Free essay about predominant religion effect on disparity of men and women in college

Abstract

The need to understand the causes of gender diversity in college enrollment has resulted in many surveys that seek to identify how different factors influence enrollment in various countries (Regnerus, 2000). In that respect, this study sought to identify the effect different religions regarding data from 117 countries. In the study, religions were categorized into four groups including Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Buddhism and mixed religions. Further, the gender effect was categorized into five groups on a scale of one to five. Regarding the analysis, cross ambulation was done between the diversity and dominant religions providing results that indicated that religion affects gender diversity. In the results, Christianity is the most dominant religion globally followed by Islam, Mixed religion, Buddhism and finally the Hindu. On the other hand, Christianity favors more women than men enrolment while Islam favors more men than women enrolment.

Introduction

With college education becoming key to career success, there has been increasing need to understand the factors that affect college enrolment (Muller & Ellison, 2001). Among those factors are social and religion factors that are assumed not only to affects the total enrolment but also the diversity in gender enrolment (Murphy, Steele & Gross, 2007). In that respect, this study analyzes the nature of the effect that different religions have on various countries’ gender disparity in college enrolment. To achieve the objective, the analysis uses data from 117 countries, whose enrolment data and religions are available. Using the tabulation approach, the four categories of religions including Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and mixed religions are ranked for their effect on gender diversity.

Analysis

Data
The analysis uses secondary data collection method that used already published reports and data on the various countries. The method is suitable as the data can be confirmed, hence enhancing the study’s reliability and validity (Golafshani, 2003). The data used covers the two factors including religion and gender diversity and the analysis is done for 117 countries. In that respect, the data is collected from the World Bank’s and CIA databases that present information on education and religion.

Analysis

The analysis is done by ranking the enrollment difference where the level of difference between male and female is ranked on a scale of one to five as follows
1 – Allot more men than women
2 – Some more men than women
3 – Same men and women
4 – Some more women than men
5 – Allot more women than men
In that respect, the differences in the number of men and women are used to determine the scale for each country and determine its code as above.
Regarding the religion, the different religions are provided codes, which are used to identify their significance in the country and which are analyzed against the enrolment to identify the religion’s effect on the diversity. The following codes are used
1 – Christianity
2 – Islam
3 – Hinduism
4 – Buddhism
5 – Mixed religion

Source: (CIA, 2015; UN, 2015)

The analysis indicates that the global college enrolment is marked by more countries experiencing some more women than men. On the other hand, the most dominant religion is Christianity. In that respect, it can be concluded that Christianity enhances relatively more women enrolment compared to men.
Further, using the analysis to identify the most dominant religion and the religions that dominate certain diversity status, the following results were achieved.
The results indicate that the most dominant religion in the countries is Christianity followed by Islam, then mixed religion, which is followed by Buddhism while Hindu is the last. On the other hand, countries with significantly more women than men and those with some more women than men are marked by Christianity while Islam dominated countries features a balance, some more men than women and significantly more men than women. In summary, he results with the expectations that religion affects gender disparity in college enrolment (Regnerus & Elder, 2003). Thus, it can be concluded that Islam associates with more men than women enrolling in college while Christianity favors women in college enrollment

Works Cited

CIA. Country Comparison to the World. Web. 20 July 2015, https://www. cia. gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2122. html
Golafshani, Nahid. “ Understanding Reliability and Validity in Qualitative Research.” The Qualitative Report 8. 4 (2003): 597-607. Print.
Muller, Chandra and Ellison, Christopher. ” Religious Involvement, Social Capital, and Adolescents’ Academic progress: Evidence from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988.” Sociological Focus 34 (2001): 155-183.
Murphy, C. Mary, Steele, M. Claude and Gross, James. “ Signaling threat: How situational Cues Affect Women in Math, Science, and Engineering Settings.” Psychological Science. 18. 10 (2007): 879-885. Print.
Regnerus, Mark and Elder, Glen. “ Staying on Track in school: Religious Influences in High- and Low- Risk Settings.” The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 42 (2003): 633-649. Print.
Regnerus, Mark. “ Shaping Schooling Success: Religious Socialization and Educational Outcomes in Metropolitan Public Schools.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 39 (2000): 363-370. Print.
Stark, Rodney and Roger, Finke. Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human side of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Print.
UN. Population by religion, sex and urban/rural residence. Web. 20 July 2015, http://data. un. org/Data. aspx? d= POP&f= tableCode%3A28