One Conception of Secularism for All? A Comparison of Conceptions of Laïcité among Nonbelievers,Catholics, and Muslims in France

In European countries, a large number of people feel that Islam is incompatible with secularism. France's legal principle of laïcité (a type of state “secularism”) has governed the relationship between religion and society since 1905. However, recent research suggests that there coexist two distinct lay conceptions of laïcité that differ most notably in their tolerance for the presence of religious symbols in public places, one inclusive, the other restrictive. This latter conception appears to target mainly Muslims. The present research examined the lay conceptions of laïcité held by Catholics, Muslims, and nonbelievers. Analyses of participants’ responses (N = 375) to a scale measuring lay beliefs about laïcité confirmed the existence of two distinct lay conceptions of laïcité that differed in the importance given to public expression of religious beliefs, religious neutrality of the state, and equal treatment of different religions. The results also showed that, independent of participants’ religiosity, the restrictive conception was more prevalent among nonbelievers, the two conceptions were equally prevalent among Catholics, and the inclusive conception was more prevalent among Muslims.     

Religion and Anti-Immigration Sentiments in Context: Field Studies in Jerusalem

ABSTRACT

Political and social changes in the past decade have rendered questions about religion and immigration more salient than ever. However, we know very little about the potential impact of religion as it operates in the real world on attitudes toward immigrants. In this investigation, we tested whether and how contextual religious cues in the public sphere might affect tolerance toward immigrants. In two studies, we compared the effects of a religious and a secular context (Study 1: religious location; Study 2: religious attire) on attitudes toward Jewish immigrants (i.e., a religious ingroup) and non-Jewish immigrants (i.e., a religious outgroup). Across studies, contextual religious cues predicted ingroup favoritism, as expressed by less social rejection toward religious ingroups and less support for anti-immigration policies affecting religious ingroups. However, contextual religious cues were unrelated to anti-immigration attitudes toward religious outgroups. In Study 2, these patterns were moderated by participants’ religiosity, such that they were found among more (but not fewer) religious participants. These findings extend prior laboratory findings and shed light on how religion influences attitudes toward immigration in rich and complex real environments.     

The Epic of Evolution as a Framework for Human Orientation in Life

This article sketches what is required of a world picture (religious or nonreligious) that is intended to provide orientation in the world for ongoing human life today. How do we move from conceptions and theories prominent in the modern sciences—such as cosmic and biological evolution—to an overall picture or cosmology which can orient us for the effective address of today's deepest human problems? A biohistoricalconception of the human is proposed in answer to this question.     

The Democratization of Art: A Contextual Approach

ABSTRACT

Publicly funded museums and art galleries have been called upon to demonstrate their worth as nodes of social inclusion and facilitators of social change. Flagship galleries have been constructed to foster urban regeneration in part aimed at social inclusivity and transformation. A new museology has emerged that is perceived to be intrinsically more democratic for visitors. This focus on the democratization of art in academia and cultural policy is not matched by a focus on robust empirical research. There are few studies that demonstrate successful democratization and little work that considers methodological issues. This article responds to critiques leveled at three conceptions of the democratization of art to develop a fourth conception—the contextual approach. I argue that collecting visitor sociodemographic data is meaningful only in the context of an institution's social construction and the role of art in the everyday lives of visitors and nonvisitors. Understanding that a good life is possible without engagement with high culture must be part of a democratization agenda.     

A systematic review of the relationship between religion and attitudes toward transgender and gender-variant people

Background: Prejudice against transgender people is widespread, yet in spite of the prevalence of this negativity relatively little is known about the antecedents and predictors of these attitudes. One factor that is commonly related to prejudice is religion, and this is especially true for prejudice targets that are considered to be “value violating” (as is the case for transgender individuals).

Method: In this paper, we present the findings of our systematic search of the literature on this topic and present the synthesized evidence. Our search strategy was conducted across five databases and yielded 29 studies (across 28 articles).

Results: We found consistent evidence that self-identifying as with either being “religious” or as Christian (and to a lesser extent, being Muslim) was associated with increased transprejudice relative to being nonreligious (and to a lesser extent, being Jewish). Additionally, we found consistent evidence that certain forms of religiosity were also related to transprejudice – specifically religious fundamentalism, church attendance, and interpretations of the bible as literal (transprejudice was unrelated to religious education).

