Separation of Church and State Curricula? Examining Public and Religious Private School Textbooks

Anjali Adukia and Emileigh Harrison

No 33791, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Curricula impart knowledge, instill values, and shape collective memory. Despite growing public funding for religious schools through U.S. school choice programs, little is known about what they teach. We examine textbooks from public schools, religious private schools, and home schools, applying computational methods—including AI tools—to measure the presence and portrayal of people, topics, and values over time. Despite narratives of political polarization, our findings reveal few meaningful differences between public school textbooks from Texas and California. However, religious school textbooks have less female representation, feature lighter-skinned individuals, and portray topics like evolution and religion differently. Over one-third of pages in each collection convey character values, with a higher proportion in religious school textbooks. Important similarities also emerge: all textbook collections rarely include LGBTQIA+ discussion, portray females in more positive but less active or powerful contexts than males, and depict the U.S. founding era and slavery in similar contexts.

JEL-codes: I0 I20 I21 I28 I29 J0 J10 J15 J16 J18 J19 Z10 Z11 Z12 Z13 Z18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul and nep-mac
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