Saturday, August 01, 2009

God and Social Studies

A recent study from the University of Michigan:
Being a humanities or a social science major has a statistically significant negative effect on religiosity -- measured by either religious attendance and how important students consider the importance of religion in their lives. The impact appears to be strongest in the social sciences.
Not all have a negative effect:
Students in education and business show an increase in religiosity over their time at college.
As a Social Studies Education major at Clemson University, a school with above average religious attendance, I noticed this difference within the departments. I wonder if it's the old divide between what explains human behavior, science or scripture. I've never understood that debate since I think both are valuable.

1 comment:

  1. At Clemson, I think it also depended on the faith of the administration. Certain professors/departments had a more negative view of religion than others.

    ReplyDelete

You are the reason why I do not write privately. I would love to hear your thoughts, whether you agree or not.