Serving God and Country? Religious Involvement and Military Service among Young Adult Men

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Citation

Burdette, Amy M.; Wang, Victor; Elder, Glen H., Jr.; Hill, Terrence D.; & Benson, Janel E. (2009). Serving God and Country? Religious Involvement and Military Service among Young Adult Men. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 48(4), 794-804. PMCID: PMC3442261

Abstract

Despite important connections between religion and military action throughout world history, scholars have seldom explored the association between religiosity and military enlistment. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we used a person-oriented analysis to categorize young men according to patterns of adolescent religious involvement. Youth indentified as "highly religious evangelical" are more likely to enlist in the military compared to their "highly religious nonevangelical" and "nonreligious" counterparts; however, these findings hold only for those young men without college experience. These findings are discussed along with study limitations and promising directions for future research.

URL

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2009.01481.x

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year Published

2009

Journal Title

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

Author(s)

Burdette, Amy M.
Wang, Victor
Elder, Glen H., Jr.
Hill, Terrence D.
Benson, Janel E.

PMCID

PMC3442261