My Work
Spiritual Being in Context : A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Effects of Structural Conditions on the Intersection of Spiritual and Religious Self-Identification
There are some indications that, in the realm of popular culture and everyday semantics, “religion” and “spirituality” are increasingly distinguished from each other (Roof 2003; Zinnbauer et. al. 1997; Hout & Fischer 2002; Greeley 2003). By “religion” people often mean participation in conventional religious institutions; by “spirituality” they often mean a diffuse appreciation of the transcendent or mysterious aspects of life. Wade C. Roof (2003: 146) argues that the tendency to distinguish between religion and spirituality “poses an interesting and potentially very significant problem for the analysis of personal religion,” in view of the fact that religious scholars have tended to not distinguish between them under the assumption that spirituality is merely the subjective experience associated with conventional religious practice. If this assumption holds, then humans should not subjectively experience spirituality apart from religion. However, research examining spiritual and religious self-identification in popular culture offers a composite of four subjective identities involving this distinction that is illustrated below.
The measurement of these composite identities provides empirical evidence that there are some self-identifying religious people who identify as spiritual and others who do not. This is likewise for those who self-identify as non-religious. Evidence of these identities raises new questions about the nature of spirituality and religiosity, and the relationship between them and religious institutions. Is there truly a cultural trend in the direction of increasingly distinguishing “religion” from “spirituality”? If so, what produces that trend and how is it possible?
I believe that a cross-national perspective will offer some leverage on these questions. In the former East Germany, for example, my preliminary research suggests that people who grew up there are more likely to identify as “spiritual non-religious” in relation to their former West German counterparts. This is a different situation than in the United States where most people do not classify themselves in this manner (Marler & Hadaway 2002). Cross-national variation in the extent to which spirituality and religiosity function as distinct concepts in popular culture presents an opportunity to examine what might be certain key sources of variation in how these labels and the subjective identities associated with them function in different social and institutional settings.
Although only a small amount of research has been dedicated to what factors may have some value in explaining the variation in spiritual and religious identification, existing research on religious populations in the U.S. offers some perspective on this trend of distinguishing spirituality from religion at the national level. These analyses offer theoretical basis for institutional and organizational changes in the religious institution and for how these changes affect individual interactions with it. They also offer evidence of changes associated with the place that religion holds in the everyday lives of citizenry in terms of belief and behavior.
However when the question takes on a cross-national significance, these analyses appear limited because the national perspective offers assumptions based on a restricted culture specific sample of the human population. Considering these limitations, I propose a dissertation project that will examine the aggregate population levels of the composite of religious and spiritual identification across nation states in order to provide an enhanced global representation of this rising trend of distinguishing religion from spirituality. Such an assessment will provide a more detailed view of where the U.S. sits in this global phenomenon and an improved understanding of the factors impacting variance in these composite identities in the U.S. relative to the impact of those factors elsewhere in the world.
With this project, I propose to use both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis to address a number of questions. Do correlates with religious experience that are suggested by other scholars also have an effect on this distinction between spirituality and religion within the U.S. and cross-nationally? If so, in what groups of nation states will each of these identity distinctions prove to be most prevalent? Are there particular combinations of correlates or structural conditions associated with nation states that lead people to draw stronger distinctions between their “spirituality” and their “religiosity”? Are there particularly broad structural characteristic that have higher predictive value in explaining the variation in the level of these identity distinctions found among the citizenry of particular countries?
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Testing the Claims of Structural Motivation for Internet Use by White Racialists
Recently, the popular press and the work of some academic scholars have presented a picture of rapid propagation of Internet use by hate groups and white racialist. In fact, from reading the popular literature, one develops the picture that these groups, who are portrayed as presenting moral dangers to our youth and ourselves, are pushing their poison into our homes and private lives through our computer desktops at a much more alarming rate than any other movement organizations. Although the overwhelming discussion of this proliferation is extended through the popular media, some research has been done that examines the role of the Internet as specified by the white racialist movement but little has examined their Internet usage in comparison to other movements, influential factors that might have an effect on Internet usage by the movements organizations or the manner of usage they foster.
Some theoretical conjecture has been presented as to why these groups would turn to the Internet as a medium for the promotion of their agendas. However, few tests have been offered to determine the empirical validity of these claims. Understanding the nature of these groups and the low level of credibility given to statements offered by their members, a large reason for this is the inability of researchers to trust information extracted from them. The aim of this article is to empirically test the validity of motivations for Internet usage by these groups that are related to societal structure versus other subjective motivations. The article does so by examining the per capita Internet usage of these groups in relation to theoretical structural variables associated with areas in which they reside.
