Familial and Religious Influences on Adolescent Alcohol Use:

A Multi-Level Study of Students and School Communities

Thoroddur Bjarnason, University at Albany, SUNY and University of Akureyri, Iceland
Thorolfur Thorlindsson, University of Iceland
Inga D. Sigfusdottir, Reykjavik University, Iceland
Michael R. Welch, University of Notre Dame
Abstract
A multi-level Durkheimian theory of familial and religious influences on adolescent alcohol
use is developed and tested with hierarchical linear modeling of data from Icelandic schools
and students. On the individual level, traditional family structure, parental monitoring,
parental support, religious participation, and perceptions of divine support and social
constraint are associated with less adolescent alcohol use. Individual parents knowing other
parents (intergenerational closure) is not associated with less alcohol use among their children,
but all students drink less in schools where such intergenerational closure is high. The
religiosity of individual parents is not significantly related to their childrens alcohol use, but
female students drink significantly less in schools where religious parents are more prevalent.
The results are generally consistent with the proposed theoretical model.
Introduction
Emile Durkheims seminal work on the density and structure of social networks, the intensity
of social interactions, and the strength of social control has to a large extent been assimilated
into the common stock of sociological knowledge. His work is routinely cited for theoretical
grounding of empirical studies ranging from such classical Durkheimian concerns as suicide
(Stockard and OBrian 2002) and anomie (Bernburg 2002), to the analysis of high tech jargon
(Ignatow 2003), ballet injuries (Turner and Wainwright 2003) and Palestinian suicide bombers
(Pedahzur, Perliger and Weinberg 2003).
However, Durkheims failure to organize his insights into an internally consistent and
comprehensive social theory has resulted in contradictory and controversial statements regarding
the nature and relations of his key concepts (see Thorlindsson and Bjarnason 1998). Durkheims
vague conception of different levels of social reality has in particular been a major source of such
confusion. His key concepts cannot be assumed to have the same meaning on different levels of
analysis, nor can the relation between his concepts be assumed to be the same at different
levels. These problems were in part created by the rudimentary state of sociological methods at
the turn of the twentieth century, but they were also rooted in Durkheims radical epistemological
distinction between the individual human beings and society as a whole.
The problem of accounting for the intersection of community conditions and individual-
level processes continues to haunt sociological theory and empirical research (Hoffmann
2002). The concept of social capital has played a central role in recent attempts to solve this
micro-macro dilemma, and may be used to help clarify and revitalize the Durkheimian
framework of social integration and social regulation. In his early work Coleman (1961)
All correspondence should be directed to Thoroddur Bjarnason, Faculty of Social Science and Law,
University of Akureyri, IS-600 Akureyri, ICELAND. E-mail: thorodd@unak.is.
The University of North Carolina Press Social Forces, Volume 84, Number 1, September 2005
while the dissolution of a particular marriage can be expected to have a disintegrative impact
on the concrete life situations of the persons involved.
Coleman (1988, 1995) partially bridges this gap by conceptualizing social closure as a specific
form of social capital. He maintains that the resources of the community as a whole constitute
a form of collective human capital that will only affect adolescent well-being when activated
through a process of social closure. He argues that the density of social ties among parents
within the community constitutes a form of intergenerational closure that provides social control
over childrens activities and directs them towards socially accepted goals. The effect of a
school where many parents know one another should therefore be considered as distinct from
the effect of individual parents knowing other parents (Carbonaro 1989, 1999; Hallinan and
Kubitschek 1999; Morgan and Sorenson 1999). This has not been adequately operationalized
in prior research, which has relied on individual-level measures of intergenerational closure.
Religion and adolescent alcohol use
Durkheims (1951) early formulation of the concept of integration was derived from his
analysis of denominational differences in suicide rates. He argued that differences in suicide
rates between Protestants, Catholics and Jews were due to differences in the density and
intensity of social life within the three religious communities. The sociological correlates of
religion, rather than religiosity as such, are thus deemed to affect suicide rates. However, in
his later work Durkheim ([1912] 1995) came to view religion as a major channel of collective
energy that can be tapped into at the individual as well as the societal level. Religion contains
both integrative and regulative elements, as the social world is constructed and maintained
through religious rituals, symbols, and beliefs. Durkheim (1995:419) specifically discussed the
importance of a strong personal relation with ones God in the religious integration process.
