schools and communities of norm-awareness学校和社区norm-awareness.pdfVIP

Religions 2011, 2, 372-388; doi:10.3390/rel2030372 OPEN ACCESS religions ISSN 2077-1444 /journal/religions Article Schools and Communities of Norm-awareness Gabriella Pusztai Center for Higher Education Research and Development, University of Debrecen, 1. Egyetem tér Debrecen 4032, Hungary; E-Mail: pusztai.gabriella@arts.unideb.hu Received: 10 June 2011; in revisedform: 28 July 2011 / Accepted: 16 August 2011 / Published: 22 August 2011 Abstract: The relationship between religiosity and educational attainment is an important question in the sociology of religion literature. It is widely contested whether the natural outgrowth of the spreading rational worldview and the increase of educated people can account for the decline of religious adherence. Is there any other explanation for the different opportunities of religious and non-religious societal groups to obtaining the highest educational level? After the political transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, one of the most important challenges of restructuring the educational system was how different cultural groups would be able to infuse their own spirituality into their childrens education after the domination of the totalitarian ideology. The Hungarian case is unique because of the mixed confessional landscape, the populous Hungarian minority outside the border, the alternating hard and soft periods of religious harassment. Recently, more than half of the Hungarian population can be described as religious in