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The Religious School Advantage: Creating Generous Citizens

THE RELIGIOUS SCHOOL ADVANTAGE: CREATING GENEROUS CITIZENS
Catholic and Evangelical high schools in the United States produce graduates who tend to volunteer and donate more to charity as adults.

February 16, 2017

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OTTAWA – Religiously based U.S. high schools are proving to be especially good at turning out graduates who become civic-minded adults, finds a new study funded by Cardus an independent, North American think tank.

Catholic school graduates are over 50 per cent more likely than public school graduates to volunteer for organizations that fight poverty, according to data in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics – the world’s longest active panel study of households and family. The same data show graduates of Evangelical Protestant and other non-Catholic religious schools are about 40 per cent more likely to volunteer in general as adults than their public school counterparts are.

“Graduates of Catholic high schools seem to reflect the approach of Catholic social teaching, which emphasizes the importance of relieving poverty, among other priorities, like providing health care and education,” said Dr. Beth Green, Program Director for Cardus Education. “And it’s not surprising to see these results among evangelical graduates whose religious culture values putting others before self and sacrificing for the common good.”

The study also found a difference in charitable giving. Even after accounting for differences in socio-economic status, American graduates of Catholic, Evangelical, and other non-Catholic religious schools are more likely than public school graduates to make charitable donations. In terms of the amounts donated, graduates of Evangelical Protestant and other non-Catholic religious schools annually give on average $1,273 more than public school graduates do to charitable causes.

Sociologists Dr. David Sikkink and Dr. Jonathan Schwarz authored the study, The Lasting Impact of High School on Giving and Volunteering in the U.S., as part of their work at the Cardus Religious Schools Initiative at the University of Notre Dame.

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About the Cardus Religious Schools Initiative

The Cardus Religious Schools Initiative (CRSI) seeks to generate new theoretical and empirical tools for understanding religious schools. CRSI conducts research which aims to appreciate the uniqueness of religious schools’ mission and organization, to reveal the extent that religious schools improve outcomes for students, families, churches, and communities, and to show the links between school mission and organization and student and family outcomes.

MEDIA INQUIRIES
Daniel Proussalidis
Cardus – Director of Communications
613.241.4500 x.508
dproussalidis@cardus.ca