Roman Bracketology

Last updated on: March 11, 2013 at 8:47 am By Mark Regnerus

So it all comes down to this week, for Catholics. And in a at least one significant way, to Protestants as well, since the pope is arguably the central figurehead promoting religious freedom for all. Catholic performing artist Matt Maher issued a call last week for all Christians to pray about the conclave. I concur. Of course the response broke out into the standard Protestant-Catholic quibbles. Enough. As Benjamin Franklin asserted to his Declaration cosigners, “We must all hang together... Read more

Trends in the Religious Unaffiliated, the “Nones,” by Age

Last updated on: March 6, 2013 at 11:44 am By Bradley Wright

Last week I posted a figure showing the rise of the religiously unaffiliated over the past 40 years. Today I am breaking it down by age, for this helps us to understand better what is happening. As shown last week, rates of the unaffiliated rose rapidly in the 1990s and more slowly since. Two general models for this rise would be be 1) it’s happening primarily among the youth, and they remain unaffiliated as they age or 2) it’s happened... Read more

Shining like the Sun

Last updated on: March 3, 2013 at 11:14 pm By Mark Regnerus

Although there are perhaps more timely subjects to tackle here this week, including the dueling, David vs. Goliath SCOTUS amici briefs on marriage, my thoughts largely return to more personal matters. I recently lost a 53-year-old friend to cancer—courtesy of a more pressing and ultimately fatal pulmonary embolism—and continue to learn of another family friend’s struggle with the same brutal cancer that ended my father’s earthly life 13 fast years ago. So as Winter turns to Spring, I am mindful of... Read more

Embracing Tolerance and Rejecting Narrow-Mindedness

Last updated on: March 2, 2013 at 11:39 pm By George Yancey

I decided to take a page from Mark Regnerus and look at some old data to give it a new twist. Sometimes looking beyond the original intent of the data can provide interesting findings. For example, a couple of years ago my book Compromising Scholarship came out and documented academic bias against religious and political conservatives. It is mainly based on a survey I sent to academics in several disciplines. You can find the details of the survey in the... Read more

The Three Segregations and Asian America

Last updated on: March 1, 2013 at 10:40 am By Jerry Park

A recurring conversation in sociology is that of segregation. While we are decades away from Jim Crow, the weight of the evidence since the 1980s is that while our population is diversifying, we’re not necessarily content with living alongside those who appear different from us. In most of the research to date, segregation has often inferred race as the main marker of difference. But a few years ago, new research was emerging that suggested income was now gaining in prominence.... Read more

The Rise of the Unaffiliated–The Religious Nones

Last updated on: February 28, 2013 at 10:40 am By Bradley Wright

One of the big changes in American religion over the past several decades has been the increasing number of the religiously unaffiliated. These are people who may or may not believe in God or a higher power (and, actually, most do), but they do not align themselves with a particular religion. Last year the Pew Foundation released an informative report on the nones that had the punchy subtitle “1 in 5 adults have no religious affiliation.” While the rise of... Read more

Being Honest about Inequality

Last updated on: February 26, 2013 at 12:46 am By Amy Reynolds

Last week, my daughter brought home a class worksheet where she had noted that Barack Obama was colorblind. “What does that mean?” I asked her, only to be informed that it meant he thought people were equal, regardless of the color of their skin. I told her that’s not exactly what being colorblind meant: that seeing people as equal does not mean ignoring race. The topic then shifted to soccer and birthday parties. Yesterday morning we had another interesting exchange... Read more

Gender, Culture and Suicide in Asia and Asian America

Last updated on: February 22, 2013 at 5:24 pm By Jerry Park

Fellow blogger and sociologist Mark Regnerus’ recent post on suicide rates and ideation prompted me to reflect on suicide in parts of Asia and in Asian America from the news I have been reading of late. Perhaps the most notable is the one that showed up in the New York Times citing an unprecedented increase in suicide among elderly Korean women. As the article suggests, some of this is prompted by the structural changes in Korean society that have not... Read more

Positive Sociology in the Classroom

Last updated on: February 20, 2013 at 8:41 am By Margarita A. Mooney

My recent visit with Jane Dutton of the University of Michigan’s Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship inspired me to adapt some of their practical exercises for building leadership and thriving workplaces to my own classroom. Dutton and colleagues have created two tools, the Job Crafting Exercise, a tool designed to make people’s jobs more engaging and fulfilling, and the Reflected Best Self Exercise, which helps people identify their character strengths and help build on their unique strengths and talents. Based on those tools, I... Read more

The Suicide Rate has Risen: What Predicts Suicide Ideation?

Last updated on: February 18, 2013 at 2:48 pm By Mark Regnerus

With the news of troubled country music star Mindy McCready’s death from suicide, a month after her baby’s father did the same, some public attention returns—as it does with regularity—to this painful topic. According to a February 13 New York Times article, the suicide rate in the US has climbed by 12 percent since 2003. Another Times article, this one from February 1, claims a 31 percent increase in the number of suicides in the U.S., from an estimated 80... Read more