Women’s Schooling and Religious Mobility: Joining, Switching, and Quitting Church in a Christian Sub-Saharan Setting

View/ Open
Issue Date
2017-07-10Author
Agadjanian, Victor
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, author accepted manuscript
Rights
Copyright © 2017, Oxford University Press
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
In dialogue with mainly western literature on determinants of religious mobility and the evidence on the transformative role of mass education in developing settings, I examine the relationship of educational attainment with religious reaffiliation and disaffiliation in the context of rural and small-town sub-Saharan Africa. Adapting western scholarship to the realities of that context, where most people do not complete primary school, I conceptualize both basic education and religious belonging as parts and expressions of profound societal transformations in the sub-continent. I use data from a survey of women aged 18–50 years conducted in a predominantly Christian area in Mozambique to test this relationship from both the lifetime and dynamic perspectives. I find a strong positive association between educational level and the probability of church switching, with modest variations by denominational destination of and main reasons for reaffiliation. Disaffiliation is negatively related to schooling level. These findings are situated within a broader discourse on religion, development, and social change in the sub-Sahara.
Description
This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Sociology of Religion following peer review. The version of record [Agadjanian, Victor. “Women's Schooling and Religious Mobility: Joining, Switching, and Quitting Church in a Christian Sub-Saharan Setting.” Sociology of religion vol. 78,4 (2017): 411-436. doi:10.1093/socrel/srx027] is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srx027.
Collections
Citation
Agadjanian, Victor. “Women's Schooling and Religious Mobility: Joining, Switching, and Quitting Church in a Christian Sub-Saharan Setting.” Sociology of Religion vol. 78,4 (2017): 411-436. doi:10.1093/socrel/srx027
Items in KU ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
We want to hear from you! Please share your stories about how Open Access to this item benefits YOU.