phd in sociology of religion

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Prospective Students

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Committees and Areas of Study
Anthropology and Sociology of Religions
Buddhist Studies at UChicago
History of Christianity
History of Judaism
History of Religions
Islamic Studies
Philosophy of Religions
Religion, Literature, and Visual Culture
Religions in the Americas
Religious Ethics

The ASR area examines religious phenomena as social facts and cultural processes, using a combination of tools including fieldwork, archival research and textual interpretation.

Faculty: Alireza Doostdar , Angie Heo , Elham Mireshghi

Associated Faculty: Hussein Ali Agrama, Julie Chu, William T.S. Mazzarella, Omar M. McRoberts, Stephan Palmié

Anthropology and sociology have long served as core disciplines of the social sciences, and social scientific work on religion has been foundational for our current theorizations of culture, society, personhood, language, knowledge and economy. Promoting critical inquiry of what is regarded as 'religion', anthropologists and sociologists are attendant to the categories and politics of analysis, beginning from the everyday contexts of discourse and practice that make collective institutions and competing horizons of authority possible.

Our ASR program is committed to qualitative ethnographic fieldwork, serious linguistic training, and historically sensitive research. Our Ph.D. students have worked on a range of topics from transnational movements in India, South Korea and the U.S. to spiritual tourism/ pilgrimage in Peru, Brazil and Iran. Our core faculty are experts in contemporary Islam and Christianity, with geographic specialties in the Middle East and East Asia. We maintain a particular focus on the following topics in the comparative study of religion worldwide:

epistemology and philosophy of knowledge
media and materiality
political economy, authority, governance
colonialism, nationalism, globalization

ASR students at the Divinity School gain unique training, combining a rigorous theoretical approach with fieldwork tools as well as engaging complementary methods in the historical, philosophical, and literary study of religion. Our students are encouraged to take courses in other areas of study within the Divinity School such as History of Religions, History of Christianity, Islamic Studies and Religions in America, as well as in other university departments outside the Divinity School such as the Departments of Anthropology and Sociology. ASR is also active in fostering collaborative work with students in other areas and disciplines through our student-run Religion and Human Sciences Workshop (see below).

Sample Courses

Problems in the Anthropology of Religion I
Problems in the Anthropology of Religion II
Religion and Economy
Classical Theories of Religion
Islam and Biomedicine
Transnational Religious Movements
Is Modernity Disenchanted?
Magic, Science and Religion
Anthropology of Christianity
Feminism and Islamic Studies
Islamic Jurisprudence, Reason, and the State
Ethnographic Methods
Spirits of Capitalism
Religion and the Cold War

For PhD Students

The following documents provide guidelines for current and prospective PhD students in ASR. Please consult these texts before contacting the faculty with questions.

ASR PhD Guidelines
ASR Fieldwork Guidelines
ASR Dissertation Proposal Guidelines
Divinity PhD Milestones Chart
ASR1 Anthropology of Religion
ASR2 Special Topic (of student's choice in consultation with examiner)
ASR3 Another special area or thematic exam (of student's choice in consultation with examiner)

Religion & Society PhD Program

The Religion and Society Program promotes interdisciplinary reflection that critically examines religious and social life. With “the religious” and “the social” as its two areas of focus, the program equips doctoral students with theoretical resources and diverse perspectives that enhance and deepen their theological studies and Christian practices in church and society. These areas of study are important for structuring the program’s conceptual field and its comprehensive exams.

PhD Course of Study

The faculty of the program bring a variety of perspectives and expertise in:

Religious studies (e.g., sociology of religion, history of religion, philosophy of religion)
Social sciences (e.g., sociology, anthropology, political science, economics)
Humanities (e.g., history, literature)
Ethics (e.g., religious, social, theological)
Theology (e.g., systematic, doctrinal, constructive)

Seminary and University Scholarship

Doctoral students are expected to learn from disciplines of the university, even as they focus those disciplines for distinctive concerns and contexts of Christian theological traditions. This program not only enables scholarship at the Seminary to sustain its own community of research into religious and social issues, it also serves as a liaison between the Seminary and Princeton University and, on occasion between the Seminary and other nearby institutions.

U.S. and International Scholarship

The dual focus on religion and society, and its distinctive interdisciplinary work, has traditionally made the Religion and Society Program an important resource for international as well as U.S. scholars. The PhD program places a high value on a functioning diversity of scholars from this country and from abroad, who come together to reflect critically on issues of justice and peace, and on human differences that are not only religious, social, and theological, but also cultural, political, and economic.

The Religion and Society Program has traditionally sought to fuse rigorous reflection with social criticism and prophetic discourse.

Seminars Offered by Religion and Society Program Faculty

Critical Issues in the History of Religions
The American Jeremiad: American Religion in Cultural Context
Methods in Theological and Religious Studies
Aquinas on Law and the Virtues
Theological Anthropology
Race, Racism, and Religion in America

Comprehensive Examinations

The interdisciplinary ethos of the Religion and Society Program is structured for doctoral students around four comprehensive exams, usually toward the end of the second year of residence. One of these exams should be selected by examinees as their “theory and methods exam,” in which they include special attention to theoretical and methodological options and debates pertinent to that exam.

Religion and religions—This exam should demonstrate excellence in knowledge of religious studies and at least one non-Christian tradition.
Social sciences or the humanities—This exam should demonstrate excellence in one theoretical perspective on the “social” in either the social science or the humanities.
Ethics—This exam should demonstrate excellence in the knowledge of religious, social, or theological ethics.
A Dissertation-related theme or problematic—This exam should demonstrate excellence in analyzing a theme or problem that will be significant in the writing of the dissertation.

The first two exams enable disciplined attention to the areas of study, which set the conceptual field of religion and society. The third exam in ethics is required because analysis of the moral life, and ethical reflection upon it, has been a key site wherein religious and social themes often intersect in theological studies and Christian practice. The fourth exam enables students to focus research and thinking about their dissertations. These exams are “qualifying” exams in that they certify readiness to proceed to the dissertation proposal and writing phases of the program.

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Sociology of Religion

Students in this concentration acquire the requisite skills to investigate “lived religion” both over time and amid contemporary contexts. Specifically, they will learn important theoretical frameworks (e.g., interactionism, conflict theory, secularization theory) that enable them to conceptualize the place of religion in everyday life as well as various sociological methods (e.g., participant observation, in-depth interview, survey) that equip them to interrogate religious phenomena, practices, and trends empirically.

Core Doctoral Faculty

Jerome P. Baggett

Discover the Future of Religious Scholarship

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Course Syllabi

Sociology of religion (undergraduate class).

This course provides an introductory overview of the sociology of religion, an important field in sociology. Religion is one of the most powerful forces of social cohesion, order, meaning, disruption, and change in human societies, both historically and today in the modern world. Sociology provides a particular disciplinary perspective and analytical tools and theories for describing, understanding, and explaining the nature and influence of religion.

View the syllabus for Sociology of Religion, 177k PDF.

Critical Realism & Human Personhood (Graduate Seminar)

This advanced theory seminar explores the philosophy of social science known as critical realism and consider how it influences sociological research and scholarship. The first part of the course will read and discuss key works in critical realism as an alternative approach to positivist empiricism, postmodern deconstructionism, and hermeneutical interpretivism. The second part of the course then considers the implications of a critical realism for our understanding of human beings, of human persons. Attention is given to how critical realism shapes the conceiving and designing of research projects, data analysis, and explanation in scholarship. Along the way we will engage a variety of sociological theories and basic theoretical issues from a critical realist perspective.

View the syllabus for Critical Realism, 31k PDF

Understanding Societies (Undergraduate Class)

This course provides an introduction to the sociological perspective on human social life, exploring how the sociological imagination prompts the asking of certain questions and provides a particular approach to analysis and answering those questions. Central to our inquiry is the idea of the causal power of social structures. Thematically we focus on culture, socialization, social solidarity, social networks, social conflict, social institutions, social inequality, and social change, with a particular concern with community, emerging adulthood, social class, and religion.

Vview the syllabus for Understanding Societies, 219k PDF .

Sociology of Religion (Graduate Seminar)

This seminar explores important bodies of literature in the field of the sociology of religion. Its purpose is to help prepare graduate students to pass the doctoral exam in the sociology of religion, to research and write a successful sociology dissertation on religion, and to become a contributing scholar in the field. We will focus on important substantive findings of research programs in recent years, key theoretical debates in the field, and important methodological concerns.

View the syllabus for Sociology of Religion Graduate Seminar, 300k PDF.

Sociology of Religion Comprehensive Exam

In addition to whatever specific readings graduate students engage for their own personal research interests, there is a core set of readings with which sociologists of religion should be familiar with in order to claim professional competence and as a background to eventually teaching in the sociology of religion. The purpose of doctoral exams is to provide occasions for students to master the essential literatures of their fields of interests and research. Scholars inevitably differ somewhat on exactly what literature belongs on such core lists of readings. Listed here, however, are the readings which Notre Dame graduate students will be expected to master for their comprehensive exams in the sociology of religion.

