Department of Sociology
Program Faculty
The department has three full-time positions in the sociology of religion. Two of these positions are held by Fenggang Yang and Daniel Olson. The other will be filled as soon as the department receives authorization from the Dean of Liberal Arts to search for Jim Davidson's replacement.
Fenggang Yang is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center on Religion and Chinese Society (CRCS) at Purdue University. He received his BA from Hebei Normal University (Shijiazhuang, China) in 1982, MA from Nankai University (Tianjin, China) in 1987, and Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America (Washington, DC) in 1997. His sociological research has focused on religious change in China and immigrant religions in the United States. He is the author of Chinese Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities (Penn State University Press 1999), the co-editor (with Tony Carnes) of Asian American Religions: The Making and Remaking of Borders and Boundaries (New York University Press 2004), and the co-editor (with Joseph B. Tamney) of State, Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies (Brill Academic Publishers 2005) and Conversion to Christianity among the Chinese (a special issue of the Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review, 2006). His articles have been published in books and in the American Sociological Review, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sociology of Religion, Amerasia Journal, Journal of Asian American Studies, the Sociological Quarterly, and Asia Policy, including one that won the “2002 Distinguished Article Award” of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (“Transformations in New Immigrant Religions and Their Global Implications”) and one that won “2006 Distinguished Article Award” of the American Sociological Association’s Section of the Sociology of Religion (“The Red, Black, and Gray Markets of Religion in China”). His current research focuses on the political economy of religion in China, Christian ethics and market transition in China, faith and trust among business people in China, and Chinese Christian churches in the United States. He has given many invited lectures at major universities in the United States and China, has given invited presentations at major think-tanks, and has been interviewed by the Washington Post, Seattle Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, etc. and some newspapers in Asia.
In recent years Dan Olson's research has focused on ways in which the religious characteristics of geographic contexts do and do not affect religious organizations and the religious behavior of individuals. His 2002 American Sociological Review article with David Voas and Alasdair Crockett exposed methodological problems that undermined most existing studies of whether the religious pluralism of geographic areas affects religious behavior. His presidential address to the Religious Research Association titled “Why Do Small Religious Groups Have More Committed Members?” argues that being a religious minority in a geographic area increases rates of membership turnover, which ironically tends to increase the average commitment levels of the members who stay. A forthcoming article with Jonathan Hill argues that religious competition from nearby religious groups does not increase the efforts congregations and religious leaders make to recruit new members (as some supply-side theories claim). Currently Professor Olson is working on or hoping to soon begin projects that 1) seek solutions to the methodological problem of measuring the effects of religious pluralism on religious participation rates—a key prediction of both supply-side religious economies explanations and demand-side secularization theories, 2) develop ways of measuring the demand for religion separately from measures of the supply of religion in different geographic areas (religious markets) in order to test competing supply-side versus demand-side theories of religious change over time, 3) determine if factors such as the economic inequality, crime rates, and unemployment rates of geographic areas within the United States affect the religiosity of people living in those areas as recent demand-side theories of religious behavior suggest, and 4) explore how the religious composition of geographic areas affect the composition of individuals' personal social networks and how these, in turn, affect religious behavior.
Professor Olson's personal homepage is located at: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~dvolson/index.html.
In addition to these sociologists of religion, the faculty include several other colleagues who are interested in religion. Although these people do not teach the core courses in religion, they are engaged in research having to do with religion, and they participate on Master's and Ph.D. committees for graduate students specializing in the sociology of religion.
Scott Feld’s broad interests in applied sociology have led him to recognize the contemporary importance of religion with regard to family and politics in the United States at this time. He continues his interests in the innovation of covenant marriage as an optional form of marriage available in Louisiana, Arizona, and Arkansas that has been promoted especially by the Christian Right as a mechanism to support marriage and reduce divorce. His research has investigated the political and religious origins of covenant marriage, as well as its limited appeal to a particular religious segment of the population. His current interest involves researching the effects of covenant marriage on couples who have chosen it, including whether it has had the intended effects of reducing divorce.
More recently, he has been interested in the extent to which some Americans have been increasingly regarding America as essentially a Christian nation, and its implications for politics and policy in America. His work with colleague Jeremy Straughn has shown a marked increase in the belief that Christianity is essential for being a good American among heavily involved evangelicals over the past decade. He is interested in whether the role religion in American politics may be intensifying or changing in the current context of political realignments.
Ken Ferraro studies health and aging, especially health inequalities that develop over the life course. In this context, he has led longitudinal research projects related to minority health, obesity, and religion and health. His studies of religion and health examine research questions such as: Are religious people healthier? Do health problems spur religious seeking? Does religion lead to health-protective behavior? His research on these topics is published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, and Review of Religious Research. Professor Ferraro regularly teaches courses on medical sociology, gerontology, and longitudinal analysis. He also founded and directs Purdue University’s Center on Aging and the Life Course (www.purdue.edu/aging).
Desmond, Scott