Northern Ireland is now a post-conflict society but one of the legacies of the "troubles" is an education system which is defined by religious affiliation/identity. A parallel system of schools continues to exist where Catholics largely attend "maintained" schools and Protestants "controlled" or state schools. While…

Notwithstanding dramatically low levels of professed religiosity in Western Europe, the religious school sector continues to thrive. One explanation for this paradox is that nowadays parents choose religious schools primarily for their higher academic reputation. Empirical evidence for this presumed denominational advantage is mixed. We examine…