He argued that relations with the divine can not be conjured up at will, but that they are by
necessity rooted in religious participation. In other words, a direct, personal relationship with
God is seen as one of the channels of collective energies and mutual moral support that flow
from religious rituals, symbols and beliefs, and ultimately, from religious interaction.
Durkheims notion of religion as collective energy available to the individual believer has
profoundly influenced the subsequent literature on religion and individual well-being.
Researchers have proposed two general types of causal mechanisms that could account for
the consistent positive relationship between religion and individual quality of life. The religious
beliefs approach focuses on the social psychology of religiosity, in particular the positive
effects of religious beliefs and religious world-views on individual well-being (Berger 1967;
Ellison, Gay and Glass 1989; Pargament et al. 1990). Pollners (1989) assertion that individuals
participate in divine relations that may approximate concrete social relationships in intensity
echoes Durkheims early discussion of believers in communion with their God. As Pargament
et al. (1990) point out, religious participation may thus not merely extend ones secular
support network, but may include God as a perceived supportive partner in coping. In this
view, it is a personal relationship with ones God, rather than with fellow believers, that
increases individual well-being. Harris (2003) argues that such perceived divine relations can
also serve as a form of social control. In this perspective, both supportive and constraining
forces emanate from a sense of personal connection to God.
In contrast, the religious community approach emphasizes the integrative and regulative
nature of closely-knit religious communities. Extending theories of social support and social
control, this approach draws attention to the structure of religious communities that may
enhance the welfare of individual community members (Ellison 1994). For instance, Ellison
and George (1994) found that frequent churchgoers report larger social networks, more
Family, Religion and Adolescent Alcohol Use 377
conceptualized Adolescent Society as a complex network of individuals and peer groups that
operates relatively independently within the formal adult-controlled school system. Coleman
later (e.g., 1988, 1995) extended this idea of embedded social networks in his work on the
parental societies associated with different schools. His discussion of intergenerational
closure in particular suggests that social closure among parents within the same school
community constitutes a specific aspect of community-based social control.
Coleman originally developed the concept of intergenerational closure to account for less
disciplinary problems, lower drop-out rates and higher level of educational achievement
among students attending Catholic schools than their counterparts in public schools.
Coleman and his associates (e.g. Coleman and Hoffer 1987) argued that this Catholic School
Effect stems from the social capital nurtured by the integration of teachers, parents, and
students into a single religious community. This can in part be seen as the outcome of
processes of social capital within a closely knit religious community.
However, collective religious commitment may also nurture perceptions of an exterior,
constraining social reality. This can in fact be seen as a specific application of Durkheims
notion of anomie (see Bjarnason 1998). Within the broader Durkheimian framework, the
religiosity of parental society could therefore be expected to affect adolescent alcohol use
independently of social closure in parental society.
In this paper we develop a theoretically grounded multi-level model of adolescent alcohol
use based on these considerations. Adolescent alcohol use entails a substantial risk of
immediate physical, psychological and social harm to adolescents. Such use involves serious
short-term and long-term health risks, anticipates future substance abuse and is associated
with a host of negative behavioral consequences, including accidents, violence, suicidality
and sexual risk-taking (see Bjarnason et al. 2003). It thus provides an excellent case for the
study of social closure and social control in adolescent society.
Family and adolescent alcohol use
The family figures prominently in Durkheims discussion of the processes of social integration
and social regulation. According to Durkheim the density of the family society depends upon
the size, unity and the active participation of individual members. The more unified and
powerful the more active and constant is the intercourse among its members (1951:202).
This closely parallels contemporary notions of social support (see e.g. Dean and Lin 1977;
House, Umberson and Landis 1988). Scholars studying the effect of social support have
indeed drawn upon Durkheims concept of integration (Bille-Brahe and Wang 1985; Bjarnason
1994; Topol and Reznikoff 1982), and social control theory (Hirschi 1969) can in fact be seen
as a neo-Durkheimian reformulation of regulation as the result of different types of family
integration (Bjarnason 1994).
