Measuring the Complexity of American Religion

• In Event: 341 - Section on Sociology of Religion Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 10. Religion: Methodological Approaches

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that profound class differences remain between American religious groups, with Jews and Mainline Protestants at the top of the socioeconomic ladder and Conservative Protestants, both black and white, at the bottom. These findings are crucial, both theoretically and methodologically, to contemporary sociologists. Theoretically, they suggest that researchers need to seriously engage theories of inequality that include religion as one of society’s important social structures, an argument we call “complex religion.” Methodologically, these findings suggest that the typical study that merely controls for class and race while examining any measure of religion is doing a great disservice to the empirical reality of American society.

Authors

• Melissa J. Wilde, University of Pennsylvania

• Patricia Tevington, University of Pennsylvania

• Wensong Shen, University of Pennsylvania