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The fact that women are more religious than men is one of the most consistent findings in the sociology of religion. Miller and Stark (2002) propose that a gender difference in risk preference of origin might explain this phenomenon. While acknowledging the utility of their risk-preference mechanism, we believe that their assumption regarding the genesis of this difference is a premature concession to biology. Returning to Miller's original paper on gender, risk, and religiosity, we draw on power-control theory (PCT), developed in the work of John Hagan and colleagues, to introduce a plausible socialization account for these differences. We evaluate these claims using data from the General Social Survey. Women raised by high-socioeconomic status (SES) mothers are less religious than women raised by low-education mothers, but mother's SES has little effect on men's chances of being irreligious and father's SES has a negligible effect on the gender difference in religiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this short response, we selectively address some of the key issues and criticisms raised by our esteemed commenters. First, we our standpoint vis à vis “biological” arguments, underscoring that our article is not to be read as hostile to all forms of explanations that incorporate biology into the explanation of religious behavior and belief, but only against those explanations that attempt to imply that socialization plays no role (“the it's all biology” argument). Second, we the explanatory scope of our proposal by showing that our argument is not vulnerable to the “simpler” counterexplanation proposed by Hoffmann. Finally, we where our contributions fit in terms of more encompassing arguments regarding the operation of gender and gendering processes as multicausal, multilevel phenomena, as well as explicitly stating our perspective on the role that “risk” should play in the explanation of religious behavior and belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of individuals claiming a nonreligious identity in the United States is on the rise, with one-fourth of the overall U.S. public failing to identify with any of the major religious traditions. In this article, we examine whether religious disaffiliation structures social network formation in a social context in which religious identification (and religiosity) is a salient cultural marker. We take advantage of unique data on the personal networks of youth transitioning into a college where religion is a culturally salient facet of everyday life. We hypothesize that, if there is nonreligious homophily, it may result from an attraction of the disaffiliated to each other or from a repulsion away from the religiously affiliated. Results of exponential random graph models suggest that both mechanisms may be at play. We find that religious 'Nones' and affiliated non-Catholics are disproportionately more likely to form and maintain relationships with one another and are relatively less likely to form and maintain relationships with members of their respective religious out-groups. We close by outlining the implications of our findings and delineating promising avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]