Religious Socialization among Malaysian Muslim Adolescents: A Family Structure Comparison

Abstract

Despite the plethora of research on correlates of adolescent religiosity, few studies have examined the contribution of socialization factors to adolescent religiosity in the context of non-Western Muslim samples from different family contexts. To address this gap, the current study explored the contribution of parenting (direct socialization) and community engagement (indirect socialization) factors on religiosity among 895 Malaysian Muslim high school students from single-/non-parent and two-parent families. T-test results showed that religiosity was higher for students from two-parent families than single-/non-parent parent homes. After controlling for (a) social desirability, (b) gender and (c) school type, the hypothesized factors of: parental attachment, parental religious socialization, parental supervision, youth organization involvement, school attachment, and mosque involvement significantly predicted religiosity for the full sample of students from both types of families. Hierarchical regression results further revealed that while both indirect and direct parental socialization factors were stronger predictors of religiosity for two-parent families than single-/non-parent families, direct parental socialization effects were more robust. Implications of the findings are discussed.

A Review of Parenting in A Multicultural Country: The Malaysian Experience

“…In their phenomenological study, Sumari, Sarada, et al found that appreciating the parent-child relationship is one of the ways adolescents copes with parental divorce [108]. Direct parental socialisation predicts children's religiosity more strongly for two-parent families than single or non-parent families [109]. Jo-Pei who evaluated whether ethnically-mixed children are less well psychologically adjusted when compared to children from mono-ethnic families demonstrated that children from mixed parentage reported fewer emotional and behavioural problems than those from mono-ethnic minority families [110].…”

Systematic Review of Quantitative Measures of Stakeholder Engagement

“…We excluded 179 articles at the final coding stage because they ultimately did not meet our eligibility criteria when the full‐length article was coded and discussed. A total of 68 articles contained quantified measures of stakeholder engagement and met our final criteria …”

Critique of the Religion and Spirituality Discourse in Family Articles

“…Both religion and spirituality definitions include the element of meaning, although religion focuses more on finding meaning that is assigned through the religion and spirituality on the individual's search for and construction of meaning. For example, Ochieng () defined spirituality as an “individual quest to understand and attribute meaning to life and being sacred” (p. 100), and Krauss et al () claimed that religion provides “answers to questions that go beyond material existence” (p. 500).…”