(Why) is the Sociology of Religion Marginalized? Results from a Survey Experiment

Why Americans (Dis)trust Professors: Identity, Stereotypes, and the Case of Religion Professors

“…While such stereotypes of college professors have been bandied about in conservative or religious circles for over half a century, faculty at universities have indeed grown more liberal and solidly partisan within the past few decades (Gross 2013;Grossmann 2021). And many college professors too have demonstrable biases against religious or conservative students and faculty (e.g., Barnes et al 2020;Perry 2023a;Rios and Roth 2020;Yancey 2011;Yancey et al 2015). Though little evidence suggests such biases have led to outright discrimination, religious graduate students and faculty have themselves reported feeling marginalized in the academy (Scheitle and Ecklund 2018;Scheitle et al 2021) and prominent professors themselves often publicly attack what they see as anti-conservative or anti-religious bias among faculty (e.g., Smith 2018).…”

Religion Matters (And Doesn't Go Away When Sociologists Ignore It)

“…Just as we often assume scholars are attracted to a particular subfield because the topic is somehow relevant to them personally, religion specialists have often assumed the reverse about their colleagues in sociology. That is, since sociologists tend to be a disproportionately secular group (Ecklund and Scheitle 2007; Perry 2023b, 2024), religion specialists have often assumed other sociologists simply do not find the topic personally relevant and mistakenly project that irrelevance onto the broader public (Guhin 2014; Markofski 2015). That is a gracious and diplomatic way to frame it.…”

“…And part of that fear stemmed from the reality that religion specialists and their organizations often had personal ties to religion. Even today, being personally religious is a reliable predictor that graduate students pursue religion as a subfield (Blanton and Krasniki 2022; Perry 2023b). But an actual personal attachment to religion is not necessary to be perceived as having one.…”

“…For a recent study (see Perry 2023b), I conducted a Qualtrics survey experiment with 536 sociology faculty, postdocs, and grad students that I primarily recruited via social media. The survey platform randomly assigned participants to evaluate one of six popular subfields: religion, economic sociology, sociology of education, gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity, and population.…”

Why We Disagree about Inequality: Social Justice vs. Social Order

“…Concerns about social order, on the other hand, although central to disciplinary pioneers like Émile Durkheim, are now unfashionable. The study of religion has likewise been rendered peripheral and is broadly perceived in‐discipline as a niche right‐wing interest (Perry 2023). Iceland, Silver, and Redstone emphasize that sociology is not unique in these regards: academia more broadly, K–12 education, and media organizations seem to be similarly oriented around social justice to the near exclusion of concerns about social order.…”