Educated belief

Study upends the crude stereotypes about the religiously observant | Tim Dalrymple

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A new analysis of the religious lives of Americans explodes the stereotype that the most educated are the least devout.

Sociologist Philip Schwadel, analyzing data from the General Social Survey (the gold standard of social science statistics), challenges the "almost unquestioned belief" among scholars of religion "that education and other aspects of modernity are detrimental to religion." The facts are far more complicated.

First, by many measures the more educated are more religiously observant. They are more likely to engage in worship and devotional activities, and to affirm the importance of religion in public life. With each year of education past the seventh, for instance, a person is 15 percent more likely to attend religious services.