Protestantism and Education: Reading (the Bible) and Other Skills

Konferenzbeitrag

During industrialization, Protestants were more literate than Catholics. This paper investigates whether this fact may be led back to the intrinsic motivation of Protestants to read the bible and whether other education motives were involved as well. We employ a historical data set from Switzerland which allows us to differentiate between different cognitive skills: reading, numeracy, essay writing and Swiss history. We develop an estimation strategy to examine whether the impact of religious denomination was particularly large with respect to reading capabilities. We find support for this hypothesis. However, Protestants' education motives went beyond acquiring reading skills.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2011: Die Ordnung der Weltwirtschaft: Lektionen aus der Krise - Session: Economics of Religion ; No. D8-V2

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Education and Research Institutions: General ; Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: Europe: Pre-1913 ; Cultural Economics: Religion
• Subject: Cognitive skills ; Education ; Reading capability ; Religious denomination ; Protestant reformation

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Boppart, Timo ; Falkinger, Josef ; Grossmann, Volker
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (when): 2011

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/48732
• Last update: 12.04.2025, 6:31 PM CEST