Religion has traditionally been viewed by social thinkers as an important element of social control. And religious education is seen as a means of improving society. The article raises the question of how effectively educational intervention based on religious models can achieve goals in the form of socially desirable results, such as reducing crime. The method of international comparisons was used based on the results of the project “Religion and State” of the Bar-Ilan University (Israel) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime databases. The indicator of the number of murders per 100,000 population was used as an indicator of crime. As an indicator of religious education was used its compulsory inclusion in the curriculum in state and public schools. Data on 158 countries of the world were subjected to statistical analysis. Using tow statistical tests (Kruskal-Wallis, Spearman's rank correlation), it was found that the statistical relationship between the level of compulsory religious education in state and public schools and the observed homicide rate in subsequent years is either absent at all, or manifests itself too weakly and fragmentarily to talk about the practical efficiency of religious education. For the first time, empirical evidence of the possible ineffectiveness of the religious component of education for achieving socially desirable goals was obtained on the example of crime prevention in macrosocial context. These results also indirectly support the fundamentally important assumption that the function of social control is exercised by religion not through doctrinal constraints, but through social integration (control by the religious community).
Keywords: religious education, religion at school, delinquent behavior, crime prevention, social control, religious policy, social efficiency of education
DOI: 10.22250/20728662_2022_2_109
About the author
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Nikolay S. Babich – Candidate of Science (Sociology), Senior Researcher at the Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS; 5 bldg. 24/35, Krzhizhanovskogo str., Moscow, 117218, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |