Does Religious Participation Help Keep Adolescents in School?
As policymakers, parents, and community leaders continue to seek ways to promote the educational success of youth, AYPF presents “Does Religious Participation Help Keep Adolescents in School?” which explores the potential benefit to youth of associating with a religious organization. This report summarizes existing research on the importance of organizational involvement, both religious and “secular,” in promoting the educational success of youth, and then goes on to present the results of a new empirical study aimed at comparing the impact of religious and secular forms participation. Findings of this study indicate that most forms of religious participation do contribute to on-time graduation from high school and total years of educational attainment. These conclusions persist when the sample is limited to poor youth or minority youth. Recommendations identify numerous strategies that public officials can pursue to reduce obstacles to religious participation among youth, as well as encourage religious institutions to take a more active role in teen success, all while respecting principles of separation of church and state.
Copies are only available online at www.aypf.org.
The activities of the American Youth Policy Forum are made possible by the support of a consortium of philanthropic foundations: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, Ford Motor Company Fund, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, GE Fund, William T. Grant Foundation, George Gund Foundation, J&M Foundation, Walter S. Johnson Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, KnowledgeWorks Foundation, Charles S. Mott Foundation, Wallace Funds, Joseph and May Winston Foundation, and others.