Durkheim maintained ([1897] 1951) that married people with children are more integrated
than married people without children, who in turn are more integrated than the single,
divorced and widowed. Divorce therefore diminishes the intensity of family interactions and
the density of families, and has a detrimental effect on all family members. However,
Durkheims discussion of divorce characteristically fluctuates between a conceptual
emphasis on societal divorce rates on one hand and detailed discussions of the dissolution of
particular families on the other hand.
These societal-level and individual-level effects are however conceptually and empirically
distinct. Individual relations of social support and social control are of a different order than
the societal processes of regulation and integration emphasized by Durkheim. Similarly, the
erosion of the societal familial institution may have a disintegrative impact throughout society,
376 Social Forces Volume 84, Number 1 September 2005
and through experiences of the social world as an exterior and constraining social fact sui
generis. Two-parent families are denser in a Durkheimian sense than other family types, and
alcohol use among adolescents should be lowest in such families (Bjarnason et al. 2003).
However, this effect of family structure should operate at least in part through parental support,
parental control and extended parental networks that work to reduce such alcohol use
(Shucksmith, Glendinning and Hendry 1997). Consistent with the thrust of the Durkheimian
argument and prior empirical research (Jeynes 2003), we expect individual religiosity, religious
participation, divine support and parental religiosity to be associated with less adolescent
alcohol use. We expect both the familial and the religious individual-level effects to operate in
part through experiences of greater social exteriority and constraint (Bjarnason 1998).
On the collective level, Durkheim forcefully argues that familial, religious and normative
processes form a social reality sui generis that is irreducible to their constituent individual
elements. Once individual-level patterns have been taken into account, this theoretical
argument can be tested empirically (Hoffman 2002). We focus on four such aggregate
processes. First, following Durkheim (1951) we use the prevalence of traditional two-parent
families as a measure of the density of parental society, distinct from the density of individual
families. Second, drawing on Coleman (1988, 1995), we conceptualize intergenerational
closure as the aggregation of ties between individual parents that reflect the intensity of
interaction within this society of parents. Third, drawing on the religious well-being literature
(Levin 1994; Stark 1996), we take the aggregation of religious parents to represent the level of
religiosity in parental society. Finally, we define school-level anomie as the aggregation of low
levels of exteriority and constraint on the individual level (Bjarnason 1998). We expect each
of these four school-level processes to affect individual adolescent alcohol use directly and
indirectly by moderating the effects of individual-level processes.
Method
Data collection
The data used in this study are drawn from the Icelandic section of the European School
Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (see Hibell et al. 2000). The sample consists of all
students attending the compulsory 10th grade (15-16 year old) in all Icelandic secondary
schools. Anonymous questionnaires were administered to all students who were present in
class on March 15, 1999. Teachers and research assistants distributed the questionnaires,
and students sealed the questionnaires in blank envelopes upon completion (see Bjarnason
1995). Valid questionnaires were obtained from 89 percent of all Icelandic 10th grade
students. The study is therefore based on responses from most of the national population in
this age group.
Missing values
The proportion of missing values for each item ranges from .9 percent to 5.3 percent, with
an average of 2.2 percent. Missing values on continuous independent variables were replaced
by stochastic mean substitution, adding a normally distributed error term to each substituted
value (see Kalton 1983). Cases with missing values on dependent variable were excluded
from further analysis. The final sample used in the following analysis includes 3,524 students
in 122 schools.
Family, Religion and Adolescent Alcohol Use 379
contacts with network members, more types of social support received, and more favorable
perceptions of their social relationships. Furthermore, the moral constraints of religious
communities regulate and constrain behavior in ways that facilitate positive interpersonal
relations and inhibit potentially negative lifestyle choices (Ellison 1994; Welch, Tittle and Petee
1991). As Stark (1996) points out, the effect of personal religiosity on adolescent delinquency
may in particular be dependent upon the salience of religion in the community.
Anomie and perceived social coherence
For Durkheim, society is not only real in the normative sense of regulating behavior, but
ultimately in the sense of constraining each individuals experience of it (Collins 1994). The
experience of society, as an external reality, derives from being immersed in society and
experiencing its constraints. Conversely, the functional and moral constraints society imposes
on individuals can only be effective to the degree that society is perceived to be an external
reality. As Hilbert (1986) aptly notes, the exteriority and constraint of society lies at the heart of
Durkheims somewhat vague concept of anomie, which not only entails the withdrawal of
conformity, but more generally the withdrawal of any reality to which one could conform. In
this formulation, exteriority refers to the cognitive aspect of experiencing the social world as
an objective, predictable reality that follows a determinable logic. Constraint, on the other
hand, refers to the extent to which one experiences a personal commitment to the demands
and expectations of society. According to this argument, human well-being requires a working
definition of social reality, and when that fails, anomie will ensue in a nightmare of reality
collapse (Berger 1967).
