Suchergebnisse

Within America's racialized social system, White people can generally navigate life as "unmarked," oblivious to race. But for White parents of Black adopted children, everyday public interactions provide occasion to directly and vicariously experience a form of "racial gaze," specifically via scrutiny directed toward them as parents and the bodies of their Black children. Drawing on 46 in-depth interviews with White adoptive parents of Black children, and incorporating insights from whiteness theory and research, I analyze how White parents perceive and respond to racial scrutiny. Parents describe how their ability to raise Black children feels challenged through unsolicited advice about haircare, negative comments, and perceived disapproving looks from Black strangers. These interactions provoke parents' insecurity and anxiety such that they become more aware of their own whiteness and thus less "colorblind" than they might have been otherwise, while also resenting Black strangers for implicitly challenging their parenting abilities or the appropriateness of their parenting Black children. Findings provide novel insight into ways White Americans respond to the subjective experience of racial gaze. Given expectations of universal white innocence, competence, and colorblindness, they react with increased anxiety, hyper-vigilance, and greater guardedness around Black Americans in public to the point of resentment.

Americans are increasingly polarized by a variety of metrics. The dimensions, extent, causes, and consequences of that polarization have been the subject of much debate. Yet despite the centrality of religion to early discussions, the analytical focus on America's divides has largely shifted toward partisan identity, political ideology, race, and class interests. I show that religion remains powerfully implicated in all dimensions of American polarization, and sociologists must once again make religion more central to their analyses. After outlining research on American polarization, focusing on the role of religion, I survey findings within the burgeoning literatures on cultural transformation processes, (White) Christian nationalism, complex religion, and Americans' attitudes toward science in order to underscore the centrality of ethno-religious identities, religious demography, and religious institutions for both shaping and exacerbating various forms of polarization. Lastly, I propose an agenda for elucidating religion's ongoing role in understanding polarization beyond public opinion research at the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels. Though polarization research has been dominated by political scientists, leveraging religion in our analyses—not merely as a sui generis variable, but as a site of complex social behavior—facilitates novel sociological contributions to these literatures via our relative attention to multiple levels of analysis, theoretical eclecticism, and methodological fluidity.

AbstractSociologists whose research intersects with American Christianity recognize the critical importance of the Bible to understanding many Americans' beliefs, values, and behaviors, but their operative approach to the Bible generally ignores that "the Bible" is as much a product of interpretive communities as it is a symbolic marker of identity or shaper of social life. I propose that rather than approaching "the Bible" through a distinctly Protestant lens, as given―specifically as uniform, static, and exogenous―sociologists should apply a critical lens to re-conceptualize the Bible more accurately. That is, sociologists should recognize that Bibles are multiform; they are dynamic; and their contents (not just their current interpretations) are highly contingent on temporal culture and power, being the product of manipulation by interpretive communities and actors with vested interests. Using a recent case study of how complementarian gender ideology became systematically inserted into one the most popular English Bible translations among evangelicals today, I illustrate how a more critical approach toward "the Bible" can provide richer, more sophisticated sociological analyses of power and cultural reproduction within Christian traditions.

Studies often report a negative association between pornography use and marital quality. A number of studies, however, find this negative association to be stronger among religious Americans, suggesting that "moral incongruence" may be a key moderating factor. This theory is tested with panel data from the nationally representative 2006–2012 Portraits of American Life Study (N = 612). Support for the theory is mixed. Any pornography use in 2006 predicts lower marital quality in 2012 regardless of whether the viewer felt pornography use was always immoral. However, among pornography viewers, the negative association between marital quality and viewing frequency is stronger for those who morally oppose pornography. Findings hold regardless of gender. Data limitations and implications for future research are discussed.

AbstractThe relationship between the perceived religiosity of one's spouse and marital quality varies across racial and ethnic groups (i.e., Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, and non‐Hispanic Whites) in the United States. In this study, data were drawn from a nationally representative sample of married Americans (N = 1,162). Although perceived spousal religiosity predicted higher marital quality across all racial and ethnic groups, this effect was stronger for Asians, Blacks, and Hispanics than for Whites. Compared to Whites, the 3 racial and ethnic minority groups experienced a larger boost in frequency of expressive forms of love as perceived spousal religiosity increased. This effect was also found regarding marital satisfaction for Asians and Blacks relative to Whites, but not for Hispanics. Moreover, although racial and ethnic minorities tended to report lower marital quality than Whites at low levels of perceived spousal religiosity, their marital quality tended to be higher than Whites at high levels of perceived spousal religiosity. Three‐way interactions indicated that these trends hold regardless of gender.

ObjectiveResearch on religion and marriage consistently finds a positive association between spousal religious commitment and more positive marital outcomes. But findings regarding the moderating influence of gender on this relationship have been mixed. This article clarifies whether returns to marital quality from having a devout spouse are greater for married women or men.MethodDrawing on data from the nationally representative 2006 Portraits of American Life Study, and utilizing 12 different measures of marital quality, I estimate ordinary least squares (OLS) and logistic regression models to test my hypotheses.ResultsIn analyses of the full sample, spouse's religious commitment generally predicts positive marital outcomes, net of controls for respondents' gender as well as their religious and sociodemographic characteristics. However, when models are estimated for women and men separately, the returns to marital quality from having a religiously committed spouse are much stronger and more consistent for women than for men.ConclusionsFindings suggest that, ceteris paribus, having a spouse who is more religious predicts positive marriage outcomes, but women benefit from having a religiously committed spouse more than men do. Possible explanations are discussed.

This study examines whether support for transracial adoption (TRA) among evangelical Protestants and Catholics is uniquely tied to their cultural and political opposition to abortion. Mainline Protestants, persons of other religious faiths, and the religiously unaffiliated are used as comparison groups, and support for same-sex adoption is used as a comparison issue. Data are taken from the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey. I estimate logistic regression models to examine the link between support for TRA and abortion attitudes across all five groups considered, net of relevant sociodemographic and ideological factors. For evangelicals and Catholics, opposition to abortion under any circumstance has a positive net effect on their support for TRA. However, opposition to abortion does not predict support for TRA among mainline Protestants, adherents to other religions, or the unaffiliated. Support for same-sex adoption is a strong predictor of support for TRA across all groups. An interesting paradox is thus observed in that evangelicals and Catholics who support TRA are more socially progressive on most other issues (younger, more racially tolerant, support same-sex adoption), except in their views toward abortion. On this issue, they are more conservative. Adapted from the source document.