Religiosity and Deviance Among College Students in Türkiye: A Test of Ascetic Theory

ABSTRACT

Although an inverse relationship between religion and deviance is empirically well-established in the western context, previous studies on Islam and deviance conducted in non-western countries are limited. To address this gap in deviance research, we hypothesized that individual religiosity would be inversely related to deviance with the inverse relationship being more likely for ascetic than anti-ascetic or secular deviance. To test this hypothesis, we applied ordinary least squares and logistic regression methods to analyze data collected from 2,005 survey participants of a Turkish public university student population. Regression results provided partial support for the hypothesis, as we found that religiosity was inversely related to both ascetic and secular deviance. The observed inverse relationship is noteworthy in that it was found in an institutionally secular, Muslim country. Implications of our findings are discussed.

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to Isaiah King and Harrison S. Jackson for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ This number was calculated from responses to the question “Is religion important in your life?” (V9 in earlier surveys, Q6 in 2017–2022 wave). “Very important” and “rather important” responses were combined to get these statistics.

² This is likely a byproduct of social context, in which the role of (a still salient) religion varies from place to place. Recent findings of secularization theorists have suggested that nations with high GINI-coefficients such as Türkiye exhibit higher forms of religiosity (Norris and inglehart 2011) or pro-choice over pro-fertility norms (Inglehart 2021). This literature directly links existential insecurity to individual religiosity and religious experience (Eschler 2020). Higher inequality, then, implies higher religiosity, higher religiosity yields an inclination toward a stronger “moral community.”

³ The survey was conducted with an official permission from the Rectorate of the university (Ethical Permission Certificate number: E.26986, issued on April 5, 2019).

⁴ The only demographic information available about the student population was gender (47.5% male and 52.5% female), and the survey had disproportionately more female participants (65.6%) than males (34.4%), which is often the case with survey research. Besides the skewed participation with respect to gender, the extent of survey participants being representative of the student population in terms of other demographic characteristics is unknown.

⁵ We did not conduct factor analysis of general deviance items because they were not all expected to be highly correlated, while positive correlations among them were anticipated. For example, a respondent who cheated on exam was not necessarily expected to have engaged in other deviance such as damaging school properties and verbally or physically abusing teachers, though it would not be surprising if they were positively correlated. Thus, we called this composite measure “index” to distinguish it from “scale,” whose items were theoretically expected to be highly correlated and thus subject to factor analysis. Having said that, we still found that general deviance items had a relatively high inter-item reliability (α = .795).

⁶ We kept these two variables separate instead of combining them into a composite measure because they were weakly correlated in the positive direction (r = .136) and had a poor inter-item reliability (α = .177).

⁷ Though not shown in the table, 7.9% (159) of the survey participants were older than 24: 25–29 (5.2%, 104), 30–34 (1.3%, 27), 35–39 (.8%, 17), 40–44 (.2%, 5), 45–49 (.2%, 5), and the oldest who participated in the survey at the age of 51.

⁸ We found practically the same results when the models were estimated without those theoretical controls (complete results are available upon request).

⁹ To explore whether the Quran course had indirect effect on deviance, we estimated the regression models without the other three measures of religiosity. Results from the supplemental analysis revealed that the past religious education was inversely related to drinking alcohol (B = ‒1.151): that is, having taken the Quran course in the past decreased the odds of drinking alcohol by 68.4% (= [e^−1.151 − 1] × 100). This finding implied an indirect relationship (i.e., the Quran course ➔ religious practice & beliefs ➔ drinking alcohol). However, the Quran course was not significantly related to general deviance (b = .134, p > .05) or smoking cigarette (B = ‒.145, p > .05).

¹⁰ Interestingly, we also found coefficient for the relationship between religious practice and general deviance to be in the positive direction (b = .076; see Table 3), thought it failed to be significant.

¹¹ To explore the gender differences, a supplemental analysis was conducted by estimating the models separately for males and females. Overall results showed similarity rather than dissimilarity between the two gender groups.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Sung Joon Jang

Sung Joon Jang is a Research Professor of Criminology and Co-director of Program on Prosocial Behavior at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. His research focuses on the effects of strain and religion on criminal offending and desistance and has appeared in various journals of criminology and criminal justice.

Steven Foertsch

Steven Foertsch is a third-year doctoral student in the Sociology of Religion program at Baylor University. His research focuses on the intersection between politics and religion, social and political philosophy and belief, and emergent religious groups.

Byron R. Johnson

Byron R. Johnson is a Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences and founding director of the Institute for Studies of Religion, both at Baylor University. Johnson is a faculty affiliate of the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and is visiting distinguished professor in the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University.

Ozden Ozbay

Ozden Ozbay is an associate professor of Sociology at Akdeniz University in Türkiye. His research focuses on theories of crime/delinquency and methodology and has appeared in Turkish and international journals of criminology/criminal justice and sociology.

Fatma Takmaz Demirel

Fatma Takmaz Demirel is a Social Assistance and Investigation Officer at Yesilyurt District Governorship Social Assistance and Solidarity Foundation (SASF) in Türkiye. Her research focuses on the effects of religion on crime and has been published in Turkish journals.