"Why you may want to factor faith into your home search"

By Kelsey Dallas

You’ve probably heard of people choosing a new neighborhood based on its schools, but what about its dominant faith? A new study argues that a county’s religious makeup has a notable impact on resident teens.

The research, published earlier this year in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, shows that young people raised in counties where a large proportion of the population shares their family’s faith are more likely to embrace that religious tradition than teens raised under different demographic circumstances.

This so-called “religious context effect” is especially pronounced among teens whose parents aren’t particularly active in their faith group. The researchers — Charissa Mikoski and Daniel V.A. Olson from Purdue University — found that these parents can sort of outsource the work of raising religiously engaged kids to their many neighbors who share their beliefs.

Highly religious parents, on the other hand, don’t really need to worry about their county’s religious composition. The potential impact of the religious context effect — whether positive or negative — is “dampened or drowned out” in families where young people see their parents model a deep commitment to their faith, according to the study.

Parents “are well-positioned to counteract any negative effects of raising teens in less congenial religious contexts,” the researchers wrote.

The key question for people looking to raise religiously active kids is: How religious active are you? If the answer is “not very,” they may want to check out Public Religion Research Institute’s county-by-county look at religious membership and begin surfing Zillow listings.

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2021/11/16/22776586/state-of-faith-newsletter-factor-religion-into-your-home-search-purdue-sociology-research