Suicide,Religion, and Latinos: A Macrolevel Study of U.S. Latino Suicide Rates

Since the publication of Durkheim's Suicide more than a century ago, researchers have been examining the relationship between religion and suicide, and race/ethnicity and suicide. However, no study has examined how religion influences U.S. Latino suicide rates. This study fills a gap in the literature by applying three competing theses to the study of Latino suicide. Results show that (1) religious contextual variables significantly affect Latino suicide rates, (2) U.S.‐born Latinos benefit from religious communities, regardless of denomination or measurement used, and (3) foreign‐born Latinos only benefit from Catholic adherents and homogeneity.     

A Comparative Analysis of Durkheim's Theory of Egoistic Suicide*

This paper reports a comparative cross-national test of Durkheim's theory of egoistic suicide, involving indicators of religious, family, and political integration. Linear and nonlinear multiple regression analysis showed that the relationships between religious integration and suicide and between political integration and suicide are inverse exponential functions of the form Y = ae^bX, while the relationship between family integration and suicide is linear. The relationships between the independent and dependent variables are strong and highly significant. Together, our indicators of religious, family, and political integration explain about 76 percent of the variation in international rates of suicide.     

Religion and Comparative Political Sociology

In the last decade, religious politics seemed to sweep the world. Calls have been issued for religion to regain its rightful place in the study of politics. We contend that the influence of religion on politics is hardly novel and that religious beliefs and organizations have had a profound effect on polities both in the developed democracies and in developing societies. Drawing widely on the comparative sociology of politics, we trace the role of religion in the generation of political attitudes and preferences, in the process of democratization, in the formation of interest organizations and confessional parties, and consider the contemporary debate concerning religious violence. We will demonstrate the importance of religion in inspiring political behavior, including both electoral and non-electoral politics, and in the shaping of political institutions and the regulatory framework surrounding the religious sphere. Our survey indicates that neither arguments concerning the secularization of polity and society nor for the recent return of religious fervor to politics is persuasive. Religion is, and has been, fundamental to modern politics.     

A Comparative International Analysis of Religion and Spirituality in Social Work: A Survey of UK and US Social Workers

As service populations have changed, the social work profession in the UK and the US has attempted to respond to the needs of diverse cultures, which often include issues of religion and spirituality. This can be problematic, however, due to the extrication of religious and spiritual concerns from the public social services that resulted from the process of secularization. Members of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) and the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) in the US were sampled to explore the attitudes and perceptions of social workers regarding the placement of religion and spirituality in practice and education. In general, US social workers in this sample were more accepting of religion and spirituality than their UK counterparts, even among those respondents who expressed non‐religious world views (e.g. atheism). A majority of the respondents in the UK (76%) and the US (73%) indicated that their training programs lacked content on religion and spirituality. In the UK, 57% of the respondents believed that social workers should increase their knowledge on spirituality, compared with 90% of the US respondents. The lower level of acceptance of religion and spirituality among UK social workers may be related to higher levels of secularism in UK society.     

Exposure to Suicide Movies and Suicide Attempts: A Research Note

Research on the impact of exposure to suicide movies on suicidality has been marked by three limitations. It is largely based on (1) aggregate data subject to the ecological fallacy, (2) exposure to a single movie, and (3) relative lack of controls for psychological states and social factors linked to suicide. The present study addresses these gaps. It follows a modified Beach method and assesses the impact of cumulative, voluntary exposure to suicide movies on suicide attempts. The subjects are 260 undergraduates at a midwestern university. The dependent variable is a previous suicide attempt. Cumulative exposure to suicide movies is based on self-reports. Controls include religiosity, depression, burdensomeness, and demographics. A multivariate logistic regression analysis determined that, controlling for other predictors, for each additional movie exposure the risk of attempted suicide increased by 47.6 percent. This is the first investigation to demonstrate a link between cumulative, voluntary exposure to suicide movies on suicidality.     

