The Ethnic Church, Ethnic Identifcation, and the Social Adjustment of Vietnamese Adolescents
This article examines the effect of participation in an ethnic religious institution on ethnic identification and social adjustment to American society by Vietnamese adolescents. It considers to what extent ethnic identification and social adjustment may be the product of church attendance and churc...
| Authors: | ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage Publications
1996
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| In: |
Review of religious research
Year: 1996, Volume: 38, Issue: 1, Pages: 18-37 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article examines the effect of participation in an ethnic religious institution on ethnic identification and social adjustment to American society by Vietnamese adolescents. It considers to what extent ethnic identification and social adjustment may be the product of church attendance and church-sponsored formal educational programs. Our results show that church attendance has a consistently significant influence on ethnic identification and that church-sponsored formal educational programs contribute to stronger ethnic identification (chiefly by increasing use of the Vietnamese language) and to better adjustment (by positively influencing scholastic performance). However, the relationship between church attendance and ethnic identification is not merely determined by the formal educational programs sponsored by the church. We suggest rather that the ethnic church serves as a network focus for the ethnic community and that participation in the ethnic church binds youth more closely to the ethnic network. The close association with the ethnic community, in turn, facilitates positive adjustment of immigrant adolescents to American society by increasing the probability that they will do well in school, set their sights on future education, and avoid some of the dangers that confront contemporary young people. We conclude that the immigrant congregation should be viewed as promoting adjustment to American society because it encourages the cultivation of ethnic group membership. |
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| ISSN: | 2211-4866 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Review of religious research
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/3512538 |