Douglas L. Flor

Parental religiosity, family processes, and youth competence in rural, two-parent African American families

A model that linked parental formal religiosity to childrens academic competence and socioemotional adjustment during early adolescence was tested. The sample included 90 9- to 12-year-old African American youths and their married parents living in the rural South. The theoretical constructs in the model were measured through a multimethod, multi-informant design. Rural African American community members participated in the development of the self-report instruments and observational research methods. Greater parental religiosity led to more cohesive family relationships, lower levels of interparental conflict, and fewer externalizing and internalizing problems in the adolescents. Formal religiosity also indirectly influenced youth self-regulation through its positive relationship with family cohesion and negative relationship with interparental conflict.

Transmission and transaction: predicting adolescents' internalization of parental religious values.

Data in this study supported a model of internalization that included both transmission and transactional variables. Two sets of hierarchical linear regression models were conducted on data collected from the fathers, mothers, and adolescents (10 to 12 years old) in 171 intact Caucasian families. One set predicted adolescent religious behavior; the other predicted the importance of religion to child. Transmission variables (parental religious behavior and parental desire for child to be religious) predicted the most variance in all models. Dyadic discussions of faith (transactional) predicted significant variance in all models. Child gender had a direct effect only on adolescent religious behavior. A significant 3-way interaction occurred between child gender, parental desire for child to be religious, and dyadic discussions when predicting importance of religion to child, with child and parent gender dyads interacting in a complex manner.