The Gendered Effects of Church versus State Education: Evidence from Zambia

• In Event: Civic Learning on Campus: Bringing Political Science In Mini-Conference I: Schools and Democracy: How Varieties of Education Matter for Citizenship

Abstract

Proposals to change the power of the state vis-à-vis religious actors in managing schools often cause significant political conflict. The historic pervasiveness of these conflicts in diverse settings suggests that key players believe church control of education is likely to influence students’ long-term identities and attitudes; however, as of yet, there have not been any systematic studies of the attitudinal effects of increased state control over church-run schools. We study the long-term effects of a policy change in Zambia that increased state control over Catholic schools independently of other major educational reforms in the 1970s. Combining differences in exposure to state versus Catholic-managed education induced by religion and the timing of the reforms across cohorts, we show that increased state-control over Catholic schools has limited effects on students’ long-term national identities and political attitudes, but it reduces women’s religiosity and makes men and women’s gender attitudes more progressive. The quantitative analysis is complemented with evidence from life histories.

Authors

• Katharine A. Baldwin, Yale University

• Eran Rubinstein, Yale University