Conclusion: Although this young, but important field of research is growing, more empirical exploration is needed to fully understand that nuances of the religion-transprejudice relationship.     

The role of occupational standards in workplace religious literacy

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the UK National Occupational Standards to identify the breadth of occupations for which it has been determined that workers need some degree of religious literacy. A total of 465 standards documents which mention religion and beliefs relating to a diverse range of occupations were retrieved, of which 13 had a primary focus on religion and beliefs. Approximately 60 percent of these standards noted the need for knowledge about religion and beliefs, though only a quarter of these specified actual performance criteria. With some exceptions, most of the standards were vague as to what is meant by religion and its proxies, with very few attempts to define their terms. A lack of specificity renders the inclusion of references to religion largely tokenistic rather than reflecting a measure of religious literacy which could be practically operationalised.     

Continuing the Conversation on Canada: Changing Patterns of Religious Service Attendance

David Eagle's article on changing patterns of religious service attendance appeared in the March 2011 issue of Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. He presented a comprehensive analysis of three data sets that allow social scientists to estimate the rate of religious service attendance in Canada: Project Canada Survey (PCS), the General Social Survey (GSS), and the Canadian Survey of Giving, Volunteering, and Participating (GSGVP). Reginald Bibby initiated the PCS in 1975, 10 years before Statistics Canada began conducting the GSS in 1985, and 22 years before the GSGVP began in 1997. He comments on the Eagle article, cautions scholars to be mindful of important methodological differences across samples, and offers his own analysis of trends in religious service attendance.     

Good Catholics: The Battle over Abortion in the Catholic Church

Abstract

Queer readings of the Bible are sometimes understood to be irrelevant for uses of the Bible in theology, theological education, and ministry. This address challenges that understanding by considering ways in which portions of the Bible take positions vis-à-vis religious tradition that parallel moves made in queer theory and queer theology. Using the task of preaching as an example, the address suggests that queer readings can be useful for the practice of Christian ministry even as such readings challenge certain ‘common-sense’ conceptions of ministry, theological education, and religious community.     

小学生语文学习观调查研究

采用选择题与开放题相结合的问卷调查方法,调查207名二、四、六年级学生的语文学习观(包括对语文知识性质与语文知识学习的认识),结果表明:(1)随着年级升高,学生对语文知识性质和学习过程的认识显著地越来越明确;(2)六、四年级的语文知识性质观平均得分显著高于二年级,越来越倾向于认为语文知识是相对的、相互联系的、开放性的;(3)六年级的语文学习过程观平均得分显著高于四、二年级,越来越倾向于认为语文学习不只是接受性的和练习性的,还是建构性的、想象的和探索性的。     

A JEWISH CONCEPTION OF HUMAN DIGNITY

This paper depicts the meanings of human dignity as they unfold and evolve in the Bible and the Halakhah. I posit that three distinct features of a Jewish conception of human dignity can be identified in contrast to core characteristics of a liberal conception of human dignity. First, the original source of human dignity is not intrinsic to the human being but extrinsic, namely in God. Second, it is argued that the “dignity of the people” has precedence over personal autonomy and liberty, which are core liberal pillars. The third characteristic pertains to the potential conflict between personal autonomy and liberty, and God's commandments. The theoretical analysis of human dignity is then examined in light of several Supreme Court decisions in Israel during the 1990s. I illustrate that Jewish religious and secular‐liberal conceptions pull in different directions in the rulings of liberal and religious Justices in Israel.     

Religion and development ethics in global perspective: a case study of a foreign Christian NGO in China

ABSTRACT

Much academic writing on religion and development tends to focus on the values, beliefs, and modes of operation of religious organizations to examine whether religion contributes ethically to development. A problem with such an approach is its disregard of the contested and evolving nature of religious participation in development in broader national and global contexts. What constitutes ethical religious contribution to development? How can we study the question sociologically? To answer these two questions, I develop Roland Robertson’s notion of the global field to present a framework for analyzing the dynamic interaction between religion and development ethics. In terms of methodological contribution, the framework proposed here prompts us dynamically to contextualize the issue of religious development ethics with reference to four components that make up the global field: the religious agent, the national society, the global civil society, and the global discourse on wellbeing and development. This means that, from an analytical perspective, what is proper or ethical in religious development ethics should not be construed in absolute terms, but in terms of degree and variation. I demonstrate the usefulness of such a contextual approach by drawing on research on ‘GMV’ (pseudonym for an international Christian medical professional services group actively engaged in community development) in China and examining the relationship between religious NGOs, the party-state, and evolving discursive practice of development in the country.     

