Structural Effects of Professional Schools on Professional Socialization: The Case of Protestant Clergymen

Abstract

This paper examines the structural effects of professional schools in the process of professional socialization. Fourteen hundred and fifty-one ministers who are relatively recent graduates of twenty-one Protestant seminaries constitute the sample. Seminaries are grouped into three types according to the modal ranking of the graduates of each seminary of four goals of theological education. These types are interpreted as approximating the major historic types of theology schools. A measure of each respondent's theological orientation is utilized as the socialization outcome (dependent variable). Blau's method for analyzing structural effects is used. Additional variables—parental socioeconomic status, denomination, respondent's preference for the school he attended, his peer group's orientation, and type of current ministry—are examined to test for spuriousness between seminary type and theological orientation. The data show that the structure of the schools is related to theological orientation in the predicted direction even when the additional variables are introduced into the analysis.