Nancy J. Davis

MEN'S AND WOMEN'S CONSCIOUSNESS OF GENDER INEQUALITY: AUSTRIA, WEST GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN, AND THE UNITED STATES*

A model explaining consciousness of gender inequality is tested using data for the United States, Great Britain, West Germany, and Austria. Well-educated people tend to be less favorable toward efforts to reduce gender inequality than less well-educated people. Women with employed husbands are less supportive of efforts to reduce gender inequality than women without a male wage earner. Women are more likely to perceive gender inequality than men and are more supportive of efforts to combat gender inequality. These findings differ from findings in prior U.S. research. Moreover, U.S. women are unique in several respects, including a positive influence of labor force participation on support for efforts to reduce gender inequality. Ourfindings call into question the generalizability of U.S. studies. Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since the feminist movement began a resurgence in the United States in the mid-1960s. Within a few years, second-wave feminist movements had sprung up throughout Europe. Although the specific causes underlying these movements differed from country to country, a common factor was a growing awareness of gender inequalities in the workplace and home and a growing belief that these inequalities were sufficiently unjust that they should be eliminated. In studies of U.S. women and men, attitudes toward gender inequality have been associated with employment and family structure (Mason and Bumpass 1975; Cherlin and Walters 1981; Thomton, Alwin, and Camburn 1983; Smith 1985; Plutzer 1988). However, because these studies have not been replicated in other countries, it is unknown whether findings for the U.S. apply to other societies. We propose a model of consciousness of gender inequality based, in part, on hypotheses derived from prior research in the U.S., then test its generalizability using national survey data of women and men in four Westem societies - the United States, Great Britain, West Germany, and Austria.

Their brothers' keepers : Orthodox religionists, modernists, and economic justice in Europe

Through analyses of national surveys of 21 European countries and Israel, the authors test the conventional wisdom in Europe that modernists are to the left of the religiously orthodox on economic justice concerns. Modernists are more individualistic than the orthodox in seeing individuals, not a deity, as responsible for their fates and as the ultimate moral arbiters. The authors hypothesize that modernists are also economically individualistic in believing that the poor or jobless, not the community or state, should solve their own problems. The authors find that on economic concerns, modernists are far more likely to be to the right of the orthodox than to the left.

Overcoming movement obstacles by the religiously orthodox: the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Shas in Israel, Comunione e Liberazione in Italy, and the Salvation Army in the United States.

This article examines four movements of the religiously orthodox that should have failed according to most social movement theory and research. The movements combine (1) an extraordinarily broad agenda, (2) a strict, morally absolutist ideology, and (3) a strong proscription against compromise with other groups, each of which has been identified as a liability that can lead to movement failure. Through inductive, qualitative analyses, the authors identify four shared strategies that helped these movements overcome these obstacles: bypassing the state, building grassroots structures, providing graduated membership, and reprioritizing agendas. Analyses of these movements also suggest that particular combinations of movement “liabilities” may actually be advantageous.

Using a Research Article to Foster Moral Reflection and Global Awareness in Teaching About Religion and Politics, Theory Testing, and Democracy in the Muslim World

Encouraging students to reflect on their ethical principles and to develop a global outlook have been identified as key pedagogical goals in recent national reports on higher education. This article shows how instructors can use a current article from the American Sociological Review (ASR) to facilitate moral reflection and global awareness. The ASR article, with its focus on the political implications of moral cosmologies of Muslims, its cross-national methodology, and its non-western geographical focus, is well suited to these pedagogical goals. We offer active learning exercises designed to promote ethical examination and global understandings in an introductory sociology course, a theory course, and an upper-level course on political sociology, sociology of religion, or globalization.

Theological Modernism, Cultural Libertarianism and Laissez-Faire Economics in Contemporary European Societies

Through analyses of national surveys of 12 European countries and Israel, we test hypatheses relating moral cosmology to cultural and economic attitudes. Modernists are theologically more individualistic than the religiously orthodox in that they see individuals, not a deity, as responsible for their fates and as the ultimate moral arbiters. We hypothesize that modernists, as theological individualists, are culturally individualistic or libertarian in supporting freedom of choice on cultural issues of abortion, sexuality, religlous education, and gender roles. We hypothesize as well that modernists are economically individualistic in believing that individuals are responsible for their own success or failure and that the solution to poverty and unemployment is greater effort by the poor and jobless themselves, not government aid or private charity. In our analyses we find support for both hypotheses. In conventional political terms, modernists are to the left of the religiously orthodox on cultural concerns but to the right of the orthodox on economic issues. What explains this paradox is the individualism that underlies both cultural libertarianism and laissez-faire economics.

Religious cosmologies, individualism and politics in Italy

Through analyses of a national survey of Italians (N = 983) conducted in 1990, we study the effect of moral cosmology on political attitudes. We argue that modernists are more theologically individualistic than the religiously orthodox in that they see individuals themselves, not a deity, as being responsible for their fates and as being the ultimate moral arbiters. We hypothesize that modernists, as theological individualists, are culturally individualistic in supporting personal freedom on issues of abortion, sexuality, religious education, and gender roles, and are also economically individualistic in believing that the poor or jobless, not the community or state, should solve their own problems. We find strong support for these hypotheses: Italian modernists are culturally to the left but economically to the right of their orthodox counterparts.