In a global context of the rapid growth of Pentecostalism, especially in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, a study seeks to reveal its growing influence in the political sphere.
This is a research project developed by Marcela Mello, a faculty member at the School of Economics and Business Administration, in which she examines Pentecostal political leaders' access to power influences the educational policies of Brazil's municipal public schools, with effects on the health and educational trajectories of adolescents.
The study, which was awarded a Fondecyt Initiation 2026, funding, is based on the analysis of extremely close municipal elections between 2008 and 2016, which allows a causal identification of the impact of Pentecostal mayors' victories on different social outcomes, tracking cohorts of girls throughout their secondary education.
"From an academic and social perspective, with this work we show that when religious leaders reach positions of power, their ideological commitments do not remain at the rhetorical level, but translate into concrete public policy changes that directly affect the health, education, and life opportunities of young people, with a particularly significant impact on women," Mello says.
She adds that "over the longer term, the data show that girls exposed to these changes complete fewer years of education on average, which can persistently affect their future employment and economic opportunities."
The research shows that this influence is exerted mainly through the administrative control of municipal schools. In Brazil, about 60% of school principals are political appointees.The study shows that this practice is even more frequent under Pentecostal mayors, explains Mello, whose research was co-authored with João García (Universidad de Santiago de Chile).
Mello notes that her interest in this topic arose from observing the profound transformation of Latin America's religious landscape, and her motivation was to go beyond political rhetoric and to empirically evaluate whether these discourses translate into public policy decisions and what their real effects are on the lives of young people, particularly adolescent girls.