Question about private school families and religious attendance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um, maybe you should include religious schools in your question, because if you are wealthy and smart (the people you seem interested in) and religious you might consider sending your kid to a religious school. So your sample is already shot by only asking about private, non-religious schools.

Signed,
A smart person of faith with a kid at a Friends school

Yes, but obviously I would expect the population that sends it's children to religious schools to have a high church attendance rate. That's not saying that these people can't be wealthy and highly educated as well.

So basically, you only want the sort of answer that might support your pre-determined conclusion (about private school parents not being religious)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP and another Ivy grad, with kids formerly in private and now in public magnets, who is serious about faith.

I'm also "well educated" enough to understand that you're not going to get anything like a statistically valid sample of "educated" people by polling only people who go private AND visit DCUM....

OP, you don't seem terribly bright or well-educated yourself. And it's also pretty clear you're atheist or agnostic. So, in line with your own methodology here, can we extrapolate from these details about you to a conclusion that all atheists and agnostics are as dumb as you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um, maybe you should include religious schools in your question, because if you are wealthy and smart (the people you seem interested in) and religious you might consider sending your kid to a religious school. So your sample is already shot by only asking about private, non-religious schools.

Signed,
A smart person of faith with a kid at a Friends school

Yes, but obviously I would expect the population that sends it's children to religious schools to have a high church attendance rate. That's not saying that these people can't be wealthy and highly educated as well.

But what percentage of people on this Private School Board send their kids to a private school with no religious affiliation?

GDS, Potomac, Maret, Madeira, Burke, Field come to mind but these schools are so totally different I can't imagine you could conclude anything from the religious habits of the families there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um, maybe you should include religious schools in your question, because if you are wealthy and smart (the people you seem interested in) and religious you might consider sending your kid to a religious school. So your sample is already shot by only asking about private, non-religious schools.

Signed,
A smart person of faith with a kid at a Friends school

Yes, but obviously I would expect the population that sends it's children to religious schools to have a high church attendance rate. That's not saying that these people can't be wealthy and highly educated as well.

But what percentage of people on this Private School Board send their kids to a private school with no religious affiliation?

GDS, Potomac, Maret, Madeira, Burke, Field come to mind but these schools are so totally different I can't imagine you could conclude anything from the religious habits of the families there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Um, maybe you should include religious schools in your question, because if you are wealthy and smart (the people you seem interested in) and religious you might consider sending your kid to a religious school. So your sample is already shot by only asking about private, non-religious schools.

Signed,
A smart person of faith with a kid at a Friends school

Yes, but obviously I would expect the population that sends it's children to religious schools to have a high church attendance rate. That's not saying that these people can't be wealthy and highly educated as well.

But what percentage of people on this Private School Board send their kids to a private school with no religious affiliation?

GDS, Potomac, Maret, Madeira, Burke, Field come to mind but these schools are so totally different I can't imagine you could conclude anything from the religious habits of the families there.

Exactly - I could name 100 Christian/Jewish schools so a very small percentage of privates have no religious affiliation.

[Anonymous]

Our children attend a local religious private school, but we are non-religious, so we never go to any religious services, except for invitation events like weddings. I don't know how many other families attend regular religious services (or don't), because I figure that's their business and not mine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP and another Ivy grad, with kids formerly in private and now in public magnets, who is serious about faith.

I'm also "well educated" enough to understand that you're not going to get anything like a statistically valid sample of "educated" people by polling only people who go private AND visit DCUM....

OP, you don't seem terribly bright or well-educated yourself. And it's also pretty clear you're atheist or agnostic. So, in line with your own methodology here, can we extrapolate from these details about you to a conclusion that all atheists and agnostics are as dumb as you?

I'm the OP here, and no I did not write the above quote, nor in any of my posts did I give any inclination of what I thought the results would be. Some of you are getting me confused with other posters. As I stated in a previous post, the reason I asked this question was because I just finished reading a book where the author made a claim about wealthy, highly educated families and religious attendance. Basically, what he said was that over the past few decades religious attendance has gone down in society overall, but in the middle and lower classes attendance has dropped even more than among the wealthy and highly educated, where religious attendance (once children are in the picture), has remained fairly stable. I posted on this board just to get a sense as to whether the responses would support this claim. I understand that I can't place a whole lot of validity to the answers from such a small sample, it's not like I'm writing a dissertation; just figured I'd run it by this board to see what kind of answers I'd get.

[Anonymous]

As long as anecdotes make a data set: we know a very religious family that sends their kid to Field. But what do DCUM anecdotes prove? Nothing....

[Anonymous]

Ironically, we know more families at secular schools who attend services or are involved with their religious community than those who attend the Cathedral schools.

[Anonymous]

I think that just makes sense from a practical perspective more than anything else. Wealthy families, especially those with only one working parent, just have more time and money to devote to religious activities than families with two working parents and single parents. They also are usually more welcomed at a larger variety of religious activities which helps them come back more frequently. Wealthy families tend to send their children to private schools which could be religious or secular (but perhaps spiritual in a different way). That's about all the connection I can easily see. I don't know that I'd then say those people are more religious than those who don't attend religious activities. Religion to me is a personal thing. I'd also say that poorer families might be more 'religious' in other ways such as helping out their needy neighbors rather than going to a religious service and donating money there.

