Stanford Study: The Most Religious Kids Do Best In School

[Saddlemomma]

As a Christian, I found this article very interesting....

"Stanford Study: The Most Religious Kids Do Best in School" 

[EKS]

The reason is probably because doing well in school is mediated by intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity.  Religiosity is serving as a proxy for conformity and, possibly, to a degree, conscientiousness. 

[katilac]

The paper says, "On average, we see that all religious profiles, except for atheists, score well below religious Abiders."

And also,  "I do not graph the GPA for Atheists because they do not perform differently than abiders . . ."

So, the "most religious" group has the highest GPA among those who identify as religious or believing in God, but the same GPA as atheists.  

Interesting study! The full paper can be downloaded from the link and isn't super long (46 pages including graphs, footnotes, and so on). I just skimmed it but will try to go back and read it. 

 

 

[katilac]

38 minutes ago, EKS said:

The reason is probably because doing well in school is mediated by intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity.  Religiosity is serving as a proxy for conformity and, possibly, to a degree, conscientiousness. 

 

Very accurate assessment. From the abstract: "My qualitative evidence suggests that this association is a function of greater conscientiousness and agreeableness among abiders. Therefore, I suggest that middle and high schools reward students who are obedient, respectful, and agreeable." 

[Paige]

6 minutes ago, katilac said:

 

Very accurate assessment. From the abstract: "My qualitative evidence suggests that this association is a function of greater conscientiousness and agreeableness among abiders. Therefore, I suggest that middle and high schools reward students who are obedient, respectful, and agreeable." 

As if that's not precisely the description of what schools already reward? Cause or effect? Newsflash- kids who do what they are told do better in schools that reward kids who do what they're told!

Her recommendation is a head scratcher. Wouldn't it be better to notice that kids who struggle with obedience,  showing respect, and who are judged disagreeable do not do as well and find ways to reach them rather than doubling down on what's not working? 

She writes: Although it is well known that academic performance is associated with income, school grades are also driven by dispositions stemming from religious engagement.

I think she's got it backwards: innate personality drives how agreeable teens are to religious conformity and adherence.  This seems to be more likely because it included kids from many religious backgrounds- it's not the specific religious instruction or beliefs, but the willingness of the teen to adhere to norms. 

 

 

 

[EKS]

40 minutes ago, katilac said:

Very accurate assessment. From the abstract: "My qualitative evidence suggests that this association is a function of greater conscientiousness and agreeableness among abiders. Therefore, I suggest that middle and high schools reward students who are obedient, respectful, and agreeable." 

Hey, cool!  Though don't middle and high school already reward students who are obedient, respectful, and agreeable?  Also, I suspect that how kids do in school is more of a function of what they bring to school than what the school brings to them.

[nixpix5]

1 hour ago, Paige said:

As if that's not precisely the description of what schools already reward? Cause or effect? Newsflash- kids who do what they are told do better in schools that reward kids who do what they're told!

Her recommendation is a head scratcher. Wouldn't it be better to notice that kids who struggle with obedience,  showing respect, and who are judged disagreeable do not do as well and find ways to reach them rather than doubling down on what's not working? 

She writes: Although it is well known that academic performance is associated with income, school grades are also driven by dispositions stemming from religious engagement.

I think she's got it backwards: innate personality drives how agreeable teens are to religious conformity and adherence.  This seems to be more likely because it included kids from many religious backgrounds- it's not the specific religious instruction or beliefs, but the willingness of the teen to adhere to norms. 

 

 

 

My thoughts exactly. I love studies that state the obvious as it always seems like an outstanding use of research funds. (Read with much sarcasm).

 

Your right, personality can definitely dictate agreeableness and adhering to norms but much of it is just parenting and home expectations. Consistent parenting that is loving, calm and provides clear expectations and reasonable consequences create agreeable kids. Most religious homes following their doctrine closely would be providing this (as well as many non religious homes that follow humanistic beliefs such as loving others, doing your best, caring for the environment and so forth). 

Kids that tend to be disobedient and less agreeable (when not due to an LD or special need of some sort), tend to be growing up in a different parenting environment that is less consistent, more harsh punishments, more victim and martyr mentalities and so forth. The reason behavior modification doesn't work with these students in school is because it is almost impossible to overcome parenting flaws within the school day. Kids who are already obedient respond to praise and correction because it is already a part of their home environment. Kids who are not held accountable at home for their disobedience or held accountable in harsh ways tend to acquire a peer group who reinforce all of those same traits. Between home and peer group it buffers these kids from being able to respond productively to any in school interventions. Until it is addressed at the level of the home we will just be throwing random interventions at kids hoping they stick. 

