Church-going, teenagers, and exam success

Bess writes: American teenagers who regularly attend Church are more likely to finish high school, a new study claims. Sociologists from the University of Iowa say non-Church going teenagers are 60 per cent more likely to drop out of high school. In fact, they even claim that church attendance has more impact on average marks in class than whether a pupil’s parents have obtained a university degree. But, as eni reports, religious faith itself does not seem to be the million-dollar recipe for success:
Jennifer Glanville, a sociologist at the university’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences notes:
"Surprisingly, the importance of religion to teens had very little impact on their educational outcomes," That suggests that the act of attending church - the structure and the social aspects associated with it - could be more important to educational outcomes than the actual religion."
Instead, the study suggests four potential reasons why church-going may impact on exam results. These include the fact that at Church teenagers will meet a range of older adults, some of whom will act as potential role models; that any friends made at church are likely to share similar values and that in church friendships, the parents of both sets of teenagers are likely to be in contact. A fourth factor is that church-going teenagers are more likely to take part in extra-curricular activities.

Comments

[Rick Beekman]

Bess;
I agree with what you stated.
It Really does not matter what Christian Church a Young Person Goes To.
The fact they are taught Depend on The Lord..Tell him your Problems...Ask him to help and strengthen them etc.
Sometimes Young People have noone to turn unto. Yes They may have friends to advise them. But Older Adults can share their experiences so The young prayerfully will avoid Problems. If they have God to look up to and trust they feel protected even if the Parents are not Good Parents. We have Young People in Our Church who are very Focused and there are a few who are not We try to Help and teach all of them.
There is an Old Saying; "A Family that Prays Together...Stays together."

[Christopher]

'There is an Old Saying; "A Family that Prays Together...Stays together".'

I think it was Cardinal Fulton Sheen who coined that phrase when he was trying to get families to pray the rosary together every night. Not that you'd be advocating THAT, would you Rick?

[Steve Grant]

Rick - I suggest you read it again. Firstly, Bess doesn't state anything at all (i.e. there's no statement from Bess for you to agree or disagree with) and secondly, what the article reports
is that it appears that it apepars that it's not faith that is responsible for success, but the structure and social aspects arising from regular church attendance. If you'd remove those pious blinkers of yours
for just a moment, you'd realise that the same could be said for the army cadets, origami classes or perhaps on a more topical note, wicca meetings.
I can't help observing that regular church attendance obviously did very little for your English - take it easy on the caps, would you? It makes your postings difficult to read.

[Fatpie42]

There's a very simple explanation. If parents can get their children to church they have successfully attained a certain level of discipline. This also implies that the child is from a stable family. Of course, when we refer to church-going people, never mind children, we are talking about a tiny minority of the country. It should come as no surprise at all that 'the rest' of the children come out rather average.