Familial Religiosity,Family Processes,and Juvenile Delinquency in a National Sample of Early Adolescents

Abstract

Personal religiosity has been identified as a protective factor against juvenile delinquency. However, the influence of familial religiosity on delinquent behavior is less known. This study addresses this gap by investigating how family participation in organizational religious activities is related to delinquent involvement in early adolescence. Based on a structural equation modeling analysis of data from two waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), this study finds an overall negative association between familial religiosity and juvenile delinquency. It also finds that much of the relationship between familial religiosity and juvenile delinquency is mediated by the mechanisms of marital relationship, parenting practice, and attachment to parents.

Keywords

family relations/processes parenting problem/risky/antisocial behavior religiosity/spirituality structural equation modeling

Personal religiosity has been identified as a protective factor against juvenile delinquency and crime. Prior research has shown youth who had higher levels of religious commitment and involvement were less likely to engage in delinquent behavior (Baier & Wright, 2001; Evans, Cullen, Dunaway, & Burton, 1995; Johnson, Li, Larson, & McCullough, 2000; Stark, 1996). Less is known about the impact of familial religiosity on youth involvement in delinquency. In a systematic review of recent literature on the relationship between religiosity and delinquency, Chitwood, Weiss, and Leukefeld (2008) found only a few studies included familial religiosity in their measurement. The current study narrows this gap by empirically testing the relationship between familial religiosity and delinquency through the analysis of longitudinal data collected from a nationally representative sample of American adolescents.

A related issue addressed in this study is the interrelationships among familial religiosity, family processes, and delinquency. It has been often believed in past research that parental influences began to decline and peer influence increased as children transitioned from childhood to early adolescence (Glynn, 1981; Paternoster, 1988). A study of American adolescents by Smith and Denton (2005) contradicted these claims. Their findings, which were based on interviews of a national sample of adolescents, suggested that parental religiosity and related norms, expectations, and practices represented some of the most important social influences that shape young adolescents’ beliefs and behaviors. This influence often operated through parental involvement in adolescents’ religious and spiritual life. Two other studies also found strong parental influences in regulating delinquent behavior of early and middle adolescents (Jang, 2002; LaGrange & White, 1985). The current study seeks to bring some clarity to the debate by rigorously assessing the effects of familial religion on family processes and delinquency.

In criminological research, informal social control in the forms of parental supervision and family attachment has been identified as protective factors against juvenile delinquency (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990; Hirschi, 1969). However, the impact of social control theory on criminal justice policy has been limited because it has not adequately explained the sources of informal social control. A theory that focuses on informal social control does not lend itself to serious policy discussion if it cannot explain how informal social control is formed and how to increase it when it is lacking. Thornberry (1989, p. 57) suggested that social control theory can be elaborated by examining “the sources of variation in such factors as attachment to parents, commitment to school, and belief in conventional values and so forth.” The current study represents such an effort in theoretical elaboration. It examines whether religious commitment and involvement, one of the most commonly observed social phenomena in American families, provides a source of informal social control.

Prior Research on Religiosity, Family Processes, and Delinquency

Prior research has found considerable evidence showing the significant influence of personal religiosity on juvenile delinquency. There are also many studies confirming the impact of parenting practices and family relationship on antisocial behavior. However, research linking familial religiosity, family processes, and delinquent behavior has been sparse. The few studies available are often based on local or regional samples, which limit the generalizability of their findings (Bahr, Maughan, Marcos, & Li, 1998; Foshee & Hollinger, 1996; Simons, Simons, & Conger, 2004). Furthermore, as shown in a comprehensive review conducted by Hood, Hill, and Spilka (2009), the empirical research in psychology of religion generally lacks conceptual depth and theoretical perspectives.

Religiosity and Family Processes

Much of the research on religion and delinquency has focused on the relationship between adolescent’s personal religiosity and antisocial behavior. Prior research has found strong evidence showing that personal religiosity is related to juvenile delinquency (Baier & Wright, 2001; Johnson et al., 2000). Further, the research found that studies with higher internal validity generally indicated a negative relationship between religiosity and juvenile delinquency. Personal religiosity has been shown to be inversely related to delinquency in the general population as well as among specific ethnic and racial groups (Harris, 2003; Jang & Johnson, 2001; Wills, Yaeger, & Sandy, 2003).

Studies examining the impact of familial religiosity on delinquency have been relatively rare. The few studies that have been conducted have focused on the influences of parental religiosity. In an analysis of data collected from 1,553 adolescents in the southeastern United States, Foshee and Hollinger (1996) found that maternal religiosity was predictive negatively of alcohol use by adolescents. Regnerus (2003) found that higher parental religious devotion was associated with lower female delinquency in a nationally representative sample of seventh-through 12th-grade students. Pearce and Haynie (2004) found that the more religious mothers and their children were, the less often the children were delinquent. None of these studies included important family processes such as family relationships and parenting styles in their analyses. Without examining important family processes, these studies were unable to theoretically explain the mechanisms through which parental religiosity influenced adolescent delinquency.