Durkheims concept of anomie is directly applicable to the study of familial and religious
influences on individual well-being. As Thoits (1983) has argued, integrated and cohesive
groups give members a sense of certainty and purpose in living and a meaningful and guided
existence. Accordingly, Thorlindsson and Bjarnason (1998) found that parental support and
parental control contribute to adolescent well being by enhancing perceptions of society as
an external, constraining reality. Similarly, several authors have suggested that the key to the
effect that religion has on well-being lies in the sense of meaning provided by religious beliefs,
religious communities, and perceived divine support (e.g. Ellison 1994; Pollner 1989; Williams
1994). As Ellison (1994) points out, this conceptualization of collective religious commitment as
nurturing coherent plausibility structures is rooted in Durkheims theory of social integration.
The religious well-being literature has focused primarily on the relation between religious
beliefs and exteriority. The notion of normative constraint has been raised in the context of
restricting deviant behaviors, but has not been seriously considered to contribute to positive
cognitive states in its own right. The Durkheimian notion that social exteriority is produced in
social interaction of sufficient regularity and intensity points to religious participation as a
major factor in the influence of religion on perceived social coherence. Indeed, Bjarnason
(1998) found that adolescent perceptions of the exteriority and constraint of the social world
increase with frequent religious participation, while religious orthodoxy and perceived divine
support do not have such independent effects.
Model
The theoretical considerations outlined above imply a multi-level model of the familial and
religious influences shaping adolescent alcohol use. On the individual level, family structure,
family relations, religiosity, and religious participation should inhibit alcohol use both directly
378 Social Forces Volume 84, Number 1 September 2005
Family structure: Responses to a checklist of individuals living in the household with the
respondent were used to construct three dichotomous variables (0-1) indicating family
structure: 1) biological mother not in the household (10 percent); 2) biological father not in the
household (27 percent); and 3) the presence of a step-parent in the household (10 percent).
On the school level the prevalence of traditional families is measured as the percentage of
adolescents living with both biological parents (67 percent).
Parental relations: In the current study we employ two measures of parental relations from
the ESPAD integration module (see Hibell 2000). Parental monitoring is a two-item summary
scale (r =.74) of the measures My parents know where I am in the evenings and My
parents know with whom I am in the evenings. The second measure of parental relations is
parental support, measured by a two-item summary scale (r = .76) including I can easily get
warmth and caring from my mother and/or father and I can easily get emotional support
from my mother and/or father. Colemans concept of individual level intergenerational
closure was operationalized by the two-item summary scale Parents know other parents (r =
.58). This scale was based on the respondents parents and his or her friends parents (i)
knowing each other and (ii) being friends. The school level of intergenerational closure is
represented by the school mean for intergenerational closure.
The Anomie Scale of Exteriority and Constraint separates the dimensions of exteriority and
constraint (Bjarnason and Thorlindsson 1994). The six-item summary scale asks How much do
you agree or disagree with the following statements? The exteriority subscale (=.71) includes
the measures It is difficult to trust anything, because everything changes, In fact nobody
knows what is expected of him or her in life and You can never be certain of anything in life.
The constraint subscale (=.72) includes the measures You can break most rules if they dont
seem to apply, I follow whatever rules I want to follow and In fact there are very few rules
absolute in life. School-level anomie is defined as the inverse of the school mean of all six items.
Religion: Iceland is religiously homogenous, with 95 percent of the total population
belonging to the Lutheran State Church and other Lutheran congregations (Icelandic
Statistical Bureau 1996). Despite the national dominance of the Lutheran church, subscription
to orthodox Lutheran theological tenets is far less prevalent among Icelandic Lutherans than
e.g. among Lutherans in the United States (Bjornsson and Petursson 1990). Furthermore,
even though a comparative study of involvement in 21 countries found Icelanders to be
seventh highest in self-reported religious feelings, their church attendance was lowest of all
the countries under study (Campbell and Curtis 1994). Religious life in Iceland thus differs
markedly from both the fragmentation of denominations and the high degree of religious
involvement in the United States, where most studies on religion and individual well-being
have been conducted.
