Staying on Track in School: Religious Influences in High- and Low-Risk Settings

Religious communities are known to instill standards of achievement in their young people, but this observation may not apply as well to disadvantaged youth and their culture. In this study, we explore whether religious involvement enables youth in low-income neighborhoods to stay on track in school, rather than falling behind. Using data from two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find that adolescents in low-income neighborhoods do not differ in their church attendance patterns from their peers in higher-income areas. However, their religious involvement is more likely to contribute to their academic progress than it is among youth in higher-income neighborhoods, even with adjustments for key risk and protective factors. This cross-level interaction involving youth church attendance shows a consistent relationship with several other measures of neighborhood disadvantage. We explore explanations for church attendance's uniquely positive effect in impoverished neighborhoods and its broader implications.

[1]  J. Coleman,et al.  High school achievement : public, Catholic, and private schools compared , 1982 .

[2]  R. Freeman.  Who Escapes? The Relation of Churchgoing and Other Background Factors to the Socioeconomic Performance of Black Male Youths from Inner-City Tracts , 1986 .

[3]  Susan E. Mayer,et al.  Growing Up in Poor Neighborhoods: How Much Does It Matter? , 1989, Science.

[4]  E. Werner,et al.  High-risk children in young adulthood: a longitudinal study from birth to 32 years. , 1989, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[5]  John B. Willett,et al.  Some Results on Reliability for the Longitudinal Measurement of Change: Implications for the Design of Studies of Individual Growth , 1989 .

[6]  L. Steinberg,et al.  Community Influences on the Relation of Family Statuses to Adolescent School Performance: Differences between African Americans and Non-Hispanic Whites , 1991, American Journal of Education.

[7]  Diane R. Brown,et al.  Religious Socialization and Educational Attainment among African Americans: An Empirical Assessment. , 1991 .

[8]  J. Crane.  The Epidemic Theory of Ghettos and Neighborhood Effects on Dropping Out and Teenage Childbearing , 1991, American Journal of Sociology.

[9]  G. Duncan,et al.  Do neighborhoods influence child and adolescent behavior , 1992 .

[10]  Anthony S. Bryk,et al.  Hierarchical Linear Models: Applications and Data Analysis Methods , 1992 .

[11]  Greg J. Duncan,et al.  Do Neighborhoods Influence Child and Adolescent Development? , 1993, American Journal of Sociology.

[12]  J. Billy,et al.  Social Context and Adolescent Behavior: The Impact of Community on the Transition to Sexual Activity , 1993 .

[13]  Doris R. Entwisle,et al.  The gender gap in math : its possible origins in neighborhood effects , 1994 .

[14]  Margaret Beale Spencer,et al.  Educational Risk and Resilience in African-American Youth: Context, Self, Action, and Outcomes in School , 1994 .

[15]  C. Gerhardt,et al.  Adolescent development: pathways and processes of risk and resilience. , 1995, Annual review of psychology.

[16]  Alan J. Lizotte,et al.  Resilient youth: identifying factors that prevent high-risk youth from engaging in delinquency and drug use , 1995 .

[17]  Robert J. Wuthnow.  Learning to Care: Elementary Kindness in an Age of Indifference , 1995 .

[18]  Z. Stoneman,et al.  Parental religiosity, family processes, and youth competence in rural, two-parent African American families. , 1996 .

[19]  D. Elliott,et al.  The Effects of Neighborhood Disadvantage on Adolescent Development , 1996 .

[20]  V. Foshee,et al.  Maternal Religiosity, Adolescent Social Bonding, and Adolescent Alcohol Use , 1996 .

[21]  Robert Wuthnow,et al.  Learning to Care , 1996 .

[22]  Darren E. Sherkat,et al.  The impact of protestant fundamentalism on educational attainment , 1997 .

[23]  David R. Williams,et al.  Religion and adolescent health-compromising behavior. , 1997 .

[24]  Ann S. Masten,et al.  The development of competence in favorable and unfavorable environments: Lessons from successful children: Major themes , 1998 .

[25]  R. Jessor,et al.  Risk and Protection in Successful Outcomes Among Disadvantaged Adolescents , 1998 .

[26]  Elijah Anderson.  Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City , 1999 .

[27]  Donald T. Campbell,et al.  A Primer on Regression Artifacts , 1999 .

[28]  G. Elder,et al.  Are religious grandparents more involved grandparents? , 1999, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.

[29]  T. Cook,et al.  Managing To Make It: Urban Families and Adolescent Success. Studies on Successful Adolescent Development. , 1999 .

[30]  D. Nagin,et al.  Trajectories of boys' physical aggression, opposition, and hyperactivity on the path to physically violent and nonviolent juvenile delinquency. , 1999, Child development.

[31]  G. Elder,et al.  Children of the Land: Adversity and Success in Rural America. Studies on Successful Adolescent Development. , 2000 .

[32]  J. Brooks-Gunn,et al.  The neighborhoods they live in: the effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent outcomes. , 2000, Psychological bulletin.

[33]  Mark Regnerus.  Shaping schooling success: Religious socialization and educational outcomes in metropolitan public schools , 2000 .

[34]  S. J. Jang,et al.  The ‘Invisible Institution’ and Black Youth Crime: The Church as an Agency of Local Social Control , 2000 .

[35]  W. Haight.  African-American Children at Church: A Sociocultural Perspective , 2001 .

[36]  T. Cook,et al.  Some ways in which neighborhoods, nuclear families, friendship groups, and schools jointly affect changes in early adolescent development. , 2002, Child development.