Religiosity and school performance: a case study of Brazilian youth in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte

Abstract

The importance of religion in studies of educational achievement has been highlighted by recent research and by many international studies, but it is still a subject relatively unexplored by economists. These studies show that religious socialization is a process that normally operates apart from individual belief systems and organizational affiliations, and constitutes, even if accidentally, a form of social integration that leads to the strengthening of values, which in turn leads to better educational performance. The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of religion on educational performance, controlling for individual characteristics, family background and socioeconomic status. The methodology used is that of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Quantile Regression. The data analyzed in this study are from the Pesquisa jovem longitudinal study.