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Social Networks and Civic Participation and Efficacy in Two Evangelical Protestant Churches

Review of Religious Research volume 58, pages 305–317 (2016)Cite this article

Abstract

This research note examines the proposition that participation in church—particularly the social interaction that accompanies church participation—is an important source of social capital that promotes civic activity and efficacy. Employing survey data from over 600 attendees of two evangelical Protestant churches, we tested hypotheses linking churchgoers’ social networks to their levels of civic efficacy and participation. Three key findings emerged. First, the number of friends in church was positively associated with churchgoers’ civic efficacy, religious civic activity, and secular civic activity, while the number of friends outside of church was unrelated to these outcomes. Second, the association between in-church networks and secular civic activity was partially mediated by civic efficacy. Third, church attendance moderated the association between in-church friends and secular civic activities such that high attending churchgoers with few in-church friends were far less likely to participate in secular civic activities. Taken together, these findings illustrate the importance of in-church social networks for Evangelical Protestants’ civic participation and feelings of civic efficacy, in contrast to out of church social networks which had little overall impact on these factors.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. The larger church is listed on Hartford Institute’s Database of Megachurches (http://hirr.hartsem.edu/megachurch/database.html#sort). The database was accessed on September 10, 2015.

  2. One survey was conducted in a state were 18 year olds are legally minors, and therefore could not complete the survey.

  3. While we were unable to count age-appropriate respondents on the two weekends we administered the surveys, head counts were conducted on the following two weeks. The head counts indicated 497 attendees one weekend and 513 attendees the following weekend. We received 297 completed surveys from that church.

  4. It is of course possible for demonstrations, boycotts, or marches to pertain to a topic motivated by religion (e.g. anti-abortion) and for volunteering to help the poor or elderly to be organized by faith-based groups (e.g. church food pantry). Nonetheless, the results are substantively similar when these two indicators are removed from the SCA measure.

  5. Given the sample consists of churchgoers, frequency of church attendance is relatively high. We thus define high and low attendance as only one standard deviation above and below the mean to avoid making projections about sparsely populated cells. Among respondents at least one standard deviation below the mean of in-church friends, 22 are at least one standard deviation below the mean of attendance, 24 are at least one standard deviation above the mean of attendance, and 90 fall between one standard deviation above and below the mean of attendance. Among respondents at least one standard deviation above the mean of in-church friends, 12 are at least one standard deviation below the mean of attendance, 80 are at least one standard deviation above the mean of attendance, and 112 fall between one standard deviation above and below the mean of attendance. These cell sizes provide sufficient mass for estimating the linear interaction terms we have included in our models.

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Acknowledgment

The data for this project were collected by the Philip Schwadel, Jacob E. Cheadle, and Michael Stout with funding from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 740 Oldfather Hall, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Philip Schwadel

  2. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

    Jacob E. Cheadle & Sarah E. Malone

  3. Missouri State University, Springfield, MO, USA

    Michael Stout

Authors
  1. Philip Schwadel
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  2. Jacob E. Cheadle
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  3. Sarah E. Malone
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  4. Michael Stout
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Correspondence to Philip Schwadel.

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Schwadel, P., Cheadle, J.E., Malone, S.E. et al. Social Networks and Civic Participation and Efficacy in Two Evangelical Protestant Churches. Rev Relig Res 58, 305–317 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-015-0237-y

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Keywords

  • Social networks
  • Civic activity
  • Civic efficacy
  • Church
  • Evangelical protestant