[Paige]

40 minutes ago, nixpix5 said:

My thoughts exactly. I love studies that state the obvious as it always seems like an outstanding use of research funds. (Read with much sarcasm).

It looks like a thesis paper for a class so I doubt any funds were wasted. 

Your right, personality can definitely dictate agreeableness and adhering to norms but much of it is just parenting and home expectations. Consistent parenting that is loving, calm and provides clear expectations and reasonable consequences create agreeable kids. Most religious homes following their doctrine closely would be providing this (as well as many non religious homes that follow humanistic beliefs such as loving others, doing your best, caring for the environment and so forth). 

Kids that tend to be disobedient and less agreeable (when not due to an LD or special need of some sort), tend to be growing up in a different parenting environment that is less consistent, more harsh punishments, more victim and martyr mentalities and so forth. The reason behavior modification doesn't work with these students in school is because it is almost impossible to overcome parenting flaws within the school day. Kids who are already obedient respond to praise and correction because it is already a part of their home environment. Kids who are not held accountable at home for their disobedience or held accountable in harsh ways tend to acquire a peer group who reinforce all of those same traits. Between home and peer group it buffers these kids from being able to respond productively to any in school interventions. Until it is addressed at the level of the home we will just be throwing random interventions at kids hoping they stick. 

 

I have to disagree on the last part. Some children are more challenging. You can see it in families with multiple children- one can be a teacher's dream and then the next could be the opposite. Parenting may seem more chaotic with difficult children, but I think there's good evidence that it is often a response to a difficult child and not causing the child's struggles. That's not to say it's the kid's fault if he is abused or mistreated as adults should be able to handle difficult situations without losing control, but you can be the best parent in the world and still have a child who is a handful.

 

[nixpix5]

1 hour ago, Paige said:

I have to disagree on the last part. Some children are more challenging. You can see it in families with multiple children- one can be a teacher's dream and then the next could be the opposite. Parenting may seem more chaotic with difficult children, but I think there's good evidence that it is often a response to a difficult child and not causing the child's struggles. That's not to say it's the kid's fault if he is abused or mistreated as adults should be able to handle difficult situations without losing control, but you can be the best parent in the world and still have a child who is a handful.

 

This was why I threw in that caveat about it not being due to a learning disability or other special need. My use of special needs was emcompassing any of those more challenging scenarios...I was lumping those kiddos together. Of course we see many great families who do have a child or two that are just more challenging. ;)

Also, while abuse does create more challenging children, I was actually talking even less extreme cases. Permissive and militaristic parenting styles both create more challenging kids. Permissive and coddling parenting tends to create egocentricism and lack of empathy while militaristic parenting creates self-preservation and trauma that also creates egocentricism in a different way along with anxiety. It also tends to create kids who seek control anyway they can find it whether oppositionally or passive-aggressively (such as not turning in homework, agreeing to something but not following through and so forth).

Obviously there are always exceptions to any of these cases so I am speaking in general when all other elements are the same. 

In my early days as a therapist I would do alot of home visits and push in classroom visits to help families figure out what was going awry with their kids and teens. When you do that for a while you definitely start to see all of these patterns crop up. After observing kids in a classroom, I could usually predict with scary accuracy what style of parenting I would see when I entered their home. Alot of child and parenting theory is so-so but one theory that holds true and is a reliable indicator is the refined theories by Baumrind about authoritative vs authoritarian vs permissive vs neglectful parenting. 

 

[katilac]

4 hours ago, nixpix5 said:

My thoughts exactly. I love studies that state the obvious as it always seems like an outstanding use of research funds. (Read with much sarcasm).

 

 

 

Proving or disproving what seems  obvious is actually not a bad use of research funds. It seemed obvious that eggs, being high in cholesterol, would raise a person's cholesterol, and this was stated repeatedly until disproven in studies. 

3 hours ago, HeighHo said:

I think they've missed that study skills are taught in religious ed, but not in many poorer schools and that people who are religious value literacy and numeracy. 

 

 

That's hardly universal. I mean, it was religious homeschoolers who came up with the phrase, "Better heaven than Harvard!"

I don't actually think it's very common to teach study skills in religious ed. 

[Jackie]

7 hours ago, HeighHo said:

I think they've missed that study skills are taught in religious ed, but not in many poorer schools and that people who are religious value literacy and numeracy. 

 

This would be contradicted by the evidence in the paper that atheists do as well as abiders, though.

[Targhee]

11 hours ago, EKS said:

The reason is probably because doing well in school is mediated by intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity.  Religiosity is serving as a proxy for conformity and, possibly, to a degree, conscientiousness. 