We examine four distinct dimensions of religiosity in the current study. Individual religiosity is
measured by agreement with I regularly pray to God and I regularly read the scriptures of my
faith (r = .48). Religious participation is measured by agreement with I regularly attend religious
services and I regularly participate in other religious activities (r = .67). Divine support is
measured by agreement I would be able to get support from God if I needed it and I have
received support from God when I needed it (r = .80). Finally, religious parents is based on
agreement with My mother (step-mother) is religious and My father (step-father) is religious
(r = .77). The school level of religiosity is defined as the school mean for parental religiosity.
Statistical analysis
The following multilevel data analysis (Bryk and Raudenbush 1992; Goldstein 1987) was
conducted by use of the HLM 5 software (Raudenbush et al. 2000). This allows us to
Family, Religion and Adolescent Alcohol Use 381
Dependent variable
Our dependent variable of alcohol use, shown in Table 1, is constructed from three summary
indexes of three items each; lifetime frequency, thirty-day frequency, and quantity of alcohol
consumption. These measures were translated and validated according to the ESPAD
research protocol (see Hibell 2000). In order to reduce skewness attributable to a small group
of heavy drinkers each index was recoded (0-3) before the final scale (=.86) was
constructed. Scores ranged from 0-9.
Table 1: Descriptive statistics for multi-level analysis of the influences of family, religion and
anomie on adolescent alcohol use among 15-16 year old students in Iceland, 1999
380 Social Forces Volume 84, Number 1 September 2005
Range Mean s.e. St. dev
Level 2: Schools
Prevalence of traditional families .20-.91 .67 .014 .16
Closure of parental society 3.5-7.6 5.17 .082 .91
Religiosity in parental society 4.3-9.2 7.16 .069 .76
School-level anomie 7.7-18.4 12.08 .154 1.70
Level 1: Students
Female 0-1 .50 .008 .50
Family structure
Mother and father in household 0-1 .67 .008 .47
Mother not in household 0-1 .10 .005 .30
Father not in household 0-1 .27 .007 .44
Stepparent in household 0-1 .10 .005 .30
Parental relations
Parental monitoring 2-10 6.07 .004 2.11
Parental support 2-10 6.35 .003 2.08
Parents know other parents 2-10 4.73 .004 2.18
Anomie
Exteriority 3-15 8.26 .048 2.89
Constraint 3-15 9.73 .050 2.98
Denomination
Lutheran 0-1 .89 .005 .31
Catholic 0-1 .01 .002 .11
Other denominations 0-1 .04 .003 .20
No denomination 0-1 .07 .004 .25
Religiosity
Individual religiosity 2-10 3.93 .034 2.00
Religious participation 2-10 3.17 .029 1.74
Divine support 2-10 5.52 .048 2.89
Religious parents 2-10 7.09 .043 2.58
Dependent variable
Alcohol use 0-9 3.81 .044 2.65
Contrary to our expectations, school-level anomie thus seems to be fully reducible to
individual level manifestations.
Model IV finally shows the best fitting model of adolescent alcohol use. In this model, the
absence of a father, presence of a stepfather, parental monitoring and parental support
continue to predict adolescent alcohol use. However, the influence of individual parents who
know other parents is no longer statistically significant. The hypothesized effect of
intergenerational closure thus does not appear to be supported on the individual level.
Importantly, the school level of intergenerational closure nevertheless continues to predict
significantly less alcohol use among all students.
Non-affiliation and individual religiosity also become non-significant in the final model,
while religious participation and divine support continue to be associated with significantly
less alcohol use. In other words, adolescents who participate more frequently in religious
activities and perceive God to be a partner in coping with lifes difficulties drink less than their
peers. Neither denominational non-affiliation nor individual religiosity as reflected in prayer or
reading scriptures have such independent effects. Furthermore, neither individual parental
religiosity nor school levels of parental religiosity are found to have a significant main effect
on adolescent alcohol use.
Constraint continues to be associated with lower levels of alcohol use, but exteriority does
not have such an independent effect. Specifically it is the experience of constraints that
renders religious affiliation and religiosity non-significant in the final model (results not
shown). School levels of anomie are not associated with adolescent alcohol use.
