Race, Religion and Education Policy: Examining Attitudes Toward Educational Spending and Local School Issues

• In Event: 3429 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 23. Morality, Trust, and Character Education

Abstract

Public opinion polls consistently identify improving the nation’s education system as an issue of top concern for Americans (Pew Research Center 2018). Yet, few sociological studies give considerable attention to potential racial, ethnic and religious differences in attitudes toward the education policy. These are important research gaps as studies indicate that a large proportion of Americans continue to display high levels of religious affiliation and that religion continues to play a role in shaping individual decisions related to public policy. With original data from a large nationally random sample of Americans from the Religious Understandings of Science study, we explore racial, ethnic and religious differences in attitudes about the education system at two levels: national and local. We find both racial-ethnic and religious differences, both in support for national spending on education as well as interest in local schools. Notably, racial differences in attitudes about national-level spending were indirect only due to offsetting mechanisms related to political ideology and institutional trust. Further, conservative religious groups were less favorable than non-affiliates for national spending on education, but all religious affiliates were more interested than non-affiliates in local school issues. We also find that mechanisms including political ideology, religious service attendance and institutional trust mediate these differences. When stratified by racial-ethnic status, however, religious differences and mediation effects were observed almost exclusively in the white subsample only. This study has important implications for understandings of the intersection of race-ethnicity, religion and public policy preferences in education.

Authors

• Robert A. Thomson, Rice University

• Esmeralda Sanchez Salazar, Rice University

• Elaine Howard Ecklund, Rice University