Rodney Stark
Sociology of Religion, Volume 57, Issue 2, 1 July 1996, Pages 163–173,https://doi.org/10.2307/3711948
Published:
01 July 1996
Abstract
More than 10 years ago the author proposed a contextual-interactional explanation of the fact that research done on the West Coast fails to find a relationship between religious commitment and delinquency, while studies done elsewhere invariably find a strong negative correlation. Unfortunately, because of various deficiencies, subsequent studies that claimed to test the contextual explanation have not done so — leaving the literature more confused than ever. In an effort to clarify matters, this paper carefully restates the contextual theory and then tests it on data from a very large survey of higfr school seniors. The results demonstrate the existence of a very potent contextual effect.
https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article-abstract/57/2/163/1624794?redirectedFrom=fulltext