16

The Mennonite Quarterly Review

Amish schools had been built over a period of 18 years. In a two-year
period after consolidation the number of Amish schools more than
doubled. Eleven Amish schools were opened in 1967 and 1968.

Among the congregations listed in the directories this part of the
analysis included only those schools (N=25) which opened in the first
twenty years (1948-1968) of the Amish school movement. These
congregations were selected because they included persons age 20 and
over who would have had the option of attending an Amish school.
Since most Amish people make their membership decisions in their
late teens or early twenties, very few people in the 1988 Directorywho
live in districts which built schools after 1968 could have been in the
Amish school population.

In addition, this part of the analysis also includes only persons under
the age of 40 who have made their decision regarding church
membership. Those over 40 were excluded because they never had the
option of attending an Amish school. Table 10 compares the Amish
who could have gone to an Amish school with individuals in the same
age group who live in districts (N=23) which have never had their own

parochial schools.³³

Table 10.DEFECTION BY SCHOOL ATTENDANCE; FOR MEN AND
WOMEN UNDER THE AGE OF 40.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AmishPublic
SchoolsSchoolsTotal
N=1144N=827
----------------------------------------------------------------


Amish Retention887984

Amish Defection122116
----------------------------------------------------------------
Total100100100
----------------------------------------------------------------
Chi Sq.= 29.27P < .001

The statistically significant difference in rates of defection between
persons who have attended Amish schools and those who have
attended public schools is consistent with scholars' suggestion that



33_{Amish Children(Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1992).}