The Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University

The Boniuk Institute and RPLP are hiring! We're seeking an Administrative Operations Specialist. The position will act as the faculty representative and administrative support-at-large for the Boniuk Institute Director and provide administrative operations support to the RPLP's outreach/programming arm.

Learn more and apply to work with our team:

Administrative Operations Specialist The Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance is seeking an Administrative Operations Specialist. The position will act as the faculty representative and administrative support-at-large for the Boniuk Institute (BI) Director and provide administrative operations support t...

The Boniuk Institute is now accepting applications for its spring 2024 reading religion salon. Applications are due November 6. Learn more: https://buff.ly/3Sknce8

RPLP researchers working on our "Faith at Work" study examined if and how regional and local culture contributes to different styles of religious expression. Learn more about their findings in latest Rice University news release, "Varied regional culture may affect individual expression of religion in US":

Varied regional culture may affect individual expression of religion in US Religious expression in the workplace — from wearing symbols of one’s beliefs to discussing faith at work — varies from geographic location to location, with Christians more likely to express their faith in the South, Jews most likely in the Northeast and Muslims most likely to do so out West,...

New research alert!

"The Association between Religious Discrimination and Health: Disaggregating by Types of Discrimination Experiences, Religious Tradition, and Forms of Health" has been published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Using survey data from a probability sample of U.S. adults and measures representing a variety of discrimination experience types, our analyses suggest that religious discrimination is indeed harmful for health, but that experiences of religious discrimination do not universally affect mental and physical health in the same ways. Rather than significant differences in the health impacts of religious discrimination across different religious groups, we find more variation in the health impacts of different types of experiences with discrimination. Further, we find that mental health is negatively impacted by a wider range of experiences with religious discrimination than physical health. These findings are in line with social psychological research on the differential health impacts of discrimination, and they highlight the importance of context in studies of the health effects of religious discrimination.

https://buff.ly/3KADX08

SEEKING UNDERGRAD RESEARCH FELLOWS THIS FALL: The Boniuk Institute and the RPLP are hiring undergraduate students for research work this fall. Students will learn about and contribute to large-scale interdisciplinary research related to religion, religious tolerance, pluralism and discrimination, social inequality, race, gender, science, health, and the body.

In their work, undergraduate fellows will assist with data collection, analysis, and research administration related to several social science projects, and they will additionally assist with reviews of the academic literature, online data collection, collection and processing of qualitative data, and support of article and book writing efforts.

The deadline to apply is Friday, August 4th. For more information, please see here:

Fellowships & Employment Fostering diversity and an intellectual environment, Rice University is a comprehensive research university located on a 300-acre tree-lined campus in Houston, Texas. Rice produces the next generation of leaders and advances tomorrow’s thinking.

Earlier this month, project co-leaders John Evans and Elaine Howard Ecklund hosted the “Report the Results” conference at University of California San Diego. This was a chance for all researchers who had received funding from the RPLP’s re-granting initiative to gather and share project findings. Projects addressed topics as diverse as science and religion on social media; health, healing, and Islam in Morocco; and indigenous meanings of science and spirituality.

Coauthors Elaine Howard Ecklund and Dave Johnson were recently guests on the New Books Network podcast to discuss their 2021 book, Varieties of Atheism in Science. Listen here:

Podcast | Elaine H. Ecklund and David R. Johnson, "Varieties of… Elaine H. Ecklund and David R. Johnson, "Varieties of Atheism in Science" (Oxford UP, 2021)

Check out these findings from the latest RPLP research: Religious calling to a job can motivate employees but might result in mistreatment going unaddressed.

Religious calling to a job can motivate employees but might result in mistreatment going unaddressed Feeling a religious or spiritual calling to a job can be a huge motivator, but it can also potentially result in employee mistreatment and exploitation going unaddressed, according to new research from Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance and the ...

Congratulations to our undergraduate fellow Lindsey Schirn who was inducted into the Rice chapter of Phi Beta Kappa today. She also graduates from Rice tomorrow!

We congratulate Enrique Quezada on a succecssful doctoral dissertation defense! Dr. Quezada will join Agnes Scott College in the fall as an assistant professor of political science.

CONGRATULATIONS to Esmeralda Sánchez Salazar on passing her doctoral dissertation defense earlier this month. Her thesis is entitled "Latinos, Faith and Education: Examining Religion's Role in Shaping Latino College and STEM Outcomes." We look forward to continuing to follow Dr. Sánchez Salazar and her work!

Today was a full day for undergrad student fellow Lindsey Schirn who has worked with RPLP since spring 2021. She presented her senior honors thesis which addressed Judaism, politics, and perceptions of Antisemitism, both historically and today. She also received this year's Weber-Durkheim award from Rice's Department of Sociology. Congratulations Lindsey!

In our latest episode, RELIGION UNMUTED takes a historical look at Christianity and in particular how patriarchy was fundamental in the religion’s founding. Our guest April DeConick also brings attention to the ways in which women did have specific roles in early Christianity and how that can be honored today.

