God, Grades, and Graduation: Religion's Surprising Impact on Academic Success

by Ilana M. Horwitz, Kate Mulligan (Read by)

Overview

The surprising ways in which a religious upbringing shapes the academic lives of teens

It's widely acknowledged that American parents from different class backgrounds take different approaches to raising their children. Upper- and middle-class parents invest considerable time facilitating their children's activities, while working class and poor families take a more hands-off approach. These different strategies influence how children approach school. But missing from the discussion is the fact that millions of parents on both sides of the class divide are raising their children to listen to God. What impact does a religious upbringing have on their academic trajectories?

Drawing on ten years of survey data with over three thousand teenagers and over two hundred interviews, God, Grades, and Graduation offers a revealing and at times surprising account of how teenagers' religious upbringing influences their educational pathways from high school to college. Dr. Ilana M. Horwitz estimates that approximately one out of every four students in American schools are raised with religious restraint. These students orient their life around God so deeply that it alters how they see themselves and how they behave, inside and outside of church.

This book takes us inside the lives of these teenagers to discover why they achieve higher grades than their peers, why they are more likely to graduate from college, and why boys from lower middle-class families particularly benefit from religious restraint. But listeners also learn how for middle-upper class kids—and for girls especially—religious restraint recalibrates their academic ambitions after graduation, leading them to question the value of attending a selective college despite their stellar grades in high school. By illuminating the far-reaching effects of the childrearing logic of religious restraint, God, Grades, and Graduation offers a compelling new narrative about the role of religion in academic outcomes and educational inequality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798200960958
Publisher:	Blackstone Publishing
Publication date:	07/26/2022
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ilana M. Horwitz is the Fields-Rayant Chair in Contemporary Jewish Life at Tulane University’s Stuart and Suzanne Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience. She holds a PhD from Stanford University and studies how religious upbringing, social class, gender, and race influence people along the life course.

Kate Mulligan has acted with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for more than ten seasons in productions including Hairspray, Alice in Wonderland, and Sense and Sensibility. Her film and television work includes Being John Malkovich and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: Living for God
Chapter 2: Remarkable Report Cards
Chapter 3: A Domino Effect
Chapter 4: God's Guardrails
Chapter 5: Unexpected Destinations
Chapter 6: The Road Less Taken
Conclusion
Appendix: A Methodological Overview
References

Editorial Reviews

"Prof. Horwitz's analysis is a model of original thinking, lucid and compelling writing, and masterful scholarship. In readable prose, she seamlessly interweaves painstaking and sophisticated analysis of survey and interview data sets drawn from studies by the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), and from over 200 racially, socioeconomically, and religiously diverse longitudinal interviews. Masterfully, she incorporates insights from published scholarship, paying attention as she goes to factors including class, gender, race and ethnicity, geographical regions, and family structure." — Sylvia Barack Fishman, Contemporary Jewry

"This is a very substantial book that should bring some satisfaction to Christians who worry about the decline of Christian faith and life in the next generations." — Robert Benne, Lutheran Quarterly

"This book provides encouraging news" — Diane Olinger, New Horizons in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church

"Horwitz brings a fresh perspective to the conversation about the role of education in human flourishing. Her insight—that schools are at the same time more formative and more limited than is often assumed-is ultimately a hopeful one. It helps focus our minds on what schools can realistically do, while recognizing that we need to continue to work on political and social change beyond the education system. Schools have the heavy task of cultivating students' academic and social formation, but they stand as just one factor among many contributing to improving student outcomes." — Jessica Schurz, Public Discourse, The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute

"... Ilana Horwitz has produced a compelling, provocative study, which I hope will inspire still more work on the same subject. God, Grades, and Graduation demonstrates the light that can come from studying the role of religion (or the lack thereof) in their lives." — David Campbell, Education Next

"God, Grades, and Graduation shows just how complex the relationship between religion and class is today by making the point that religion helps some youth achieve while truncating others' imagined futures. This is a must read for scholars of religion, education, or class mobility more generally." — Melissa Wilde, Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

"In this beautifully written book, Horwitz demonstrates that religion has a powerful but mixed impact on education. She shows that intensely religious students tend to be more conscientious and cooperative, which leads them to overperform in educational attainment and undermatch in college choice. Compared to peers, they get higher quantity and lower quality of education. Everyone with an interest in the sociology of education should read this study." — David Labaree, Lee L. Jacks Professor, Emeritus, Stanford University

"Religion isn't just about prayer and worship. It exerts fascinating causal consequences in many 'secular' spheres. Ilana Horwitz's story of religion's influence on educational achievement shows not only that this happens but also how and why. Anyone interested in education or religion or simply the forces that make social life work will benefit from reading her story." — Christian Smith, author of Religion: What it Is, How it Works, and Why it Matters

"Sharp, engaging, and extremely well-presented, Dr. Horwitz's work offers a much needed, impressively rigorous analysis of the surprising intersections of religiosity and education in the USA. Both as a parent and a professor, I found this book fascinating." — Phil Zuckerman, author of Society Without God and What It Means to be Moral

From the Publisher