View the reading list for the Sociology of Religion Exam, 293k PDF

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Sociology of religion, religion 775s, cross-listed as.

SOCIOL 775S

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Study at a university where Theology & Religion have been taught for over 180 years, in a department most recently ranked as the top for research environment in the UK (REF2021).

We offer supervision of doctoral projects focused on religion from a range of perspectives. Our research spans History, Philosophy, Religion and the Arts, Biblical Studies, Theology, Textual Studies, Jewish studies, Islamic Studies, Buddhist Studies, Systematic Theology, Anthropology of Religion, Sociology of Religion, and Religion and Political Science.

We would consider PhD proposals on a variety of religious traditions and new groups, and would particularly welcome projects that align with our areas of research interest and expertise. Depending on your field of study, you can be awarded a PhD in that area, for example, in Social Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, or Religious Studies.

As a PhD student you will have access to seminars and events which profile the research of top scholars in the field as well as the religious and cultural diversity on your doorstep.

Our partnerships and collaborations with the National Gallery (Christianity & the Arts), the Courtauld Gallery, Leo Baeck College and the London School of Jewish Studies can provide additional learning resources for our students, as can our connections with a wide range of religious groups and institutions.

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Theology & religious studies research.

MPhil/PhD Research from the Department of Theology & Religious Studies at King's College London.

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King's Language Centre courses

As well as offering all King's students a discount on Evening & Saturday Language Courses, King's Language Centre supports the studies of our postgraduate students by offering credit-bearing modules and non credit-bearing modules (PG-only) free of charge.

Learning a language as a postgraduate student will encourage you to develop the ways in which you learn and retain information. The KLC's postgraduate-only courses focus on reading and speaking skills and revolve around the student's own research.

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Sociology of Religion

Sociology of religion.

This course introduces classical and contemporary theoretical and empirical approaches to the sociological study of religion, including secularization and secularity, religious identity formation, and sociological approaches to religious practice and meaning. Special focus will be on contemporary American topics, including religion and transnationalism, the role of religious actors and discourses in American politics, law and economics, and everyday religious practice.

Department of Sociology College of Liberal Arts

Sociology of Religion

The sociology of religion uses the tools and methods of social science to understand 1) the nature of religious belief and practice and its implications for individual and social behavior, 2) the ways in which religious ideas, subcultures, and organizations influence many other aspects of society (for example, gender, sexuality, demography, family, politics, social class, race, crime, law, etc.) and 3) the ways in which these other aspects of society act back on religion (e.g., the religious beliefs and practices of individuals, the rise and decline of different kinds of religious groups, and the changing position and influence of religion in different societies).

Our faculty draw on a mixture of qualitative and quantitative approaches to study a diverse range of topics. A sampling of these topics currently includes religion in East Asia (our department houses the Center on Religion and Chinese Society and the Review of Religion and Chinese Society), immigrant religion, religious conversion as a way of illuminating the nature of human identity and the connections of human identity to cultural practice and social relationships, and the ways that the religious composition of geographic areas (the types of religions and non-religion found in different cities, counties, states, and countries) influences local subcultures.

Jacqui Frost, Daniel Winchester and Fenggang Yang

Olson, Dan Winchester, Daniel Yang, Fenggang

Graduate Programs

Religious studies.

The Department of Religious Studies maintains exceptional strength in the study of religion in antiquity, Asian religions, modern religious thought and the theoretical study of religion.

The graduate program in Religious Studies at Brown is one of the finest in the nation. From among a large pool of highly qualified applicants, the department admits four to six doctoral students a year. Current graduate students have distinguished themselves by publishing, presenting papers at international conferences, and earning recognition and support from prestigious external funding organizations. Department's graduates have an excellent placement record, teaching in such institutions as Harvard, Stanford, Indiana University, University of California, Brooklyn College, Reed College, Haverford, Rice University, University of Washington - St. Louis, and University of Wisconsin (Madison).

We offer Ph.D. studies in four areas:

Asian Religious Traditions (ART) Islam
Society and Culture (ISC)
Religion and Critical Thought (RCT)
Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean (RAM) (including Ancient Judaism, early Christianity, early Islam, and numerous others)

Additional Resources

The department maintains close working relationships with other Brown departments. Students often supplement their work with courses in history, anthropology, classics, philosophy, political science, sociology, Judaic studies, East Asian studies, art history, comparative literature, and the Institute for Archeology and the Ancient World. Through the University exchange program students may also take courses at other local universities. A monthly seminar, Culture and Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean, brings together students and faculty from across the University.

Application Information

Brief Zoom or phone interviews may be required as part of the application review process.

Application Requirements

Gre subject:.

Not required

GRE General:

Writing sample:.

Required (of 25 pages or less). Some tracks also require previous language study.

Dates/Deadlines

Application deadline, completion requirements.

All areas require three years (six semesters) of full–time study beyond the baccalaureate degree, including RS200; reading competence of at least two scholarly languages (typically French and German, depending on the track) and relevant other languages; preliminary examination; dissertation; oral defense; one year of teaching experience. Tracks also have additional specific requirements: for details, see the Religious Studies website and the Graduate Handbook.

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ABOUT OUR JOURNAL: SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

Sociology of Religion , the official journal of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, is published quarterly for the purpose of advancing scholarship in the sociological study of religion. The journal publishes original (not previously published) work of exceptional quality and interest without regard to substantive focus, theoretical orientation, or methodological approach. Although theoretically ambitious, empirically grounded articles are the core of what we publish, we also welcome agenda setting essays, comments on previously published works, critical reflections on the research act, and interventions into substantive areas or theoretical debates intended to push the field ahead.

Articles published in Sociology of Religion have won many professional awards, including most recently the ASA Religion Section’s Graduate Student Paper Award (Darwin in 2019), the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s Distinguished Article Award (Whitehead, Perry, and Baker in 2019), and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s Graduate Student Paper Award (Rotolo 2021). Building on this legacy, Sociology of Religion aspires to be the premier English-language publication for sociological scholarship on religion and an essential source for agenda-setting work in the field.

Click HERE to visit the journal page at Oxford University Press

Sor journal submission.

ASR Members can submit articles to the journal for free. Sign into the Member Section on the Home Page to submit an article.

Non-members must pay a submission fee, to cover the cost of editorial review. (This fee is not refundable.) Go to the Home Page and scroll down the left column, then click the Pay Now button to pay your fee.

The Journal staff sponsors a podcast series highlighting recent articles. Click the image below to visit the podcast page on the Oxford University Press site.

Sociology of Religion Journal Podcasts

Click HERE to visit the Podcast Page (opens in a new tab)

Semester: Summer

Offered: 2021

While many countries profess a separation between state and religion, faith and religiosity remain central to social and political life, both in the United States and in the global scene. In recent years more than ever, religious figures have been deeply involved in electoral processes, in welfare and charity, in social justice movements, in war-making, and in peace-building. Given the changing dynamics between faith and politics, it is doubly important for us to understand the multiple ways religion intersects with civic life. This course will examine questions such as why do some religious groups engage in political activism, while others shy away from it? why do some countries try to regulate religious expression in their public spaces, when others celebrate it? why do certain religious groups resort to violence to achieve their aims, and how do some religious groups strive for social justice and peace? The course will begin with a broad overview of the sociology of religion by linking classic sociologists like W. E. B. Du Bois, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber to contemporary issues of faith and politics. It will continue by examining key meeting sites between politics and religion, such as social movements, welfare systems, terrorist organizations, and peacemaking initiatives. Case studies will include the French headscarf controversy, the U.S. Evangelical involvement in the 2016 elections, the Muslim Brotherhood welfare system in Egypt, and the Hindutva movement in India. Students will have the opportunity to explore a study case of their choice in the final paper.

Link: Syllabus

Center for the Study of Religion and Society

Graduate Studies >
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Sociology of Religion Readings List

Readings for comprehensive exam in sociology of religion.

All sociologists of religion should be familiar a core set of readings in order to claim professional competence, as background to eventually teaching in the sociology of religion, and as intellectual context to help become an original producer of significant scholarship in the field. The purpose of doctoral exams is to provide occasions for students to master the core literatures of their fields of interest and research. Scholars differ on exactly what literature belongs on such core lists of readings. Listed below, however, are the readings which ND graduate students will be expected to master for the program’s doctoral comprehensive exams in the sociology of religion. Among the core questions in the sociology of religion—which the readings below address in various ways and about which doctoral exams in sociology of religion will ask—are the following:

1. Subject : What is “religion?” Why and how are people religious? How is religion expressed in social terms and forms?

2. Methods : How can we study religion sociologically? What are the characteristic strengths and weaknesses of different methodological approaches, especially as they relate to larger theoretical interests and perspectives and types of research agendas and questions?

3. Modernity : How does the historical transition from “pre-modern” to modern (and postmodern?) society affect the strength and character of religion? Does modernity secularize or not? Are there multiple modernities? What might that mean?