Culture and Suicide Acceptability: A Cross‐National,Multilevel Analysis

Cultural perspectives on suicidality have been largely marked by work explaining variability in suicide acceptability in the United States using structural variables including marital status and demographics, and limited symbolic or values orientations such as feminism, political liberalism, and civil liberties. The present article applies recent developments in comparative cultural sociology to the problem of suicidality. The central hypothesis is that cultural approval of suicide is related to a general cultural axis of nations (self‐expressionism) encompassing several values orientations such as tolerance and post‐materialism. Data are from Wave 4 of the World Values Surveys and refer to 53,275 individuals nested in 56 nations. Controls are incorporated from previous studies and include structural and demographic constructs. A hierarchical linear regression model determined that the degree of individual‐level adherence to the values of self‐expressionism predicted suicide acceptability (SA), independent of controls including ones interpretable from Durkheimian perspectives. Furthermore, persons high in individual‐level self‐expressionism nested in like‐minded nations were relatively high in SA. The analysis of the subject is expanded to 56 nations representing all major culture zones and varied levels of economic/political development. It determined that SA is shaped by a new, broad cultural construct, self‐expressionism whose impact is independent of Durkheimian familial and religious integration.     

Rural Homeless Shelters: A Comparative Analysis

Although there has been some increased attention to the issue of homelessness and homeless shelter services, little effort has been made to understand the operation of rural homeless shelters. This situation persists despite decades of effort showing that the rural environment provides a very different context for the delivery of services than an urban environment. This study hypothesized that contextual differences in rural environments would produce various strategies of service delivery among homeless shelters. A typology of rural environments was created. Homeless shelters within each of four cells of the typology were selected. Comparative case study analysis provided partial support for the hypothesis.     

Rural Homeless Shelters: A Comparative Analysis

Although there has been some increased attention to the issue of homelessness and homeless shelter services, little effort has been made to understand the operation of rural homeless shelters. This situation persists despite decades of effort showing that the rural environment provides a very different context for the delivery of services than an urban environment. This study hypothesized that contextual differences in rural environments would produce various strategies of service delivery among homeless shelters. A typology of rural environments was created. Homeless shelters within each of four cells of the typology were selected. Comparative case study analysis provided partial support for the hypothesis.     

Economic Development and Strikes: A Comparative Analysis*

Theorists of class conflict have debated the nature of the relationship between economic development and the incidence of strikes. The liberal perspective contends that such developments as the growth in size of corporations and the separation of ownership from control enable modern management to institutionalize industrial conflict in the form of collective bargaining. In contrast, writers in the radical perspective argue that conflict will increase in late industrialization owing to such forces as the bi-polarization of classes and an increase in union strength. The present paper tests these structuralist theories by using data from a sampling of seventy-one nations representing a wide range in economic development. A polynomial regression analysis indicates that strike volume, a chief measure of overall strike activity, follows a parabolic curve—increasing until a GNP per capita of about $4,700 is reached and then declining. No support is found for the radical thesis of an upswing in strike activity at high levels of economic development. The findings on control variables indicate that the inflation rate and mass-media development have significantly positive effects on strike activity. Finally, a democratic political climate tends to lower strike volume.     

Beninese and Ethiopian Informal Insurance Groups: A Comparative Analysis

Informal insurance groups have been created in many poor regions in response to a risky environment typical of developing countries. Drawing on original datasets from Benin and Ethiopia, this article provides empirical evidence describing the various forms these indigenous institutions take. While their principal role has been to provide indemnities for funeral expenses, they also cater for a wide range of shocks. The article finds striking resemblances in group structures and types of coverage offered, suggesting that households for whom the costs of formal insurance contracts are prohibitive tend to deal with risk in a comparable way. Dissimilarities may reflect different local household structures or the extent to which these groups are advertised and known to the public.     