Listen on Spotify: https://buff.ly/3UqqlrH

Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://buff.ly/3zKiFHl

A Rice University news release about the “Faith at Work” study specifically addresses outward expressions of faith in the workplace.

Find the original article here: https://buff.ly/3o4I4ZF

Find the news release here: https://buff.ly/3MrXa5O

A new infographic from the RPLP’s “Faith at Work” project summarizes key findings about religious discrimination in the workplace. https://buff.ly/3KtPpcS

Lindsey Schirn is a senior at Rice and has been working as an RPLP undergraduate student fellow since spring 2021. She has exciting plans after graduating from Rice this May: she will pursue an MSc in Sociology from the University of Oxford starting this fall, then will attend the University of Chicago Law School with a scholarship. Our congrats and best wishes to Lindsey!

RPLP graduate student fellow Sharan Kaur Mehta successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on March 28th. Her dissertation is entitled “From South Asia to the Southern US: Exploring South Asian Identities, Lived Experiences, and Collective Action in Texas.” Congrats to Dr. Mehta!

RPLP graduate student fellow Moses Biney has won a Graduate Student Conference Travel Grant from Rice’s Social Sciences Research Institute. He will use this grant in order to attend the Population Association of America conference later this month in New Orleans.

On March 3rd RPLP graduate student fellow Brenton Kalinowski passed his comprehensive exam, which includes both written and oral portions. Way to go, Brenton!

Bianca Mabute-Louie, RPLP graduate student fellow, won the Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS) Social Science Caucus Graduate Paper Award for her thesis, entitled “How Chinese American Christians Use Religion to Frame Racial Injustice: From to .” Bianca will accept the award at the AAAS conference this month, where she will also be speaking on a plenary on public sociology.

RPLP non-resident research fellow Pamela Prickett has been promoted from assistant to associate professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam. Pamela was formerly a postdoctoral fellow with the RPLP and remains involved in RPLP research, currently as co-PI on “Turning the Tables on Gender and Religion.” Congratulations to Prof. Prickett!

On March 28th the RPLP hosted a workshop for local pastors, ministry leaders, and others interested in the faith-work intersection. Workshop leaders presented findings from the RPLP’s “Faith at Work: An Empirical Study,” which included a survey of 13,000 Americans and follow-up interviews with nearly 200. https://rplp.rice.edu/research-studies/faith-work-empirical-study

This morning's Fellows Meeting speaker was our very own RPLP undergraduate student fellow and Rice senior Lindsey Schirn. Her talk, "Judaism and Politics: A Balancing Act in Perceptions of Antisemitism," was based on her senior honors thesis, which uses both historical and qualitative data. We're proud of Lindsey and her great work!

Today was a proud moment for our team who have worked on the “Faith at Work” study:

After several years of research, a series of focus groups, thousands of surveys, and hundreds of interviews, we hosted a workshop to share what we learned with a target audience—Houston pastors and ministry leaders. We will continue sharing the findings and hopefully impacting others.

What you need to know about perceptions of religious discrimination at work: For a quick snapshot, we put together some numbers from a recent RPLP article published in the journal Socius. Although religious discrimination in U.S. workplaces appears to be rising, little is known about how different groups of employees perceive discrimination. Here, the authors draw on 194 in-depth interviews with Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and nonreligious employees to examine perceptions of religious discrimination in the workplace.

Take a look at the infographic, below or online here: https://buff.ly/3lIlBRC

See the riginal article here: https://buff.ly/3TEFTI9

In this episode, RELIGION UNMUTED takes a historical look at Christianity and in particular how patriarchy was fundamental in the religion’s founding. Our guest April DeConick also brings attention to the ways in which women did have specific roles in early Christianity and how that can be honored today.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5SA1a7sa1BjUK6IOspLGI2?si=8vr6Hf0UQ8aT9WglDv8p_w

If you've been following news of Saddleback and other Southern Baptist Convention churches ousting female pastors (see "Southern Baptists Expel Saddleback Church Over Female Pastor" published in NYT: https://buff.ly/3JyQtvP), you might be interested in a historical take on the issue.

The latest episode of RELIGION UNMUTED is "A Historical Look at Patriarchy Within Christianity." Listen here: https://religionunmuted.libsyn.com/a-historical-look-at-patriarchy-within-christianity

New episode out now! RELIGION UNMUTED takes a historical look at Christianity and in particular how patriarchy was fundamental in the religion’s founding. Listen to our conversation with guest April DeConick: https://religionunmuted.libsyn.com/a-historical-look-at-patriarchy-within-christianity

The past few years have been difficult for workers. RPLP is hosting a workshop, "Faith at Work," providing insight from national surveys and interviews on how Christians have been navigating faith in the workplace. Join pastors and ministry leaders in learning from this research, and from each other, on March 28th.

RSVP by March 23 to secure your spot! See flyer for details. All attendees will receive lunch and a validation for free parking on campus.