Wade Clark Roof

Trends in Residential Segregation: 1960-1970

The literature on racial residential segregation in American metropolitan areas reports contradictory findings on the decade of the sixties. Some researchers have concluded that average scores declined between 1960 and 1970, while other point to evidence of increases. This paper presents tract-based indexes for all 237 SMSAs (and their central cities) in 1970 and a comparable set of indexes for 1960. These are also cross-tabulated against region, population size, and minority proportion. Several conclusions are drawn: (1) overall, the data indicate a general decline in the average level of segregation between 1960 and 1970; (2) much of that decline is due to the relatively low scores among SMSAs added during the decade; (3) contradictory findings reported in the literature are likely to be due to sampling or other methodological inconsistencies; and (4) clear variations in levels of segregation persist with regard to region, population size, and minority proportion. The importance of these findings for future research is discussed.

Multiple Religious Switching: A Research Note

The 1988 General Social Survey included a new measure providing information on the number of times people have switched religious preferences and why. Data show that one-third of all religious switchers are multiple switchers who tend to be male, well-educated, and concentrated in the Mountain region more than anywhere else. Marriage, family, and friends are the most-cited reasons given for switching.

Denominational Switching in the Seventies: Going beyond Stark and Glock

This paper examines the switching of religious preferences among Protestants in the seventies. The NORC General Social Surveys data indicate: (a) little support for Stark and Glocks switching model, and (b) considerable diversity in switching such as shifts of the upwardly mobile to status churches, of others to conservative and fringe groups, and sizable proportions away from religious identification. An alternative model utilizing a mainline fringe distinction is proposed for describing these trends, and for illuminating the cultural meanings associated with religious preference.

CHURCH INVOLVEMENT IN AMERICA: SOCIAL FACTORS AFFECTING MEMBERSHIP AND PARTICIPATION'

Some elements of the social learning theory were supported, especially the importance of gender and region. Two newer theories, the localism and value structure theories, were both supported. Persons with local orientations and traditional values in the areas of sex and family, drug use, and civil liberties are more involved in church life. In our models of social determinants of church life, we found that age and value orientations are very important, indicating that value cleavages between older traditionalists and younger modernists explain much about patterns of church membership and activity. Two subcultures have been diverging in America since the middle 1960s which produce a new pattern of churched or unchurched people.

MEASURING RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION IN AMERICAN CITIES Problems of Intercity Comparison

Following the lead of the Taeubers (1965), investigators typically calculate residential segregation scores for American cities using data on city blocks. Such indexes provide summary measures of segregation for cities, and it is no doubt for this reason that they have become so useful in analyzing residential patterns by race. Since the publication of Taeuber and Taeuber’s Negroes in Cities in 1965, residential segregation scores for blacks have come to be used not only for descriptive purposes, but also for developing theories of racial differentiation and inequality in American cities (see Roof, 1972; Jiobu and Marshall, 1971; Marshall and Jiobu, 1975). Although this research has extended our understanding of the role of segregation in race relations, its reliance upon block-based, central city data poses certain limitations.

Denominational America and the New Religious Pluralism

This article examines the changing character of religious pluralism in America since midcentury. Major changes bringing about a new climate include an expanding pluralism, declines of the liberal establishment, and a conservative religious and moral resurgence. As a result there have been broad shifts and realignments of religion and culture and a changing social and demographic basis of religion in the country. Patterns of religious switching point to a new voluntarism in identifying with the religious tradition of ones choice. The demographics suggest that in the future the liberal sector of Protestantism will continue to decline and that the divergence of conservative religious and secular cultures may intensify.

Modernity, the Religious, and the Spiritual

Research on the post-World War II generations offers the opportunity to examine significant trends in American religion that will shape the early decades of the next century. A reclaiming of the spiritual, the more experiential aspects of religion, is at the very heart of these changes for younger cohorts of Americans. The crucial question is, Will religious institutions adapt to these experiential quests and provide the symbolic resources needed to sustain them? Drawing from insights from Ernst Troeltsch, several possible scenarios are described as we move into the new century.

Toward the Year 2000: Reconstructions of Religious Space

As we approach the year 2000, there will be much reflection about the nations religious and spiritual condition. In this article, three domains of American life are singled out as examples of how religious space is being reconstructed by the large portion of the population known as baby boomers. The first is the new religious pluralism of the nations inner cities, reflecting a global order. Hispanics, Asian immigrants, and people of color are creating new solidarities and forging new religious voices. The second is a shift in institutional alignments between family and religion. These changes have provoked new spiritual concerns arising out of changing family patterns. The third is the new spirituality, generally of the postwar generation, with its emphasis on personal choice, faith exploration, and more holistic ways of thinking. What happens in these spaces will greatly influence the religious trends of the 1990s and of the early years of the next century.

Pluralism as a Culture: Religion and Civility in Southern California

This article describes Southern California as a particular setting for the study of religious pluralism and civil society. The regions history of global religious and cultural encounters, lack of a religious establishment, hypermodernity, and fluid identities have all contributed to “pluralism as a culture,” or a style of inter-group interaction and cooperation characterized generally by openness and acceptance. Finally, the author discusses how this culture akin to what is sometimes called “rooted cosmopolitanism” and to core American values and democratic traditions.

Race and Residence: The Shifting Basis of American Race Relations

Racially-segregated ghettos evolved in the early decades of this century, first in northern cities and later throughout the nation. Levels of urban residential segregation for blacks have remained high over the years and—unlike the earlier pattern for European immigrants—have not declined as blacks have made economic progress. Despite modest declines in segregation in the sixties, metropolitan decline in the seventies and structural shifts in employment conditions for blacks have resulted in growing concern for problems of de facto segregation. Mounting attention to housing discrimination and the residential basis of current black-white tensions are discussed.