The attachment theory provides a useful theoretical framework to understand the link between familial religiosity and family processes that are related to juvenile delinquency. According to the attachment theory, the attachment relationships between the child and primary caregivers are the main contexts in which children and adolescents are helped to learn emotion-regulation skills, regulate stress, and develop emotional security (Ainsworth, 1985; Bowlby, 1969/1982). The theory maintains that early interactions with the attachment figure lay the foundation for internal working models (IWMS), which serve as templates that guide children’s and adolescents’ perception, expectations, and behaviors in future relationships. As an application and extension of the attachment theory, the correspondence hypothesis of religion holds that the perceived relationships between believers and God often meet the criteria that characterize attachment relationships. Individuals who establish secure attachment to God tend to develop IWMS that help them form secure and reliable relationships in other domains of their lives, including romantic relationships later in life (Cassibba & Granqvist, 2008; Kirkpatrick & Shaver, 1992; Reis, 2006). Following this line of reasoning, it can be inferred that parents who are religious with a strong faith in God are more likely to develop a marital relationship characterized by love, trust, and mutual respect than nonreligious couples.

Prior research also suggests that parental religiosity may influence the quality and style of parenting. The influence may operate primarily in the following two ways. First, religious parents are more responsible in caring and supervising their children because of a stronger affectional bond developed from a shared religious commitment between parents and children (Granqvist, 2010; Granqvist, Mikulincer, & Shaver, 2010). Second, religious affiliation of the parents influences their adaptation of parenting styles. For example, some argue that the religious doctrine and tradition of a denomination may influence the style of parenting that its members choose to care for their children (Hood et al., 2009).

Researchers have found considerable evidence linking parental religiosity to important family processes including interparental relationship and parenting practices (Johnson, Tompkins, & Webb, 2002). A number of studies have identified religiosity as a significant predictor of marital stability and marital adjustment (Filsinger & Wilson, 1984; Kurdek, 1995; Simons et al., 2004). These studies indicated that religion increased the quality of family life by supporting family values and activities, and by facilitating adaptation to life’s problems. For example, using data collected from rural, two-parent African American families, Brody and colleagues found that greater parental religiosity led to lower levels of interparental conflict and more cohesive family relationships (Brody, Stoneman, & Flor, 1996; Brody, Stoneman, Flor, & McCrary, 1994). They also found that formal religiosity indirectly influenced youth self-regulation through its positive association with family cohesion and negative association with interparental conflict.

Previous studies also showed that parental religiosity was significantly related to parenting practices. Simons et al. (2004) found that parents’ religiosity was positively related to effective parenting practices, including child monitoring, warmth and support, inductive reasoning, intergenerational communication, and consistent discipline in a sample of eighth graders in Iowa. Similarly, using nationally representative data, Smith (2003) and Farmer, Sinha, and Gill (2008) found that family religiosity was significantly related to aspects of authoritative parenting including limit-setting, supervision, and monitoring. Although some fundamentalist groups practiced authoritarian parenting, most religious organizations emphasized prosocial values such as love, responsibility, forgiveness, and family bonding (Ellison, Bartkowski, & Segal, 1996; Wilcox, 1998). Further, most mainline religions provided guidance and counseling on issues related to marital relationship and child-rearing, and negatively sanction members who neglected their responsibilities as a spouse and a parent (Pearce & Axinn, 1998; Wilcox, 1998).

Family Relationship, Parenting, and Juvenile Delinquency

Several psychological and sociological theories have specifically linked family processes in family relationship and parenting to delinquency. The cognitive-contextual model proposed by Grych and Fincham (1990) contends that martial conflict between the parents shapes children’s cognitive processing and coping, which in turn affect children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Likewise, the emotional security hypothesis contends that marital conflict contributes to children’s emotional insecurity, which promotes ineffective coping and behavioral dysregulation in response to daily stresses and challenges (Davies & Cummings, 1994). Although the two perspectives invoke somewhat different mediating mechanisms to explain the impact of marital problem on children’s behavior, they agree that interparental conflict can operate as an important source of influence for delinquent behavior.

With regard to the role of parenting practices in the development of delinquent behavior, the two most influential theoretical perspectives in psychology and sociology, respectively, are arguably the general framework of parenting styles proposed by Baumrind (1966, 1991) and the social bond theory proposed by Hirschi (1969). The theoretical framework of parenting styles proposed by Baumrind (1966, 1991) has been adopted in many studies on adolescent antisocial behavior. According to this theory, effective parents are those who are both demanding and responsive. Demandingness refers to the ability to provide close supervision and willingness to confront the child who disobeys. Responsiveness refers to the extent to which parents intentionally foster the child’s independence and self-regulation through positive reinforcement and support that meet the child’s needs. Baumrind referred to parents who were demanding and responsive as authoritative parents. They argue that the authoritative style of parenting is effective at producing more positive child developmental outcomes and lower level of delinquency than other parenting styles.

The social bond theory contends that an adolescent’s bonds to society in the forms of attachment to others, commitment to conventional goals, involvement in conventional activities, and belief in conventional values inhibit delinquent behavior (Hirschi, 1969). According to this theory, adolescents develop varying degrees of social bonds through the socialization process. Those with weaker bonds are at a greater risk for antisocial behavior, including delinquency. More recently, the theory has made some advances in explaining the sources of social bonds by emphasizing the role of parenting practices (Hirschi, 2004; Piquero & Bouffard, 2007). It suggests that effective parenting characterized by close supervision and monitoring promotes the development of strong bonds that reduces the adolescent’s involvement in delinquent behavior.

