Sherkat, D. E. and A. Darnell. 1999. “The Effect of Parents’ Fundamentalism on Children’s Educational Attainment: Examining Differences by Gender and Children’s Fundamentalism.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 38(1): 23-35.
The authors assess the influence of parents’ fundamentalist beliefs and practices on their children’s educational success. Knowing that fundamentalist leaders disapprove of secular education and that fundamentalist colleges are too expensive for many, Sherkat and Darnell hypothesize and ultimately find that children who share their parents’ orientation are more likely to have primary access to higher education, while non-fundamentalist children, especially daughters, from fundamentalist families may be at a disadvantage. These latter groups appear likely to experience more financial challenges and familial resistance to their educational prospects.
