Religion and education, two of humankind\u2019s most ancient endeavors, have long had a close relationship. Historians and social scientists have written about this relationship and about how the two may influence each other.<\/p>\n\n
This chapter presents a broad overview of scholarly research into the ways religion can affect educational achievement. It is not an exhaustive survey of the academic literature, but instead a brief summary of some explanations proposed to account for attainment differences among religious groups. Religion is certainly not the only reason for this variance; many other factors may play an equal or greater role, including economic, geographic, cultural factors and political conditions within a country or region.<\/p>\n\n
The chapter begins with an historical look at ways in which scholars suggest that various religions have influenced education, especially the spread of literacy among laypeople. This section also explores how historical patterns sometimes help explain contemporary patterns in educational attainment. Next, this chapter considers hypotheses about how the cultural norms and doctrines of a religious group may affect educational attainment. It concludes with a look at some leading theories for the stark differences in educational attainment between Christians and Muslims living in sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n\n
Contemporary access to schooling \u2013 a solid pathway to educational attainment \u2013 depends on a country\u2019s educational infrastructure. In many instances, the foundations of that infrastructure are based on facilities originally built by religious leaders and organizations to promote learning and spread the faith.<\/p>\n\n
In India, the most learned men (and sometimes women) of ancient times were residents of Buddhist and Hindu monasteries. In the Middle East and Europe, Christian monks built libraries and, in the days before printing presses, preserved important earlier writings produced in Latin, Greek and Arabic. In many cases, these religious monasteries evolved into universities.<\/p>\n\n
Other universities, particularly in the United States and Europe, were built by Christian denominations to educate their clergy and lay followers. Most of these institutions have since become secular in orientation, but their presence may help explain why populations in the U.S. and Europe are highly educated.<\/p>\n\n
Apart from their roles in creating educational infrastructure, religious groups were foundational in fostering societal attitudes toward education.<\/p>\n\n
There is considerable debate among scholars over the degree to which Islam has encouraged or discouraged secular education over the centuries. Some experts note that the first word of the Quran as it was revealed to Prophet Muhammad is \u201cIqra!\u201d which means \u201cRead!\u201d or \u201cRecite!\u201d; they say Muslims are urged to pursue knowledge in order to better understand God\u2019s revealed word. Early Muslims made innovative intellectual contributions in such fields as mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, medicine and poetry. They established schools, often at mosques, known as katatib <\/em>and madrasas.<\/em>[31. numoffset=”31″ Hefner, Robert W. and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, eds. 2007. \u201cSchooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education.\u201d] Islamic rulers built libraries and educational complexes, such as Baghdad\u2019s House of Wisdom and Cairo\u2019s Al-Azhar University, to nurture advanced scholarship. Under Muslim rule, southern Spain was a center of higher learning, producing such figures as the renowned Muslim philosopher Averroes.[32. For descriptions of the intellectual climate under early Islam, see Sardar, Ziauddin. 1993. \u201cPaper, Printing and Compact Disks: The Making and Unmaking of Islamic Culture<\/a>.\u201d Media, Culture and Society. Also see Ahmad, Imad-ad-Dean. 2006. \u201cSigns in the Heavens: A Muslim Astronomer\u2019s Perspective on Religion and Science.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n But other scholars contend that these educational attainments, and the regard that Muslims had for intellectual inquiry in realms outside religion, were gradually attenuated by a complex mix of social and political events over several centuries. These events included foreign invasions, first by the Mongols, who destroyed the House of Wisdom in 1258, and then by Christians, who pushed Muslims out of Spain in 1492. Some scholars argue that the educational decline began earlier, in the 11th and 12th centuries, and was rooted in institutional changes. In particular, contends Harvard University Associate Professor of Economics Eric Chaney, the decline was caused by an increase in the political power of religious leaders who prioritized Islamic religious learning over scientific education.