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Article

Shaping the Religiosity of Chinese University Students: Science Education and Political Indoctrination

1
Department of Sociology, Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
2
Department of Sociology and Social Work, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
3
Department of Sociology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Religions 2018, 9(10), 309; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9100309
Submission received: 10 September 2018 / Revised: 21 September 2018 / Accepted: 4 October 2018 / Published: 11 October 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religiosity, Secularity and Pluralism in the Global East)

Abstract

Our study examined the respective relationships between two components of higher education in mainland China—science education and political indoctrination—and the religiosity of university students. Using a cross-sectional, representative sample of about 1700 college students in Beijing, we found first that students studying natural/applied sciences were less likely to perceive Protestantism, Catholicism, and Islam as plausible and less likely to have supernatural belief, relative to students in humanities/social sciences. In addition, the more students positively evaluated the political education courses—which indicates students’ acceptance of political indoctrination—the less likely they reported Protestantism and Catholicism as being plausible. Nevertheless, neither science education nor political indoctrination was associated with the perceived plausibility of Buddhism and Daoism or the worshipping behavior of students. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of the secularization debate and the research on education, religion, and state atheism.
Keywords: higher education; religiosity; science education; political indoctrination; atheism higher education; religiosity; science education; political indoctrination; atheism

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MDPI and ACS Style

Li, M.; Lu, Y.; Yang, F. Shaping the Religiosity of Chinese University Students: Science Education and Political Indoctrination. Religions 2018, 9, 309. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9100309

AMA Style

Li M, Lu Y, Yang F. Shaping the Religiosity of Chinese University Students: Science Education and Political Indoctrination. Religions. 2018; 9(10):309. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9100309

Chicago/Turabian Style

Li, Miao, Yun Lu, and Fenggang Yang. 2018. "Shaping the Religiosity of Chinese University Students: Science Education and Political Indoctrination" Religions 9, no. 10: 309. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9100309

APA Style

Li, M., Lu, Y., & Yang, F. (2018). Shaping the Religiosity of Chinese University Students: Science Education and Political Indoctrination. Religions, 9(10), 309. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9100309

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