4. Participation and Communities : What social factors and processes influence individuals’ religious beliefs, commitments, practices, conversions, switching, etc. and the strength and character of religious communities, traditions, and subcultures?

5. Reproduction and Change : What influence does religion exert in maintaining and/or challenging established social practices and institutions, through politics, cultural transformation, or other means?

Review the current area exam list .

Many of the readings that have historically been included on the area exams can be found below:

Core Reading List

Ammerman, Nancy. 1997. Congregation and Community . Rutgers.

Ammerman, Nancy. 2006. Everyday Religion . New York: Oxford University Press (Chs. ???).

Ammerman, Nancy. 2013. Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes . New York: Oxford University Press. (Pp. 1-55, 288-304).

Ammerman, Nancy 1997 . “Golden Rule Christianity,” pp. 196-216 in David Hall (ed.), Lived Religion in America . Princeton.

Asad, Talal. 1993 . “The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category.” In Genealogies of Religion .

Becker, Penny. 1999. Congregations in Conflict . Cambridge.

Bell, Daniel. 1980. “The Return of the Sacred?” The Winding Passage . Basic Books (Ch. 17).

Bellah, Robert. 1967 . “Civil Religion in America.” Daedalus . 96 (Winter). Pp. 1-21.

Bellah, Robert. 1964 . “Religious Evolution,” American Sociological Review 29:358-374 (also in Bellah, Beyond Belief . Harper and Row.)

Berger, Peter . 1969. The Sacred Canopy . Anchor.

Berger, Peter L. 1996. “Secularism in Retreat.” The National Interest. (Winter).

Beyer, Peter . 2006. Religion in Global Society . New York: Routledge.

Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991 . “Genesis and Structure of the Religious Filed.” I n Religious Institutions , Craig Calhoun (ed.). Greenwich: JAI Press.

Bruce, Steve . 2002. God is Dead . New York: Blackwell.

Calhoun, Craig, Mark Juergensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen (eds.). 2011. Rethinking Secularism . New York: Oxford University Press. (Chapters).

Casanova, Jose . 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World . Chicago.

Chaves, Mark. 1994 . “Secularization as Declining Religious Authority.” Social Forces . March. 72(3): 749-775.

Chaves, Mark and Phil Gorski. 2001 . “Religious Pluralism and Religious Participation.” Annual Review of Sociology . 27: 261‑281.

Cimino, Richard and Christopher Smith. 2014. Atheist Awakening: Secular Activism and Community in America . New York: Oxford University Press.

Comaroff, John and Jean . 1991. Of Revelation and Revolution . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Davidman, Lynn . 1991. Tradition in a Rootless World. California.

Davie, Grace. 1990. “Believing Without Belonging.” Social Compass . 37: 456-69.

Douglas, Mary . 1966. Purity and Danger. New York: Prageger.

Durkheim, Emile. 1995 [1915]. Karen Fields, translator. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Free Press. [Chris Smith has a reading guide available for this book.]

Eisenstadt, S.E. 2000. “Multiple Modernities.” Daedalus . Winter, 129(1): 1-29.

Evans Pritchard, EE . 1976. Witchcraft Oracles and Magic among the Azande (abridged with an Introduction by Eva Gillies). Oxford: ClarendonPress. (Introduction, pp. vii-xxix; Chs. 1-4, pp. 1-64.)

Finke, Roger and Rodney Stark. 1992. The Churching of America, 1776-1990 . Rutgers. (read Chapter 1, skim Chapters 2-7).

Fowler, Robert Booth . 1989. Unconventional Partners . Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Geertz, Clifford . 1973. “Religion as a Cultural System” and “Ethos and Worldview,” in The Interpretation of Cultures . Basic Books.

Gorski, Phillip. 2000 . “Historicizing the Secularization Debate.” ASR . 65:1 (February): 138-167.

Hadaway, Kirk, Penny Long Marler, and Mark Chaves. 1993 . 1993. “What the Polls Don’t Show: A Closer Look at U.S. Church Attendance.” ASR . 58: 741-52. (Also see follow-up symposium in ASR , 63(1), Feb 1998).

Hervieu-Leger, Daniele. 2002. Religion as a Chain of Memory , New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers.

Hunter, James. 1983. “The New Religions: Demoderization and the Protest against Modernity.” In Bryan Wilson (ed.). The Social Impact of New Religious Movements . Rose of Sharon Press. Pp. 1-19.

Iannaccone, Laurence. 1994 . “Why Strict Churches are Strong.” AJS. 99(5): 1180-1211.

Iannaccone, Laurence. 1990. “Religious Practice: A Human Capital Approach.” JSSR . 29 (September): 297-314.

James, William . 1902. Varieties of Religious Experience. Lectures II and III (Circumscription of the Topic and The Reality of the Unseen). (various publishers)

Lofland, John and Rodney Stark. 1965 . “Becoming a World-Saver: a Theory of Conversion.” American Sociological Review . 30: 862‑875.

Luckmann, Thomas. 1967 . The Invisible Religion. Macmillan.

Mahmood, Saba . 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton University Press.

Mahmood, Saba. 2016. Religious Difference in a Secular Age . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1954. “Magic, Science and Religion.” In Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays . New York: Doubleday.

Mauss, Marcel. 1990. The Gift. New York: WW Norton.

Martin, David . 1978. A General Theory of Secularization . New York: Blackwell. Pp. 1-99.

Martin, David. 2005. On Secularization: Toward a Revised General Theory. Burlington (VT): Ashgate (Intro, Chapter 9).

Marx, Karl . “Theses on Feuerbach.” “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction.” “The German Ideology: Part I” (up to A2). In Robert Tucker (ed.). 1978. The Marx-Engels Reader. Norton.

McRoberts, Omar . 2005. Streets of Glory: Church and Community in a Black Urban Neighborhood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Neibuhr, H. Richard. 1929. The Social Sources of Denominationalism . (various publishers)

Norris, Pippa and Ronald Inglehart . 2004. Sacred and Secular . Cambridge: Cambridge.

Pattillo-McCoy, Mary. 1998 . “Black Church Culture as a Community Strategy of Action,” ASR . 63:6 (December): 767-784.

Pope, Liston . 1942. Millhands and Preachers . Yale. (Chs. 5, 8-10, 14).

Riesebrodt, Martin. 2009. The Promise of Salvation: A Theory of. Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Stark, Rodney. 1997. The Rise of Christianity . Harper San Francisco.

Shils, Edward . 1982. The Constitution of Society , Chicago: University of Chicago Press (chapters on the sacred).

Slade, Stanley. 1994. “Popular Spirituality as an Oppressive Reality.” In Guillermo Cook (ed.). New Face of the Church in Latin America . Orbis Books.

Smilde, David . 2007. Reason to Believe: Cultural Agency in Latin American Evangelicalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Smith, Christian et al . 1998. American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving . Chicago.

Smith, Christian. 2003. Moral Believing Animals . Oxford.

Smith, Christian (ed.). 2003. The Secular Revolution . California. (Introduction and select chapters).

Smith, Christian. 2003. “Theorizing Religious Effects among American Adolescents.” JSSR. 42(1): 17-30.

Snow, David A., and Richard Machalek. 1982 . “On the Presumed Fragility of Unconventional Beliefs.” JSSR . 21 (March): 15-26.

Spiro, Melford E. 1966 . “Religion: Problems of definition and explanation.” In Anthropological approaches to the study of religion , edited by Michael Banton, 85-126. New York: Praeger.

Stark, Rodney & Roger Finke . 2000. Acts of Faith . California.

Steensland, Brian, et al. 2000 . “The Measure of American Religion: Toward Improving the State of the Art.” Social Forces . 79. (September): 291-318.

Thompson, E.P. 1966. The Making of the English Working Class . Vintage (Esp. Chs. 11, 12).

Tocqueville, Alexis de . 1969. Democracy in America . Doubleday (Pp. 277-301, 441-454).

Voas, David and Mark Chaves . 2016. “Is the United States a Counterexample to the Secularization Thesis?” American Journal of Sociology . 121: 1517-1556.

Walzer, Michael. 1965. The Revolution of the Saints . Harvard. (Pp. 1-65).

Warner, Stephen. 1993 . “Work in Progress Toward a New Paradigm for the Sociological Study of Religion in the United States.” AJS. 98:5 (March): 1044-93.

Weber, Max. [1958]. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism . Scribners.

Weber, Max . [1978]. Economy and Society. California (pp. 3-33, 399-602).

Weber, Max. “The Social Psychology of the World Religions,” “The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism,” and “Religious Rejections of the World and Their Direction.” In Gerth and Mills (eds.). 1946. From Max Weber . Oxford. Pp. 267-359.

Wilson, Bryan. 1979. Contemporary Transformations of Religion . Oxford. (Ch 1)

Woodberry, Robert and Christian Smith. 1998 . “Fundamentalists, et al.” Annual Review of Sociology—1998 . Vol. 24. Annual Reviews. pp. 25-56.