[33. Chaney, Eric. 2016. \u201cReligion and the Rise and Fall of Islamic Science<\/a>.\u201d Harvard University working paper.] Their growing influence helped bring about a crucial shift in the Islamic approach to learning: It became dominated by the idea that divine revelation is superior to other types of knowledge, and that religious education should consist of learning only what Islamic scholars had said and written in the past.[34. For descriptions of this intellectual shift and its consequences, see Sardar, Ziauddin. 1993. \u201cPaper, Printing and Compact Disks: The Making and Unmaking of Islamic Culture<\/a>.\u201d Media, Culture and Society. Also see Ahmad, Imad-ad-Dean. 2006. \u201cSigns in the Heavens: A Muslim Astronomer\u2019s Perspective on Religion and Science.\u201d Also see Bulliet, Richard W. 1994. \u201cIslam, the View from the Edge.<\/em>\u201d Also see Tibi, Bassam. 1993. \u201cThe Worldview of Sunni Arab Fundamentalists: Attitudes Toward Science and Technology.\u201d In Marty, Martin E. and R. Scott Appleby, eds. \u201cFundamentalisms and Society.\u201d Also see Halstead, J. Mark. 2004. \u201cAn Islamic Concept of Education<\/a>.\u201d Comparative Education.]<\/p>\n\n In the view of some historians, this shift severely constricted intellectual inquiry in the Muslim world as the natural sciences, critical questioning and art were downplayed.[35. Chaney, Eric. 2016. \u201cReligion and the Rise and Fall of Islamic Science<\/a>.\u201d Harvard University working paper. Also see Sardar, Ziauddin. 1993. \u201cPaper, Printing and Compact Disks: The Making and Unmaking of Islamic Culture<\/a>.\u201d Media, Culture and Society. Also see Ahmad, Imad-ad-Dean. 2006. \u201cSigns in the Heavens: A Muslim Astronomer\u2019s Perspective on Religion and Science.\u201d] Education became primarily the study of established, traditional religious and legal canons. This change also tightened religious scholars\u2019 control over the education of Muslims in Africa and the Middle East \u2013 a hold that was not broken until colonial governments and Christian missionaries introduced Western-style educational institutions.[36. Hefner, Robert W. and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, eds. 2007. \u201cSchooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education.\u201d Hefner and Zaman write: \u201cHowever different their details, the educational transformations in the broader Muslim world all had one thing in common. The ulama\u2019s {religious scholar\u2019s} monopoly on education had been broken once and for all. \u2026 The new educational pluralism brought intensified competition between supporters of general as opposed to religious education, and fierce public debate over the place of Islam in an imagined postcolonial community.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n Some scholars argue that the decline in secular learning and the narrowing of intellectual inquiry among Muslims have been exaggerated, or did not take place. Columbia University history professor George Saliba writes: \u201cIn particular, the decline of Islamic science, which was supposed to have been caused by the religious environment \u2026 does not seem to have taken place in reality. On the contrary, if we only look at the surviving scientific documents, we can clearly delineate a very flourishing activity in almost every scientific discipline\u201d after the 12th century.[37. Saliba, George. 2007. \u201cIslamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance.\u201d For other scholars who argue that the constrictions on intellectual innovation have been exaggerated by historians, see Hourani, Albert. 1991. \u201cA History of the Arab Peoples.\u201d Also see Hallaq, Wael B. 1984. \u201cWas the Gate of Ijithad Closed?<\/a>\u201d International Journal of Middle East Studies.]<\/p>\n\n Nowadays, Islamic religious leaders and religious schools still have great influence on education in some Muslim-majority countries, but they compete with government and private schools offering secular topics.<\/p>\n\n In the view of some scholars, the 16th-century Protestant Reformation was a driving force for public education in Europe. Protestant reformers promoted literacy because of their contention that everyone needed to read the Bible, which they viewed as the essential authority on doctrinal matters. Driven by this theological conviction, religious leaders urged the building of schools and the translation of the Bible into local languages \u2013 and Reformation leader Martin Luther set the example by translating the Bible into German.