The Sources of Gender Role Attitudes among Christian and Muslim ...

214 SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION
quadratic term. I include the quadratic term to account for potential
nonlinearity in the relationship between age and gender ideology.
RESULTS
Table 1 examines respondents' characteristics separately by Muslim (39.3
percent) and Christian (54.1 percent) affiliation. 9 The data show that both
Muslim and Christian women sampled are fairly progressive in their gender role
attitudes, with Muslims holding more traditional views than their Christian
counterparts (mean scores of 11.37 and 10.63, respectively). Table 1 next exam-
ines differences among respondents on key predictor variables. Looking first at
dimensions of Amb ethnicity, Muslim respondents are twice as likely to be
foreign-bom (69.5 percent compared to 36.2 percent of Christians), and of those
foreign-born, are more likely to be newer immigrants -- 14.4 percent have
resided in the U.S. for less than 15 years compared to 9.2 percent of Christian
women. It is noteworthy that the majority of foreign-born women, both Christ-
ian and Muslim, have lived in the U.S. for 15 years of more. MuslŸ women are
also more likely to have an Arab husband (65.5 percent compared to 38.4
percent) and to share most or all of their organizational affiliations with other
Arab members (53.4 percent compared to 29.2 percent). These differences in
ethnicity are consistent with known patterns of MusIim and Christian emigra-
tion from the Middle East.
Muslim and Christian respondents are likewise diverse in their |evels of
religious involvement and strength of religious beliefs. Attendance rates among
Christian women ate high, with nearly three-fourths (72.5 percent) reporting
that they attend services once or more a month. Muslim women's rates are
somewhat lower (44.7 percent), which may in part reflect Islamic restrictions on
female attendance. Christian respondents also have greater exposure to religious
socialization over the life-course, with 77.5 percent claiming high levels of
religiosity in childhood and adulthood compared to 65.6 percent of Muslim
women. The pattern is reversed, however, in their degree of religious conser-
vatism. Compared to their Christian counterparts, Muslim women are twice as
likely to believe in scriptural inerrancy (81.9 percent compared to 43.8 percent).
This finding may reflect a general belief among Muslims that the Koran was
written by God, or it may suggest that belief in scriptural literalism is more
representative of a conservative ideological stance than a relŸ attitude, per
Se.
9 Women who report "other" or "no" affiliation (6.6 percent) ate excluded from Tables 1 and 3 and
coded ~" in Table 2.
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