Education, religiosity and moral attitudes: explaining cross-national effect differences - Statistical Data Included

Sociology of Religion, Summer, 2002 by Peer Scheepers, Manfred Te Grotenhuis, Frans Van Der Slik

EDUCATION, RELIGIOSITY AND MORAL ATTITUDES: QUESTIONS

Debates on moral issues have, time and again, disrupted family gatherings, community meetings, political conventions and even nations as a whole, because people tend to hold strong and divergent views on these matters. The legal permissibility of abortion has been on the political and the public agendas for many years. The permissibility of extramarital relationships has been on the private agenda of many couples in countries all over the world, particularly since the late 1960s.

One of the most frequently found relationships is that well-educated people are more in favor of liberal views on moral issues (Hyman and Wright 1979; Vogt 1997). In a recent study, Hayes (1995:188) claims that the effect of education is similar across countries, whereas Weil (1985) claims that the effect of education varies across countries. These inconsistent findings may be due to the differential effects of national contexts, as was suggested by Vogt (1997:62-64). There are also frequent reports on the relationship between religion and moral attitudes (Ebaugh and Haney 1978; Jelen 1984; Spicer 1994; Scheepers and Van Der Slik 1998). In a recent cross-national study, the contention is that in shaping an individual's religious attitudes, the religious character of a nation is an important formative factor, next to parental or individual characteristics. The authors suggest that this might also hold true for other attitudes (Kelley and De Graaf 1997:654). All of these propositions and findings suggest that particular characteristics of the national context may affect the strength of the relationship between individual characteristics and moral attitudes. In this contribution we set out to elaborate upon these suggestions, derive hypotheses and then test them using cross-national data. We will answer the following questions. First, which parental and individual characteristics affect moral attitudes? Second and of more interest is the question of whether these effects on moral issues vary across countries. And if so, third, to what extent can the differences in effects of parental and individual characteristics on moral attitudes be explained by national characteristics?

THEORIES AND HYPOTHESES

The arguments offered for the assertion that effects of individual characteristics on moral attitudes may vary across countries are based on the idea of differential socialization processes. The first crucial idea is that effects of individual characteristics imply exposure to similar 'socializing agents' which may affect compliance with similar social norms, a general thesis already stated by Durkheim ([1897] 1951). The second idea is that exposure to similar 'socializing circumstances' may affect similar values and similar ways of behavior, a general thesis inspired by Mannheim ([1936] 1972). Whereas Durkheim refers to social institutions in which the individual is incorporated (family, religious community, school), Mannheim refers to larger national contexts (the political system, religious characteristics of a nation as a whole). In the next sections we will elaborate upon these socializing agents and circumstances.

Hypotheses Regarding Effects of Parental and Individual Characteristics on Moral Attitudes

Of course, there are many socializing agents in the lives of individuals, among which parents appear to be most influential (Benson, Donahue, and Erickson 1989; Cornwall 1988; Erickson 1992; Myers 1996). Parents' moral values, transmitted to their children, may correspond with the rather conservative views that leaders of the religious community proclaim on these moral issues. Conversely, if parents do not consider themselves members of a religious community, their children will obviously be less exposed to these conservative moral views, which may account for their less conservative moral attitudes. There may also be differences between members of different denominations. In the United States, empirical evidence was found for differences between liberal and conservative denominations (Jelen 1984; Gay and Ellison 1993). This argument can be taken one step further by hypothesizing differences between Catholics on the one hand, and Protestants on the other. (1) The Catholic Church's rather straightforward rejection of abortion, euthanasia, premarital and extramarital sex has been stated repeatedly and explicitly in letters and encyclicals. Moreover, these papal messages are brought directly to the knowledge of the members of the Catholic Church as guidelines for their conduct. We therefore hypothesize that: (1a) In cases where parents did not belong to a church during the formative period of their children, their offspring (our respondents) are less likely to subscribe to conservative moral attitudes than children whose parents did belong to a church; and (1b) People raised by Catholic parents hold more conservative beliefs regarding moral issues than individuals raised by parents belonging to Protestant denominations, or by non-religious parents.