Wuthnow, Robert. 1988. The Restructuring of American Religion . Princeton.

II. Focus Area Lists

A. global religion.

Almond, Gabriel, Scott Appleby, and Emmanuel Sivan. 2003. Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms Around the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

An-Na’im, Abdullahi Ahmed . 2008. Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Sharia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Appleby, Scott R. 2000. The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation . Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.

Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity . Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press.

Banchoff, Thomas, Ed. 2008 Religious Pluralism, Globalization, and World Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.

Bender, Cadge, Peggy Levitt, and David Smilde. 2012. Religion on the Edge . New York: Oxford University Press.

Beyer, Peter. 2000. “Not in My Backyard: Studies of Other Religions in the Context of SSSR-RRA Annual Meetings.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 39(4): 525-530.

Beyer, Peter. 2006. Religion in Global Society . New York: Routledge.

Bowen, John. 2016. On British Islam: Religion, Law, and Everyday Practice in Shari’a Councils . Princeton University Press.

Brown, Karen McCarthy. 2001. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Brusco, Elizabeth. 1995. The Reformation of Machismo: Evangelical Conversion and Gender in Colombia . Austin: University of Texas Press.

Burdick, John. 1993. Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in Urban Brazil’s Religious Arena . Berkeley, University of California Press.

Cadge, Wendy and Elaine-Howard Ecklund. 2007. “Immigration and Religion.” Annual Review of Sociology 33: 359-379.

Casanova, Jose . 2012. “Rethinking Public Religions.” Rethinking Religion and World Affairs .Ed. Shah, Timothy Samuel, Alfred Stepan, and Monica Duffy Toft. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cavanaugh, William. 2009. The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict . New York: Oxford University Press.

Chidester, David. 1996. Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa . Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia.

Chidester, David. 2014. Empire and Religion: Imperialism and Comparative Religion . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Comaroff, Jean and John Comaroff. (1991). Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Davie, Grace. 2002. Europe: the Exceptional Case, London: Darton, Longman, Todd.

Dressler, Markus. 2015. Writing Religion: The Making of Turkish Alevi Islam . New York: Oxford University Press.

Dressler, Markus and Arvind Mandair. 2011. Secularism and Religion-Making . New York: Oxford University Press.

Freston, Paul. 2004. Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa, and Latin America . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Geertz, Clifford. 1968. Islam Observed: Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Grim, Brian and Roger Finke . 2007. “Religious Persecution in Cross-National Context: Clashing Civilizations or Regulated Religious Economies?” American Sociological Review 72: 633-658.

Haar, Gerrie ter. 2011. Religion and Development: Ways of Transforming the World . Hurst and Co.

Hirschkind, Charles. 2006. The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics . New York: Columbia University Press.

Hopkins, Dwight et al. 2001. Religions/Globalizations. Durham: Duke University Press [relevant selected chapters].

Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order . New York: Touchstone (chapters 6 and 7).

Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. 2008. The Politics of Secularism in International Relations . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Jakelic, Slavica. 2010. Collectivistic Religions: Religion, Choice, and Identity in Late Modernity . Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company.

Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2003. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Jenkins, Philip. 2002/2011. The Next Christendom . New York: Oxford University Press. [Optional related: Jenkins, 2008, The New Faces of Christianity , Oxford.]

Jenkins, Philip. 2009. God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis . New York: Oxford University Press.

Kurzman, Charles. 2004. The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran . Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Chapter 3).

Laitin, David. 1986. Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Religious Change among the Yoruba . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Little, David and Donald Swearer (eds.). 2007. Religion and Nationalism in Iraq: A Comparative Perspective . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Levitt, Peggy. 2007. God Needs no Passport, New York: The New Press.

Lopez, Donald. 1999. Prisoners of Shangri La: Tibetan Buddhism and the West . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Mahmood, Saba. 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Mandaville, Peter. 2007. Global Political Islam , New York: Routledge.

Martin, David. 2002. Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish . Oxford: Blackwell.

Miller, Donald and Tetsunao Yamamori. 2007. Global Pentecostalism, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Norris, Pippa and Ronald Inglehart. 2004. Sacred and Secular . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Provost, Rene. Mapping the Legal Boundaries of Belonging: Religion and Multiculturalism . New York: Oxford University Press.

Riesebrodt, Martin. 1993. Pious Passion . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Robbins, Joel . 2004. “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.” Annual Review of Anthropology 33: 117-143.

Roy, Olivier. 2004. Globalizing Islam . New York: Columbia University Press

Scott, Joan Wallach. 2010. The Politics of the Veil, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Sells, Michael. 1998. The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Shakman-Hurd, Elizabeth. 2015. Beyond Religious Freedom . Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Selections.)

Sharpe, Eric. 1986. Comparative Religion: A History. London: Gerald Duckworth and Co.

Shenhav, Yehouda. 2006. The Arab Jews: A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Slade, Stanley. 1994. “Popular Spirituality as an Oppressive Reality.” In Guillermo Cook (ed.). New Face of the Church in Latin America . Maryknoll: Orbis Books.

Smilde, David. 2007. Reason to Believe: Cultural Agency in Latin American Evangelicalism . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Smith, Christian. 1991. The Emergence of Liberation Theology . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Smith, Douglas. 1965. Religion and Politics in Burma . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Stepan, Alfred . 2000. “Religion, Democracy, and the ‘Twin Tolerations.’” Journal of Democracy 11(4): 37-57.

Sullins, D. Paul . 2006. “Gender and Religion: Deconstructing Universality, Constructing Complexity.” American Journal of Sociology 112(3): 838-880.

Toft, Monica, Daniel Philpot, and Timothy Shah. 2011. God’s Century: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics , New York: Norton.

Tweed, Thomas. 1997. Our Lady of the Exile: Diasporic Religion at a Cuban Catholic Shrine in Miami . New York: Oxford University Press.

Trinitapoli, Jenny and Alexander Weinreb. 2012. Religion and AIDS in Africa, New York: Oxford University Press.

van der Veer, Peter. 2001. Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain . Princeton: Princeton University Press

Vasquez, Manuel and Marie Marquardt. 2003. Globalizing the Sacred: Religion Across the Americas . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Wickham, Carrie. 2002. Mobilizing Islam. New York: Columbia University Press (Chs 6 & 7).

Witte, John and M. Christian Green. 2011. Religion and Human Rights . New York: Oxford University Press.

Woodberry, Robert . 2012. “The Missionary Roots of Liberal Democracy.” American Political Science Review 106: 244-274.

Yang, Fenggang. 2011. Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule . New York: Oxford University Press

B. Religion, Civic Engagement, Politics, and Social Activism

Aminzade, Ron and Elizabeth J. Perry. 2001 . “The Sacred, Religious, and Secular in Contentious Politics: Blurring Boundaries.” Pp. 155-178 in Silence and Voice in the Study of Contentious Politics , R. Aminzade, J. A. Goldstone, D. McAdam, E. J. Perry, W. H. J. Sewell, S. Tarrow, and C. Tilly (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ammerman, Nancy T. 2005 . Pillars of Faith . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press (Chapters 5 & 6).

Asbridge, Thomas . 2004. The First Crusade . New York: Oxford University Press (Chapters 1, 2, and 11).

Beyerlein, Kraig and Mark Chaves. 2003 . “The Political Activities of Religious Congregations in the United States.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 42:229-246.

Beyerlein, Kraig and John R. Hipp. 2006 . “From Pews to Participation: The Effect of Congregation Activity and Context on Bridging Civic Engagement.” Social Problems 53:97-117.

Billings, Dwight B. 1990 . "Religion as Opposition: A Gramscian Analysis." American Journal of Sociology 96:1-31.

Chaves, Mark . 2004. Congregations in America . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (Chapter 3).

Christiano, Kevin. 2007. Religious Diversity and Social Change: American Cities, 1890-1906. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ebaugh, Helen Rose, Janet S. Chafetz, and Paula F. Pipes. 2006 . “Where’s the Faith in Faith-Based Organizations? Measures and Correlates of Religiosity in Faith-Based Social Service Coalitions.” Social Forces 84:2259-2272.

Emerson, Michael and Christian Smith. 2000. Divided by Faith. Oxford.

Epstein, Barbara. 1991 . “The Religious Community: Mass Politics and Moral Witness.” In Epstein. Political Protest and Cultural Revolution. California. (Ch. 6).

Gorski, Phillip. 2003. The Disciplinary Revolution . Chicago: Chicago.

Harris, Fredrick . 2001. Something Within: Religion in African American Political Activism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hoffman, Bruce. 1995 . “‘Holy Terror’: The Implications of Terrorism Motivated by a Religious Imperative.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 18:271-284.

Juergensmeyer, Mark . 2003. Terror in the Mind of God . Berkeley: University of California Press (Chapters 7-11).

Juergensmeyer, Mar k. 2008. Global Rebellion . Berkeley: University of California Press (Chapters 1, 2, 6, & Conclusion).

Kurzman, Charles. 1998 . “Organizational Opportunity and Social Movement Mobilization: A Comparative Analysis of Four Religious Movements.” Mobilization 3:23-49.

