Students at religious schools ‘more likely’ to cheat, study finds

A survey of the ethics of U.S. youth finds that students attending private religious high schools are more likely to cheat on a test than those who attend other schools.
   
Results of the “Report Card 2002: The Ethics of American Youth” by the Josephson Institute for Ethics found that 78 percent of students attending private religious schools said they had cheated at least once on exams in the past year, compared to 72 percent of students at other schools.
   
Overall, 74 percent of high school students surveyed said they had cheated on an exam, an increase from 61 percent in 1992 and 71 percent in 2000. Matching their peers overall, 74 percent of students who said religion was essential or very important to them said they had cheated on a test in the past year.
   
The overall percentage of high schoolers who said they had cheated on two or more tests in the past year was 48 percent in 2002, compared to 52 percent of students attending a religious school and 47 percent of those who said their religious convictions were very important or essential to them.
   
Students attending religious schools, however, were somewhat less likely to shoplift, with 35 percent saying they had stolen something in the past year, compared to 39 percent of students at other schools. Thirty-eight percent of the high schoolers overall said they had shoplifted at least once in that time period, while 34 percent of students with strong religious convictions acknowledged a similar practice.
   
The same percentage of students overall and those attending religious schools — 28 percent — said they had stolen something from parents or relatives in the past year.
   
Twenty-five percent of students with strong religious convictions acknowledged a similar practice. The theft from loved ones increased for students in general from 24 percent in 1992.
   
Religious ties also seemed to make little difference when students considered lying.
   
Ninety-five percent of students attending religious schools said they had lied to a parent at least once in the past year, compared to 93 percent of high schoolers overall and 93 percent of students who said they had strong religious convictions.
   
Similarly, 86 percent of students at religious schools said they had lied to a teacher at least once in the past year, compared to 81 percent of students at other schools.
   
Overall, 83 percent of high schoolers said they had lied at least once to a teacher, and the same percentage of students with strong religious convictions said they had done the same thing.
   
In 1992, 83 percent of all high schoolers polled said they lied to a parent in the past year and 69 percent said they lied to a teacher.
   
The survey of 12,474 high schoolers has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. A total of 5,858 attended private religious high schools and 6,845 described their religious convictions as essential or very important. (RNS)