Consistent with these psychological and sociological theories and perspectives, there has been considerable evidence suggesting that specific dimensions of family relationship and parenting practices can either increase or decrease adolescent risk for antisocial behavior. In a comprehensive review of the research on alcohol use and drug abuse, Hawkins, Catalano, and Miller (1992) identified several family characteristics that operated as risk factors for alcohol and other drug problems in adolescence and early adulthood, including family conflict, poor and low bonding to family, and inconsistent family management practices. Previous studies have demonstrated that these factors also predicted other forms of delinquent behavior, including status offenses and property and violent crimes (Bronte-Tinkew, Moore, Capps, & Zaff, 2006; Fletcher & Jefferies, 1999; Griffin, Botvin, Scheier, Diaz, & Miller, 2000; Macmillan, McMorris, & Kruttschnitt, 2004). These studies found that adolescents were more likely to develop delinquency if they had been subject to inadequate parental monitoring, inconsistent discipline, poor parent-child relationship, and high level of interparental conflict.

In sum, there is a growing body of literature indicating that familial religiosity, family processes, and juvenile delinquency might be interrelated. Parental religiosity and family involvement in religious activities can result in less family conflict, stronger bonding between parent and child, and more effective parenting practices. Low levels of family conflict, strong attachment to parents, and good family management practices are likely to decrease delinquent involvement of the adolescents. Although several psychological and sociological theories and perspectives have provided rationales to link some of these factors, there has not been a unified theory that clearly delineates the relationships among familial religiosity, family processes, and delinquency. Empirically, no study has systematically investigated the relationships among these factors.

The Current Study

This study examines religious and family influences in early adolescence, a critical period for youth to develop delinquent behavior. Its main objective is to systematically assess the impact of family religious background and to identify religious-based family processes that characterize some of the main influences of parents on adolescent involvement in delinquent activities. The key questions addressed in this study are: (a) is familial religiosity related to delinquent involvement in early adolescence? (b) do family processes mediate the relationship between familial religiosity and juvenile delinquency? In this study, familial religiosity is operationalized as family participation in organizational religious activities. In contrast with nonorganizational religious activities such as personal prayer and scripture reading, organizational religious activities are typically religious-based social activities, including worship services, church or synagogue dinners, retreats, camps, picnics, and religious group activities such as scripture reading groups and home fellowship groups. This dimension of religion has been defined as “organizational religiousness” (Feter Institute, 1999, p. 4) or “organizational religiosity” (Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001, p. 20). It is the most frequently examined dimension of religion in past research on religiosity and adolescent delinquent behavior. However, only a few of those studies have included familial religiosity in their measurement of organizational religiousness (Chitwood et al., 2008). This study seeks to advance our understanding of the relationships among religion, family processes, and juvenile delinquency by including a composite measure of religion that reflects the overall level of family involvement in organizational religious activities.

On the basis of the literature review and the theoretical frameworks discussed above, it is hypothesized that higher levels of family involvement in organizational religious activities will lead to more positive family processes, including closer interparental relationship, more effective parenting practices, and stronger attachment to parents. Positive family processes will, in turn, increase social bonds and operate as protective factors against delinquent behavior in early adolescence. Thus, children who grow up in families with a higher level of religiosity will be less likely to be involved in delinquency because of their increased exposure to positive family processes and stronger social bonds. Familial religiosity will be related to delinquency directly as well as indirectly through interparental relationship, parenting practices, attachment to parents, commitment to school, and family involvement.

Method

Data

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) used in this study is a multiwave survey sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. Department of Labor. The first wave of survey, carried out in 1997 on a sample of 8,984 youths, also collected information from one of the youths’ parents. The youth sample is believed to be representative of U.S. residents in 1997 that were born during the years 1980 through 1984 (U.S. Department of Labor, 2003). When the first interviews were conducted, the youngest and eldest youths were 12 and 16 years old, respectively. Thirteen additional waves of data collection were conducted on the same adolescent respondents who remained in the study between 1998 and 2010.

To preserve the largest sample size possible, we selected the first two waves of the survey data for this study. This data set drew variables from both the parent survey and the youth survey. The parent survey asked one parent of each youth to participate. Potential responding parents were limited to those who resided in the same household as the youth. No parent questionnaire was administered if the youth did not live with a parent, a guardian, or a parent-type figure. Since both the parent and youth surveys were critical to this study, only youths with completed parent interviews were included. The sample size was further reduced in the following two ways: First, youths who did not live with a mother/mother figure and a father/father figure were excluded from this study. This is necessary because interparental conflict is a key variable in the theoretical model, and youths who did not live with both parents/parent figures would not have data on variables measuring interparental conflict. Because of this selection criterion, it was not possible to test the differences in the relationships among familial religiosity, family processes, and delinquency between single-parent homes and two-parent homes in this study. We examined these issues in another study and found preliminary evidence of similar patterns of associations among familial religiosity, family processes, and juvenile delinquency in single-parent households. Second, information on family relationships, attachment to parents, family involvement in religion, and perceptions of parenting practices was collected only from youths who were 12 to 14 years old in the NLSY97 survey. To make sure these variables were available, the study sample was limited to youths 12 to 14 years old when data of first wave were collected. The final sample used in this study consisted of youths who had completed parent interviews, who lived with a mother/mother figure and a father/father figure, and who were 12 to 14 years old in Wave 1. A total of 2,922 youths met these criteria and were included in this study.¹

Variables and Measurements

All of the variables used in the analysis were drawn from the 1997 survey with the exception of delinquency, the main outcome measure of the study. Questions on delinquency in the NLSY97 asked about behaviors in the past year. Some of the delinquent activities collected in the 1997 survey referred to behaviors that actually occurred in 1996, which preceded many explanatory variables collected in the 1997 survey, including the adolescent’s attitudes and perceptions. To help establish the right time order, we used the data collected in the 1998 survey to measure juvenile delinquency.

