted

Subsidizing Religious Participation through Groups: A Model of the “Megachurch” Strategy for Growth

Either despite or because of their non-traditional approach, megachurches have grown significantly in the United States since 1980. This paper models religious participation as an imperfect public good which, absent intervention, yields suboptimal participation by members from the church’s perspective. Megachurches address this problem in part by employing secular-based group activities to subsidize religious participation that then translates into an increase in the attendees’ religious investment. This strategy not only allows megachurches to attract and retain new members when many traditional churches are losing members but also results in higher levels of an individual’s religious capital. As a result, the megachurch may raise expectations of members’ levels of commitment and faith practices. Data from the FACT2000 survey provide evidence that megachurches employ groups more extensively than other churches, and this approach is consistent with a strategy to use groups to help subsidize individuals’ religious investment. Religious capital rises among members of megachurches relative to members of non-megachurches as a result of this strategy

Digital Design Considerations for Volunteer Recruitment: Making the Implicit Promises of Volunteering More Explicit

Non-profit organisations may find it difficult to demonstrate to potential volunteers what is required in their voluntary role-resulting in a mismatch between expectations and reality for volunteers. This mismatch could be perceived as a psychological contract breach. We interviewed 18 volunteers and 7 coordinators about their experiences and expectations in order to understand how the experience of volunteers can better be captured and communicated. Further, we wished to consider how future digital platforms might capture important elements of the volunteer experience to better support recruitment, retention and recognition. We present our findings and discuss digital platform implications around the four implicit 'promises' of volunteering: the social promise, the opportunity promise, the value promise and the organisational citizenship promise. We add to literature exploring the voluntary sector by assessing the feasibility of digital interventions to support various aspects of volunteer and coordinator roles

America's Heartland: A Case for Social Resilience?

Much has been written in recent years about the decline, problems, distinctive traditions, and political conservatism of small rural “heartland” communities. I discuss the important place that rural communities occupied in the development of modern sociological theories, the focus of recent empirical studies of these communities, and the arguments that have been advanced about population decline and the stultifying effects of closed social networks. I then describe evidence that supports arguments about social resilience in small rural communities, including recent demographic figures about population stability, data on social capital and open networks, and qualitative information about small-town values and lifestyles

Multimodal literacies and critical reflexivity: Digital storytelling as a 21st century tool for Learning Developers

Digital storytelling (DS) is a multimedia storytelling technique that has become an efficacious educational tool in tertiary environments. Individual students, supported by other students in a facilitated “Story Circle”, create short videos using digital devices, still images, and a cloud-based video editor in response to a targeted story prompt. The DS process aligns closely with an emerging trend in universities to instil in their students both critical reflection skills and strong digital, media, and visual literacies to enable them to thrive in their professional and personal lives. This paper proposes the adoption of DS as an additional and innovative pedagogical strategy by Learning Developers (LDs) within discipline-specific embedded teaching. Embedded teaching is a well-established method of developing student literacies, and LDs already employ this approach to support academics across disciplines. The integration of DS into this practice would further strengthen the capacity of LDs to enhance students’ capabilities as they move into post-Covid, 21st-century ‘graduateness’

Social and cultural origins of motivations to volunteer a comparison of university students in six countries

Although participation in volunteering and motivations to volunteer (MTV) have received substantial attention on the national level, particularly in the US, few studies have compared and explained these issues across cultural and political contexts. This study compares how two theoretical perspectives, social origins theory and signalling theory, explain variations in MTV across different countries. The study analyses responses from a sample of 5794 students from six countries representing distinct institutional contexts. The findings provide strong support for signalling theory but less so for social origins theory. The article concludes that volunteering is a personal decision and thus is influenced more at the individual level but is also impacted to some degree by macro-level societal forces

Bodyweight Perceptions among Texas Women: The Effects of Religion, Race/Ethnicity, and Citizenship Status

Despite previous work exploring linkages between religious participation and health, little research has looked at the role of religion in affecting bodyweight perceptions. Using the theoretical model developed by Levin et al. (Sociol Q 36(1):157–173, 1995) on the multidimensionality of religious participation, we develop several hypotheses and test them by using data from the 2004 Survey of Texas Adults. We estimate multinomial logistic regression models to determine the relative risk of women perceiving themselves as overweight. Results indicate that religious attendance lowers risk of women perceiving themselves as very overweight. Citizenship status was an important factor for Latinas, with noncitizens being less likely to see themselves as overweight. We also test interaction effects between religion and race. Religious attendance and prayer have a moderating effect among Latina non-citizens so that among these women, attendance and prayer intensify perceptions of feeling less overweight when compared to their white counterparts. Among African American women, the effect of increased church attendance leads to perceptions of being overweight. Prayer is also a correlate of overweight perceptions but only among African American women. We close with a discussion that highlights key implications from our findings, note study limitations, and several promising avenues for future research

Selective Engagements—Chinese Naval Diplomacy and U.S.-China Competition

As China enters a period of heightened strategic competition with the United States, the PLAN will adjust its foreign-engagement strategy. China will forge stronger naval relations with non-U.S. major powers, including Russia; the United States will attempt to deny China new overseas naval facilities; and both countries will use exercises and other instruments to shape regional perceptions