Kurzman, Charles. 2004 . The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran . Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Chapter 3).

Lichterman, Paul . 2005. Elusive Togetherness . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Livezy, Lois. 1989 . “U.S. Religious Organizations and the International Human Rights Movement .” Human Rights Quarterly 11:14-81.

McVeigh, Rory and David Sikkink. 2001 . “God, Politics, and Protest: Religious Beliefs and the Legitimation of Contentious Tactics.” Social Forces 79:1425-1458.

Munson, Ziad. 2008 . The Making of Pro-Life Activists. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (Chapter 7 and pages 193-196).

Nelson, Timothy. 1996 . “Sacrifice of Praise: Emotion and Collective Participation in an African-American Worship Service.” Sociology of Religion . 57(4): 379-96.

Nepstad, Sharon Erickson . 2004. Convictions of the Soul . New York: Oxford University Press.

Nepstad, Sharon Erickson . 2008. Religion and War Resistance in the Plowshares Movement . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (especially Chapter 2).

Osa, Maryjane. 1997 . “Creating Solidarity: The Religious Foundations of the Polish Social Movement.” East European Politics and Societies 11:339-365.

Pfaff, Steven. 2001 . “The Politics of Peace in the GDR: The Independent Peace Movement, the Church, and the Origins of the East German Opposition.” Peace & Change . 26:280-300.

Smith, Christian . 1991. The Emergence of Liberation Theology. Chicago.

Smith, Christian . 1996. Resisting Reagan . Chicago. (pp. xv-86, skim 87-132, read 133-208).

Smith, Christian. 2000. Christian American?: What Evangelicals Really Want . Berkeley, CA:: University of California Press (Chapter 3).

Smith, Christian (ed.). 1996. Disruptive Religion . Routledge. (Introduction)

Stark, Rodney. 2004. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Unruh, Heidi Rolland and Ronald J. Sider . 2005. Saving Souls, Serving Society . New York: Oxford University Press.

Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady . 1995. Voice and Equality . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (Chapter 13).

Wickham, Carrie Rosefsky. 2002 . Mobilizing Islam . New York: Columbia University Press (Chapters 6 & 7).

Wood, Richard . 2002. Faith in Action . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Woodworth, Steven E . 2001. While God Is Marching On. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press (Chapters 6, 7, 13 & 14).

Wuthnow, Robert. 1999 . “Mobilizing Civic Engagement: The Changing Impact of Religious Involvement.” Pp. 331-363 in Civic Engagement in American Democracy , edited by T. Skocpol and M. P. Fiorina. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press/Russell Sage Foundation.

Wuthnow, Robert and John H. Evans . 2002. The Quiet Hand of God. Berkeley : University of California Press (Chapters 1, 7, 9, 14, and 15).

Wuthnow, Robert . 2004. Saving America? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Wuthnow, Robert. 2009 . Boundless Faith. Berkeley: University of California Press (Chapter 5).

Young, Michael . 2006. Bearing Witness Against Sin . Chicago: Chicago.

Zald, Mayer N. and John D. McCarthy. 1987 . "Religious Groups as Crucibles of Social Movements." Pp. 67-95 in Social Movements in an Organizational Society , edited by M. N. Zald and J. D. McCarthy. New Brunswich, NJ: Transaction.

C. Religion, Gender, and Family

Armour, Ellen and Susan St. Ville . 2006. Bodily Citations: Religion and Judith Butler. New York: Columbia University Press . “Judith Butler in Theory” (pp. 1-12), Chapter 4, “Disturbingly Catholic” (Alliaume, pp. 93-119), and “Afterword” (Butler, pp.276-281, 287-289).

Brown, Karen McCarthy . 1991. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn . Berkeley: University of California Press. Chapters 7 and 8 (pp. 204-257).

Burdick, John . 1993. Looking for God in Brazil . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chaves, Mark . 1997. Ordaining Women . Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Chs. 1, 2, 7, 8.

Chong, Kelly . Deliverance and Submission: Evangelical Women and the Negotiation of Patriarchy in South Korea . Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center.

Davidman, Lynn . 1991. Tradition in a Rootless World: Women Turn to Orthodox Judaism . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Edgell, Penny . 2006. Religion and Family in a Changing Society . Princeton, NJ: Princeton.

Fustel de Coulange, Numa Denis. 1864/1955. The Ancient City . Book Second: The Family, pp. 40-53, 56-59. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books.

Foucault, Michel. 1978/1990. History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction . Part One: We Other Victorians (pp. 3-13), Part Three: Scientia Sexualis (pp. 53-73), and Part Four: The Deployment of Sexuality, Chapters 1 and 2 (pp. 81-102). New York: Vintage Books.

Gallagher, Sally . 2003. Evangelical Identity and Gendered Family Life . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Gallagher, Sally. and Christian Smith. 1999 . “Symbolic Traditionalism and Pragmatic Egalitarianism.” Gender and Society . 13(2): 211-233.

Griffith, R. M. 1997. God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Housenecht, Sharon and Jerry Pankhurst. 2000. Family, Religion and Social Change in Diverse Societies. Chapter by Kevin Christiano. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hout, Michael, Andrew Greeley and Melissa Wilde. 2001 . “The Demographic Imperative and Religious Change in the US.” American Journal of Sociology .107:468-500.

Konieczny, Mary Ellen. 2013. The Spirit's Tether: Family, Work, and Religion among American Catholics . New York: Oxford University Press

Luker, Kristin . 1984. Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Mahmood, Saba . 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Marler, P. L. 1995. “Lost in the Fifties: The Changing Family and the Nostalgic Church,” in Work, Family and Faith in Contemporary Society, Eds. N. Ammerman and W.C. Roof. New York: Routledge, pp. 23–60.

Martin, Bernice . 2001. “The Pentecostal Gender Paradox: A Cautionary Tale for the Sociology of Religion.” In Richard K. Fenn, ed., The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion . Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Moon, Dawne . 2004. God, Sex and Politics: Homosexuality and Everyday Theologies . “A Theoretical Introduction” (pp. 1-18) and Chapter 6, “Body, Spirit and Sexuality” (pp. 147-179). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Nason-Clark, Nancy . 1997. The Battered Wife: How Women Confront Family Violence . Chapters 1-3. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

Neitz, Mary Jo. 1987. Charisma and Community: A Study of Religious Commitment within the Charismatic Renewal. New Brunswick: Transaction Books.

Nussbaum, Martha . 1999. Sex and Social Justice . Chapter 4, “Judging Other Cultures” (pp. 118-129) and “American Women” (pp. 130-153). New York: Oxford.

Orsi, Robert . 1994. The Madonna of 115th Street . New Haven: Yale University Press.

Orsi, Robert. 2005. Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them. Chapter 4, “Two Aspects of One Life: Saint Gemma Galgani and My Grandmother in the Wound between Devotion and History, the Natural and the Supernatural” (pp. 110-145). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Riesebrodt, Martin . 1993. Pious Passion: The Emergence of Modern Fundamentalism in the United States and Iran. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Scheper-Hughes, Nancy . 1992. Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Schusler Fiorenza, Elizabeth . 1983/1988. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. Chapter 4, “The Jesus Movement as Renewal Movement within Judaism” (pp. 105-159). New York: Crossroad.

Smilde, David . 2007. Reason to Believe: Cultural Agency in Latin American Evangelicalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Stacey, Judith. 1998. Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth-Century America . Berkeley: University of California Press.

Stolzenberg, Ross, M. Blair-Loy and Linda Waite. 1995 . “Religious Participation in Early Adulthood: Age and Family Life Cycle Effects on Church Membership.”American Sociological Review. 60: 84-103.

Weber, Marianne. 1919/1998 . “Authority and Autonomy in Marriage.” Pp. 215-220 in Lengermann and Niebrugge-Brantley, The Women Founders . Boston: McGraw Hill.

Wilcox, Bradford. 2004. Soft Patriarchs, New Men. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Woodhead, Linda. 2001. “Feminism and the Sociology of Religion: From Gender-blindness to Gendered Difference.” In Richard K. Fenn, ed., The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

D. Religion and Education, and Schooling

Baker, David. 1998 . “The ‘Eliting’ of the Common American Catholic School and the National Education Crisis.” Phi Delta Kappan 79, no. 8:16-23.

Barrett, Jennifer, Jennifer Pearson, Chandra Muller and Kenneth Frank. 2007. “Adolescent Religiosity and School Contexts.” Social Science Quarterly 88(4):1024-37.

Beyerlein, Kraig. 2004 . “Specifying the Impact of Conservative Protestantism on Educational Attainment.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43:505-518.

Billings, Dwight and Robert Goldman. 1979 . “Comment on ‘The Kanawha Textbook Controversy’.” Social Forces 57:1393-1398.

