Brian Starks

Who Values the Obedient Child Now? The Religious Factor in Adult Values for Children, 1986–2002

Sociologists have documented a convergence of Protestants and Catholics in their valuation of autonomy and obedience as desirable traits for children from 1958 through 1991. By the 1980s, Alwin (1986) found that variation in such values within Protestants and Catholics was greater than that between them. Analyzing the GSS from 1986 to 2002, we test whether Evangelical Protestants, in a backlash against a climate of moral uncertainty and government intervention into matters of morality, have become more likely to value obedience in children over autonomy, while Catholics, reacting to the Second Vatican Council and to collective upward mobility, have become less likely to do so. We find no change among Catholics (and Mainline Protestants), but a shift toward increasing valuation of obedience over autonomy among Evangelicals who attend church frequently.

“It Opened My Eyes” Using Student Journal Writing to Make Visible Race, Class, and Gender in Everyday Life

Journal writing is pedagogically appropriate for increasing reflexivity and conscious awareness of one’s environment. The journal assignment discussed in this article promotes recognition of the impact of race, gender, and social class on students’ everyday lives. In pre- and posttest surveys of students engaged in this assignment, students report statistically significant increases in awareness after journaling. These increases in awareness are found for students enrolled in introductory courses at two very different universities (one a private Catholic midsized university in the Midwest and the other a large state university in the Southeast). Students’ qualitative responses further substantiate the effectiveness of this assignment in meeting course objectives. To facilitate use of this assignment by others, we identify a set of best practices to help ensure high-quality journals and discuss challenges and benefits of this assignment, including getting to know one’s students.

THE NEW ECONOMY AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

Recent decades have seen major changes in economic conditions in the United States, including large-scale layoffs and downsizing, erosion of job quality for some workers, and increased reliance on nonstandard workers. Researchers have investigated the objective contours of this new economy, but few have investigated the consequences of these changes for popular attitudes about economic opportunity. Using data from the 1998 Indiana Survey of Workers in a Polarized Economy (N = 853), I investigate this new economic landscape and its effects on peoples views about economic opportunity. I find that job deterioration and experiences with layoffs and job threats are creating pessimism about the American Dream among Indiana workers.

Are Religious People More Compassionate and Does This Matter Politically

Analyzing a unique module of the General Social Survey, we test hypotheses that three religion dimensions — affiliation with specific religious traditions (belonging), service attendance (behaving), and religious orthodoxy (believing) are associated with compassionate feelings, and that these feelings carry over into support for government efforts to help the poor, blacks, and the sick. The religiously orthodox report more compassionate feelings toward others than do modernists and, partly because of this, are more supportive of government intervention to help the poor. Yet attending religious services frequently does not increase compassionate feelings and makes people less supportive of government efforts to help the poor. There are no differences among religious traditions in compassionate feelings, and the only difference on economic policy preferences is for Black Protestants to support government assistance to blacks. Compassionate feelings have comparable effects to political ideology and party identification on support for government assistance to the disadvantaged and misfortunate. We conclude that people of faith, variously defined, do not constitute a monolithic “Religious Right” and are potentially open to policy appeals from both political parties.