US: Complex link found between education and faith

For years, a commonly held belief has been that more educated Americans are less likely to embrace religion. But an article forthcoming in The Review of Religious Research suggests that the relationship between education and faith is more nuanced, and that more education has a negative impact only on certain religious questions, not on all of them, writes Scott Jaschik for Inside Higher Ed.

The research by Philip Schwadel, associate professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, found that some religious beliefs and practices - including belief in God and regular prayer - increase with years of education. On some matters, education fits the stereotype. The more education one has, the less likely one is to hold "exclusivist religious viewpoints" (a belief in a single faith that is better than all others) and to believe the Bible is the literal truth. But Schwadel writes that, despite those findings, "the effects of education on religion are more complex than previous research suggests".
Full report on the Inside Higher Ed site