Monday, June 4, 2007

Faculty Bias Against Evangelicals

My blog description includes "Education". I've done much with that yet. Here is an interesting piece of recent news in that arena.

A study released last month by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research finds that 53% of faculty in American colleges and universities have an unfavorable opinion of evangelical students. This compares to just 3% of faculty holding the same attitude toward Jewish students. The study was commissioned in order to root out a supposed bias against Jewish students, and the authors were shocked to find reaction to evangelicals. The study had more than 1200 respondents, from all disciplines, all kinds of institutions, and all regions of the country (so it can't be explained away by geography).

The rest of the unfavorable (prejudiced) attitudes of faculty against religious groups was as follows:
  • 3% Jews
  • 4% Buddhists
  • 9% Non-evangelical Christians
  • 10% Not practicing any religion
  • 13% Catholics
  • 18% Atheists
  • 22% Muslims
  • 33% Mormons
  • 53% Evangelical Christians

There is a lot more in the study and worth of several exploration. A pdf of the study can be found here.

1 comment:

Crowbard said...

Are unfavourable attitudes really prejudiced or are some of them judiciously arrived at?
Could there be a link between some perceived or actual charateristic (such as vocality, fanaticism, intolerance) of the group and the percentage of unfavourable attitudes earned. Do we as children of the universal creator dare to distinguish ouselves from all her other children by designating ourselves separate under a distinctive group title? Has there been a sudden Uzzite revival - 'Are you one of Uz?' - The question is needless to the soul who accepts all his kindred with love - titles and lables divide humanity - no lables might result in no prejudice.