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Ratings of six subfields in academic sociology by rigor, need for departments, and interest to undergraduates. Source: Subfields in Academic Sociology Survey (N = 536). Note: Asterisks indicate significant difference from religion. + p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001
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By several metrics, the sociology of religion subfield and its specialists are marginalized within academic sociology. Though various reasons for that marginalization have been ventured, systematic evidence is limited. This study used a 2022 survey experiment to assess how academic sociologists perceive the sociology of religion and its specialists...
Citations
... Much of this conservative skepticism toward academic sociology is not unwarranted, as previous research has shown sociology professors expressed a relative willingness to discriminate against potential colleagues who were fundamentalists or evangelicals (Yancey, 2011), and a recent experimental study by Perry (2023a) showed sociology faculty and trainees were more likely to downgrade the sociology of religion as a subfield if they stereotyped its specialists as "religious" or "conservative." Yet even if much of the negative sentiment toward disciplines like sociology are rooted in some combination of truth and a well-organized media and political effort like that in Florida (Special Committee, 2023), the result is that Americans on the partisan and cultural right will be less likely to seek out, let alone trust, the work of academic sociologists, particularly if the research findings cast conservative politics or culture in a negative light. ...
... Among the challenges academic sociologists (and social scientists more broadly) face in this regard is the relatively low priority they collectively place on understanding such audiences. For example, numerous studies have documented the marginalization of research (and specialists) focusing on religion in sociology (Perry, 2023a(Perry, , b, 2024 as well as political science (Kettell, 2012(Kettell, , 2024 and psychology (Rios & Roth, 2020). Part of this appears simply due to the fact that those entering such disciplines are likely irreligious themselves (see recent work by Blanton & Krasnicki, 2023). ...
This article considers the too-often limited reach of public sociology, focusing on the case of “Christian nationalism.” Despite growing media attention to Christian nationalism, partly reflecting current events along with considerable efforts to engage in public sociology on the topic, I anticipate public awareness of the term is concentrated in theoretically predictable ways. Given the growing conservative skepticism toward academics (particularly sociologists) and increasingly siloed media consumption, I theorize Americans most familiar with “Christian nationalism” would be sociologists’ “choir,” namely, those who are more educated, less religious, more liberal/Democratic, and who trust more liberal news sources. Drawing on two representative surveys fielded in mid-September and November/December of 2022, findings affirm the strongest predictors of Americans hearing/reading more about “Christian nationalism” were being more liberal, educated, being non-Christian (in one survey), and trusting more liberal news sources (in another survey). Interactions show exposure to the term among liberals, Democrats, and those who trust liberal news sources increases substantially with educational attainment. Despite the considerable amount of sociological research and public sociology addressing “Christian nationalism,” those most aware of the term in late 2022 were educated, liberal/Democratic, seculars most likely to already be exposed to and trust the work of sociologists. In other words, to the extent public sociologists have sought to inform the public about “Christian nationalism,” they have likely been “preaching to the choir” more than to those most susceptible to embracing the ideology (less educated, conservative/Republican, Christians). I conclude by discussing implications for sociology’s public impact as a discipline.
... At the same time, Scott and Johnson (2017) found that environmental sociology has had a growing presence in top U.S. sociology journals between 1970 and 2014, in particular after 1990. They suggest that its growing acceptance by mainstream sociology was "critically facilitated by [environmental sociology's] increased attention to core sociological concerns of stratification and inequality" (p. 1). 2 Of course, sociologists have examined climate change in the subfields of environmental sociology and science and technology studies (Scoville & McCumber, 2023), but climate change appears peripheral to the "core of the discipline" (Perry, 2023), which I measure in this study with leading generalist journals, ASA Annual Meeting major sessions, and faculty research and teaching in the 2022 U.S. News 20 topranked departments. 3 This is not the first time that sociologists have challenged the state of the field. ...
... Jacobs and Mizrachi (2020) detail how scholars have historically critiqued the "dominance of quantitative over qualitative research" and "under-representation of gender and race as topic, and women and minorities as authors" in leading sociology journals (Brown & Gilmartin, 1969;Coser, 1975;Ferree et al., 2007;Jacobs, 2007;McNamee et al., 1990;Ward & Grant, 1985;Wiley & Zelditch, 1979). Perry (2023) examines the marginalization of the sociology of religion. Scholars have also worked to counter such trends-for example, Mezey (2020) describes how "feminist scholars took important career risks by advocating for a feminist lens to shift the theoretical and empirical center of sociology" (Stacey & Thorne, 1985). ...
... I draw on four types of data in this study: research articles in leading generalist journals, ASA Annual Meeting major sessions, and faculty biographies and course offerings in the 20 top-ranked U.S. sociology departments. I take these forums to represent "mainstream" U.S. sociology or the "core" of the discipline (Perry 2023). Journal articles and ASA sessions can shed light on sociological discussion of climate change at the national level (and arguably international level, given the global prominence of U.S. journals; see Jacobs & Mizrachi, 2020). ...
Climate change is increasingly recognized as not only a biophysical and technological problem but also a social one. Nonetheless, sociologists have expressed concern that sociology has paid relatively little attention to climate change. This deficit threatens to limit the frames available to understand and imagine solutions to the climate crisis. In this paper I report the most up-to-date and expansive empirical assessment of attention to climate change in sociology in the United States (U.S.). I find little to no mention of climate change across leading sociology journal articles (0.89%), conference sessions (1.5%), and faculty biographies (2.8%) and course listings (0.2%) in the 20 top-ranked departments in the U.S. Two leading journals, the American Sociological Review and American Journal of Sociology, have cumulatively published just three articles focused on climate change to date. This level of disciplinary attention appears low compared to the field’s engagement with other important social problems. My findings thus suggest that climate silence is persistent and pervasive in U.S. sociology. I discuss the implications of this silence and outline opportunities for sociologists, funders, journalists, and policymakers to embrace social science perspectives in climate change teaching, research, and policymaking.
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. I consider several reasons for this neglect, including the uncomfortable topic of anti‐religious bias within the discipline. I propose that correcting our collective suspicion toward religion, religious people, and the specialists who study them is not only ethical, but it helps us do better science, prevents us from excluding minorities who are also more likely to be religious, and helps us earn the trust of the wider public. I conclude by calling for a reprioritization of religion in the discipline.