Binder, Amy J . 2002. Contentious curricula : Afrocentrism and creationism in American public schools . Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Brinig, Margaret and Nicole Stelle Garnett. 2014. Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools’ Importance in Urban America . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press

Bryk, Anthony S., Valerie E. Lee, and Peter Blakeley Holland . 1993. Catholic schools and the Common Good . Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Cheng, Albert . 2014. “Does Homeschooling or Private Schooling Promote Political Intolerance? Evidence from a Christian University.” Journal of School Choice 8(1):49-68

Cohen-Zada, Danny and William Sander . 2008. “Religion, Religiosity and Private School Choice: Implications for Estimating the Effectiveness of Private Schools.” Journal of Urban Economics 64(1):85-100.

Cohen-Zada, Danny and Todd Elder. 2009. “Historical Religious Concentrations and the Effects of Catholic Schooling.” Journal of Urban Economics 66(1):65-74.

Coleman, James Samuel and Thomas Hoffer . 1987. Public and Private High Schools: The Impact of Communities. New York: Basic Books.

Darnell, Alfred and Darren E. Sherkat. 1997 . "The Impact of Protestant Fundamentalism on Educational Attainment." American Sociological Review 62:306-315.

Dee, Thomas . 2005. “The Effects of Catholic Schooling on Civic Participation.” International Tax and Public Finance 12(5):605–25.

Dill, Jeffrey . 2009. “Preparing for Public Life: School Sector and the Educational Context of Lasting Citizen Formation.” Social Forces 87(3):1265-90.

Dill, Jeffrey. 2012. “Protestant Evangelical Schools and Global Citizenship Education.” Pp. 615–32 in International Handbook of Protestant Education , (ed.) W. Jeynes and D. Robinson. Netherlands: Springer.

Ecklund, Elaine Howard. 2010. Science Vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think . New York: Oxford University Press.

Elder, Todd and Christopher Jepsen . 2014. “Are Catholic Primary Schools More Effective Than Public Primary Schools?” Journal of Urban Economics 80:28-38.

Feinberg, Walter. 2006. For Goodness Sake: Religious Schools and Education for Democratic Citizenry . New York: Routledge.

Glanville, Jennifer L., David Sikkink, and Edwin I. Hernandez. 2008 . “Religious Involvement and Educational Outcomes: The Role of Social Capital and Extracurricular Participation.” The Sociological Quarterly 49:105-137.

Godwin, Kenneth, Jennifer Godwin and Valerie Martinez-Ebers . 2004. “Civic Socialization in Public and Fundamentalist Schools.” Social Science Quarterly 85(5):1097-111.

Greeley, Andrew M . 2002. Catholic High Schools and Minority Students. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.

Gross, Neil and Solon Simmons. 2009. “The Religiosity of American College and University Professors.” Sociology of Religion 70(2):101-29.

Guest, Mathew. 2013. Christianity and the University Experience: Understanding Student Faith . London: Bloomsbury

Hill, Jonathan and Kevin den Dulk . 2013. “Religion, Volunteering, and Educational Setting: The Effect of Youth Schooling Type on Civic Engagement.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion , 52(1):179–97.

Hill, Jonathan . 2009. “Higher Education as Moral Community: Institutional Influences on Religious Participation During College.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48(3):515-34.

Hill, Jonathan . 2011. “Faith and Understanding: Specifying the Impact of Higher Education on Religious Belief.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50(3):533-51.

Jacobsen, Douglas and Rhonda Jacobsen. 2012. No Longer Invisible: Religion in University Education . New York: Oxford University Press.

Jeynes, William . 2003. Religion, Education, and Academic Success. Greenwich, Conn.: Information Age Pub.

Jeynes, William. 2004. “Comparing the Influence of Religion on Education in the United States and Overseas: A Meta-Analysis.” Religion and Education 31(2):83-97.

Jeynes, William H. 2007. “Religion, Intact Families, and the Achievement Gap.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion , 3.

Jha, N. and C. Polidano . 2013. “Long-Run Effects of Catholic Schooling on Wages.” Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network.

Kim, Young-Joo . 2011. “Catholic Schools or School Quality? The Effects of Catholic Schools on Labor Market Outcomes.” Economics of Education Review 30(3):546-58.

Lehrer, Evelyn L. 1999 . “Religion as a Determinant of Educational Attainment: An Economic Perspective.” Social Science Research 28:358-379.

Mayrl, Damon and Jeremy Uecker . 2011. “Higher Education and Religious Liberalization among Young Adults.” Social Forces 90(1):181-208.

McCloskey, Patrick. 2008. The Street Stops Here: A Year at a Catholic High School in Harlem . Berkeley: University of California Press.

McFarland, Michael, Bradley Wright and David Weakliem . 2011. “Educational Attainment and Religiosity: Exploring Variations by Religious Tradition.” Sociology of Religion 72(2):166-88.

McKune, Benjamin and John Hoffmann. 2009. “Religion and Academic Achievement among Adolescents.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion 5:1-21.

Meyer, John W., David Tyack, Joane Nagel, and Audri Gordon. 1979 . “Public Education as Nation-Building in America: Enrollments and Bureaucratization in the American States, 1870-1930.” American Journal of Sociology 85:591-613.

Morgan, Stephen L. 2001 . “Counterfactuals, Causal Effect Heterogeneity, and the Catholic School Effect on Learning.” Sociology of Education 74:341-374.

Morgan, Stephen L. and Aage B. Sorensen. 1999 . “Parental Networks, Social Closure, and Mathematics Learning: A Test of Coleman’s Social Capital Explanation of School Effects.” American Sociological Review 64:661-681.

Morgan, Stephen L. and Jennifer J. Todd. 2009 . “Intergenerational Closure and Academic Achievement in High School: A New Evaluation of Coleman's Conjecture.” Sociology of Education 82:267-285.

Muller, Chandra and Christopher G. Ellison. 2001. “Religious Involvement, Social Capital, and Adolescents’ Academic Progress: Evidence from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988.” Sociological Focus 34:155-183.

Page, Ann L. and Donald A. Clelland. 1978 . “The Kanawha County Textbook Controversy: A Study of the Politics of Life Style Concern.” Social Forces 57:265-281.

Peshkin, Alan. 1986. God's Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Reese, William J . 1985. “Soldiers for Christ in the Army of God: The Christian School Movement in America.” Educational Theory 35:175-194.

Reese, William J . 1982. “Public Schools and The Great Gates of Hell.” Educational Theory 32:9-17.

Reimer, Sam . 2010. “Higher Education and Theological Liberalism: Revisiting the Old Issue.” Sociology of Religion 71(4):393-408.

Rose, Susan D . 1988. Keeping Them Out of The Hands of Satan: Evangelical Schooling in America . New York: Routledge.

Rose, Susan. 1993. “Fundamentalism and Education in the United States.” In Fundamentalisms and Society, Marty, Martin E. and Scott Appleby (eds.), 452-489. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

Sander, William. 2001. Catholic Schools: Private and Social Effects . Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Scheitle, Christopher . 2011. “Religious and Spiritual Change in College: Assessing the Effect of a Science Education.” Sociology of Education 84(2):122-36.

Scheitle, Christopher and Buster Smith. 2012. “Religious Affiliation, College Degree Attainment, and Religious Switching.” Religion, Work and Inequality 23:205–26.

Schmalzbauer, John. 2013. “Campus Religious Life in America: Revitalization and Renewal.” Society 50(2):115-31.

Schwadel, Philip . 2011. “The Effects of Education on Americans' Religious Practices, Beliefs, and Affiliations.” Review of Religious Research 53(2):161-82.

Schwadel, Philip . 2015. “Explaining Cross-National Variation in the Effect of Higher Education on Religiosity.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 54(2):402-18.

Sherkat, Darren E. and Alfred Darnell. 1999 . “The Effect of Parents' Fundamentalism on Children's Educational Attainment: Examining Differences by Gender and Children's Fundamentalism.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 38:23-35.

Small, Jenny and Nicholas Bowman . 2011. “Religious Commitment, Skepticism, and Struggle among U.S. College Students: The Impact of Majority/Minority Religious Affiliation and Institutional Type.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50(1):154-74.

Stevens, Mitchell L . 2001. Kingdom of children : culture and controversy in the homeschooling movement. Princeton : Princeton University Press.

Stroope, Samuel. 2011. “Education and Religion: Individual, Congregational, and Cross-Level Interaction Effects on Biblical Literalism.” Social Science Research 40(6):1478-93.

Uecker, Jeremy and Jonathan Hil l. 2014. “Religious Schools, Home Schools, and the Timing of First Marriage and First Birth.” Review of Religious Research 56(2):189-218

Uecker, Jeremy E. 2008 . “Alternative Schooling Strategies and the Religious Lives of American Adolescents.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47:563-584.

Uecker, Jeremy . 2009. “Catholic Schooling, Protestant Schooling, and Religious Commitment in Young Adulthood.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48(2):353-67.

Uecker, Jeremy. 2008 . “Alternative Schooling Strategies and the Religious Lives of American Adolescents.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47:563-584

Wagner, Melinda Bollar . 1990. God’s Schools : Choice and Compromise in American Society . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

III. Sociology of Religion Grads Should Read (On Their Own) To Be Well-Educated (not required coverage on doctoral exams)

Becker, Penny E . 1999. Congregations in Conflict. Cambridge.