<\/p>\n\n [which was]<\/p>\n\n\n In more recent times, religion was a prime motivator in establishing U.S. schools run by faith groups \u2013 including Quakers, Protestants and Catholics \u2013 that educated generations of immigrant families.[39. Although Christian Sunday schools are now usually devoted to religious instruction, their roots lie in the British Sunday school movement started in 1780s. Launched by Christian religious leaders, the schools initially were intended to teach literacy to poor children. Their textbook was the Bible.]<\/p>\n\n Historically, however, Christianity and science often have come into conflict with each other, as illustrated by the 17th century clash between astronomer Galileo Galilei and the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the condemnation by prominent religious leaders of Charles Darwin\u2019s 1859 theory of human evolution. The Scopes Monkey trial in 1925 further highlighted the rift between science and some branches of Christianity over the theory of evolution, a contentious relationship that endures even today.[40. In 1633, the Roman Catholic Church\u2019s Inquisition sentenced Galileo to house arrest for the rest of his life and banned his writings after finding him \u201cvehemently suspect of heresy\u201d for contending that the earth revolved around the sun. The church regarded this view \u2013 later accepted as scientific fact \u2013 as contrary to Holy Scripture. England\u2019s highest-ranking Catholic official, Henry Cardinal Manning, denounced Darwin\u2019s views as \u201ca brutal philosophy \u2013 to wit, there is no God, and the ape is our Adam.\u201d Samuel Wilberforce, the Anglican Archbishop of Oxford and one of the most highly respected religious leaders in 19th-century England, also condemned the theory of evolution by natural selection. The defendant in the Scopes Monkey Trial, high school teacher John Scopes, was convicted of violating a Tennessee law banning the teaching of human evolution in government-funded schools.]<\/p>\n\n In sub-Saharan Africa, meanwhile, scholars describe how religious missionaries during colonial times were the prime movers in constructing educational facilities and influencing local attitudes toward education. These missionary activities, the scholars conclude, have had a long-lasting positive impact on access to schooling and educational attainment levels in the region.<\/p>\n\n Research by Baylor University sociologist Robert D. Woodberry, for instance, suggests that Protestant missionaries in Africa \u201chad a unique role in spreading mass education\u201d because of the importance they placed on ordinary people\u2019s ability to read scripture. As a result, they established schools to promote literacy wherever they went and translated the Bible into indigenous languages.[41. Woodberry, Robert D. 2012. \u201cThe Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy<\/a>.\u201d American Political Science Review. Woodberrry\u2019s principal argument is that the Protestant missionaries helped spread democracy in Africa when they prioritized education and literacy as a means of conversion. \u201c(I)n trying to spread their faith, (they) expanded religious liberty, overcame resistance to mass education and printing, fostered civil society, moderated colonial abuses and dissipated elite power,\u201d he writes. \u201cThese conditions laid a foundation for democracy.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n Harvard University economics professor Nathan Nunn, who contends that education was \u201cthe main reward used by missionaries to lure Africans into the Christian sphere,\u201d says that in addition to establishing schools, \u201cmissionaries may have altered people\u2019s views about the importance of education.\u201d[42. Nunn, Nathan. 2012. \u201cGender and Missionary Influence in Colonial Africa<\/a>.\u201d In Akyeampong, Emmanuel, Robert H. Bates, Nathan Nunn and James A. Robinson. 2014. \u201cAfrica’s Development in Historical Perspective.\u201d Also see Nunn, Nathan. 2010. \u201cReligious Conversion in Colonial Africa<\/a>.\u201d American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 100.]<\/p>\n\n Woodberry and Nunn conclude, however, that Protestant and Catholic missionaries had differing results. Except where they were in direct competition with Protestant missionaries, Catholic missionaries concentrated on educating African elites rather than the masses, Woodberry observes. And Nunn notes that Protestant missionaries placed greater stress than Catholics on educating women. As a result, Protestants had more long-term impact on the education of sub-Saharan African women.