[Anonymous]

I think the reason some families who send their children to secular schools participate more in other religious activities is because they don't participate through the schools but want to be part of the religious organization in another way. Families of children I knew who attended Catholic school would say they already paid for the school and had religion every day during the week, so they didn't want to volunteer on the weekend at the scheduled church activity. Those activities are where all the CCD kids would show up to help out.

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I mean if the school is secular, do most families tend to go to religious services. Basically I'm trying to get a feel if it is common for families in this demographic to attend religious services. If your curious, I don't have a child who attends private school, nor is it on the radar. I'm asking purely for sociological reasons. I recently read a book that made an assertion about highly educated families and religious attendance, that I find a bit hard to believe. I'm trying to get a sense for whether the responses on this board support the author's claim.

I think the reason a lot of people find this thread kind of ridiculous is that your question is logically flawed and you're asking it in the wrong place. You are assuming that highly educated families send their kids to private school. That is a faulty assumption on a number of levels. Maybe you are assuming that highly educated equals high income and that more high income families send their kids to private school. Still faulty because highly educated doesn't equal high income, necessarily. Sure, lawyers make a lot of money, but it is very controversial to call them highly educated, unless you are defining highly educated as anyone with a Master's level of education (Most measures in sociology only consider PhDs to be highly educated, and they don't make, on average, the salary of a JD). If you assume highly educated is anyone with a post baccalaureate degree, then you further skew lower your definition of average income, and damaging further the assumption that highly educated=high income.

You also have the problem of assuming high income people are the same people as households with inherited money and that they all send their kids to private school. So really, your assumptions are so huge that there is no way to ask that question here and get a valid answer.

Of course, if you are just trolling here to bait the religious or the lawyers, or the private school parents, with this thread, have at it, I guess. Kind of a dumb thread though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Sorry, I mean if the school is secular, do most families tend to go to religious services. Basically I'm trying to get a feel if it is common for families in this demographic to attend religious services. If your curious, I don't have a child who attends private school, nor is it on the radar. I'm asking purely for sociological reasons. I recently read a book that made an assertion about highly educated families and religious attendance, that I find a bit hard to believe. I'm trying to get a sense for whether the responses on this board support the author's claim.

I think the reason a lot of people find this thread kind of ridiculous is that your question is logically flawed and you're asking it in the wrong place. You are assuming that highly educated families send their kids to private school. That is a faulty assumption on a number of levels. Maybe you are assuming that highly educated equals high income and that more high income families send their kids to private school. Still faulty because highly educated doesn't equal high income, necessarily. Sure, lawyers make a lot of money, but it is very controversial to call them highly educated, unless you are defining highly educated as anyone with a Master's level of education (Most measures in sociology only consider PhDs to be highly educated, and they don't make, on average, the salary of a JD). If you assume highly educated is anyone with a post baccalaureate degree, then you further skew lower your definition of average income, and damaging further the assumption that highly educated=high income.

You also have the problem of assuming high income people are the same people as households with inherited money and that they all send their kids to private school. So really, your assumptions are so huge that there is no way to ask that question here and get a valid answer.

Of course, if you are just trolling here to bait the religious or the lawyers, or the private school parents, with this thread, have at it, I guess. Kind of a dumb thread though.

I don't see where the OP baited anyone. She simply asked a question - Do you go to church? Do other families at your school go to church?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sorry, I mean if the school is secular, do most families tend to go to religious services. Basically I'm trying to get a feel if it is common for families in this demographic to attend religious services. If your curious, I don't have a child who attends private school, nor is it on the radar. I'm asking purely for sociological reasons. I recently read a book that made an assertion about highly educated families and religious attendance, that I find a bit hard to believe. I'm trying to get a sense for whether the responses on this board support the author's claim.

I think the reason a lot of people find this thread kind of ridiculous is that your question is logically flawed and you're asking it in the wrong place. You are assuming that highly educated families send their kids to private school. That is a faulty assumption on a number of levels. Maybe you are assuming that highly educated equals high income and that more high income families send their kids to private school. Still faulty because highly educated doesn't equal high income, necessarily. Sure, lawyers make a lot of money, but it is very controversial to call them highly educated, unless you are defining highly educated as anyone with a Master's level of education (Most measures in sociology only consider PhDs to be highly educated, and they don't make, on average, the salary of a JD). If you assume highly educated is anyone with a post baccalaureate degree, then you further skew lower your definition of average income, and damaging further the assumption that highly educated=high income.

You also have the problem of assuming high income people are the same people as households with inherited money and that they all send their kids to private school. So really, your assumptions are so huge that there is no way to ask that question here and get a valid answer.

Of course, if you are just trolling here to bait the religious or the lawyers, or the private school parents, with this thread, have at it, I guess. Kind of a dumb thread though.

I don't see where the OP baited anyone. She simply asked a question - Do you go to church? Do other families at your school go to church?

Not that OP. But looks like she was just tossing out possible explanations for why OP asked this question in a forum that's obviously not going to provide any meaningful answers.

[Anonymous]

^^^ Ooops, not that PP