Religiously Conservative Schools and Democratic Citizenship

• In Event: School Policies, COVID, and Student Achievement, Emotional, and Civic Outcomes

Abstract

School choice policies that include private schools have focused attention on the public purposes of government funding of elementary and secondary education, and whether religious schooling, particularly evangelical Protestant schools and homeschooling families, can fulfill the goals of democratic education. Religiously conservative schools may foster Christian nationalism, intolerance of diversity, inability to engage productively across social and ideological differences, and authoritarianism. These theories fail to consider changes in the place of schools in society that impact civic socialization, including the relation of evangelical Protestant schools and civic life, and increasing diversity in the goals and strategies of teachers and parents in religiously conservative schools. This paper investigates school sector differences in several outcomes of civic and political orientations, assessing graduates’ support for Christian nationalism and authoritarianism, as well as investigating ideological consistency across sectors. Using national samples of Americans, including the Cardus Education Survey, findings reveal little impact of religiously conservative schools on Christian nationalism or ideological conformity. The paper concludes that students in religiously conservative schools would not be better participants in a democratic society if they attended traditional public schools or if school choice policies did not include private schooling. It proposes that school choice plans should foster a structurally pluralist model of school organization that would model a democratic public square in a society of diverse moral communities.

Author

• David Sikkink, University of Notre Dame