Denominational Schools and Pupil Attitude Towards Christianity

Summary

The 1944 Education Act enables the churches in England to provide voluntary aided schools. The Roman Catholic church currently provides 9.9% of state maintained primary school places and the Church of England provides 7.9% through voluntary aided schools. In order to evaluate the influence of church voluntary aided schools on pupil attitudes towards Christianity, an attitude scale was administered to three generations of third and fourth year junior pupils in the same 15 county schools, 10 Church of England aided schools and five Roman Catholic aided schools in 1974, 1978 and 1982. After controlling for a range of other influences, the data demonstrate the positive influence of Roman Catholic schools on pupil attitude towards Christianity and the negative influence of Church of England Schools. The direction of the school influence on pupil attitude is consistent for all three samples.