The measures of delinquency, behavioral/emotional problems, and physical environment risk were preconstructed, additive indexes provided in the NLSY97. The rest of the theoretical constructs were measured using scales constructed from the raw data. To reduce measurement errors in those scales, we used multiple indicators to measure the constructs. Whenever multiple indicators were used, we built a measurement model to assess how adequately the indicators represented the underlying theoretical construct. In our descriptions of the measurement models presented below, we list the constructs and the observed variables used to measure them. We also list the factor loadings of the indicators when a measurement model was used to evaluate the relationships between a construct and its indicators. All of the measurement models showed good or excellent goodness-of-fit.

Delinquency

In the Wave 2 survey conducted in 1998, the youth respondents were asked a series of questions about delinquent acts they committed since the date of the last interview, including running away from home, carrying a hand gun, belonging to a gang, purposely damaging or destroying property, stealing something worth less than US$50, stealing something worth US$50 or more, committing other property crimes, attacking someone, selling or helping sell illegal drugs, or being arrested by the police, or taken into custody for an illegal or delinquent offense. These 10 items were modified from items developed by Elliott to measure delinquency in the National Youth Survey (Elliott & Huizinga, 1983). Responses to these questions were limited to “0 = No” and “1 = Yes.” A delinquency index was created by summing the responses on these ten questions. Scores on the index ranged from 0 to 10, with higher scores indicating increased delinquency. Because it had only 11 categories, this variable was treated as a categorical variable in the structural modeling analysis discussed later in the article.

Familial Religiosity

Familial religiosity was measured by three variables drawn from the Wave 1 interviews of parents and youth respondents: (a) responding parent’s frequency of attending a worship service; (b) nonresponding parent’s frequency of attending a worship service; and (c) frequency of family involvement in religious activities. Data on parental religious attendance were collected in the parent’s survey, which contained a question asking the interviewed parent/parent figure to report how often he or she had attended a worship service in the past 12 months. The parent/parent figure was also asked to report how frequently the other parent had attended a worship service in the last year. The responses ranged from “1 = Never” to “8 = Everyday.” Frequency of family involvement in religious activities was measured by a question in the youth survey asking the youth respondent to report how many days in a week his or her family did something religious together, such as go to church, pray, or read the scripture. Factor loading of the three variables on the construct were 1.00, 0.95, and 0.70, respectively.

Family Relationships

Quality of family relationship was assessed in the domains of interparental conflict and affection for parents. The Wave 1 youth questionnaire contained two sets of questions about the quality of the relationship between the youth’s mother and father. These questions were used to measure interparental conflict. The first set of questions measured the mother’s relationship with the father. These questions included: (a) “Does she scream or yell at him when she is angry?” (b) “Does she insult or criticize him or his ideas?” (c) “Does she blame him for her problems?” A 5-point scale, ranging from “1 = Never” to “5 = Always,” was provided as the response categories. Another set of questions with similar wording were used to measure the father’s relationship with the mother. The combined sets of questions were used as indicators of interparental conflict. Their factor loadings on the construct were 1.00, 1.03, 1.05, 1.10, 1.18, and 1.19, respectively.

Affection for parents was assessed by a set of questions available from the Wave 1 youth survey about the youth’s attachment to mother/mother figure and father/father figure. Attachment to mother/mother figure was measured by the following three statements: (a) “I think highly of her,” (b) “She is a person I want to be like,” and (c) “I really enjoy spending time with her.” A 5-point Likert-type scale, ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree,” was provided as response categories. These same measures were asked about the youth’s attachment to father/father figure. Factor loading of the six questions on the construct of affection for parents were 1.00, 1.06, 1.03, 1.60, 1.52, and 1.53, respectively. To the extent that this variable measures the positive emotional bonds that the adolescent formed with his or her parents, it can be interpreted as a proxy for attachment commonly understood in psychology (Bowlby, 1969/1982).

Parenting Practices

Parenting practices were rated in the domains of parental monitoring and positive reinforcement. Both constructs were measured through the children’s perceptions using self-report data collected from the youth respondents in the Wave 1 survey. Children’s perceptions have often been used to measure parenting styles and practices (Brown, Mounts, Lamborn, & Steinberg, 1993; Gibbs, Giever, & Higgins, 2003; Palmer & Hollin, 2001). In the absence of alternative measurements such as observational data and parents’ self-report, children’s perceptions represent a reasonable way to measure the nature and quality of parenting practices and their impact on children.

Parental monitoring refers to the extent to which the parent is aware of the child’s behavior and the network of people he or she is associated with. Parental monitoring was measured by three questions asking the adolescents to report how much their parents knew about their close friends, their close friends’ parents, and who they were with when not at home. A 6-point scale was used as responses ranging from “0 = Knows nothing” to “5 = Knows everything.” The respondent was asked to rate his or her mother/mother figure and father/father figure separately. Ratings of mother/mother figure and father/father figure were combined to form an index. Factor loading of the six questions on the construct of parental monitoring were 1.00, 1.04, 0.81, 1.29, 1.26, and 1.01, respectively.

