Sociology 3595: Sociology of Religion Week Two
I. Picking the religious organization in which you will do your fieldwork... give me a prioritized list of your choices (Friday you'll get your group assignment and we'll draw to determine the order of presentation)
II. The varieties of religious experience. Marcus Borg: Religious Pluralism
III. Fieldwork assignments distributed and discussed
IV. Studying religious groups and organizations: Research methods
A. Quantitative: Survey research
1. Types of sampling: random vs. convenience
2. Types of question: forced choice vs. open-ended... for data processing purposes, much more common to use forced choice
3. Specialized surveys about religion vs. questions about religion on a more general survey
TPS: How would you measure how religious somebody is, assuming you were going to include the question(s) you create on a survey?
4. Ways of collecting data: mail survey, in person survey, telephone (the cell phone problem is being solved), computerized surveys and email
5. General social survey variables (variables that represent questions in the biannual survey of a representative sample of the noninstitutionalized adult American population)...
religkid: religion R was raised in
believe: Importance of believing in God without doubt
Explore the relationship between these two variables, using religkid as the independent variable... Ask for statistics... Notice the result.
7. Strengths and weaknesses of survey research
B. Qualitative: participant observation (often called field research)
1. Like the first example of Sullivan and Ellefson, "In the Field with Snake Handlers"... the best ones typically long-term and intensive (theirs took between 1 and 2 years)
2. Your fieldwork assignment
3. Strengths and weaknesses
C. Qualitative: intensive interviewing... just a few general questions to start the conversation and a lot of freedom to take different directions depending on the subject's responses... often combined with B
D. Historical research: the Stark text or the Jesus seminar... my church: "Living the Questions"
E. Comparative and cross cultural: Durkheim, Elementary Forms of Religious Life..Max Weber: Economy and Society... . the Human Relations Area Files ...
IV. You believe what?
A. Christianity
B. Islam
C. Hinduism (next week)
D. Buddhism...
E. Judaism
F. New religious movements
Because Christianity is the largest religion, both in the United States and in the world as a whole (Islam is next largest), we will be devoting major attention, as we read Stark, to "how the obscure, marginal Jesus movement became the dominant force in the western world in a few centuries"