Finally, Table 2 shows significant variances in the slopes and intercept of the best-fitting
model. The regression intercept varies significantly across schools, indicating that alcohol use
continues to vary significantly across school settings. On the individual level, only the slope
for females varies significantly among schools. This slope is not significantly moderated by
either the school level of intergenerational closure or school level of anomie. We do however
find this individual relationship to be moderated by school levels of parental religiosity. About
a one-half unit increase from the mean of 7.16 on the level of religiosity characterizing parental
society thus fully counteracts the overall effect of being female. In schools where parents
tend to be more religious, females drink significantly less than males. In the multi-level model,
school-level variance in alcohol use is reduced by 49.2 percent and student-level variance is
reduced by 16.4 percent.
Discussion
In this paper we have provided an updated Durkheimian framework for the study of religious
and familial influences on adolescent alcohol use. We have drawn upon contemporary
theories of social support, social control and social capital to recast Durkheims somewhat
vague conception of the density and intensity of familial society in terms of the conceptually
and empirically distinct elements of family structure, parental support, parental control, and
intergenerational closure. Similarly, we have drawn upon the literature on religious
communities and religious beliefs to reformulate Durkheims inconsistent conceptualization
of the role of religious beliefs and rituals as individual religiosity, religious participation, divine
support, and parental religiosity. Finally, based on Bergers (1967) and Hilberts (1986)
clarifications of Durkheims concept of anomie, we have distinguished between the elements
of social constraint and social exteriority.
Consistent with prior research (Bjarnason et al. 2003; Hoffmann 2002), our results show
that the adolescents are more likely to drink alcohol when either biological parent is absent
from the household. Once our measures of parental relations are taken into account,
Family, Religion and Adolescent Alcohol Use 383
empirically address several important theoretical and conceptual issues. Extending the
general multiple regression model, hierarchical linear regression allows the estimation of
individual-level models of the effects of family structure, parental relations, and youth
activities on alcohol consumption as:
Q

ij=

0j
+

qj

qij+
r
ij
q=1
where is the alcohol use of student i in school j, is the individual-level intercept for each school,
(q = 1, 2,...Q) are individual-level slopes for each school j, is the qth individual-level predictor
for student i in school j, and is the individual-level error term (see Raudenbush et al. 2000). This
extends the general regression model by allowing the estimation of variable intercept models of
the effects of school-level predictors on these individual-level adolescent outcomes, and the
estimation of variable slopes for individual-level predictors across school communities. Each
individual-level coefficient is modeled as an outcome variable in the school-level model:
S

qj=

q0
+

qs
W
sj+
u
qj
s=1
where is the school-level intercept for the individual-level slope q in school j, (s = 1, 2,...S) are
school-level slopes associated with the individual-level slope q, is the sth school-level
predictor for school j, and is the school-level error term. In other words, both the average
alcohol use in each school and the strength of individual-level predictors in each school can
be modeled as a function of school-level characteristics. All individual-level predictors are
centered to the grand mean in the following analysis.
Results
The first column in Table 2 shows the bivariate association between alcohol use and each of the
individual-level and school-level predictors. Model I shows the multivariate effects of parental
relations and family structure on adolescent alcohol use. After individual-level parental support,
parental control, and the effects of parents knowing other parents have been taken into account,
school levels of intergenerational closure continue to predict less alcohol use. In other words,
students drink less in school where many parents know each other. This effect cannot be
attributed to their individual family arrangements, the quality of their ties with parents or whether
their own individual parents are acquainted with the parents of other students.
In Model II individual denomination, the three religiosity measures and individual and
school levels of parental religiosity are included simultaneously in a multilevel model.
Compared to the bivariate associations, the individual-level effect of claiming no
denomination is reduced by about half, but remains statistically significant. Individual
religiosity, religious participation and divine support each continue to exert independent
effects on alcohol use, but individual-level and school-level parental religiosity becomes non-
significant. Thus, perceptions of parental religiosity do not appear to affect alcohol use once
personal religiosity, religious participation and perceptions of God as a partner in coping have
been taken into account.
