Religion, Education, and the State

Abstract

Public schooling systems are an essential feature of modern states. These systems often developed at the expense of religious schools, which undertook the bulk of education historically and still cater to large student populations worldwide. This paper examines how Indonesia's longstanding Islamic school system responded to the construction of 61,000 public elementary schools in the mid-1970s. The policy was designed in part to foster nation building and to curb religious influence in society. We are the first to study the market response to these ideological objectives. Using novel data on Islamic school construction and curriculum, we identify both short-run effects on exposed cohorts as well as dynamic, long-run effects on education markets. While primary enrollment shifted towards state schools, religious education increased on net as Islamic secondary schools absorbed the increased demand for continued education. The Islamic sector not only entered new markets to compete with the state but also increased religious curriculum at newly created schools. Our results suggest that the Islamic sector response increased religiosity at the expense of a secular national identity. Overall, this ideological competition in education undermined the nation-building impacts of mass schooling.

Buddha's grace illuminates all: Temple destruction, school construction and modernization in 20th century China

“…In this paper, we add to this literature by focusing on 20th century China, and demonstrate how the government's appropriation of religious assets helped to initiate the massive modernization of human capital. Relatedly, our paper also complements an important emerging literature on nation building and the provision of education (Bazzi et al 2020), by investigating the interactions between the state and the religious sector.…”

“…Relatedly, our paper also complements an important emerging literature on nation building and the provision of education (Bazzi et al . 2020), by investigating the interactions between the state and the religious sector.…”

Faith and Assimilation: Italian Immigrants in the US

“…Our results thus far indicate that the presence of Italian Catholic churches -directly or indirectly -reduced the assimilation of Italian immigrants. Yet, religious organiza-tions tend to provide their community with important public goods, such as (formal or informal) insurance and, more often, education (Bazzi et al, 2020;Cantoni et al, 2018;Meyersson, 2014;Valencia Caicedo, 2019). Italian Catholic churches in the early twentieth century US were no exception (Francesconi, 1983;Vecoli, 1969).…”

Long-Term and Intergenerational Effects of Education: Evidence from School Construction in Indonesia

“…They use the Indonesian Family Life Survey for their analysis, and in Section 3 and Appendix B, we highlight the reasons we instead use the National Socioeconomic Survey (SUSENAS) for studying intergenerational human capital impacts. In addition to the work by Duflo (2001), research by Breierova and Duflo (2004), Martinez-Bravo (2017), Rohner and Saia (2019), Karachiwalla and Palloni (2019), Ashraf, Bau, Nunn and Voena (2020), Hasan, Nakajima, and Rangel (2020), and Bazzi, Hilmy, and Marx (2020) measure various impacts of the school construction program in Indonesia. Wantchekon, Klasnja and Novta (2014) study human capital externalities after school construction in Benin.…”