Who Values the Obedient Child Now? The Religious Factor in Adult Values for Children, 1986–2002

Sociologists have documented a convergence of Protestants and Catholics in their valuation of autonomy and obedience as desirable traits for children from 1958 through 1991. By the 1980s, Alwin (1986) found that variation in such values within Protestants and Catholics was greater than that between them. Analyzing the GSS from 1986 to 2002, we test whether Evangelical Protestants, in a backlash against a climate of moral uncertainty and government intervention into matters of morality, have become more likely to value obedience in children over autonomy, while Catholics, reacting to the Second Vatican Council and to collective upward mobility, have become less likely to do so. We find no change among Catholics (and Mainline Protestants), but a shift toward increasing valuation of obedience over autonomy among Evangelicals who attend church frequently.