Religiosity and education

The relationship between the level of religiosity and the level of education has been a philosophical, as well as a scientific and political concern, since the second half of the 20th century.

The parameters of the two components, in this sociological field, are of a different nature: if the "level of religiosity" remains a concept which is difficult to determinate scientifically, on the contrary, the "level of education" is, indeed, easy to compile, official data on this topic being publicly accessible in many countries.

Different studies show contrasted conclusions regarding any link between the two concepts, depending on whether "religiosity" is measured by religious practices (attendance at places of worship, for example) or specific religious beliefs (belief in miracles, for example), with notable differences between nations. In "western" countries, the higher the level of education, the more the religious practices increase, while certain religious beliefs decrease.^[1]

Relationship between education and religiosity

Negative relationships

In one analysis of World Values Survey data by Edward Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote, noted that in 65 former socialist countries "there is a negative relationship between years of education and belief in God", with similar negative correlations for other religious beliefs while, in contrast, there were strong positive correlations in many developed countries such as England, France and the US.^[1] They concluded that "these cross-country differences in the education-belief relationship can be explained by political factors (such as communism) which lead some countries to use state controlled education to discredit religion". The study also concludes that, in the United States and other developed nations, "education raises religious attendance at individual level," while "at the same time, there is a strong negative connection between attendance and education across religious groups within the U.S. and elsewhere." The authors suggest that "this puzzle is explained if education both increases the returns to social connection and reduces the extent of religious belief," causing more educated individuals to sort into less fervent denominations.^[1]

In Ireland, the non-religious have a greater level of education than the general population.^[2] A study noted positive correlations, among nonreligious Americans, between levels of education and not believing in a deity.^[3] An EU survey finds a positive correlation between leaving school early and believing in a God.^[4] Frank Sulloway of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Michael Shermer of California State University conducted a study which found in their polling sample of "credentialed" U.S. adults (12% had Ph.Ds and 62% were college graduates) 64% believed in God, and there was a correlation indicating that religious conviction diminished with education level.^[5]

Positive relationships

Sociologist Bradley Wright reviewed results from the 2008 Pew US Religious Landscape Survey and noted that religious groups normally have significant levels of education compared to those who are non-religious. "The irony" he states "is that some of the religiously unaffiliated explain their rejection of religion in terms of superior learning, but several religious groups have much higher levels of education." He found that Hindus, Jews, Episcopalians,^[6][7] Buddhists, and Orthodox Christians have the highest levels of education, Catholics, Mormons, and Muslims are at about the national average, and Jehovah's Witnesses have by far the lowest education. Evangelicals are somewhat below the national average. The religiously unaffiliated are just slightly above average in levels of college education. ^[8] Sociological research by Patricia Snell and Christian Smith on many dimensions of general American youth have noted that older research on baby boomers showed correlations where higher education undermined religiosity, however, studies on today's youth have consistently shown that this has disappeared and now students in college are more likely religious than people who do not go to college.^[9]

Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox said that people with less education have decreased in religiosity in America. Their views on family and work have been associated with this effect.^[10] Research on secularity has noted that, in America, agnostics have significant levels of education, while atheists have relatively low levels of education. ^[11] Sociologist Christian Smith has done research on American evangelical and has found that on average, self-identified evangelicals have more years of education than fundamentalists, liberals, Roman Catholics, and the nonreligious, but slightly less than mainline Protestants. ^[12] He also found that evangelicals were the least likely to have high school education or less, the nonreligious were the most likely to have high school education or less, and higher proportions of evangelicals had studied at the graduate level than fundamentalists, liberals, and the nonreligious. ^[12]

Sociologist Philip Schwadel found that higher levels of education are associated with increased religious participation and religious practice in daily life, but also correlate with greater tolerance for atheists' public opposition to religion and greater skepticism of "exclusivist religious viewpoints and biblical literalism".^[13]

Cross-national sociological research by Norris and Inglehart notes a positive correlation between religious attendance among the more educated in the United States.^[14]

Research in nonreligion in Britain has shown that the positive relationship between education and non-religion has been reversed with generations after 1955, in other words, that the nonreligious populations tend to have less education and that religious populations tend to have higher education, even though religious affiliation has decreased for both. ^[15]

Mixed relationships

Research done by Barry Kosmin indicates that Americans with post-graduate education have a similar religious distribution to the general population, with a higher "public religiosity" (i.e. membership in congregations and worship attendance), but slightly less "belief."^[16] Research by Neil Gross and Solon Simmons done on more than 1,400 professors from 20 disciplinary fields and religiosity found that the majority of professors, even at "elite" universities were religious believers. As a whole, university professors were less religious than the general US population, but it is hardly the case that the professorial landscape is characterized by an absence of religion. In the study, 9.8% were atheists, 13.1% were agnostic, 19.2% believe in a higher power, 4.3% believe in God some of the time, 16.6% had doubts but believed in God, 34.9% believed in God and had no doubts. At "elite" doctoral universities 36.5% were either atheists or agnostics and 20.4% believed in God without any doubts, furthermore the authors noted, "...religious skepticism represents a minority position, even among professors teaching at elite research universities." ^[17] They also found that professors at elite doctoral universities are much less religious than professors teaching in other kinds of institutions with more atheists and agnostics in numbers, however, both groups were still a minority there also. ^[18]

In specific religious denominations

Mormons

Studies of Mormons in the US show that Mormons with higher education attend church more regularly than uneducated Mormons. Survey research indicated that 41 percent of Mormons with only elementary school education attend church regularly, compared to 76 percent of Mormon college graduates and 78 percent of Mormons who went beyond their college degrees to do graduate study attending church regularly.^[19]

Evangelical groups

Edward Dutton studied findings which indicate that universities which are particularly transitional and prestigious tend to have (in contrast to less transitional universities), tightly differentiated and ‘fundamentalist’ student evangelical groups and higher levels of conversion while at university. He argued that Oxford University students are likely to be not just more intelligent in IQ terms than comparable students but more creative, more original in their thinking and more able to acquire knowledge- factors Dutton found made religious experience more likely in an individual.^[20]

In 1975, Norman Poythress studied a sample of 234 US college undergraduates, grouping them into relatively homogeneous religious types based on the similarity of their religious beliefs, and compared their personality characteristics. He found that "Literally-oriented religious Believers did not differ significantly from Mythologically-oriented Believers on measures of intelligence, authoritarianism, or racial prejudice. Religious Believers as a group were found to be significantly less intelligent and more authoritarian than religious Skeptics." He used SAT as a measure of intelligence for this study.^[21]

Christian fundamentalists

Contrary to the researchers' expectations, fundamentalist converts were not less educated people. However, a weak negative correlation between education and Christian fundamentalism was found by Burton et al. (1989),^[22] a study comparing the religious beliefs and educational achievements of white, Protestant residents of Delaware County, Indiana.

See also

• Religiosity and intelligence

References