[43. Woodberry, Robert D. 2012. \u201cThe Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy<\/a>.\u201d American Political Science Review. Also see Nunn, Nathan. 2012. \u201cGender and Missionary Influence in Colonial Africa<\/a>.\u201d In Akyeampong, Emmanuel, Robert H. Bates, Nathan Nunn and James A. Robinson, eds. 2014. \u201cAfrica’s Development in Historical Perspective.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n Scholars of Buddhism note that Siddhartha Gautama, the religion\u2019s founder, often is called \u201cteacher\u201d because of his emphasis on \u201cthe miracle of instruction.\u201d He considered learning essential for attaining the Buddhist goal of enlightenment.[44. Meshram, Manish. 2013. \u201cRole of Buddhist Education in Ancient India,\u201d International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Literature. See also \u201cBuddhist Attitude to Education<\/a>.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n \u201cIn many ways, Buddhism is particularly dedicated to education because unlike many other religions it contends that a human being can attain his or her own enlightenment (\u2018salvation\u2019) without divine intervention,\u201d writes Stephen T. Asma, a professor of philosophy at Columbia College Chicago.<\/p>\n\n Buddhism is \u201calso extremely empirical in its approach, suggesting that followers try the experiment of dharma (i.e., Buddha\u2019s Four Noble Truths) for themselves to see if it improves their inner freedom,\u201d Asma notes, adding: \u201cBecause the philosophy of Buddhism takes this pragmatic approach favoring education and experiment, Buddhism has little to no formal disagreement with science (as evidenced by the Dalai Lama\u2019s ongoing collaboration with neuroscientists).\u201d<\/p>\n\n This theoretical openness to scientific knowledge, however, did not always play out at the practical level within Buddhist communities, Asma contends. \u201cPowerful Buddhist monasteries, especially in China and Tibet, frequently resisted modernization (including science) for fear of foreign influence and threats to entrenched Buddhist power structures,\u201d he writes.[45. Asma email correspondence with Pew Research Center. Also, Asma, Stephen T. 2010. “Why I am a Buddhist: No-Nonsense Buddhism With Red Meat and Whiskey.”]<\/p>\n\n Despite this tension between theory and practice, Buddhism has been a major influence on the educational systems of many places, especially India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Tibet. From around the fifth century onward, Buddhist monasteries emerged as centers of education, not just for monks but also for laymen. Several monasteries became so large and complex that they are considered prototypes of today\u2019s universities. In India, the most famous of these educational centers \u2013 Nalanda, in what is now Bihar state \u2013 is said to have had 10,000 students from many different countries, and offered courses in what then constituted philosophy, politics, economics, law, agriculture, astronomy, medicine and literature.[46. Meshram, Manish. 2013. \u201cRole of Buddhist Education in Ancient India,\u201d International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Literature.]<\/p>\n\n [were]<\/p>\n\n\n For Hindus, education vanquishes a fundamental source of human suffering, which is ignorance, says Anantanand Rambachan, a professor of religion at St. Olaf College. As a result, education has been highly valued in Hinduism since the religion\u2019s inception in ancient times. Hindu scriptures urge adherents to seek knowledge through dialogue and questioning, and to respect their teachers. \u201cLearning is the foundational stage in the Hindu scheme of what constitutes a good and a meaningful life,\u201d Rambachan says. Since ignorance is regarded as a source of human suffering, he adds, \u201cthe solution to the problem of ignorance is knowledge or learning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n The Hindu esteem for education is reflected in different ways. To start with, the most authoritative Hindu scriptures are the Vedas, a word that comes from the Sanskrit root word vd<\/em>, which means knowledge, Rambachan says.<\/p>\n\n University of Florida religion professor Vasudha Narayanan says Hindus regard two types of knowledge as necessary and worthwhile. The first, vidya,<\/em> is everyday knowledge that equips one to earn a decent and dignified life. The second, jnana<\/em>, is knowledge or wisdom that brings awareness of the divine. This is achieved by reading and meditating on Hindu scriptures.