The Religious Restructuring of the Politics of Education: Exploring Stalled Support for Education Spending, 1973-2018

Abstract

Recent research on Americans’ attitudes toward public education focuses on controversial legislation surrounding curriculum, increasing teacher compensation, and changing priorities of political parties. However, the processes by which religion also shapes attitudes toward education remain largely unexplored. Given Robert Wuthnow’s (1988) religious restructuring thesis, which posits religion’s relationship to politics evolved substantially since World War II, sociologists of religion have explored the changing relationship between religion and attitudes toward political institutions. We build upon this body of research, using data from the General Social Survey to explore both religious tradition and religious practice and their associations with attitudes toward education spending from 1973 to 2018. Results show that prior to 1990, attitudes toward education spending have converged across religious traditions. After 1990, this convergence plateaus and remains stable through 2018. Conversely, after 1990, we also capture a divergence across religious practice, with those who report high religious service attendance and report strong religious affiliation showing declining rates of support for educational spending. In a time of heightened political polarization, our findings contribute to our understanding of the changing ways in which religion matters for politics.