Adoption of policies supporting school choice, in most Western democracies, has served to settle social and political conflicts related to religion. Conflicts related to racial integration played a similar role more recently in the United States where, contrary to other countries, religion has served to retard rather than to advance public support for school choice. Schools with a religious character established by groups immigrating to the United States functioned as alternatives alongside the common public school; only with the post-war adoption of choice as a remedy to racial segregation, and the diverse challenge to public schools by religious conservatives and secular progressives, has public support for school choice become widespread.