Not a family matter: The effects of religiosity on academic outcomes based on evidence from siblings

Religiosity has been positively linked with multiple measures of academic success, but it is unclear whether the “effect” of religiosity on academic outcomes is causal or spurious. One source of heterogeneity that may contribute to a child's level of religiosity and his/her academic success is family background. This paper is the first to use sibling differences to estimate the associations between religiosity on short and long-term academic success. Our analysis yields two main results. First, more religious adolescents earned higher GPAs in high school, even after including family fixed effects. Second, because they earned higher GPAs in high school, more religious adolescents completed more years of education 14 years after their religiosity was measured. Our findings suggest that adolescents' religious commitments influence their schooling in both the short and long term and should be more actively included and theorized as important drivers of educational and economic stratification.     

中国宗教的三色市场

迄今为止，宗教的经济学研究进路还仅限于分析基督教国家的宗教现象，尽管这一进路的核心理论家们对其普适性充满信心。并且，宗教市场的供给理论所考察的只是宗教性表达的一种形式——正式宗教组织里的宗教参与（成员身份和活动参与）。为分析当代中国（一个与欧美国家在宗教传统和宗教管制上存在巨大差异的国家）的宗教现实，文章提出了一个三色市场模型：红市（官方批准的宗教），黑市（官方禁止的宗教）和灰市（合法性／非法性地位处于一种模棱两可状态的宗教）。灰市这一概念突出强调的是宗教性表达的非制度化方面。三色市场模型不仅有助于理解中国复杂的宗教现象。而且还可以被拓展应用到其他社会。     

布洛陀信仰的社会功能探析

作为壮族社会历史上特有的民间宗教,布洛陀信仰在壮族传统社会和现代社会中都具有一定的社会功能,从宗教社会学的角度分析,它的社会功能主要包括了社会整合、促进个体社会化和心理调适功能。     

Religion, politics, and support for same-sex marriage in the United States, 1988-2008

We examine how religious and political factors structure support for same-sex marriage in the United States over the last two decades. Using data from the General Social Surveys, we show that respondents who identify more strongly with the Republican Party, sectarian denominations, and those who subscribe to biblical fundamentalism and political conservatism are substantially more opposed to same-sex marriage than are other Americans. Heterogeneous ordinal logistic regression models show that these religious and political factors have become more important over the last two decades. Cohorts born after 1945 became substantially more supportive of marriage rights between 1988 and 2008, but shifts in support for marriage rights were less sizeable for persons affiliated with sectarian denominations, religious fundamentalists, Republicans, and political conservatives. Estimates from structural equation models show that religious factors influence political conservatism and Republican identification, yet both religious and political factors have significant and substantial independent direct effects on support for same-sex marriage.     

青海省同仁地区民间宗教考察报告

本篇考察报告以"六月会"现场观察和对法师及熟悉本教者的访 谈记录为主体,篇末对"六月会"和当地苯教的性质及渊源作了简要论述。     

明初宗教政策的创制及其背景分析

明代,在明太祖和明成祖时期,制定了宗教的基本政策。这些政策主要包括:第一,对佛教道教的保护和扶持;第二,对佛道的限制和控制;第三,对民间广为流传的秘密宗教的严行禁止。这些宗教政策的制定,主要以明初的基本国情、宗教界的状况和统治者独特的宗教体验等为依据,奠定了有明一代的基本宗教国策,当时对安抚民心、稳定明初封建统治和政局起到了重要的作用。     

The Islamic Soccer League in Israel: Setting Moral Boundaries by Taming the Wild

This article strives to use the institutional and discursive strategies employed by the Islamic Movement in Israel in the soccer sphere to illustrate wider theoretical arguments about setting boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in the public sphere. The Islamic Movement uses an isolationist strategy, by creating the independent Islamic Soccer League. In contrast, social agents who strive to promote integration in Israeli society or, alternatively, Arab-Palestinian national pride encourage the involvement of Arab teams and players in the Israeli Football Association. The article argues that the isolationist strategy is inherent in the attempts of a religious movement to articulate a definition of collective identity that is based on a sacred moral code. Then, relying mainly on the contents of the sports sections of the Islamic press, the article analyzes the inevitable tensions stemming from the use of an institution with a strong secular orientation for the purpose of reproducing religious identity.     

Managing metaphorically

While the relevance of metaphor to management and organizational analysis is now accepted in theory, if not by managers themselves, the way metaphor organizes us is not as well understood. This is because accounts of metaphor and organization neglect the embodied working of metaphor and of language in general. Metaphor works by enacting the relational quality of the world within our embodied experience. A metaphoric capacity is a capacity for organization. Poets develop this capacity through language; a good manager develops it through organization of themselves, other people and the material world. Such managing requires an openness to experience that allows organization to develop within a situation, rather than being imposed from outside or on top of it.     

Colonial Sainthood in Australasia

Concerned with the formation of national identities in postcolonial Australasia, this article compares and contrasts representations of religious women Mary MacKillop (1842–1909) and Suzanne Aubert (1835–1926). MacKillop, constructed as a contemporary popular ‘Australian legend’ is set to become Australasia's first saint, while in April 2004 investigation began into the beatification of New Zealand nun Aubert. Combining religious and secular explanations, despite the two women's lives and work displaying many similar characteristics, the article offers an explanation as to why it is that MacKillop, and not Aubert, will be Australasia's first saint. The article argues that representations of the two women are embedded in the construction of national identities in Australia and New Zealand that draw upon gendered ‘white settler society’ mythologies.