Bellah, Robert et al . 1985. Habits of the Heart. California. (Chapters 1-6, 9-10)

Burdick, John . 1993. Looking for God in Brazil. California.

Chaves, Mark . 2003. Congregations in America. Harvard.

Christiano, Kevin. 2007. Religious Diversity and Social Change: American Cities, 1890-1906. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ellison, Christopher and Jeffrey Levin . 1998. “The Religion-Health Connection.” Health Education and Behavior. 25(6): 700-720.

Emerson, Michael & Christian Smith . 2000. Divided by Faith. Oxford.

Finke, Roger and Rodney Stark . 1992. The Churching of America, 1776-1990. Rutgers.

Gorski, Phillip . 2003. The Disciplinary Revolution. Chicago: Chicago.

Greeley, Andrew . 1989. Religious Change in America. Harvard.

Hadaway, Kirk, Penny Long Marler, and Mark Chaves. 1993 . 1993. “What the Polls Don’t Show: A Closer Look at U.S. Church Attendance.” ASR. 58: 741-52. (Also see follow-up symposium in ASR, 63(1), Feb 1998).

Hunter, James . 1983. American Evangelicalism. Rutgers (pp. 3-19, 49-101).

Hunter, James . 1991. Culture Wars. New York: Free Press. (sections on religion.)

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture.” In Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books.

Jenkins, Philip . 2002. The Next Christendom. New York: Oxford.

Keister, Lisa. 2008 . “Conservative Protestants and Wealth: How Religion Perpetuates Asset

Poverty.” American Journal of Sociology. 113:1237-71.

Keister, Lisa. 2007 . “Upward Wealth Mobility: Exploring the Roman Catholic Advantage.” Social Forces. 85:1195-1226.

Lechner, Frank. 1991 . “The Case against Secularization.” Social Forces 69 (June): 1103-19.

Mannheim, Karl. 1963. Ideology and Utopia. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.

Neibuhr, H. Richard. 1929. The Social Sources of Denominationalism. (various publishers)

Nelson, Timothy. 1996. “Sacrifice of Praise: Emotion and Collective Participation in an African-American Worship Service.” Sociology of Religion. 57(4): 379-96.

Putnam, Robert . 2000. Bowling Alone. Simon and Schuster. (Ch. 4).

Roof, Wade Clark . 1999. Spiritual Marketplace. Princeton.

Roof, Wade Clark and McKinney . American Mainline Religion. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers.

Stark, Rodney . 2004. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Stark, Rodney . 1997. The Rise of Christianity. Harper San Francisco.

Stark, Rodney and William Sims Bainbridge . 1987. A Theory of Religion. New York: P. Lang.

Stark, Rodney and Charles Glock. 1968. American Piety. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Steensland, Brian, et al. 2000 . “The Measure of American Religion: Toward Improving the State of the Art.” Social Forces. 79. (September): 291-318.

Wilde, Melissa . 2007. Vatican II. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Woodberry, Robert and Christian Smith. 1998 . “Fundamentalists, et al.” Annual Review of Sociology—1998. Vol. 24. Annual Reviews. pp. 25-56.

Wuthnow, Robert . 1994. Producing the Sacred. Illinois.

Young, Lawrence (ed.). 1997. Rational Choice Theory and Religion: Summary and Assessment. New York: Routledge.

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How to Earn a Doctorate of Religion

Pursuing a Doctorate of Religion and Society Studies at Omega Graduate School is a journey of academic rigor and personal growth. This program is designed for those who seek to deeply understand the interplay between religion and society. Here’s how you can earn this prestigious degree.

What is a Doctorate of Religion?

A Doctorate of Religion is a prestigious and advanced academic degree that studies religious beliefs, practices, and their impact on society. It involves rigorous research, critical analysis, and the production of original scholarship in religious studies. Students pursuing a doctorate in religion typically explore religious traditions, theological concepts, and religion’s historical and sociological aspects.

Its interdisciplinary approach sets the Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in Religion and Society Studies at Omega Graduate School apart. While traditional religious studies programs often concentrate solely on theology and religious texts, OGS’s DPhil program takes a broader perspective by integrating sociology, ethics, and leadership studies. This multidisciplinary approach enables students to understand religious beliefs and critically examine their societal implications and ethical dimensions. Graduates of the OGS program are uniquely equipped to address complex challenges at the intersection of religion and society, making this degree a valuable asset for those seeking to influence positive change in diverse social contexts.

Understanding the Program’s Focus

The DPhil in Religion and Society Studies is an interdisciplinary program. It combines elements of sociology, theology, ethics, and leadership studies. The program aims to prepare scholars to critically analyze and influence the relationship between religion and society.

Admission Requirements

Prospective students must hold a master’s degree, preferably related to the field. The admissions process includes submitting academic transcripts, recommendation letters, a statement of purpose, and possibly undergoing an interview. Check the Omega Graduate School’s Admissions for detailed requirements.

Curriculum and Coursework

The curriculum is designed to provide a broad understanding of the interplay between religion and society. Core courses cover social theory, religious traditions, and ethical leadership. Students also engage in extensive research methodologies to prepare for their dissertations.

Research Focus and Dissertation

A significant portion of the DPhil program involves conducting original research. This research culminates in a dissertation that contributes new knowledge to the field. Students work closely with faculty advisors to develop research proposals and conduct their studies.

Time Commitment and Duration

The program typically takes three to five years to complete, depending on whether students are enrolled full-time or part-time. This timeframe includes coursework, research, and writing the dissertation.

Faculty and Mentorship

Omega Graduate School boasts a faculty with expertise in various aspects of religion and society. These mentors guide students through their academic journey, from coursework to dissertation defense.

Career Enhancement

Graduates can enhance their academic careers, research, leadership roles in religious organizations, and consultancy in social policy. The degree opens doors to influence society’s understanding and application of religious principles.

The Value of a PhD/DPhil from Omega Graduate School

Earning a PhD/DPhil in Religion and Society Studies from Omega Graduate School is about gaining a degree and becoming a thought leader in a vital field. The program offers an opportunity to explore complex societal issues through the lens of religious understanding.

The journey to earning a DPhil in Religion and Society Studies at Omega Graduate School is challenging but immensely rewarding. It prepares scholars to contribute meaningfully to the dialogue between religion and society. For more detailed information about the program, visit Omega Graduate School – DPhil in Religion and Society Studies .

Sociology of Religion

The purpose of the Section on Sociology of Religion is to encourage and enhance research, teaching, and other professional concerns in the study of religion and society. The Section seeks to promote communication, collaboration and consultation among scholars in the field of the sociology of religion.

This Section:

Sponsors invited panels, paper sessions, and refereed roundtables at ASA annual meetings.
Publicizes the events and publications of kindred organizations, such as the Association for the Sociology of Religion, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Religious Research Association, and the American Academy of Religion.
Maintains a group on ASA Connect to assist members in communicating directly with one another.
Recognizes distinguished scholarship with awards for best book, best article, early career scholars, and a graduate student paper award.
Uplifts diverse perspectives with awards for anti-racist scholarship and grants for BIPOC section members.
Encourages graduate students and faculty to exchange ideas about research in progress.

Bylaws Annual Report (2023) Award Recipient History Newsletters Resources

Section Council

Chair: Kevin D. Dougherty, Baylor University Chair-Elect: Jaime Kucinskas, Hamilton College Past Chair: Grace Yukich, Quinnipiac University Section Secretary/Treasurer: Damon Mayrl, Colby College Amy Adamczyk, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, CUNY Jonathan Coley, Oklahoma State University Daniel Cueto-Villalobos, University of Minnesota Twin Cities (Student Representative) David Eagle, Duke University Jacqui Frost, Purdue University Nicolette Manglos-Weber, Boston University Meredith Whitnah, Westmont College

View the Section’s website here .

1717 K Street NW, Suite 900 Washington, D.C. 20006 202.247.9840 [email protected]

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Department of Sociology

An Engaging Academic Environment

Sociology is the science that studies the social relations of people. It is a scientific approach to understanding human groups and human interaction. From families to neighborhoods to nation-states, human life is spent in the company of others. The theories and methods of sociology provide a means to analyze the social nature of human existence and work toward a world that is more tolerant, equitable, and inclusive.

Training in sociology expands one's awareness and appreciation of human diversity, and is useful preparation for careers in business, law, government, ministry, medicine, and many more.

Why Baylor Sociology

Dating back to 1919, Baylor’s sociology program offers a legacy of distinguished service, high caliber scholarship, exemplary teaching, and unique opportunities to its students. At Baylor, we offer courses taught by top scholars and various opportunities for independent research.

Undergraduate Programs

An attractive aspect of our program is its flexibility with sociological studies in keeping with students interests and ambitions.

