Religiosity, Religious Schools, and Their Relationship with the Achievement Gap: A Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis.

Abstract

A research synthesis was conducted including three meta-analyses, a review of the relevant literature, and supplemental analyses examining the relationship between personal faith and the reduction of the achievement gap. Personal faith included belief and adherence to any religion. The results of the three meta-analyses indicated that: (a) personal religious faith was one the two largest factors that consistently reduced the achievement gap; (b) personal religious commitment reduces the achievement gap by 50%; and (c) attending a religious school reduced the achievement gap by 25%. Supplemental analyses using a nationwide dataset added further significance to the findings. These analyses indicated that if an African American student was a person of faith and came from an intact family, the achievement gap disappeared entirely. Keywords: Achievement gap, achievement, African American, meta-analysis, religiosity, religious schools, faith Over the last four decades, one of the most persistent debates education has been on how to close the achievement gap between White students on the one hand and African American students on the other (Green, 2001; Simpson, 1981). This achievement gap exists virtually every measure of educational progress, including standardized tests, GPA, the dropout rate, and the extent to which students are left back a (Green, Blasik, Hartshorn, & Shatter-Jones, 2000; Jeynes, 2008b, 2009; Olneck, 2005). Olneck (2005) noted that by the eighth grade the achievement gap is usually two years (p. 95. The United States was founded on the principle of equaUty. As a result, Americans tend to feel uncomfortable when unequal results emerge, and American educators have frequently tried to reduce those inequalities (Evans, 2005; Haycock, 2001). The intractable nature of the difference academic outcomes that exists between students of certain races of color and White students, as well as those of low versus high socioeconomic status (SES), has been of considerable concern to educators and the American public (Rippeyoung, 2009; Roscigno, 1998). Ronald Roach (2001) asserted that in the academic and think tank world, pondering achievement gap remedies takes center stage (p. 377). Moreover, Kozol (1991) and other researchers assert that low-SES youth and children of color are the most crucial for the U. S. educational system to reach (Michael, Farquhar, Wiggins, & Green, 2008). Given the persistence of this gap, the government has launched a plethora of initiatives designed to eradicate it (Evans, 2005; Green et al., 2000; Jeynes, 2008a). These initiatives include Head Start, the school lunch program, President Clinton's national standards program, a host of affirmative action programs, No Child Left Behind, and various other programs. Moreover, academics, research mstitutes, foundations, and other organizations have initiated copious private programs (Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master, 2006; Lee, 2009; Ross, Smith, & Casey, 1999; Slavin & Madden, 2001). These efforts have focused on multicultural teaching, attempting to raise students' self-esteem; parental involvement; requiring school uniforms; encouraging community partnerships, and so forth (Jeynes, 2008a; McFadden, 2009; Slavin & Madden, 2006). Of all the inequalities that exist the American education system, researchers have probably tried to address racial inequality more than any other (Haycock, 2001; Jeynes, 1999, 2010a, 2010b; Orfield et al., 2000). And while there was a period during the 1980s when the achievement gap did show some reduction, (Green, 2001; Jeynes, 2007), it remains stubbornly wide even to this day (Dunham & Wilson, 2007; Haycock, 2001; Jeynes, 1999, 2003, 2010a) Although researchers and educators acknowledge that an achievement gap exists, social scientists differ widely their suggestions about how to bridge the gap. GENERAL APPROACHES TO REDUCING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP Social scientists, politicians, educators, and community leaders have undertaken a number of approaches to addressing the achievement gap. …

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