Positive reinforcement by mother/mother figure and father/father figure was assessed by the following two questions: (a) “How often does your mother praise you for doing well?” (b) “How often does your father praise you for doing well?” A 5-point scale ranging from “0 = Never” to “4 = Always” was provided as response categories. Factor loading of the two items on the construct of positive reinforcement were 1.00 and 1.35, respectively.

Other Mediators

As suggested in prior research, adolescent social bonds including involvement in family and commitment to school may mediate the relationship between family background and delinquent behavior as well (Bahr et al., 1998; Hawkins et al., 1992; Hirschi, 1969). The possible mediating effects of these two variables are examined using data collected from the youth respondents in Wave 1. Family involvement was measured by three questions about youth’s involvement in family activities in a typical school week, including having dinner with family, helping with housework, and doing something fun as a family. Factor loadings of the three questions on the construct of family involvement were 1.00, 0.86, and 1.07, respectively. School commitment was assessed using two questions asking the youth how many times he or she was late for school without an excuse and how many times the respondent was absent from school. Factor loadings of these two items on the construct of school commitment were 1.00 and 0.66, respectively. In addition, previous studies have indicated that religiosity influences emotional and behavioral problems of adolescents, which in turn influence their involvement in delinquent behavior (King & Benson, 2006; Schnittker, 2001). A preconstructed index provided in the 1997 data that measures behavioral and emotional problems of the youth respondents in the NLSY97 data set was used to assess this mediating effect. The index utilized six items developed for the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) as indicators of children’s emotional and behavioral problems (Child Trends & Center for Human Resource Research, 2003).

Control Variables

The control variables included sex, race/ethnicity, physical environment risk, and prevalence of substance abuse at school, which were all measured using data collected from the Wave 1 survey. Sex (1 = male) and race/ethnicity (1 = non-White) were dummy variables. Age was not included because it had a small range (12-14). A preconstructed index with known validity and reliability was used to measure physical environment risk (Child Trends & Center for Human Resource Research, 2003). This index was computed from five survey questions, asking if the adolescent’s home usually had electricity and heat, how often the adolescent heard gunshots in the neighborhood, how well kept were the buildings on the street in the neighborhood, how well kept was the interior of the home in which the youth respondent lived, and whether the interviewers felt safe when they went to the respondent’s neighborhood/home for the interview. Another variable included in the analysis is prevalence of substance abuse at school. The composite measure was constructed using five questions asking the youth about percentage of kids in his or her grade who smoked cigarettes, got drunk at least once a month, used illegal drugs, belonged to a gang, and cut classes or school. These were the only questions available from the first two waves of NLSY97 that were related to delinquent peer influences. Factor loadings of the five questions on the construct of delinquent peers at school were 1.00, 1.01, 0.71, 1.02, and 0.84, respectively.

Analytic Strategy

Two types of analyses were conducted: descriptive analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. Descriptive analysis was used to describe characteristics of the samples while a SEM model, whose basic structure is illustrated in Figure 1, was used to test the interrelationships among the key measures. To reduce clutter, the control variables including sex, race/ethnicity, physical environmental risk, and prevalence of substance abuse at school are not shown in Figure 1. These control variables were included as exogenous variables in the analysis. Prior to the analyses, the data were weighted to adjust for differential nonresponse and for the African American and Hispanic oversamples using a sampling weight provided in the NLSY97 data set.

Figure 1.

Significant direct effects among key constructs in the structural model.

Special procedures were implemented to take into account the fact that most of the variables included in the SEM models are discrete (dichotomous and ordinal). One of the major issues in SEM analysis is the handling of discrete measures. The most widely used estimation methods in SEM assume that the observed and latent variables are continuous. The application of these methods to discrete data can result in biases in parameter estimation and significance test (Bollen, 1989). Joreskog and Sorbom (2001) recommended that researchers use the weighted least-squares (WLS) method with polyserial or polychoric correlations calculated from the sample data when some or all of the observed indicators in the SEM model are discrete. This procedure improves the reliability of the parameter estimates, goodness-of-fit measures, and standard errors in SEM analysis in a large sample. We employed the WLS method that Joreskog and Sorbom recommended in the SEM analysis conducted in this study. Considering the variables in the model were measured on different scales, we used standardized coefficients when comparing the effects of the exogenous and endogenous variables in the SEM models.

Goodness-of-fit indexes of the structural equation model were generally good. Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) was 0.06 while goodness of fit index (GFI), normed fit index (NFI), comparative fit index (CFI), and incremental fit index (IFI) were 0.94. All of these are usually considered strong indicators of model fit (Bollen, 1989; Browne & Cudeck, 1992).

Results

Characteristics of the Sample

Table 1 provides the distribution of several variables describing the characteristics of the sample. About 52% of youth respondents were male and 23% of them were non-White. Most of the youth respondents lived in homes rated 0 or 1 on the index of Physical Environment Risk, indicating low to moderate level of risk. The percentage of children in the respondent’s grade who engaged in deviant or delinquent acts in the last month were high. For example, about 10% of the youth respondents reported that the vast majority of the students (75% or more) in their grade smoked cigarettes, used drugs, and cut classes in the last month. The parents of the youth respondents in the sample seemed to be fairly religious. About 60% of the responding parent attended a worship service at least once a month. Forty-six percent of the parent’s spouse or partner attended a worship service at least once a month. Sixty-six percent of the youth respondents did something religious with their families on at least 1 day per week. The majority of the youth respondents (66%) reported no delinquent involvement in the 1998 survey.

