November 5, 2001

Church keeps kids in school, study reports
___GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS)--A study by a Michigan professor finds that church involvement helps low-income youth make progress in school.
___"Churches in poor and crime-ridden neighborhoods are often the primary functional communities in an otherwise dysfunctional world," wrote Mark Regnerus, director of the Social Research Center at Calvin College in Grand Rapids.
___"And for the youth who frequent them, such churches reinforce messages about working hard and staying out of trouble and orient them toward a positive future."
___Regnerus based his findings on an analysis of more than 9,700 responses to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
___In general, he found the importance of church attendance and religious faith was not much different among youth from a range of neighborhoods. He also learned church attendance generally helped teens stay on track in school.
___However, he noted, "As the level of poverty rises within the neighborhood, the relationship between church attendance and being on-track in school becomes more positive, indicating a uniquely protective influence of church attendance among youth in more impoverished neighborhoods when compared with their devout counterparts in more prosperous neighborhoods."
___Regnerus also studied the influence of church attendance on academic performance of youth in poor environments.
___"Church attendance indeed strengthens the educational progress among children in high-poverty neighborhoods," he said.

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