NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Back to results
ERIC Number: ED591067
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Apr-26
Pages: 24
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
In America, Does More Education Equal Less Religion?
Pew Research Center
This analysis looks at measures of religious identification and commitment among Americans with different levels of education. Looking at the U.S. public as a whole, the answer to the question of whether more education is correlated with less religion appears to be yes. Among all U.S. adults, college graduates are considerably less likely than those who have less education to say religion is "very important" in their lives: Fewer than half of college graduates (46%) say this, compared with nearly six-in-ten of those with no more than a high school education (58%). Highly educated Americans also are less inclined than others to say they believe in God with absolute certainty and to pray on a daily basis. And, when asked about their religious identity, college graduates are more likely than others to describe themselves as atheists or agnostics. While college graduates are more likely than others to describe themselves as atheists or agnostics and less likely to identify with Christianity (64% describe themselves as Christians, compared with 71% of those with some college education and 75% of those with a high school degree or less), they are not, on the whole, much less likely than others to identify with any religion. Fully three quarters of college graduates are affiliated with some religion (including 11% who say they are adherents of non-Christian faiths like Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism), as are 76% of those with some college experience and 78% of those whose education topped out with high school. The focus in this analysis is on describing the patterns found in recent Pew Research Center polling, particularly the very large U.S. Religious Landscape Study, which involved interviews with more than 35,000 Americans reached on randomly dialed cellphones and landlines. This analysis generally uses three categories of educational attainment, dividing U.S. adults into those who have a college degree, those who have some college (including those with an associate's degree and those with some community college experience), and those who have only a high school diploma or less (including those with no high school diploma and those who never reached high school). Overall, U.S. adults with college degrees are less religious than others, but this pattern does not hold among Christians.
Pew Research Center. 1615 L Street NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 202-419-4500; Fax: 202-419-4505; Web site: http://pewresearch.org
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Numerical/Quantitative Data
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education; High Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: Pew Research Center
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A