Table 1.

Demographic Characteristics, Environments, Familial Religiosity, and Delinquent Behavior.

Variable	%
Demographics and background:
Age
12	28.30
13	35.54
14	36.16
Sex
Male	52.49
Female	47.51
Race
White	77.30
Non-White	22.70
Physical environment risk
0	47.63
1	21.20
> 1	31.17
Percent of peers in the same grade who smoked cigarettes
About 25% or less	66.65
About half (50%)	17.88
About 75% or more	15.47
Percent of peers in the same grade who used drugs
About 25% or less	80.24
About half (50%)	10.82
About 75% or more	8.95
Percent of peers in the same grade who cut classes
About 25% or less	77.86
About half (50%)	12.86
About 75% or more	9.28
Familial religiosity:
Responding parent’s frequency of attending a worship service
Never	16.49
Less than once a month	23.94
At least once a month	59.55
Nonresponding parent’s frequency of attending a worship service
Never	30.20
Less than once a month	23.66
At least once a month	46.13
Days family do something religious in a week
0	33.99
1	33.53
2 or more	32.48
Delinquent activities in the last year:
0	66.20
1	17.38
2	6.68
3 or more	9.74

Effects of Familial Religiosity

LISREL partitioned the association between any two variables into “direct effect,” “indirect effects,” and “total effects.” In this section, we adopted these terms when presenting the SEM results provided in the LISREL output. However, it should be noted that the data employed in the analysis are survey data with limited control of the time order. The relationships described here should be more accurately interpreted as correlational than causal.

As shown in Table 2, familial religiosity had negative direct effects on interparental conflict, behavioral/emotional problems and delinquency, and positive direct effects on parental monitoring, positive reinforcement, affection for parents, family involvement, and school commitment. Through its effects on family processes and other intervening variables, familial religiosity had a negative indirect effect on delinquency. All of these relationships are in the expected directions.

Table 2.

Effects of Familial Religiosity on Endogenous Variables.¹

	Independent variable: Familial religiosity
	Direct effect	Indirect effect	Total effect
Interparental conflict	−0.07 (−0.09)^**	—	−0.07 (−0.09)^**
Parental monitoring	0.12 (0.17)^**	—	0.12 (0.17)^**
Positive reinforcement	0.10 (0.13)^**	—	0.10 (0.13)^**
Affection for parents	0.09 (0.16)^**	—	0.09 (0.16)^**
Beh/emotional problems	−0.03 (−0.03)^**	−0.08 (−0.07)^**	−0.11 (−0.10)^**
Family involvement	0.04 (0.07)^**	0.05 (0.08)^**	0.09 (0.15)^**
School commitment	0.13 (0.17)^**	0.03 (0.04)^**	0.16 (0.21)^**
Delinquency	−0.05 (−0.05)^**	−0.10 (−0.09)^**	−0.15 (−0.14)^**

Note. ¹Standardized regression coefficients are in parenthesis.

p < .05, two-tailed.

p < .01, two-tailed.

In terms of the total effects, familial religiosity played a prominent role in the structural model. It had a significant total effect on all of the endogenous variables included in the model. Notably, familial religiosity was positively related to parental monitoring, positive reinforcement, and affection for parents but negatively related to interparental conflict. Further, familial religiosity had an overall negative effect on behavioral/emotional problems and delinquency. The results showed that children who had religious parents and who participated in religious activities with their parents were less likely to have behavioral/emotional problems and less likely to be involved in delinquent behavior.

Effects of Family Processes and Other Mediators

The top panel in Table 3 shows the direct effects among the endogenous variables. Interparental conflict had a positive direct effect on behavioral/emotional problems and negative direct effects on involvement in family and commitment to school. In contrast, parental monitoring had negative direct effects on behavioral/emotional problems and delinquency but positive direct effects on involvement in family and commitment to school. Positive reinforcement was negatively related to behavioral/emotional problems and positively related to involvement in family and commitment to school. Affection for parents was positively related to involvement in family and commitment to school and negatively related to behavioral/emotional problems and delinquency. It is also shown in Table 3 that behavioral/emotional problems affected delinquency positively while family involvement and school commitment affected delinquency negatively.

Table 3.

Effects of Endogenous Variables on Endogenous Variables.¹

	Interparental conflict	Parental monitoring	Positive reinforcement	Affection for parents	Beh/emotional problems	Family involvement	School commitment
I. Direct effects
Beh/emotional problems	0.20 (0.14)^**	−0.25 (−0.17)^**	−0.22 (−0.15)^**	−0.12 (−0.07)^**	—	—	—
Family involvement	−0.14 (−0.17)^**	0.16 (0.19)^**	0.15 (0.18)^**	0.09 (0.08)^**	—	—	—
School commitment	0.03 (0.03)^**	0.08 (0.06)^**	0.06 (0.06)^**	0.18 (0.14)^**	—	—	—
Delinquency	0.00 (0.00)	−0.14 (−0.09)^**	0.05 (0.03)^**	−0.06 (−0.03)^**	0.16 (0.16)^**	−0.10 (−0.06)^**	−0.32 (−0.23)^**
II. Indirect effects
Delinquency	0.04 (0.03)^**	−0.08 (−0.06)^**	−0.07 (−0.05)^**	−0.09 (−0.05)^*	—	—	—
III. Total effects
Beh/emotional problems	0.20 (0.14)^**	−0.25 (−0.17)^**	−0.22 (−0.15)^**	−0.12 (−0.07)^**	—	—	—
Family involvement	−0.14 (−0.17)^**	0.16 (0.19)^**	0.15 (0.18)^**	0.09 (0.08)^**	—	—	—
School commitment	0.03 (0.03)^**	0.08 (0.08)^**	0.06 (0.06)^**	0.18 (0.14)^**	—	—	—
Delinquency	0.03 (0.02)^**	−0.22 (−0.15)^**	−0.02 (−0.02)^**	−0.14 (−0.08)^**	0.16 (0.16)^**	−0.10 (−0.06)^**	−0.41 (−0.23)^**

