Christian College’s Effects on Students’ Religiosity and Political Beliefs
Presentation Type
Poster
Presentation Type
Submission
Keywords
religiosity, political beliefs, ideology
Department
Sociology
Major
Sociology
Abstract
Various social-scientific studies confirm that college education is negatively correlated with religiosity and conservative political beliefs (Apfeld et al. 2024; Boneta and Mrakovčić 2023; Brown et al. 2024; Lee et al. 2024). Receiving a secular college education is associated with lower levels of religiosity and increased socio-political liberalism. Given this common finding, our research examines whether the same negative relationship between education and religiosity, as well as political beliefs, may also exist at a Christian college like Seaver. Our research question is: How do four years at Seaver influence students’ religiosity and socio-political beliefs? Between Fall 2025 and Spring 2026, we conducted 200 online surveys and 24 in-depth interviews with graduating seniors at Seaver to answer our research question.
Confirming existing research on the liberalizing effects of college education, we found that a significant majority of seniors shifted ideologically to the political Left over their four years at Seaver. Contrary to existing research, however, we found that a slight majority of seniors became more religious over time and reported adopting more positive attitudes toward religion, demonstrating that political liberalism does not go hand in hand with irreligiosity. We unpack this unexpected finding through our in-depth interviews and find that increases in religiosity commonly stemmed from personal relationships rather than from Pepperdine’s spiritual programming, and that religious development often occurred not because of, but in spite of, the institutional religious messaging.
Faculty Mentor
Rebecca Y. Kim
Funding Source or Research Program
Academic Year Undergraduate Research Initiative
Location
Waves Cafeteria
Start Date
10-4-2026 1:00 PM
End Date
10-4-2026 2:00 PM
Christian College’s Effects on Students’ Religiosity and Political Beliefs
Waves Cafeteria
Various social-scientific studies confirm that college education is negatively correlated with religiosity and conservative political beliefs (Apfeld et al. 2024; Boneta and Mrakovčić 2023; Brown et al. 2024; Lee et al. 2024). Receiving a secular college education is associated with lower levels of religiosity and increased socio-political liberalism. Given this common finding, our research examines whether the same negative relationship between education and religiosity, as well as political beliefs, may also exist at a Christian college like Seaver. Our research question is: How do four years at Seaver influence students’ religiosity and socio-political beliefs? Between Fall 2025 and Spring 2026, we conducted 200 online surveys and 24 in-depth interviews with graduating seniors at Seaver to answer our research question.
Confirming existing research on the liberalizing effects of college education, we found that a significant majority of seniors shifted ideologically to the political Left over their four years at Seaver. Contrary to existing research, however, we found that a slight majority of seniors became more religious over time and reported adopting more positive attitudes toward religion, demonstrating that political liberalism does not go hand in hand with irreligiosity. We unpack this unexpected finding through our in-depth interviews and find that increases in religiosity commonly stemmed from personal relationships rather than from Pepperdine’s spiritual programming, and that religious development often occurred not because of, but in spite of, the institutional religious messaging.