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The Exit-Voice Choice: Religious Cleavages, Public Aid, and America's Private Schools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2016

Ursula Hackett
Ursula Hackett*
Affiliation:
Nuffield College and Rothermere American Institute
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Ursula Hackett, Nuffield College and Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, 1a South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3UB. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

In America's culture wars denominations increasingly ally with one another despite differences in theology, church organization, and membership. But these developments are not reflected in America's private K-12 school system or in patterns of public aid for children who attend them where divisions between religious traditions remain stark. I demonstrate, by means of an analysis of critical junctures in American political development supported by statistical analysis, that Catholics who desire a religious education for their children have historically tended to exit for the parochial sector while Evangelicals having similar desires lobbied for reform of the public school system. These differential group responses stem from differing conceptions of identity and belonging, theological understanding, and institutional structure. In American education policy, differences between religious groups are surprisingly tenacious.

Type
Symposium: The Politics of Religious Alliances
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 249 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2016 

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