Note. ¹Standardized regression coefficients are in parenthesis.

p < .05, two-tailed.

p < .01, two-tailed.

The middle panel in Table 3 shows the indirect effects among the endogenous variables. The four constructs of family processes all had a significant indirect effect on delinquency. While interparental conflict affected delinquency positively, parental monitoring, positive reinforcement, and affection for parents affected delinquent behavior negatively.

The total effects of the endogenous variables are listed in the bottom panel of Table 3. As expected, the four family process variables all had significant total effects on delinquency. Parental monitoring, positive reinforcement, and affection for parents were negatively related to delinquency while interparental conflict was positively related to delinquency. The total effects of parental monitoring and affection for parents were much stronger than those of interparental conflict and positive reinforcement. The total effects of behavioral/emotional problems, family involvement, and school commitment on delinquency were also in the expected directions.

Indirect Effects

To facilitate interpretation, the direct paths among the key theoretical constructs are illustrated in Figure 1. Control variables and coefficients that were not statistically significant were omitted from the figure. The indirect effects can be computed by multiplying all of the direct effects from one variable to another. The total effect is the sum of the direct effect(s) and the indirect effect(s).

As illustrated in Figure 1, familial religiosity was related to delinquency in a variety of ways. Most of the effects of familial religiosity on delinquency were indirect in nature and mediated by one or more endogenous variables. Two types of indirect effects were observed in Figure 1. First, the relationship was mediated by a single family process variable. The indirect effects from familial religiosity to delinquency through parental monitoring, positive reinforcement, or affection for parents were of this type of relationship. Second, the relationship was mediated by a family process variable and an additional endogenous variable, including behavioral/emotional problems, family involvement, or school commitment. Specially, this type of mediated effects took place in the following ways. Through interparental conflict, familial religiosity established a negative relationship with behavioral/emotional problems but a positive relationship with family involvement; through parental monitoring, familial religiosity assumed a positive relationship with involvement in family and commitment school and a negative relationship with behavioral/emotional problems; through positive reinforcement, familial religiosity took on a negative relationship with behavioral/emotional problems but a positive relationship with involvement in family and commitment to school, through affection for parents, familial religiosity attained a negative relationship with behavioral/emotional problems and a positive relationship with family involvement and school commitment. All of these mediated relationships significantly contributed to an overall negative association between familial religiosity and delinquency.

Discussion

The main objectives of this study were to test whether familial religiosity was related to juvenile delinquency and how family processes mediated the relationship between familial religiosity and delinquent behavior. Drawing from previous research (Brody et al., 1994; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990; Granqvist et al., 2010; Hirschi, 1969; Pearce & Axinn, 1998; Simons et al., 2004), it was proposed that familial religiosity would directly contribute to better parental relationships, more effective parenting practices, stronger attachment to parents, and more social bonds, which would reduce delinquent involvement. The analysis of the data collected from a nationally representative sample of early adolescents provided strong empirical support for these hypotheses. The results confirmed that familial religiosity was positively related to parental relationship, parenting practices, attachment to parents, involvement in family, and commitment to school. These family processes, in turn, were associated with lower juvenile delinquency. Through its links to interparental conflict, parenting practices, attachment to parents, involvement in family and commitment to school, familial religiosity assumed a negative relationship with adolescents’ involvement in antisocial behavior.

In addition to its indirect effects on juvenile delinquency, familial religiosity was also expected to have a direct effect on delinquency. This hypothesis was also supported by the findings that showed a significant relationship between familial religiosity and delinquency that was not affected by the mediators. Consistent with the moderate bivariate relationship observed between the predictor and the outcome, the direct effect was small. Much of the relationship between familial religiosity and delinquency was indirect through family processes and other intervening variables. Overall, these findings suggest that family involvement in organizational religious activities operated as an important socialization process that decreased delinquent involvement among adolescents. Compared to less religious families, parents in families with higher levels of religious involvement experienced less marital conflicts, monitored their children’s behavior more closely, and provided more positive reinforcement. Children who grew up in this type of family tended to develop stronger attachment to their parents. These positive family processes were associated with a lower level of adolescent delinquency.

Besides family processes, three other variables also played important roles mediating the relationship between familial religiosity and delinquency. These variables included the measures of behavioral/emotional problems, family involvement, and school commitment. Familial religiosity was directly related to all three variables, which were in turn associated with delinquent behavior. These results suggested that the salutary effect of familial religiosity might not be limited to family processes. In addition to its impact on family relationships and parenting practices, familial religiosity might also decrease behavioral/emotional problems and increase commitment to school. Through its links to these variables, familial religiosity could indirectly reduce delinquent behavior.

