Religion, Class and Educational Policy

Abstract

The educational record of Catholic schools has been a cause for popular concern for some time, but very little hard evidence is available to support the partisans in the public debate. Using data about the educational experience of male adults in Scotland, this paper shows that, while differences do exist at both the secondary and post-secondary levels, these have not been very great, and certainly not as great as seems to be generally believed. When one controls for social class, the inter-religion difference among children from non-manual families is reduced, and virtually disappears among children from manual backgrounds. Only at the higher levels of qualification can the (small) differences be said to persist. An analysis of subsequent careers raises doubts about the importance of even these small-scale variations. On this evidence, the existing framework of discussion is criticised as inadequate, because it ignores the social context in which education lies. A reanalysis of staffing levels in 1973 is seen as confirming the view that integration of the secondary schools is unlikely to make major improvements in the educational or occupational achievements of Catholics, because of the underlying structure of class and opportunity in Scotland.