Suchergebnisse

Deviance Management examines how individuals and subcultures manage the stigma of being labeled socially deviant. Exploring high-tension religious groups, white power movements, paranormal subcultures, LGBTQ groups, drifters, recreational drug and alcohol users, and more, the authors identify how and when people combat, defy, hide from, or run from being stigmatized as "deviant." While most texts emphasize the criminological features of deviance, the authors' coverage here showcases the diversity of social and noncriminal deviance. Deviance Management allows for a more thorough understanding of strategies typically used by normalization movements to destigmatize behaviors and identities while contributing to the study of social movements and intra-movement conflict

Although belief in ghosts or analogous concepts is prevalent cross-culturally, including in contemporary Western cultures, social scientific treatments of spirit belief and experience often dismiss such views as superstitious, or overlook this dimension of culture completely. Using mixed methods, we examine ghost belief, experience, and media consumption, as well as the practice of 'ghost hunting' in the United States. Results from a national survey demonstrate that these beliefs and practices are common and concentrated strongly among younger generations of Americans, especially moderately religious 'dabblers.' Fieldwork with multiple groups centered on 'hunting' ghosts reveals several notable themes, including rhetorical appeals to both science and religion, magical rites, the extensive use of technology to mediate evidence and experiences of ghosts, and the narrative construction of hauntings. We argue that the inherent liminality of spirits as cultural constructs accounts for their persistence, power, and continual recurrence.

While the availability of Internet data on religious organizations has increased exponentially the use of such resources remains limited. The authors make use of a new research method involving weblink analysis to study nondenominational churches which are difficult to examine using conventional research techniques. One reason for this is the perception that independent churches lack the coherency of denominational populations, which creates methodological and theoretical challenges. The authors explore this assumption by examining the social and symbolic networks of a sample of independent congregations. Using the outgoing links from congregational websites, the authors find that there is more overlap than one might expect. This simultaneously enhances our understanding of this particular religious group as well as demonstrating the usefulness of such a research methodology.

Although previous studies tend to find that religiosity is negatively associated with drug use, their findings are mostly nondevelopmental, whether based on cross-sectional or longitudinal data. Taking a life course perspective, we examine the effects of childhood religious socialization as well as involvement on drug use during later years. Based on the concept of cumulative advantage, it is hypothesized that religious upbringing decreases the probability of using drugs during adolescent years and into the early 20s indirectly not only via childhood religiosity but also through the protective and risk factors of drug use. To test this hypothesis, we conducted OLS regression analyses of three-wave panel data from the National Survey of Children. Results show that survey respondents raised by parents who believe religious training as well as service attendance to be important for children are less likely to use drugs during adolescence and early adulthood than those who were not raised by such parents.