Religion and New Media: A Uses and Gratifications Approach

This research examines specific relationships between new media and religion. While prior research has focused on the question of whether a relationship exists, we explore technology usage as a predictor of specific religious behavior. Using a sample (N = 423) comprising a cross-section of religious and cultural backgrounds, results indicate that attitudes toward technology and use of social media contribute to how people view religion as a mechanism for meeting needs. Applying uses and gratifications theory in a unique way, three needs related to religion emerged: religion as a means of passing time, religion as a mode of meeting self needs, and religion as a catalyst for learning. We discuss implications of our findings.     

Online Religion and Religion Online: Reform Judaism and Web-Based Communication

This study examines the online communication practices of American congregations associated with the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the governing body of American and Canadian Reform congregations, through a content analysis of 252 American URJ congregational Web sites. Web site content was grouped into two categories, “religion online” and “online religion.” Religion online content promotes the organization and provides organizational information, including information related to organizational identity building, community outreach, and encouraging civic and social action. Online religion content allows the user to engage in spiritual activity via the Internet (Helland, 2000 Helland, C. (2000). Religion online/online religion and virtual communitas. In J. Hadden &; D. Cowan (Eds.), Religion on the Internet: Research prospects and promises (pp. 205–224). New York, NY: Elsevier Science. [Google Scholar]; Farrell, 2011 Farrell, J. (2011). The divine online: Civic organizing, identity building, and Internet fluency among different religious groups. Journal of Media &; Religion, 10, 73–90. doi:10.1080/15348423.2011.572438.[Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). ANOVA and MANOVA analyses were used to determine significant differences in content based on congregation size. Results revealed larger congregations were more likely to use Web sites for organizational identity building, mobilization of civic and social action, and the practice of “online religion,” lending support to the existence of a size-based digital divide among URJ congregations.     

The Mechanisms of Suicide: A Realist Approach

This article pursues two aims, a major and a minor one. The major one is to read some important results in the sociological literature on suicide, namely those obtained by Durkheim in 1897, Giddens in 1966 and Pope and Danigelis in 1981, as Context–Mechanism–Outcome configurations. The realist interpretation of the theories of suicide is deemed to be fundamental for the explanation of this social phenomenon, if one wishes not to be misled by the (false) laws which have repeatedly been designated to govern it, e.g., the married are more immune than the unmarried, and, above all – being clamorously labelled ‘Sociology's One Law’ – the one declaring ‘Protestants kill themselves more often than Catholics’. The minor aim is to show that the synthesis of Boolean data, as can be performed for example by QCA (qualitative comparative analysis), is perfectly compatible with the realist synthesis; when not quite constituting its rigorous formalization.     

Religion, Rationality, and Experience: A Response to the New Rational Choice Theory of Religion

This paper is a critical response to the newest version of the rational choice theory of religion (RCTR). In comparison with previous critiques, this paper takes aim at RCTR's foundational assumption of psychological egoism and argues that the thesis of psychological egoism is untenable. Without that thesis, the normative aspects of religious commitment cannot be reduced validly to instrumental reason. On neither conceptual nor empirical grounds therefore can religion or religious commitment be defined comprehensively in terms of exchange theory. With the failure of psychological egoism as a point of departure, the paper articulates an alternative theory of religion, one based on the epistemic rationality grounded in religious experience and religious emotion .     

Micro Foundations of Religion: A Revised Theory

In a major revision of my earlier theoretical work on religion, I attempt to identify and connect the basic micro elements and processes underlying religious expression. I show that all primary aspects of religion—belief, emotion, ritual, prayer, sacrifice, mysticism, and miracle—can be understood on the basis of exchange relations between humans and supernatural beings. Although I utilize a cognitive definition of religion, this new version of the theory is especially concerned with the emotional and expressive aspects of religion. Along the way I also clarify the difference between religion and magic and this sets the stage for explaining the conditions under which religion (but not magic) can require extended and exclusive exchange relations between humans and the gods, thus enabling some religions to sustain stable organizations based on a lay membership.