Conservation of Mass,Weight, and Volume as Evidenced by Adolescent Girls in Eighth Grade

Summary

This investigation is a replication of part of a study by Elkind on quantity conceptions in adolescence. A home economics class composed of 28 eighth-grade girls in a junior high school in Levittown, New York, were tested with Piagetian tasks to determine their conceptions of mass, weight, and volume. The results are strikingly parallel to those obtained by Elkind for the same mean age group. In both studies, only 29% of the subjects of mean age 13.6 had attained the conception of conservation of volume, a finding at variance with Piaget's earlier results.     

Identity Change Among Ethno-Religious Border Crossers: The Case of the Former Amish

The present study explores identity among the former Amish. While sociologists of religion have long been interested in religious identity, there has been less attention to religious identities among those who cross religious borders. Much of the literature suggests that individuals abandon former religious identities, including ethno-religious ones, when they join a new religious denomination (e.g., Sandomirsky and Wilson in Soc Forces 68:1211–1229, 1990; Sherkat and Wilson in Soc Forces 73:993–1026, 1995). While scholarship on the Jewish case challenges this assumption (e.g., Phillips and Kelner in Soc Relig 67:507–524, 2006; Sharot in Contemp Jew 18:25–43, 1997), research on other religious groups has largely overlooked these insights. This study extend insights from the Jewish case by examining holdover identities among the former Amish and comparing them with the former Ultra-Orthodox Jewish case, making use of Davidman’s (Becoming un-orthodox: stories of ex-Hasidic Jews, Oxford University Press, New York, 2014) research. Analysis of in-depth interviews with 59 former Amish adults reveals that, while those who have left the Amish no longer define themselves as religiously Amish, they do not abandon their Amish identities entirely. Instead, they reconstruct the meanings of their Amishness in varied ways in their non-Amish contexts. Comparison of these patterns with former Ultra-Orthodox Jews illuminates contextual factors, including the Amish practice of adult baptism and differing normative conceptions of Amish and Jewish identities, that contribute to variation in holdover identities across these cases. Altogether, these results suggest that ethno-religious identities are not mutually exclusive of other denominational identities and support the conceptualization of religious identities as complex, multilayered, and constructed in particular contexts in interaction with existing notions about religious groups.     

Shari’a Reasoning and the Justice of Religious War

Most contemporary advocates of the Just War Tradition (JWT) condemn religious war. If they are correct, waging war should be a secular affair, fully justifiable on non-religious grounds. This secularized understanding of the JWT draws on normative commitments that lead many political theorists to advocate in favor of a secularized politics in western liberal polities. As a matter of historical fact and contemporary commitment, many Muslims have rejected the secularized conception of the morality of war found in contemporary conceptions of the JWT. I argue that, given appropriate distinctions between relevantly different kinds of religious war, advocates of the JWT have excellent reason to rethink their antipathy to religious war. Specifically, I argue that distinct kinds of religious war can enjoy differential normative standing and that there is no compelling reason to believe that religiously justified wars must be waged in a morally improper manner, viz., in a way that violates the JWT's in bello requirements.     

Taking spiritual experiences seriously in the religious education classroom: a transrational approach

ABSTRACT

Spiritual experiences are common across religious and non-religious faiths, but schoolchildren are often afraid to share these because they fear ridicule from peers who are convinced religion is irrational. The need to speak about spirituality in religious education is increasingly recognised. Signposts suggests that intercultural understanding implies recognising religious students’ perception of reality and helping others understand it. Religious education in Norway now includes exploration of existential questions as a core element, and in England, making sense of religious, spiritual and mystical experiences has been suggested as a big idea. In this paper, we discuss how the dualistic paradigm of modern science makes it difficult to take spirituality seriously as lived experience and empirical phenomenon. Instead we suggest a transrational approach to explore our multidimensional reality in an intercultural dialogue where insiders and outsiders learn from each other. We also explore examples of transrational research on spiritual phenomena.     