<\/p>\n\n Historically, the caste system in India was a huge barrier to the spread of mass literacy and education. Formal education was reserved for elite populations. But in the seventh and eighth centuries, the vernacular language of Tamil began to be used for religious devotion in southern India, which led to greater access to all kinds of knowledge for a wider group of people. \u201cThat is when you start having men and women of different castes composing poems of praise for God, poems that are still recited in temple liturgy today,\u201d Narayanan says.<\/p>\n\n Later, in the 18th and 19th centuries, both secular and religious education came to be seen by Hindus as a universal right, and it gradually began to be extended to all members of the faith. Still, today, the vast majority of Hindus (98%) live in developing countries \u2013 mainly India, Nepal and Bangladesh \u2013 that have struggled to raise educational standards in the face of widespread poverty and expanding populations, which helps explain why Hindus have relatively low educational attainment compared with other major religious groups.<\/p>\n\n High levels of Jewish educational attainment may be rooted in ancient religious norms, according to some recent scholarship. The Torah encourages parents to educate their children. This prescription was not mandatory, however, until the first century.<\/p>\n\n Sometime around 65 C.E., Jewish high priest Joshua ben Gamla issued a religious decree that every Jewish father should send his young sons to primary school to learn to read in order to study the Torah. A few years later, in the year 70, the Roman army destroyed the Second Temple following a Jewish revolt. Temple rituals had been a pillar of Jewish religious life. To replace them, Jewish religious leaders emphasized the need for studying the Torah in synagogues. They also gave increased importance to the earlier religious decree on educating sons, making it a compulsory religious duty for all Jewish fathers. Over the next few centuries, a formal school system attached to synagogues was established.<\/p>\n\n These developments signaled “a profound transformation\u201d of Judaism, according to economic historians Maristella Botticini<\/em> of Bocconi University and Zvi Eckstein<\/em> of<\/em> the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. Judaism became, they write, \u201ca religion whose main norm required every Jewish man to read and to study the Torah in Hebrew and to send his sons from the age of 6 or 7 to primary school or synagogue to learn to do so. \u2026 Throughout the first millennium, no people other than the Jews had a norm requiring fathers to educate their sons.\u201d[49. Botticini, Maristella and Zvi Eckstein. 2012. \u201cThe Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n This religious obligation meant that male Jews, to a greater degree than their contemporaries, were literate, which gave them an advantage in commerce and trade. Jewish scholarship was enhanced in the early Middle Ages, beginning in the late sixth century, by the emergence of Talmudic academies of Sura and Pumbedita in what is now Iraq. In the late Middle Ages, centers of Jewish learning, including the study of science and medicine, emerged in what is today northern Spain and southern France.<\/p>\n\n Until the early 19th<\/sup> century, however, most education of Jewish boys was primarily religious. That began to change with the Haskalah,<\/em> the Jewish Enlightenment movement initiated by East and Central European Jews.<\/p>\n\n This intellectual movement sought to blend secular humanism with the Jewish faith and to encourage openness to secular scholarship among Jews. It revived Hebrew as a language of poetry and literature, which reflected the reformers\u2019 appreciation of their Jewish religious heritage. At the same time, they were strong proponents of reforming Jewish education by including secular subjects, such as European literature and the natural sciences. This educational project often brought the reformists into conflict with more orthodox Jewish religious leaders.[50. Sachar, Howard M. 2005. \u201cA History of the Jews in the Modern World.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n Scholars also have explored how religions\u2019 cultural norms and doctrines may affect educational attainment by determining which subjects are taught in schools, how much emphasis is placed on religious knowledge versus secular education, and if there is gender parity in educational attainment.[51. Melina Platas, assistant professor of political science at New York University-Abu Dhabi, notes religion\u2019s impact on curricula in her 2016 dissertation, \u201cThe Religious Roots of Inequality in Africa\u201d: \u201cThe doctrine espoused by religious organizations can serve to increase or decrease the demand for certain types of education or certain skills among their constituents,\u201d she writes.]