Putting Some Class into Religious Studies: Resurrecting an Important Concept

Coping with Depression in Single Black Mothers

“…Religious coping is frequently reported by African Americans as extremely important and more effective for treating depressive symptoms than counseling or medications (Cooper et al, 2001; Givens, Houston, Van Voorhees, Ford, & Cooper, 2007). However, other studies show that persons of lower income have lower participation in organizational religiosity (McCloud, 2007; Schwadel, 2008 ; Sullivan, 2006) and persons of higher income have greater church attendance (Nelson, 2009; USDHHS, 2009). Since black single mothers are poor (United States Census, 2012), their lack of financial resources may be associated with their inability to take advantage of the support networks available at church, hence limiting the effects of religiosity afforded African Americans in general.…”

The Continuing Relevance of Family Income for Religious Participation: U.S. White Catholic Church Attendance in the Late 20th Century

“…By the 1970s, however, social scientists had come to believe that the effect of social class on religious participation had pretty much disappeared (e.g., Alston and McIntosh 1979;Hoge and Carroll 1978), leading Mueller and Johnson (1975:798) to conclude that the interest in class differences in religious involvement was "perhaps unwarranted (at least in contemporary society)." Subsequently, little attention has been paid to the connection between income and church attendance during the past three decades (for exceptions see Lipford and Tollison 2003;McCloud 2007). The evidence we present here strongly suggests that dismissing the impact of family income on American religious participation may have been premature.…”

“…The "weak and inconsistent" results of empirical research examining social class and religious participation may result from the wide variety of Protestant denominations in the United States and the associated higher rates of Protestant interdenominational mobility (Stark and Finke 2000:32). Meaningful class distinctions among Protestant denominations can provide relatively more class-distinct religious communities for American Protestants (McCloud 2007;Pyle 2006;Smith and Faris 2005). Regardless of changes in the continue to be Protestant denominations that appeal to each segment of the social class continuum (Finke and Stark 1992;Niebuhr 1929;Stark and Finke 2000).…”

Understanding Why Religious Involvement's Relationship With Education Varies by Social Class

“… Consistent with prior studies, we delineate SES as the integrated and accumulated effects of multiple factors, such as parent education and family income (McCloud, ; Smith & Faris, ). We thus measure ‘family SES’ using indicators from the Wave 1 parent survey data, and identify youth of lower family SES ( n = 50) as those with parents with less than a bachelor's degree and an annual household income of less than $50,000.…”