Children's Conceptions of Characteristic Features of Category Members

Abstract

The authors investigated children's conceptions of the characteristic features of category members and found that their conceptions underwent qualitative developmental changes. They hypothesized that (a) children initially tend to perceive category members in terms of individual characteristics (i.e., internal dispositions and behavioral patterns) and (b) only later do they conceive of category members in terms of their shared beliefs and values. They explored these hypotheses in 2 studies: In Study 1, they investigated how Protestant and Catholic children in Northern Ireland understood the religious intergroup context in their own country; in Study 2, children in Italy were presented with a fictional scenario of intergroup conflict and asked to explain the causes of the conflict. The results of both studies confirmed the 2 hypotheses.     

The Minds of God(s) and Humans: Differences in Mind Perception in Fiji and North America

Previous research suggests that how people conceive of minds depends on the culture in which they live, both in determining how they interact with other human minds and how they infer the unseen minds of gods. We use exploratory factor analysis to compare how people from different societies with distinct models of human minds and different religious traditions perceive the minds of humans and gods. In two North American samples (American adults, N = 186; Canadian students, N = 202), we replicated a previously found two‐factor agency/experience structure for both human and divine minds, but in Fijian samples (Indigenous iTaukei Fijians, N = 77; Fijians of Indian descent, N = 214; total N = 679) we found a three‐factor structure, with the additional containing items related to social relationships. Further, Fijians’ responses revealed a different three‐factor structure for human minds and gods’ minds. We used these factors as dimensions in the conception of minds to predict (a) expectations about human and divine tendencies towards punishment and reward; and (b) conception of gods as more embodied (an extension of experience) or more able to know people's thoughts (an extension of agency). We found variation in how these factors predict conceptions of agents across groups, indicating further theory is needed to explain how culturally generated concepts of mind lead to other sorts of social inferences. We conclude that mind perception is shaped by culturally defined social expectations and recommend further work in different cultural contexts to examine the interplay between culture and social cognition.     

Autonomy,and Then

Abstract

Among the numerous conceptions of autonomy, three are particularly important: Kant's notion of humans' being subject, and subject only, to moral laws they gave themselves, Frankfurt's idea of persons' willing and acting deriving from the essential character of their wills, and the popular conception of persons' being master over whether others do or do not certain things to them. Kant's moral conception of autonomy, it is argued, is untenable because the moral character of a law and its self-givenness are incompatible. Frankfurt's idea suffers from the fact that we cannot give substance to talk of the essential character of one's will. The third conception is practically irrelevant: there is no principle requiring people to be master over what others do to them. Thus autonomy may have to be dropped from our self-conception. To some this will appear a grave loss. In fact it is not.     

Addiction and Responsibility: A Survey of Opinions

ABSTRACT

This article reports the result of a survey about causal beliefs, normative conceptions and moral evaluations of addicts and addiction in the general population. Specifically, we focused on four issues: To what extent are the normative conceptions of addiction current in the philosophical and scientific literature reflected in laypersons' conception of addiction? How do laypersons rate addicts on perceived responsibility? Which factors influence laypersons' responsibility attributions in the context of addiction? What feelings and attitudes (anger/sympathy/help-giving intentions) do laypersons have toward addicts? We found that, although laypersons seem to assume a weakness view of addiction, their patterns of responsibility attributions vary depending on type of drugs combined with perceived severity of outcome, where the latter even overrides the attributional effects of the actor's perceived control over events. Some explanations of the data are suggested, and various consequences with respect to help-giving behavior, are discussed.     

Processes of religious individualisation: stocktaking and issues for the future

Abstract

The paper spells out implications of a perspective on religious individualisation that is both comparative and analytical and discusses the various issues that this line of research has to confront. Arguing against notions of modern Western exceptionalism, it points to the selectivity of Western forms of (religious) individualisation and makes a case for the inclusion of additional forms of articulating individual agency and ‘selfhood'. The paper takes individualisation as an inter-subjective, social phenomenon and connects it to the concept of social imaginaries. Opposing standard concepts of modernisation the paper nevertheless brings processuality centre stage, emphasising contingency. The paper discusses the possibility of the convergence of contextual developmental trends and the question of transculturality of notions of self and agency. With reference to the dimension of critique included in visions of religious individualisation, the paper finally points to the effects processes of religious individualisation can have on human actors within, and beyond, the realm of spirituality, including the recognition of subjectivities and the strengthening of actors’ resilience.