The Religious Context of Educational Expectations

The educational plans of a national sample of white teen-age subjects are found to be associated with religious identification of the subjects' mothers and the religious composition of the schools the subjects attend. Teenagers with Jewish mothers are most likely to plan to attend college; those connected with the largest Protestant denominations (except Baptists) and the Roman Catholic Church are next most likely to plan for college. Teenagers whose mothers identify with many of the smaller Protestant denominations or sects or with the Baptist churches are least likely to plan for college. Roman Catholics attending Catholic schools are more likely to plan for college than Catholics in public schools, even where the latter have a majority of Catholic students. Protestants attending predominantly Protestant schools are less likely to have college plans than Protestants attending schools in which the student body is less than half Protestant. Jewish subjects in predominantly Jewish schools are more likely to plan for college than those attending other schools. The differences in college plans by religion of mother and religious composition of school persist when occupation of household head, subject's intelligence test score, his mother's educational attainment, and family income are taken into account in the analysis. The results of this study are consistent with a theory that the values imparted by some religious denominations are more supportive of high levels of educational aspiration than those imparted by other denominations. However, the data presented in this paper are insufficient to specify the processes through which a particular religion produces high or low levels of educational ambition.