<\/p>\n\n There has been considerable research on ways in which religious teachings on gender roles may be linked to women\u2019s educational attainment. Some scholars have noted that from the Reformation onward, Protestant groups encouraged educating women, with effects that still resonate today. \u201cMartin Luther urged each town to have a girls\u2019 school so that girls would learn to read the Gospel, evoking a surge of building girls\u2019 schools in Protestant areas,\u201d write economic professors Sascha O. Becker, of the University of Warwick, and Ludger Woessmann, of the University of Munich. Looking at 1970 data for European countries, the two conclude that countries with higher shares of Protestants were \u201cclearly associated\u201d with greater parity between men and women in years of education.[52. Becker, Sascha O. and W\u00f6\u00dfmann, Ludger. 2008. \u201cLuther and the Girls: Religious Denomination and the Female Education Gap in 19th<\/sup> Century Prussia<\/a>.\u201d Discussion Paper No. 3837. The Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn.]<\/p>\n\n Woodberry and Nunn, experts on missionary activity in sub-Saharan Africa, both highlight the Protestant missionaries\u2019 insistence that girls and women be educated. In the missionaries\u2019 view, \u201ceveryone <\/em>needed access to \u2018God\u2019s word\u2019 \u2013 not just elites,\u201d writes Woodberry. \u201cTherefore, everyone <\/em>needed to read, including women and the poor.\u201d[53. Woodberry, Robert D. 2012. \u201cThe Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy<\/a>.\u201d American Political Science Review. Also see Nunn, Nathan. 2012. \u201cGender and Missionary Influence in Colonial Africa<\/a>.\u201d In Akyeampong, Emmanuel, Robert H. Bates, Nathan Nunn and James A. Robinson, eds. 2014. \u201cAfrica’s Development in Historical Perspective.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n By contrast, cultural and religious norms in Muslim societies often hinder women\u2019s education. Lake Forest College political scientist Fatima Z. Rahman examines how family laws in Muslim-majority countries can affect women\u2019s higher education. She finds that when a country\u2019s family laws closely conform to a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law, the share of women in higher education is smaller. This is not the case when family laws are based on more general Islamic precepts. The stricter laws \u201cimpose a limit on physical mobility which is typically required for pursuing higher education or a career,\u201d Rahman concludes.[54. Rahman, Fatima Z. 2012. \u201cGender Equality in Muslim-Majority States and Shari\u2019a Family Law: Is There a Link?\u201d Australian Journal of Political Science.] There are signs that this could be changing, however, as women make gains in higher education in some conservative Muslim countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council<\/a> \u2013 including Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n\n Some academic studies have probed ways a particular religion\u2019s attitude toward secular knowledge \u2013 whether it is seen as a necessity for spiritual growth or as a distraction from achieving personal salvation \u2013 can affect the pursuit of formal education. In this regard, sociologists Darren E. Sherkat, of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and Alfred Darnell, a visiting lecturer at Washington University in St. Louis, find that \u201cfundamentalist beliefs and conservative Protestant affiliation both have significant and substantial negative influences on educational attainment.\u201d Young followers of fundamentalist religious leaders, they add, \u201cwill likely limit their educational pursuits.\u201d They suggest that Christians who regard the Bible as inerrant \u2013 that is, as the error-free word of God \u2013 are less likely to enroll in college preparatory classes and \u201chave significantly lower educational aspirations than other respondents.\u201d[55. Darnell, Alfred and Darren E. Sherkat. 1997. \u201cThe Impact of Protestant Fundamentalism on Educational Attainment<\/a>.\u201d American Sociological Review. A related study by Louisiana State University sociologist Samuel Stroope et. al finds that biblical literalism is \u201cnegatively associated with college completion.\u201d See Stroope, Samuel, Aaron B. Franzen and Jeremy E. Uecker. 2015. \u201cSocial Context and College Completion in the United States: The Role of Congregational Biblical Literalism<\/a>.\u201d Sociological Perspectives.]