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Conference
Papers
Structure and Discrimination within the Black Community
Accepted by the 2005 Association of Black Sociologists Annual Meetings Meetings
The culture of poverty argument rears its ugly head once again. Accept this time it is in the arguments of Bill Cosby and the motivation for the new work from Thomas Sowell; “Black Rednecks and the White Liberals that love them.” In his comments last year, Bill Cosby asserted that it is behavior that needs to change in the Black community in order for it to become better. As many do, both non-academics and academics alike, he too ignored the impact of structure on personality and the behavior that is associated with it.
Thomas Sowell examines the argument that there is a culture of behavior in the black community that is likened to the culture of the “Redneck” or uncultured European-American that is so often associated with the Southeast United States. He focuses in on the fact that although Black American culture does breed habits of industriousness, thriftiness, family solidarity and reverence for education that often play a greater role in the success of ethnic minorities than do civil-rights laws or majority prejudices, white liberals and other aficionados tout the "black redneck" culture, an inheritance from the white rednecks that is characterized by violent machismo, shiftlessness and disdain for schooling as the authentic black identity and by doing so they help perpetuate cultural pathologies that hold blacks back.
As a social psychologist I am interested in how social structure impacts the development and execution of personality. As a scholar of family and consumer sciences, my colleague Stephan Russell is also holds an interest in differences in family structures and the impact of those differences on family members. Together we wish to engage the question of whether there are social structures innate to the black family that may be aiding in the perpetuation of discriminatory attitudes and behaviors towards others in the community which in turn would aid in the maintenance of racism that DuBois argued would be eliminated by merely making changes in the interests and management of agendas of those who dominate business and government.
It is our thoughts that no matter what changes are made in these dominant structures that in-group racism, homophobia and other discriminatory attitudes and behaviors will help to maintain differential status hierarchies and other products that are detrimental to the success of blacks in the U.S. We contend that the physical evidence of discrimination against the black community from outsiders, as in this cause DuBois seems to point out, may not be as detrimental to the community as a psychological pathology of divisiveness that pits like against like.
This paper constitutes a preliminary first step in our examination of the psychological effects of social structures within the black community on discriminatory attitudes and behaviors that community members hold toward others. This paper focuses primarily on black males and tries to determine in an exploratory manner, what factors are more or less consistently evident in the structural paths associated with black males that initiate discriminatory attitudes and behaviors that they manifest in reference to other members of the black community.
Introduction
Due to data issues, this paper is not yet available. I apologize for any inconvenience
Helping to Build an Ethnic Enclave: Applying Sociology in the Community Business Environment
Presented at the 200Tucson Black Chamber of Commerce Annual Professional Development Meeting
As global capitalism rises and the U.S. economic situation falters, two divergent situations grow. One philosophy focuses on continuously developing ways of better exploiting investors, target groups, employees and the communities in order to amass profit while another philosophy focuses on ways that businesses can become more efficient in their operations by building alliances and providing better and a broader range of services to their client base.
Through a recent interaction with a business owner, I was given a chance to work with one of the organizations aspiring to the latter of the two philosophies. After making a presentation to one of the largest organizations of black business owners in Tucson, I was asked to further assist the organization with the implementation of their strategic plan. This presentation outlines the resulting implementation strategy for the organization that was designed with the application of theory, principles and other sociological guidelines.
Being of the knowledge that sociology is about identifying patterns in human interaction, examining how and why those patters exist, exploring the consequences of those patterns and determining how the patterns are reproduced or changed, applied sociologist try to advance collective knowledge of social phenomena, solve problems or provide intervention and work to improve social interaction.
As a sociologist of color who prescribes to the tenets of symbolic interaction, I believe that sociology can play a pivotal role in assisting minority organizations and their target communities in navigating the current opportunity structure that caries negative construction and other obstacles that are legacies of historical discrimination and other institutional boundaries.
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Police Behaving Badly: Selective Enforcement of Public Sex Laws in the Southwest
In collaboration with Dr. Stephen Russell and Jennifer. Scheduled for submission to The Journal of Sexuality
There you have it. My ideology about a few things that are important to me.
Please post any comments you may have about my biography or anything else on my web site at my Forums.
Thanks!
Brian