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The teaching of evolution theory in school has a lasting impact on students. Reforms of the coverage of evolution in US education standards have a positive effect on students' knowledge of evolution by the end of high school. These reforms translate into a greater belief in evolution in adulthood, without crowding out religiosity or affecting political attitudes. They also affect high-stakes life decisions, such as the probability of choosing a career in life sciences. These findings imply that science education is an effective tool for fostering scientific attitudes and tackling the shortage of STEM workers

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., Center for Law & Economics Working Paper Series, 2022 (08)

Benjamin W. Arold prepared this study while he was working at the Center for Economics of Education at the ifo Institute. The study was completed in March 2022 and accepted as doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the LMU Munich. It consists of four distinct empirical essays that address various aspects of how school curricula affect students in the classroom and beyond. Chapter 2 demonstrates that the abolishment of compulsory religious education in Germany does not only affect religiosity and gender role attitudes, but also affects the high-stakes choices of getting married, having children and participating in the labor market. Chapter 3 provides evidence that the content of science education standards in the US does not only affect related knowledge of students and adulthood attitudes, but also translates into high-stakes occupational choices. Chapter 4 exemplifies that school curricula reforms can also have unintended consequences by showing that a reform of education standards in math and English has negative spillovers on student achievement in science. Finally, Chapter 5 highlights the fundamental role teachers, the transmitters of educational content in school, play in the formation of human capital even in dimensions generally thought of as genetically determined.

Being exposed to compulsory religious education in school can have long-run consequences for students' lives. At different points in time since the 1970s, German states terminated compulsory religious education in public schools and replaced it by a choice between ethics classes and religious education. This article shows that the reform not only led to reduced religiosity in students' later life, but also eroded traditional attitudes towards gender roles and increased labor-market participation and earnings.

We study whether compulsory religious education in schools affects students��� religiosity as adults. We exploit the staggered termination of compulsory religious education across German states in models with state and cohort fixed effects. Using three different datasets, we find that abolishing compulsory religious education significantly reduced religiosity of affected students in adulthood. It also reduced the religious actions of personal prayer, church-going, and church membership. Beyond religious attitudes, the reform led to more equalized gender roles, fewer marriages and children, and higher labor-market participation and earnings. The reform did not affect ethical and political values or non-religious school outcomes.

In einer Online-Befragung unter 2 216 Eltern im November 2020 wurde erfasst, wie es einkommensschwächeren Familien mit Kindern in Deutschland während der Coronakrise erging. Ein Drittel der Befragten gab an, dass das Geld am Ende des Monats häufiger knapp ist als vor der Pandemie. Diese finanzielle Lage wirkt sich auch auf das Konsumverhalten der Familien aus: Knapp die Hälfte der Befragten (47%) leistet sich in der Coronakrise weniger als zuvor.