Christian Colleges and Universities as Moral Communities: The Effects of Institutional Characteristics on Student Religiosity

Abstract

Research suggests that some Christian colleges function as moral communities that can help sustain religious belief and practice (Hill in J Sci Study Relig 48:515–534, 2009 ). In this paper, we explore several mechanisms by which this phenomenon may occur. Using a survey of college students from 31 institutions belonging to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, we examine how institutional characteristics influence changes in religiosity throughout college, finding that religious homogeneity and the availability of spiritual mentors consistently have significant effects on changes in religious belief and practice. The results are discussed in light of the existing literature on religious homogeneity and pluralism, as well as their implications for administrators at Christian colleges and universities.

Religious belief in Christian higher education: Is religious and political diversity relativizing?

“…While these institutions represent a niche within higher education in the US, they are ideal for testing the effects of religious pluralism because religion is a salient feature of the institutional context. They also serve as ‘moral communities’ that protect, and even nurture, religious belief and behavior (Davignon and Thomson, 2015; Hill, 2009). Any relativizing effects can be more readily attributed to religious pluralism rather than potentially secularizing influences because these institutions are overtly opposed to the latter.…”

“…While low response rates plague many recent surveys on religion, they are not necessarily related to non-response bias, which nevertheless can be reduced by weighting for demographic characteristics (Groves, 2006). Therefore, while our sample of college students is comparable to the population in terms of sex and race (Davignon and Thomson, 2015), we control for these measures in our analysis. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the relatively low response rate as a possibly limitation of this study.…”

“…Nevertheless, sectarian institutions of higher learning are increasingly admitting students who do not share the denomination of the institution (Glanzer et al, 2013; Ross, 2011), so we instead categorized affiliation by the religious ‘families’ defined by the Association of Religious Data Archives (ARDA) 2 . Second, we also considered religious diversity (beliefs) , operationalized as the proportion of students at each school that identified as both ‘born again’ and ‘Bible believing’, following Davignon and Thomson (2015).…”

“…Similarly, Hill (2009: 530) found that student religiosity was more robust at conservative Protestant universities than at Catholic or mainline Protestant universities because the former act as ‘moral communities’ that ‘effectively create overlapping networks of like-minded individuals that reinforce and legitimate religious life by creating a shared moral order’. Davignon and Thomson (2015) found that institutional factors at conservative Christian institutions including student perception of the availability of spiritual mentors and homogeneity of religious belief are protective of religious belief and practice.…”

“…Recent studies have investigated the role of institutional context in conditioning patterns of change in religious belief in practice. Framing colleges and universities as ‘moral communities’ (see Stark, 1996), some have found that religious homogeneity at conservative Protestant schools serves as a protective factor against declines in religiosity (Davignon and Thomson, 2015; Hill, 2009).…”