Religious Diversity Reconsidered: Local Religious Contexts and Individual Religiosity

This study examines how the religious composition of a local U.S. population shapes an individual’s religious involvement. We reconsider Berger’s plausibility thesis and unpack its theoretical mechanisms by (1) conceptualizing religious diversity from each religious group’s perspective, because a sp...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Lim, Chaeyoon (Author) ; Graaf, Nan Dirk de 1958- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Oxford Univ. Press [2021]
In: Sociology of religion
Year: 2021, Volume: 82, Issue: 1, Pages: 31-62
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:This study examines how the religious composition of a local U.S. population shapes an individual’s religious involvement. We reconsider Berger’s plausibility thesis and unpack its theoretical mechanisms by (1) conceptualizing religious diversity from each religious group’s perspective, because a specific local religious environment has different implications depending on one’s religion; (2) decomposing the diversity of the population into the religious outgroup’s share and diversity; and (3) including non-affiliated as part of local religious contexts. Furthermore, we adjust for the detailed categories of religious family in a multilevel framework, which addresses the problem of non-substantive correlation and potential heterogeneity among religious groups. Focusing on Protestants, Catholics, and non-affiliated, the analysis reveals that although religious diversity, especially the share of the religious outgroup, tends to be associated negatively with an individual’s religious involvement, there are important differences in how religious diversity is related to religiosity among different religious groups including Protestants and Catholics.
ISSN:1759-8818
Contains:Enthalten in: Sociology of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/socrel/sraa027