I think this is probably very true. Although I am active religiously and consider myself relatively non-compliant in many regards, my observations on the whole of members of the congregations I have been a part of has been that they by nature want to conform.

[....]

18 hours ago, HeighHo said:

I think they've missed that study skills are taught in religious ed,

 

Yep!  We're Lutheran.  My kids have to do 3 years of Confirmation classes.  They start in 6th grade.  From that point on, they have to go to class every Wednesday night, turn in homework, take notes on what the teacher says in class, work on sermon summaries every Sunday morning and turn those in, memorize all 66 books in the Bible, memorize a massive list of Bible passages and to graduate, my kids had to spend two months memorizing EIGHT type-written pages of information, stand together in a line in front of the pastor and about 40 people and answer word-for-word the questions that were on the 8 type-written pages...just to graduate Confirmation.

My teens are very, very good at taking notes from a lecture and memorizing large amounts of information.  And it's from those 3 years of Confirmation classes.

[shinyhappypeople]

On 4/19/2018 at 7:22 AM, katilac said:

 

Very accurate assessment. From the abstract: "My qualitative evidence suggests that this association is a function of greater conscientiousness and agreeableness among abiders. Therefore, I suggest that middle and high schools reward students who are obedient, respectful, and agreeable." 

So, in other words, John Taylor Gatto has it mostly right about the reality and purpose of modern schooling. 

Really, is GPA a measure of anything but compliance?  

 

[SKL]

On 4/19/2018 at 10:22 AM, katilac said:

 

Very accurate assessment. From the abstract: "My qualitative evidence suggests that this association is a function of greater conscientiousness and agreeableness among abiders. Therefore, I suggest that middle and high schools reward students who are obedient, respectful, and agreeable." 

 

On 4/19/2018 at 10:50 AM, Paige said:

As if that's not precisely the description of what schools already reward? Cause or effect? Newsflash- kids who do what they are told do better in schools that reward kids who do what they're told!

Her recommendation is a head scratcher. Wouldn't it be better to notice that kids who struggle with obedience,  showing respect, and who are judged disagreeable do not do as well and find ways to reach them rather than doubling down on what's not working? 

 

 

On 4/19/2018 at 11:04 AM, EKS said:

Hey, cool!  Though don't middle and high school already reward students who are obedient, respectful, and agreeable?  ...

 

Maybe when she says "I suggest ...." she means she is suggesting a possible explanation for the correlation.  Not that she is giving a suggestion for schools to act upon.

[SKL]

I had heard a variant of this before.  It makes sense to me as a person who was raised Lutheran.  Some things my education (school and religious) included:

• A slightly longer school day + half a day of study on Sundays.
• A strong encouragement to read the Bible, ourselves, all the way through.
• Lots of memory work - every day.
• Working with texts that are relatively deep and use rich language.
• Lots of analogies and other literary devices studied.
• More study of certain topics in history and geography.
• More music - at least 6 days a week.
• More opportunities to get up and teach / present to others.
• Encouragement to question and discuss vs. just regurgitating what the teacher / textbook said.

Yes, there is also an encouragement of respect.  But it is not the "shut up, be still, and listen" kind of respect.  I remember our elementary school principal always chiding us because our classes were so much noisier and more chaotic than those of the failing public schools in our district.

[EKS]

29 minutes ago, SKL said:

Maybe when she says "I suggest ...." she means she is suggesting a possible explanation for the correlation.  Not that she is giving a suggestion for schools to act upon.

I suspect she feels as though she needs to come up with items that schools can act upon since she appears to be a graduate student in education.  

[Rosie_0801]

On 20/04/2018 at 4:14 AM, nixpix5 said:

Also, while abuse does create more challenging children,

Abuse is very good at creating beautifully obedient children too.

[nixpix5]

8 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

Abuse is very good at creating beautifully obedient children too.

Unfortunately true in many cases :( 

[Corraleno]

21 hours ago, Jackie said:

This would be contradicted by the evidence in the paper that atheists do as well as abiders, though.

Yes, she seems to have purposely excluded that info from the graphs and basically tried to bury it in a footnote, because the fact that atheists performed just as well as the most religious group, and better than all three other religious groups, kind of blows her thesis that (1) religiosity is a predictor of GPA and (2) the reason for this is that religious study makes students more "conscientious and cooperative." So does that mean atheists are just naturally more conscientious and cooperative than all but the most devoutly religious? Or does it mean her study was poorly designed and not very meaningful?

