The Religious Drop-Outs: Apostasy Among College Graduates
Caplovitz, D., and F. Sherrow. 1977. The religious drop-outs: Apostasy among college graduates. Beverly Hills, California: Sage.
Rating:
8
Summary:
The book originated as a class paper, then a PhD dissertation, and ultimately turned into a book. Also, the original focus of the book was to be just on the religious experiences and identities of Jewish college students, but in expanding the project it became apparent that extending the analysis to Catholics and Protestants was worthwhile. Ultimately, “[t]he chief objective of [the] monograph [is] to discover the determinants of apostasy among American college graduates” (p. 31).
The bulk of the findings in the book are based on a 1961 NORC survey in which about 33,000 college graduates were asked questions about their college experience. However, the survey included two important questions: ‘In which religion were you raised?’ and ‘What is your current religion?’ When the answer to the second was ‘none’ but the respondent included a religion when asked the first question, the authors considered the respondent an ‘apostate’ (someone who leaves a religion). The authors then explore the characteristics of apostates in contrast to ‘identifiers’ or people who remained in the religion in which they were raised.
The main findings of the book include:
-The apostasy rate for Jews and Protestants in 1961 was around 15% (that percentage of people raised in the religion left by the time they graduated from college; for Catholics in that year it was around 9% (pp. 32-33).
-People in the West are the most likely to apostatize or not belong to a religion; people in the south are the least likely (p. 43).
-Protestant and Catholic men are almost twice as likely to apostatize as are Protestant and Catholic women; Jewish women are just slightly less likely than are Jewish men (p. 46).
-Closeness of relationship with one’s parents is also an indicator of apostasy; the closer one’s relationship growing up and one’s present relationship, the less likely the person is to apostatize (p. 51; however, this statistic has been questioned by later research – see Hunsberger’s work in the 1980s).
-Those who consider themselves “intellectually oriented” are up to three times more likely to apostatize than those who do not ponder “deep” questions or engage in academic pursuits (pp. 57 & 76).
-Liberals are more likely than conservatives to apostatize (p. 64).
-College is a breeding ground for apostasy; there are more apostates at the end of college then at the beginning (p. 109); also, the quality of a school makes a big differences, “Apostasy increases as the quality of the school increases” (p. 111).
-Not attending graduate school was associated with a decline in apostasy rates; attending graduate school increased apostasy rates (p. 147).
-Mixed religion marriages are more likely to lead to apostasy than are marriages between two people of the same religion (p. 154).
Review:
The book is fairly well-written and includes, in the introduction, a detailed explanation of why the primary data source is so old (1961) in light of the publication date of the book (1977) – the co-author, Sherrow, passed away in 1971 while working on the book and it was quite a while before the lead author, Caplovitz, was able to finish up the project.
The data analysis for the book consists of mostly t-tests and elaboration models in which certain variables are held constant in order to test for specific effects (this is a forerunner of regression analysis). Using such models, the authors generate a number of tables that clearly illustrate the relationships outlined above.
There are a few problems with the findings of the book, which is the only criticism I have of it. First, as has been the case with a number of other studies, this study finds that religious apostates are not as happy as religious identifiers (people who stay). The authors begin to hint at where this relationship might stem from, but they don’t really conclude the thought, “In fact, instead of being an antidote to unhappiness as the Zelan-Greeley substitute religion theory would hold, intellectualism turns out to be negatively related to happiness. Both apostasy and intellectualism seem to be causes of unhappiness, working in the same, rather than opposite, directions” (p. 93). What the authors fail to do is hold intellectualism constant and then test for differences in happiness. I’m fairly certain that if you were to do so you would find that apostates are no more likely to be unhappy than identifiers; the happiness component is intimately tied to intellectualism not to whether or not you are religious.
Another finding that warrants additional research is the idea proposed by the authors that apostates tend to be alienated, “The person who is ready to sever his ties with any major institutional sector of society-in this case, a religious community-is apt to be the alienated person-a type of continuing interest to sociologists” (p. 35). I think a clearer notion of what is meant by alienation is warranted, as is a retest of this notion both at present and in other countries where religiosity is not as pervasive as it is in the U.S.
Finally, while perhaps unintentional, the author has a tendency to use pejorative adjectives in describing the traits of apostates (e.g., rebellious, alienated, etc.). Whether you choose to present such traits in the negative or positive is in the eye of the beholder. Rather than calling apostates one might call them “trendsetters” or “revolutionaries” or “iconoclasts”. This does away with the negative connotations of leaving religion, which some people will certainly find objectionable.
Overall, this is a very good book despite the fact that the findings are dated and limited to a precise age group – recent college graduates. It remains a primary source for delineating predictors of apostasy and is a must read for anyone interested in the subject.