The long arm of God : how religious commitments shape adolescents' academic outcomes in secondary and post-secondary institutions
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Religion permeates every aspect of American society. Religion is a particularly salient feature for millions of American teenagers: half see faith as central to their daily life, and one in three say they pray daily. However, scholars of education have paid little attention to the way that religion affects academic outcomes in non-sectarian educational settings. In my dissertation, I examine how adolescents' religious commitments shape their academic outcomes in secondary school and post-secondary institutions. My empirical evidence is based on quantitative and qualitative analyses of two longitudinal and nationally representative data sets of American adolescents: The National Study of Youth and Religion and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. My dissertation consists of five papers. The first paper synthesizes prior literature about how religion is associated with academic outcomes. In the second paper, I examine whether the "effect" of religiosity on academic outcomes is causal or spurious. Having established that the positive relationship between religiosity and academic outcomes is likely causal, my third and fourth papers asks why more religiously engaged high school students earn better grades. In the fifth paper, I examine how religion complicates narratives about women's pathways through college. Overall, my dissertation findings show that the synergy between Christianity and secondary schooling creates an academic advantage for students with conventional Christian commitments, while their commitment to rule-based orderliness shapes their path in unexpected ways once they transition into higher education. By highlighting the ways in which religious commitments and educational norms coalesce and the ways in which they collide, this dissertation reveals the powerful yet invisible role that religion plays in shaping the educational outcomes of young adults in the US. The dissertation also complicates traditional narratives of educational inequality that focus exclusively on the role of race, social class and gender, without accounting for religion
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2020; ©2020 |
| Publication date | 2020; 2020 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Horwitz, Ilana |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Kelman, Ari, 1968- |
| Thesis advisor | Kelman, Ari, 1968- |
| Thesis advisor | Ramirez, Francisco O |
| Thesis advisor | Stevens, Mitchell L |
| Thesis advisor | Reardon, Sean F |
| Degree committee member | Ramirez, Francisco O |
| Degree committee member | Stevens, Mitchell L |
| Degree committee member | Reardon, Sean F |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Graduate School of Education. |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Ilana M. Horwitz |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Graduate School of Education |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2020 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2020 by Ilana Horwitz
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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