Kenneth Vaughan

Kenneth Vaughan
Texas Lutheran University | TLU · Department of Sociology

Ph.D.
Researching the relationship between religion, secularization, and right-wing populism. Teaching SOC at a SLAC in Texas

About

15
Publications
1,340
Reads
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58
Citations
Introduction
Sociologist of religion and politics focusing on democratic deconsolidation, new far-right movements, public health, and anti-immigrant hostilities.
Additional affiliations
August 2019 - June 2023
University of Connecticut
Position
  • Assistant Professor in Residence
August 2022 - July 2023
University of Central Oklahoma
Position
  • Assistant Professor

Publications

Publications (15)
Article
Academic evaluations of the relationship between religion, secularization, and far-right collective actors have grown increasingly complicated. New religious immigrants, seen as invaders importing contradictory values imposed on the populous by EU elites, may threaten Christian and irreligious Europeans. Europe has been secularizing for decades, co...
Article
Emerging research shows the COVID‐19 pandemic has made substantial changes to the religious climate of several nations. Surprisingly, China, the outbreak center of the pandemic, has been scarcely researched. Our study investigates how the COVID‐19 pandemic has evoked new religious disaster responses and provided psychological coping mechanisms duri...
Article
Muslim Americans are a fast-growing minority group within the United States, both demographically and in the public consciousness. National surveys place them among the least liked groups in the U.S. cultural landscape, and throughout the twenty-first century they have often been the target of both high-profile vitriol and common daily abuses. We u...
Article
Religious communities can encourage generosity toward strangers. In these communities, such norms are high among religious individuals and nonadherents. It remains unclear how these norms inform policy. Recent refugee crises provide critical tests of how charitable values translate into political preferences. As Europe experiences turmoil over the...
Article
An abundance of research suggests that religion positively affects subjective well-being. Most of this research focuses on Western nations where religious activity is conducted in a relatively free manner. Some scholars speculate that religious involvement decreases subjective well-being in religiously regulated societies, where religious adherents...
Article
Full-text available
Explaining religious growth in China remains a challenge for social scientists. Research on Western nations establishes religion as a powerful resource for coping with life strain. However, China’s sociopolitical context, which often treats religion as deviant, is thought to function as a deterrent to conversion. When individuals experience life st...
Article
Scholars continue to debate political motives behind the Arab Spring – a debate that centers on the compatibility of democratic and Islamist preferences. Some frame the protests as a boon for democracy and prudential needs of citizens. Others report an Islamist turn against secular autocracies. Here, the authors argue that this framing relies on ou...
Article
Years of declining support for democracy and the election of leaders with authoritarian characteristics in liberal-democracies continues to trouble scholars. Current narratives may understate the importance of nativist beliefs in these developments by treating this as a byproduct of broader political movements. I contribute to the understanding of...
Article
Full-text available
This study examines the extent to which confessional identities in Lebanon are responsible for shaping individual views toward their government. Specifically, I investigate disparities between religious groups in their perceptions of democracy and democratic principles as applied in Lebanon. Using nationally representative data from the Arab Barome...
Article
Full-text available
In the United States, associations between attained education and adult health typically are larger for those from disadvantaged childhood backgrounds. However, it remains unclear how specific key childhood indicators contribute to these adult health patterns, especially outside the United States. Drawing on the 2014 European Social Survey (20 coun...
Research
Christianity throughout the world constitutes the largest body of religious peoples according to recent estimates. As of 2010, there are an estimated 2.2 billion Christians in the world, nearly one-third of the world population. At an estimated 1.1 billion, Roman Catholicism stands as the largest body of Christian believers when divided along the m...

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