<\/p>\n\n While Darnell and Sherkat focus their research on Christians in the United States, their observations about how religious attitudes toward secular knowledge may affect attainment offer possible insights into attainment patterns seen in other religions and other parts of the world.<\/p>\n\n Some scholars, however, hypothesize that higher levels of religious observance and engagement produce greater<\/em> educational attainment. They posit that religious involvement enhances an individual\u2019s social capital in the form of family and peer networks, which promote educational success. University of Texas sociologists Chandra Muller and Christopher G. Ellison, in a study of U.S. teenagers, find that there is \u201ca positive influence of religious involvement on several key academic outcomes,\u201d such as obtaining a high school diploma.[56. Muller, Chandra and Christopher G. Ellison. 2001. \u201cReligious Involvement, Social Capital, and Adolescents\u2019 Academic Progress: Evidence from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988<\/a>.\u201d Sociological Focus. Sociologist Mark D. Regnerus at the University of Texas at Austin finds similar results, writing that youths\u2019 \u201cinvolvement in church activities has a positive relationship with both educational expectations and math and reading achievement.\u201d He finds that this holds true across income levels. \u201cShaping Schooling Success: Religious Socialization in Educational Outcomes in Metropolitan Public Schools<\/a>.\u201d Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.] Similarly, in her study of women raised as conservative Protestants, University of Illinois economics professor Evelyn L. Lehrer observes that those who frequently attended religious services during adolescence completed one more year of schooling than their less observant peers.[57. Lehrer, Evelyn L. 2004. \u201cReligiosity as a Determinant of Educational Attainment: The Case of Conservative Protestant Women in the United States<\/a>.\u201d Review of Economics of the Household. ]<\/p>\n\n Strong social capital also is proposed by Paul Burstein, a sociologist at the University of Washington, as a topic needing further research to explain the high educational attainment of Jews. Research focused on the social capital approach, Burstein argues, provides \u201ca framework for showing how Jewish religious beliefs and practices, and the organizations created to sustain them, help Jews acquire skills and resources useful in the pursuit of secular education and economic success.\u201d[58. Burstein, Paul. 2007. \u201cJewish Educational and Economic Success in the United States: A Search for Explanations<\/a>.\u201d Sociological Perspectives.]<\/p>\n\n Burstein argues that previous studies looking at \u201cbeliefs or behaviors that are specifically Jewish,\u201d or at Jewish \u201cmarginality\u201d \u2013 either from traditional Judaism or Western society in general \u2013 have not offered complete explanations for Jewish educational success.<\/p>\n\n While this chapter looks at the impact of religion on education, there are also theories on education\u2019s impact on religion<\/em> \u2013 perhaps most notably, that high educational attainment could potentially lead to a shedding of religious identity. If this is true, one might expect higher percentages of religiously unaffiliated people in parts of the world with high educational attainment. A sidebar in Chapter 3<\/a> explores data relating to this question, finding mixed results.[59. Some studies suggest that religion and education are inversely related. For example, a 2015 study of education\u2019s effect on Turkish women found a reduction in forms of religious expression (as measured by wearing a headscarf, praying regularly, attending Quranic studies and fasting) in women who had more years of schooling. Gulesci, Selim and Erik Meyersson. \u201c\u2018For the Love of the Republic\u2019 Education, Religion and Empowerment<\/a>.\u201d Working paper. A second study of Canadians in 2011 finds, \u201cAn additional year of education leads to a 4-percentage-point decline in the likelihood that an individual identifies with any religious tradition.\u201d The author contends \u201cthat increases in schooling could explain most of the large rise in non-affiliation in Canada in recent decades.\u201d Hungerman, Daniel M. 2011. \u201cThe Effect of Education on Religion: Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Laws<\/a>.\u201d Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. However, in Chapter 3<\/a> we demonstrate that the relationship between affiliation and education varies by country and that there are more countries in which young affiliated people have more education than there are countries in which young unaffiliated people have the advantage.]