The semi-involuntary thesis and the growth of protestantism among U.S. Latinos

Abstract

The growing numbers of U.S. Latino Protestant converts from Catholicism has attracted scholarly attention in the last decade, however; none have examined the influence of social context through the lens of the semi-involuntary thesis to understand Latino conversion. Using data from a national sample of 4,016 Latinos surveyed across the country in 2006 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, this study tests, along with demographic factors, social factors important to the semi-involuntary thesis such as (a) national origin status, (b) census region, (c) Latino geographical concentration, (d) linguistic status, and (e) identity salience in explaining Latino conversion to Protestantism.