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Anti-scientific attitudes can impose substantial costs on societies. Can schools be an important agent in mitigating the propagation of such attitudes? This paper investigates the effect of the content of science education on anti-scientific attitudes, knowledge, and choices. The analysis exploits staggered reforms that reduce or expand the coverage of evolution theory in US state science education standards. I compare adjacent cohorts in models with state and cohort fixed effects and conduct fine-grained placebo tests to rule out scientific, religious and political confounders. There are three main results. First, expanded evolution coverage increases students' knowledge about evolution. Second, the reforms translate into greater evolution belief in adulthood, but do not crowd out religiosity or affect political attitudes. Third, the reforms affect high-stakes life decisions, namely the probability of working in life sciences.

In many countries, schools and classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse along a variety of dimensions, including migration; ethnic groups, national minorities and Indigenous peoples; gender; gender identity and sexual orientation; special education needs; and giftedness. To navigate this diversity, adopting a multidimensional and intersectional lens could help education systems promote equity and inclusion in education and foster the well-being and learning of all students. Such an approach could also support education systems in preparing all individuals so that they can engage with others in increasingly complex and diverse societies. To build equitable and inclusive education systems, analysing policy issues regarding governance arrangements, resourcing schemes, capacity building, school-level interventions, and monitoring and evaluation is key. The "Strength through Diversity: Education for Inclusive Societies" project seeks to help governments and education systems address diversity to achieve more equitable and inclusive education systems. This paper presents the project's theoretical and analytical framework.

This paper analyzes the roots and implications of conflict between the conduct of science and government predilections in the United States, including the security state and neoconservative control of Washington. Three major conflicts are discussed: the emergence of new security and secrecy regimes that seek control of science; religiously derived moral viewpoints that seek to limit scientific research; and the purposeful shaping and censoring of scientific findings for political gain. All three policy issues, argues the author, have their roots in a growing public mistrust of science and its purposes, but also the actions of the current presidential administration. What is needed, he states, is a set of rules rooted in several common understandings or rules. First, policies resting on scientific or technological issues, like all public policies, are decided in the end not just by experts but by a variety of people and interests. Second, objective scientific results, tested by repeated efforts at confirmation, are necessary (though not sufficient) elements in such policy decisions. Third, if the scientists responsible for those findings are controlled or silenced by particular policy interests, or committed in advance to any particular category of policy outcome, the resulting decisions are likely to be wrong. If adopted in advance of the installation of the next administration, or at the outset, such a set of rules could be seen a forward-looking improvement in governance, rather than as yet another criticism of what has been going on in this one.

This paper examines the nonmarital teenage childbearing behavior of two cohorts of women from the National Longitudinal Surveys (born between 1957-1964, making them teenagers during the 1970s-80s, and between 1980-94, making them teenagers during the late 1990s-early 2000s). The two cohorts faced substantially different social and economic situations during adolescence. The paper constructs a monthly panel of information for the teens from the time they are 12 years old until they have a nonmarital birth, reach the end of their third survey without giving birth, get married, or reach age 18. It identifies factors contributing to differences in teenage childbearing behavior across the cohorts by estimating a Cox proportional hazard model, stratified on race, age of mother at the birth of her first child, and rate of marriage in the state. The model identifies education, living situations, religion, and welfare policy as contributing factors. For teens of the 1990s, the introduction of restrictions on living conditions act as a retardant to nonmarital childbearing. Higher education for the youth and her mother delay childbearing for both cohorts. Living with one's biological father at age 14 relates to delayed childbearing (with hazard rates nearly 60 and 40 percent lower for teens of the two cohorts). (Contains 33 references and 6 tables.) (SM)

Giving Back to the Community: African American Inner City Teens and Civic Engagement was an exercise in ethnographic research. Intentionally different from the more common quantitative studies conducted on civic engagement, this qualitative data gathering project was intended to focus solely on the patterns of civic engagement habits of low income inner city African American youth to better assess the likely causes of civic engagement trends. My research, however, resulted in the uncovering of a much broader story about African American inner city community traditions, networks, and norms. In the end, the research attempts to define this community's version of "civic engagement", and its relationship to mainstream civic institutions and civic life. [This report was produced by Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), University of Maryland, and Charles Communications Consulting.]

This paper quantifies the religious factor in education demand by calibrating a political economy model of education finance and school choice in which parents who differ in the advantage they attribute to religious education choose from among public, private-nonsectarian, and religious schools. The calibrated distribution of religious preferences indicates that the revealed advantage of religious education is strongly contingent on its high levels of subsidization. The results of the calibration are applied to compare the effect of publicly funded vouchers that do not exclude religious schools--to which the Supreme Court recently opened a door in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris--with vouchers restricted to nonsectarian schools. It supports the implicit conclusion of the Supreme Court, that participation of religious schools in the Cleveland voucher program was essential for achieving its goal of helping low-income parents in a failing school district. Larger vouchers would have reduced the share of religious schools in the program, though they would still have attracted a majority of students. (Contains 40 references, 44 endnotes, 8 tables, and 4 figures.) (Author/SM)

This paper highlights the religious accommodations that Ontario (Canada) universities have undertaken to create an inclusive, supportive learning community for all students, faculty, and staff. It outlines the demographic changes and public policy surrounding religious accommodation issues in Canada and in Ontario in particular, focusing on the Ontario Human Rights Code policy on creed and accommodation of religious observance. The paper then discusses some of the multifaith tensions present in Ontario university communities, including the lack of clarity of basic definitions, secularism, ambivalence toward religious expression, discrimination, diversity within diversity, intergroup tensions, and discrepancy of views concerning current accommodation measures. The paper describes the accommodation needs of different groups, including Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and other groups, along with successful accommodations for worship and ceremonial space, athletic facilities, residence life, and classroom and food service issues. Finally, the paper discusses social climate issues, such as harassment, dress and modesty requirements, curriculum, and counseling and health services. (MDM)

There is a powerful religious commitment among people in America; nearly 92% of the population is affiliated with a specific religion. This report presents findings from a 2-year study of the attitudes and experiences of clergy regarding substance abuse and the training they received in schools of theology or in seminaries. Too often clergy and physicians do not overlap their care, something that could help recovery and ease the pain of substance abuse clients. Prior research from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse has identified a helpful connection between spiritual and religious practices and a lower risk for substance abuse or addiction. A main finding of this study suggests that a better understanding by clergy of the disease of addiction and a better appreciation by helping professionals, especially psychiatrists and psychologists, about the power of God, religion, and spirituality holds enormous potential for the prevention and treatment of substance abuse. (Contains 1 table, 10 figures, and 124 references.) (JDM)

This study compared results of measuring student attitudes regarding race, gender, and religious climate using pencil-and-paper administration in a group setting with computer-administrated measurement over a local area network. Approximately 2,000 U.S. Air Force Academy cadets in February 1996 and 1,400 in November 1996 were administered the Cadet Social Climate Survey. The survey instrument contained demographic questions, Likert-scaled items regarding attitudes about school climate issues, and questions about personal experiences. The instrument used in November was modified to include items from the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding. Computer administration took less time for a student to complete, could be done in the privacy of the student's room, was easier to administer, and provided a ready data set for analysis. The comparison showed a significantly higher rate of return of valid responses using the computer version and found no significant differences in the pattern of responses between the two versions. However, significant differences were found on socially desirable responding in that computer administration appeared to encourage a socially desirable response set, probably due to concerns regarding anonymity. (Contains 14 references.) (JLS)