[Corraleno]

Also, I would not call this unpublished grad student paper a "Stanford Study." Although the author is a student with a Concentration in Education and Jewish Studies at Stanford, she did not collect any of the data herself. Her analysis is based on data collected via a random-dialed telephone survey ( n=2569) conducted in 2002-2003, in which all data was self-reported. This was followed by interviews with 267 of the original respondents in 2005. From those recorded/transcribed interviews, she hand-picked 15 "Abiders" and 15 "Avoiders," and calculated average GPAs of 3.57 and 3.05, respectively. The "Avoiders" sample had a higher percentage of males (73% vs 53%) and nonwhites (40% vs 26%), and she specifically limited the income range for the selected samples in order to show the most dramatic difference between the groups.

[EKS]

On 4/19/2018 at 5:20 PM, Jackie said:

This would be contradicted by the evidence in the paper that atheists do as well as abiders, though.

It is possible that atheism is serving as a proxy for intelligence in the same way that religiosity is serving as a proxy for conformity.  (It is known that religiosity is negatively correlated with intelligence.)

[nixpix5]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

It is possible that atheism is serving as a proxy for intelligence in the same way that religiosity is serving as a proxy for conformity.  (It is known that religiosity is negatively correlated with intelligence.)

Interesting to consider. The large meta-analysis that was done looking at religiosity and intelligence certainly did show a negative correlation with the caveat that when the tasks could rely on intuition those who were religious performed more poorly but those that required deductive reasoning where intuition could not be so readily utilized those who were religious and those who were not did equivalently. Which points towards a higher use of intuition being used in the religious group which could account for poorer performance. 

That study didn't address the fact that IQ as a measurement stays fairly constant from childhood through adulthood while religiosity as a measurement is not as constant as seen by many children leaving their faith in adulthood or many raised without religion becoming more religious as adults. 

These IQ correlated studies I typically take with a grain of salt since they can be used dangerously. It reminds me of all of those correlated findings of IQ and race or IQ and gender. If we take one seriously we may have to take others seriously and I think that is concerning. There are so many factors as to why correlations are found within studies and as we all know, correlation doesn't equal causation. 

Similarly to children who do not have access to books and rich language do more poorly academically than their peers who have access, I imagine children from atheist families on average have more exposure to scientific thought, logic and the like. I mean on average here. Obviously plenty of Christian homes educate their children richly.

[EKS]

11 hours ago, nixpix5 said:

Interesting to consider. The large meta-analysis that was done looking at religiosity and intelligence certainly did show a negative correlation with the caveat that when the tasks could rely on intuition those who were religious performed more poorly but those that required deductive reasoning where intuition could not be so readily utilized those who were religious and those who were not did equivalently. Which points towards a higher use of intuition being used in the religious group which could account for poorer performance. 

That study didn't address the fact that IQ as a measurement stays fairly constant from childhood through adulthood while religiosity as a measurement is not as constant as seen by many children leaving their faith in adulthood or many raised without religion becoming more religious as adults. 

These IQ correlated studies I typically take with a grain of salt since they can be used dangerously. It reminds me of all of those correlated findings of IQ and race or IQ and gender. If we take one seriously we may have to take others seriously and I think that is concerning. There are so many factors as to why correlations are found within studies and as we all know, correlation doesn't equal causation. 

Similarly to children who do not have access to books and rich language do more poorly academically than their peers who have access, I imagine children from atheist families on average have more exposure to scientific thought, logic and the like. I mean on average here. Obviously plenty of Christian homes educate their children richly.

(I think you meant that religious folks prefer an intuitive style and the atheists prefer an analytical style.)

I agree with what you said here.  But the point isn't whether one group is *actually* more intelligent than another group, it is how well they perform on IQ tests compared to the other group.  Whatever IQ tests measure, it is highly correlated with performance in school.  So if atheists perform better (overall) on IQ tests, they are likely to perform better in school.

[nixpix5]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

(I think you meant that religious folks prefer an intuitive style and the atheists prefer an analytical style.)

I agree with what you said here.  But the point isn't whether one group is *actually* more intelligent than another group, it is how well they perform on IQ tests compared to the other group.  Whatever IQ tests measure, it is highly correlated with performance in school.  So if atheists perform better (overall) on IQ tests, they are likely to perform better in school.

Yes :) I know I wasn't at all succinct when I way typing on my Samsung last night. 

I agree with you and I think we both get that correlational studies using IQ are measuring something but not necessarily what is being compared but because not everyone gets it, I wanted to point it out. Social science research is so imperfect and people sometimes think it is more accurate than it really is. I just like to do my due diligence ;)