This study has important implications for the etiology of juvenile delinquency. It has been widely documented that good marital relationships and effective parenting practices foster prosocial attitudes, self-control, and prosocial behavior in children and adolescents. However, researchers have not fully understood the sources of family cohesion and effective parenting practices and how they are related to delinquent involvement. The current study contributes to the understanding of these issues. The results of this study indicate that familial religiosity can significantly contribute to healthy family processes, including better interparental relationship, stronger child-parent bond, and more effective parenting practices. Overall, the findings lend support to aspects of the attachment theory, the social bond theory, and the correspondence hypothesis of religion by confirming the positive influence of familial religiosity on attachment to parents and the interrelationships among parenting practices, social bonds, and delinquent behaviors.

In American society, religious activities are an important part of family life for many parents and their children. In the nationally representative survey data analyzed in this study, about 60% of the responding parents reported that they attended a worship service at least once a month. The data also showed that in a typical 7-day week, the adolescent respondents were involved in religious activities with their families almost twice per week. Most religious organizations and denominations emphasize prosocial values such as love, responsibility, forgiveness, and family bonding. Further, most mainline religions in the United States promote conventional types of activities, for example, spending time with parents and going to school, and preach against delinquent activities such as substance abuse (Pearce & Axinn, 1998; Wilcox, 2002). Therefore, it should come as no surprise that familial religiosity in the forms of parental religiosity and family involvement in religious activities facilitated the type of family processes that operated as effective informal social control to inhibit delinquent behavior. For a thorough understanding of individual differences in delinquent involvement during early adolescence, the role of the familial religiosity should not be overlooked.

The study should also help clarify the debate concerning parental influence on adolescent involvement in delinquency. Researchers do not agree if parents can continue to play an important role in preventing and controlling delinquent behavior of their children in early adolescence when peer influences start gaining strength. The evidence in this study suggested that the influences of parents could still be strong in early adolescence. During this period, parents could continue to promote prosocial behavior through practicing effective parenting and maintaining affectional bond with their adolescent children. The findings are consistent with the results of several earlier studies showing the persistent strength of parental influences on juvenile delinquency from childhood to adolescence.

This study also has implications for social policies in the areas of family support, child development, and religion. In recent years, policymakers have increasingly recognized the role of marriages and parenting in fostering child and adolescent well-being. The federal government and some state governments have implemented a number of initiatives to support projects that promote child development through building healthy marriages and strong parenthood (Beard et al., 2012). The results of this study suggest that social programs that target deficiencies in family relationships and parenting skills are likely to achieve higher efficacy if they can also strengthen religious-based beliefs and practices that promote authoritative parenting and attachment to parents. The results of the study lend support to the theoretical rationale of intervention programs that aim to increase the capability of the family to provide responsible parenting and positive developmental outcomes among children and adolescents through familial involvement in faith-based activities (Miller, 2009).

This study differs from previous studies in several ways. First, it explicitly tested the structural relationships between familial religiosity, family processes, and delinquency. Previous research has been largely limited to the study of either the link between parental religiosity and family processes or the link between family processes and delinquency. Few of them examined the direct and indirect relationships among familial religiosity, family processes, and delinquency. Second, to assess the influence of parental religiosity on adolescents, this study included a variable measuring the time family spends together in organizational religious activities. Prior studies of the relationship between parental religiosity and adolescent behavior have not examined this important aspect of familial religiosity (Bahr et al., 1998; Brody et al., 1996; Foshee & Hollinger, 1996). It was implicitly assumed in those studies that parental religiosity would automatically influence children’s behavior. That assumption makes sense only if parents engage their children in religious activities. By including this variable in the study, the current research could better assess the relationship between parental religiosity and delinquency. Third, whereas prior studies have relied on local or regional samples, this study used a nationally representative sample selected from adolescents and their parents across the United States. The results of this study should have a higher level of external validity.

It should be noted that this study has its own limitations. First, the data selected for the analysis were correlational in nature. One should not treat the relationships found in this study as causal relationships. Second, this study used a sample of early adolescents who had both a father/father figure and a mother/mother figure in the household, which limits the generalizability of the research findings. Third, due to lack of data, this study failed to include measures of genetic factors and adolescent’s own religiosity, both of which may explain delinquent involvement. The omission of these variables might have an effect on the study findings. Fourth, social desirability bias related to reporting religiosity and religiously based behaviors was not controlled in the study. It was possible that the respondents who identified themselves and their family members as highly religious might, through enhanced social desirability, underreported delinquency and at the same time exaggerated the positive experiences of their family life. Fifth, denominational differences were not examined in this study. Considering that some fundamentalist groups are more inclined to practice authoritarian parenting, the relationships among familial religiosity, family processes, and delinquency might not be uniform across different religious denominations. Lastly, to keep the model as parsimonious as possible in a complex research design, some of the intricate relationships involving the explanatory variables were not studied. For example, there might be a familial religiosity and parental attachment interaction effect on delinquency. In addition, some of the family process measures might have a reciprocal relationship. All of these limitations should be addressed in future empirical studies that assess the influence of familial religiosity on family processes and delinquency.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, U.S.A. Grant number 1 R21 AA015557-01.

Notes

Author Biography

Spencer D. Li is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at University of Macau. His research interests include juvenile delinquency, sociology of religion, and adolescent development. He has served as principal investigator and coprincipal investigator on several publicly and privately funded projects related to religion and juvenile delinquency.

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