In Model III individual-level and school-level measures of anomie are included
simultaneously in a single multivariate model. Individual-level exteriority and constraint both
remain statistically significant, suggesting that the effects of these two related factors do
indeed differ somewhat independently of one another. However, the effect of exteriority is
reduced by two-thirds, while the effect of constraint is essentially the same as in the bivariate
analysis. Furthermore, the effect of school-level anomie vanishes in the multilevel analysis.
382 Social Forces Volume 84, Number 1 September 2005
Family, Religion and Adolescent Alcohol Use 385 384 Social Forces Volume 84, Number 1 September 2005
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regulation infuse the lives of adolescents, and that these processes operate both on the level
of families and the level of communities. Social closure in particular emerges as a community-
level process that reduces alcohol use among all students in particular schools.
References
Berger, Peter L. 1967. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. Doubleday.
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Bille-Brahe, Unni, and August G. Wang. 1985. Attempted Suicide in Denmark. Social Psychiatry 20:163-170.
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______. 1995. Administration Mode Bias in a School Survey on Alcohol, Tobacco and Illicit Drug Use.
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______. 1998. Parents, Religion and Perceived Social Coherence: A Durkheimian Framework of Adolescent
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Bjarnason, Thoroddur , Barbro Andersson, Marie Choquet, Zsuzsanna Elekes, Mark Morgan and Gertrude
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Family, Religion and Adolescent Alcohol Use 387
however, the effect of an absent mother is rendered non-significant and the effects of both an
absent father and the presence of a stepparent are slightly reduced. Contrary to the
Durkheimian argument and earlier research on delinquency in the United States (Hoffmann
2002), we find the effect of school-level prevalence of traditional families to be fully reducible
to individual living arrangements.
Parental support and parental control of adolescents can be seen as individual-level
counterparts to integration into society and regulation by society (Thorlindsson and Bjarnason
1998), and as expected, both of these factors predict lower levels of adolescent alcohol use.
Consistent with the thrust of Colemans (1988) theory of intergenerational closure, we find less
alcohol use in schools where more parents know the parents of their childrens friends. We do
however not find such an effect on the individual level. In other words, adolescents do not drink
less when their parents know many of their friends parents, but they do drink less if they attend
schools where many parents know other parents. This supports Colemans argument that social
capital should be considered a collective good, irreducible to the individual level. These results
also amplify the concerns raised by Carbonaro (1999) regarding the widespread use of individual-
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corresponding effects of the constituent individual-level elements. Thus, intergenerational closure
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In his earlier work Durkheim ([1897] 1951) treats religious denominations as a proxy for
differences in interaction patterns, but he later ([1912] 1994) attributes a more dynamic role to
religious beliefs, rituals and symbols. In line with contemporary work in this area, we found no
denominational differences in alcohol use among adolescents. We did find an effect for
students who did not belong to any denomination, but this effect was attributable entirely to
other factors in the model. Both religious participation and the perception of divine support
exert independent effects on alcohol use, but the effect of school levels of parental religiosity
became non-significant in the multivariate model.
These results support prior research suggesting that religion affects alcohol use on the
individual level (Jeynes 2003) and that this effect can neither be attributed to the religiosity of
ones parents nor the religious context of the school. Parental religiosity on the school level
does however moderate the effect of gender on alcohol use. Although somewhat
unexpected, this cross-level interaction appears to be intuitively plausible. Comparative
research has shown that adolescent girls drink less alcohol than boys in the more traditional
southern European countries, while the reverse is true in the more modern northern
European countries (Hibell et al. 2000). Our results replicate this pattern on the school level
in the highly modern, secular northern European society of Iceland. Girls drink less than boys
in school societies where parents are more religious, but they drink more than boys in school
societies where religion has a weaker hold in parental society.
Finally, we employ a measure of school-level anomie that is consistent with Bergers
(1967) discussion of the nightmare of the collapsing social nomos and Hilberts (1986) later
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commitment to that social order. Conversely, an individual who acknowledges the objective
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model, however, only constraint continues to have a significant effect. Anomie on the school
level also has a positive bivariate relation with adolescent alcohol use, but this effect can be
entirely attributed to individual differences in perceived social constraint.
These findings lend considerable support for the updated Durkheimian theoretical
framework we have presented. They indicate that the basic processes of integration and
386 Social Forces Volume 84, Number 1 September 2005
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