The authors use a new dataset on female students of registered madrasas and secular schools from urban parts of Pakistan. On most counts of religious behaviour, the students from the two groups record broadly similar results. However, their probit analysis shows that when they control for students’ socio-economic profile and attitudes, on a few counts of religiosity, a madrasa effect does emerge but it disappears as soon as they control for parental level of education.

The findings support the hypothesis that parental education, especially mother’s education, is key to modernising religious and cultural norms in conservative societies.

Masooda Bano and Emi Ferra (2018) Family versus school effect on individual religiosity: Evidence from Pakistan, International Journal of Educational Development 59 (35-42)