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Brandes on Education in Religious Communities

Tamar Hostovsky Brandes (Ono Academic College) has posted Between Vowels and Values: Education in Religious Communities. The abstract follows. –YAH

This paper examines the extent of autonomy religious minorities should enjoy in the area of education, specifically in determining the curriculum children belonging to religious minorities are required to study. While there is an abundance of scholarship on the topics of exemptions from educational requirements, this paper focuses on two issues that are relatively neglected. The first regards the different types of rights on the basis of which requests for exemptions are being made. This paper examines whether requests exemptions that are based on religious liberty are different than requests for exemptions based on culture, and argues that requests based on religious obligations are often more absolute that claims based on culture. As a result, mitigating measures short of exemptions, which may be able to resolve the issues that stand at the basis of the latter, do not resolve claims based on religious obligations.

The second issue this paper addresses is whether the state’s interest in promoting social solidarity justifies, at least in some circumstances, rejecting claims for such exemptions. In examining claims for exemptions in the field of education, liberal scholars usually concentrate on the interests the state has in ensuring that its citizens are self-sufficient and in instilling in them democratic values. The state’s interest in maintaining social solidarity is often overlooked. This paper argues that the state’s interest in maintaining social solidarity must be weighed separately from the state’s interests in self-sufficiency and democracy. It then suggests guidelines for assessing the effect a granting or rejecting a request for exemption may have on social solidarity. These guidelines include examining whether the exemption is requested by an individual or by a group, the scope of the exemption requested and the nature of educational material which the exemption covers.

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School Prayer Continues to Raise Controversy

As the new school year begins, the New American reports that some public schools are facing demands to remove prayer from school-sponsored events. Though after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Santa Fe School District v. Doe prayer at school-sponsored events is sometimes unconstitutional as a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause (see 530 U.S. 290 (2000)) some districts continue to incorporate prayer into events like the first day of school, football games, and graduations.   Most recently, on August 18 the superintendent of the DeSoto County, Mississippi, school district received a letter requesting that district schools remove prayers from school-sponsored events. By August 23 the district complied and announced via a press release that the school board voted to ban prayers at future sporting games. Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 2 Comments

Religion As Class Consciousness

It’s not the class you think.  Although academics often assume that religion appeals primarily to less-educated, working-class types – “religion-clingers,” as it were – two new studies suggest that the reality is more complicated.  If anything, education correlates positively with religious participation.  Earlier this month, sociologist Philip Schwadel (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) published a study of American religious practice showing, among other things, that education has “a strong and positive effect on religious participation” in the United States.  With each additional year of education, Schwadel found, “the odds of attending religious services increased 15 percent.”  Education also correlates positively with more frequent Bible reading and, interestingly, more questioning of religion’s role in secular society.  Similarly, a study released by the American Sociological Association on Sunday reveals that less-educated American whites, defined as people without a high-school degree, have been dropping out of religious services at a much higher rate than their more educated counterparts. According to this study, 46% of college-educated whites attend religious services at least monthly, compared to 37% of those who have graduated high school and 23% of the least educated.  Religious participation is also associated with higher incomes and stable employment.

Of course, it’s not clear why religion should be more a part of upper- and middle-class than lower-class identity.  Bradford Wilcox (University of Virginia), one of the ASA study’s authors, suggests that religious institutions, which typically stress marriage and family, may be losing their appeal for less-educated Americans, who are less likely to marry and stay married than Americans with a college education.  Perhaps less frequent religious attendance reflects a deeper alienation of lower-class Americans from social institutions that have failed them.  In any event, these two studies are further indications that, as in other parts of the globe, religion in America today is a marker for education and upward social mobility. — MLM