Educational Attainment and Religiosity: Exploring Variations by Religious Tradition

This study examines the relationship between educational attainment and various dimensions of religiosity. On the basis of a network closure argument, we hypothesize that the relationship between education and religiosity varies by religious tradition. Analyzing data from the 1972-2006 General Social Survey, we found that educational attainment predicted increased attendance at religious services, decreased levels of prayer, increased inclination to view the Bible as a book of fables, and decreased inclination to view the Bible as the literal word of God. These relationships, however, significantly interacted with religious tradition. Increased education largely resulted in greater religiosity among evangelical Protestants, black Protestants, and Catholics but not among mainline Protestants and the nonaffiliated. Overall, this study shows that education does not uniformly decrease religiosity and highlights the importance of considering religious tradition in future research.