<\/p>\n\n As noted earlier in this report<\/a>, the difference between Christian and Muslim educational attainment in sub-Saharan Africa is among the largest intraregional gaps in the world. The region\u2019s rapid projected population growth \u2013 both Christians and Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to double in number by 2050 \u2013 suggests that determining the reasons for the attainment gap will only grow in importance.[60. Population estimates are from the 2015 Pew Research Center report \u201cThe Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050<\/a>.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n Some scholars suggest that the source of the Christian-Muslim attainment gap is rooted in the location of Christian missionary activity during colonial times. Missionary-built educational facilities were often located in what became heavily Christian areas rather than predominantly Muslim locales.[61. Nunn, Nathan. 2010. \u201cReligious Conversion in Colonial Africa<\/a>.\u201d American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 100. Also see Woodberry, Robert D. 2004. \u201cThe Shadow of Empire: Christian Missions, Colonial Policy, and Democracy in Postcolonial Societies<\/a>.\u201d] For example, while school establishment was widespread as a result of missionary activity in many regions under British colonial rule, in northern Nigeria, which is now overwhelmingly Muslim, British colonial administrators discouraged missionary activity, including development of missionary schools. Historic differences between colonial policy and missionary activity in northern and southern Nigeria are likely an important factor in the present-day Christian-Muslim education gap in Nigeria.[62. For discussion, see Frankema, Ewout H.P. 2012 \u201cThe origins of formal education in sub-Saharan Africa: was British rule more benign?\u201d European Review of Economic History. Also see Thurston, Alex. 2016. \u201cColonial Control, Nigerian Agency, Arab Outreach, and Islamic Education in Northern Nigeria, 1900-1966\u201d in Launay, Robert, ed. \u201cIslamic Education in Africa: Writing Boards and Blackboards.\u201d Also see Melina Platas. 2016. \u201cThe Religious Roots of Inequality in Africa.\u201d Dissertation.]<\/p>\n\n Some Muslims, in any case, feared that missionary schools would attempt to convert their children to Christianity.[63. See Moore, Leslie C. 2006. \u201cLearning by Heart in Qur\u2019anic and Public Schools in Northern Cameroon.\u201d Social Analysis. Moore writes of Cameroon: \u201cPublic schooling is believed by many Muslims to interfere with the social, moral, and spiritual development of their children. Time spent in public school is time not spent in Qur\u2019anic study and in learning tasks and responsibilities from one\u2019s father or mother. Moreover, parents are concerned that their children do not learn much of any use at school, and that much of what they do learn \u2014 nasaaraaji (things of the whites) \u2014 is counter to the norms of Islam and Fulbe culture.\u201d]<\/p>\n\n As a result, Christians gained an educational edge over Muslims that lasted decades. Writes Nunn: \u201cThe presence of Christian missionaries, particularly Protestant missionaries, has been shown to be strongly correlated with increased educational attainment and the effects appear to persist for many generations.\u201d[64. Nunn, Nathan. 2014. \u201cGender and Missionary Influence in Colonial Africa<\/a>.\u201d In Akyeampong, Emmanuel, Robert H. Bates, Nathan Nunn and James A. Robinson. 2014. \u201cAfrica’s Development in Historical Perspective.\u201d Melina Platas also writes in her 2016 dissertation, \u201cThe Religious Roots of Inequality in Africa<\/a>\u201d: \u201cSeeking to avoid unrest that may have come from proselytization among Muslim populations, colonial administrators were not only more likely to prevent missionaries from establishing churches but also Christian-founded schools and health facilities in areas with Islamized political institutions as compared to those without.\u201d At the same time, Platas finds some evidence for a contradictory trend: That Muslim-run schools increased when missionary-built schools appeared in or close to Muslim-majority areas. \u201cThere is some evidence,\u201d she writes, \u201cthat Muslims responded to missionary investments by building their own schools, but these remained relatively few in number throughout the colonial period.\u201d]<\/p>\n\nChristianity<\/h3>\n\n
Buddhism<\/h3>\n\n
Hinduism<\/h3>\n\n
Judaism<\/h3>\n\n
Contemporary religious norms and doctrines, including teachings on gender<\/h3>\n\n
The puzzle of sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s attainment gap<\/h3>\n\n