Church Schools Preparing Adolescents for Living in a Religiously Diverse Society: An Empirical Enquiry in England and Wales

Abstract

The Young People's Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project was established to compare the attitudes of students (13- to 15-years of age) educated within the state-maintained sector in church schools (Catholic, Anglican, joint Anglican and Catholic) and in schools without a religious foundation. Data provided by 5,402 students recruited from England, Wales, and London who self-identified as either “no religion” or as Christian demonstrated that, after controlling for individual differences in personality and in religiosity, students attending church schools hold neither a more positive nor a less positive attitude toward religious diversity, compared with students attending schools without a religious foundation.