Graduate Programs

The Department of Sociology at Baylor University has a productive faculty committed to the mentorship and collaborative research with students.

Research Areas

Research is an important aspect of graduate study at Baylor and, by the end of their second year, Sociology doctoral students will begin engaging in an in-depth research project. Our graduate students have been published in Social Forces, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and Social Science Quarterly . Their work also has been selected by notable new outlets such as The Huffington Post, USA Today and The Washington Post.

Careers in Sociology

The knowledge and analytical skills of sociology make our graduates broadly marketable. More than half of our alumni build a career upon their undergraduate degree. About a third eventually pursues some type of graduate education, such as sociology, social work, seminary, business administration, law, or medical. Private laboratories, foundations, and research centers offer opportunities for those who study sociology and health.

Ty is the Associate Client Engagement Manager for a major tech company.

Jordyn attended graduate school and now works in a hospital.

Matt is pursing an M.S. in Forensics Psychology and is working as an Outreach Coordinator at his university.

Sociology In the News

Stanford University recently compiled a database of the most cited researchers in higher ed history — specifically, those who ranked among the top 2% all-time. It’s an incredible undertaking — and one that found 34 Baylor professors among the honorees.

WACO, Texas (May 16, 2023) – For most of U.S. history, tattoos have been associated with sailors and bikers, but not church-going people. As tattoos have become more popular, with nearly one-third of U.S. adults sporting at least one tattoo, religious-themed tattoos have also increased. A recent study examined the behaviors of college students with tattoos, including religious tattoos.

The end of each year brings with it a series of lists that bibliophiles eagerly await — a rundown of the year’s best books. Baylor professors are often honored on these “best of” lists, on a wide variety of topics. For 2022, two books authored by Baylor faculty members earned recognition from Christianity Today and […]

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Religion, Sociology Of
Sociology of religion |Nature and Scope| Theories of Religion Sociology in English
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Sociology of Religion
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An Introduction to the Sociology of Religion

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Sociology PHD Guidance| Research Proposal| NTA UGC NET Sociology
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Economy and Religion
D. N. Dhanagare Sociology, Agrarian Sociology, Marxist Perspective, D. N. Dhanagare, Dhanagare Books
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COMMENTS

PhD: Sociology of Religion
The Department of Sociology at Baylor University is recognized for its distinction in training sociologists of religion. Our curriculum combines seminars of substantive interests and independent research. Two required seminars introduce students to theory in the sociology of religion. We train all students in advanced quantitative data ...
Anthropology and Sociology of Religions
Anthropology and sociology have long served as core disciplines of the social sciences, and social scientific work on religion has been foundational for our current theorizations of culture, society, personhood, language, knowledge and economy. Promoting critical inquiry of what is regarded as 'religion', anthropologists and sociologists are ...
Religion & Society PhD Program
Menu. The Religion and Society Program promotes interdisciplinary reflection that critically examines religious and social life. With "the religious" and "the social" as its two areas of focus, the program equips doctoral students with theoretical resources and diverse perspectives that enhance and deepen their theological studies and ...
Sociology of Religion Concentration (Sociology, Ph ...
The Department of Sociology at Baylor University is recognized for its distinction in training sociologists of religion. The curriculum in the sociology of religion concentration brings together seminars of substantive interest, advanced methodological training and independent research. ... A PDF of the entire 2023-2024 Graduate catalog. 2022 ...
Sociology Ph.D. Program
The Ph.D. program in sociology at Baylor University is collegial, rigorous, and supportive. A defining feature of the program is mentorship. Faculty and students work closely together in research and teaching. We offer special concentrations in community analytics, sociology of health, and the sociology of religion (see below), but students are ...
Sociology of Religion
An institution of higher learning unlike any other, the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley brings together scholars of the world's diverse religions and wisdom traditions to advance new knowledge, seek fresh insight, and collaborate on solutions. 2400 Ridge Road. Berkeley, California 94709. +1.510.649.2400.
Christian Smith, PhD // University of Notre Dame
Christian Smith is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. Smith is well known for his research focused on religion, adolescents and emerging adults, and social theory. Smith received his MA and PhD from Harvard University in 1990 and his ...
PDF Sociology of Religion Concentration (Sociology, Ph.D.)
Baylor University 2024-2025 Graduate School Catalog 1 SOCIO LOGY OF RELIGION CO NCENTRATION (SOCIOLOGY, PH.D.) The Department of Sociology at Baylor University is recognized for ... SOC 5341 Introduction to Sociology of Religion SOC 6332 The Sociology of Religious Organizations SOC 6336 Religion, Race and Gender SOC 6384 Religion and Family Life
Course Syllabi // Christian Smith, PhD // University of Notre Dame
Sociology of Religion Comprehensive Exam. In addition to whatever specific readings graduate students engage for their own personal research interests, there is a core set of readings with which sociologists of religion should be familiar with in order to claim professional competence and as a background to eventually teaching in the sociology ...
Sociology of Religion
Begins with Durkheim's and Weber's different approaches to the sociology of religion. Considers a range of topics, including ritual, religious commitment, conversion, religion and social movements, secularization, social sources of religious variation, and religious influences on people, organizations, and societies. Explores current empirical and theoretical debates. Identifies significant ...
Sociology of Religion
The official journal of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. Publishes original research that advances scholarship in the sociological study of religion. Articles are not limited in their substantive focus, theoretical orientation, or methodological approach.
PhD
Depending on your field of study, you can be awarded a PhD in that area, for example, in Social Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, or Religious Studies. As a PhD student you will have access to seminars and events which profile the research of top scholars in the field as well as the religious and cultural diversity on your doorstep ...
Sociology of Religion
Special focus will be on contemporary American topics, including religion and transnationalism, the role of religious actors and discourses in American politics, law and economics, and everyday religious practice. Section Number. 001. Call Number. 54095. Day, Time & Location. MW 4:10PM-5:25PM To be announced. Instructor. Courtney Bender.
Sociology of Religion
Sociology of Religion. The sociology of religion uses the tools and methods of social science to understand 1) the nature of religious belief and practice and its implications for individual and social behavior, 2) the ways in which religious ideas, subcultures, and organizations influence many other aspects of society (for example, gender ...
Religious Studies
Religious Studies. Ph.D. The Department of Religious Studies maintains exceptional strength in the study of religion in antiquity, Asian religions, modern religious thought and the theoretical study of religion. The graduate program in Religious Studies at Brown is one of the finest in the nation. From among a large pool of highly qualified ...
Center for the Study of Religion and Society // University of Notre Dame
We are a community of scholars dedicated to advancing social scientific understanding of religion through empirical research, scholarly publications, intellectual interchange, and a vibrant graduate training program. We foster a thriving intellectual community where faculty, students and visiting scholars can explore and exchange ideas.
Journal: Sociology of Religion
Articles published in Sociology of Religion have won many professional awards, including most recently the ASA Religion Section's Graduate Student Paper Award (Darwin in 2019), the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion's Distinguished Article Award (Whitehead, Perry, and Baker in 2019), and the Society for the Scientific Study of ...
The Sociology of Religion
Semester: Summer Offered: 2021 While many countries profess a separation between state and religion, faith and religiosity remain central to social and political life, both in the United States and in the global scene. In recent years more than ever, religious figures have been deeply involved in electoral processes, in welfare and charity, in social justice movements, in war-making, and in ...
Sociology of Religion Readings List
2001. "Feminism and the Sociology of Religion: From Gender-blindness to Gendered Difference." In Richard K. Fenn, ed., The Blackwell Companion to Sociology of Religion. Malden, MA: Blackwell. D. Religion and Education, and Schooling. Baker, David. 1998. "The 'Eliting' of the Common American Catholic School and the National Education ...
How to Earn a Doctorate of Religion
It combines elements of sociology, theology, ethics, and leadership studies. The program aims to prepare scholars to critically analyze and influence the relationship between religion and society. ... Earning a PhD/DPhil in Religion and Society Studies from Omega Graduate School is about gaining a degree and becoming a thought leader in a vital ...
Religion Matters (And Doesn't Go Away When Sociologists Ignore It)
Religion remains among the most powerful and pervasive forms of social behavior around the world, including the United States. Yet academic sociology has long ignored its relevance and is consequently neglecting a responsibility to provide accurate and comprehensive explanations of social life to the world.
(PDF) Handbook of the Sociology of Religion
The sociology of religion is a core component of the discipline, having a critical place in the classical theorizing of Max Weber and Émile Durkheim and comprising one of the more researched ...
Sociology of Religion
The purpose of the Section on Sociology of Religion is to encourage and enhance research, teaching, and other professional concerns in the study of religion and society. The Section seeks to promote communication, collaboration and consultation among scholars in the field of the sociology of religion. This Section: Sponsors invited panels, paper sessions, and refereed roundtables at ASA annual ...
Department of Sociology
Research is an important aspect of graduate study at Baylor and, by the end of their second year, Sociology doctoral students will begin engaging in an in-depth research project. Our graduate students have been published in Social Forces, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and Social Science Quarterly.