Church Attendance Or Religiousness: Their Relationship To Adolescents' Use Of Alcohol, Other Drugs, And Delinquency

The purpose of the study was to determine if religiousness, instead of church attendance, was related to alcohol consumption, other drug use, and delinquency after considering socio-demographic, familial and peer factors. Many researchers argue that religion only inhibits relative minor, or ascetic, offenses, such as underage consumption of alcohol. They also argue that religion ceases to be related to offenses when more important influences like peer associations are considered.This study consisted of a stratified random sample of 3,551 adolescents, grades seven through nine, from 66 public high schools in a southern state. The findings indicate that religiousness is significantly related to all three offenses studied when other study factors are simultaneously considered, whereas church attendance has a modest relationship to drug use. The treatment implications of these findings are discussed. (C) 2006 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.