Tessera

Out now in @jssreligion.bsky.social: Using Swedish full-population data, I show that exposure to religious pluralism through social ties is associated with a lower likelihood that parents baptize their child in the Church of Sweden 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Religious Pluralism and Social Networks: How Exposure to Religious Pluralism Through Social Ties Influences Baptism Decisions

A longstanding debate in the sociology of religion has focused on how religious pluralism affects religious participation. Existing research shows mixed findings, often relying on macro-level measure...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"citation count & journal impact factor reveals quantitative studies on secularization tend to be published in higher ranked journals & get more citations. Topics related to philosophy, Catholicism & law get fewer citations. The topic of science & religion is often found in lower ranked journals."

Valeria Rainero@valeriarainero.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Out now in @jssreligion.bsky.social with @ruudluijkx.bsky.social Using topic modeling on 1600+ academic articles, we provide a systematization of secularization literature and test whether researchers tend to study their own communities 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

LSE Impact @lseimpactblog.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🗣️"This isn’t just inside talk about religion debates. Evidence of ideological bias in the production of social scientific knowledge is emerging beyond religious faith, extending to political orientations" #SocialScience #AcademicSky

Social scientists bring their faith into research – And it shows up in their results - LSE Impact

Why do studies on whether religion is disappearing totally contradict each other? Valeria Rainero, Jörg Stolz and Ruud Luijkx discuss their recent research on how faith (or lack of it) shaped…

blogs.lse.ac.uk

LSE Impact @lseimpactblog.bsky.social · 5mo ago

🗣️"The secularization debate is not going away anytime soon. Our study does not prove that one side is objective while the other is biased. But it does suggest that researchers should pay closer attention to the preconceptions they bring to their work." @valeriarainero.bsky.social #SocialScience

Social scientists bring their faith into research – And it shows up in their results - LSE Impact

Why do studies on whether religion is disappearing totally contradict each other? Valeria Rainero, Jörg Stolz and Ruud Luijkx discuss their recent research on how faith (or lack of it) shaped…

blogs.lse.ac.uk

Valeria Rainero @valeriarainero.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Out now in @jssreligion.bsky.social with @ruudluijkx.bsky.social Using topic modeling on 1600+ academic articles, we provide a systematization of secularization literature and test whether researchers tend to study their own communities 👇 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The Contemporary Debate on Secularization and Its Cross‐National Variation: A Systematization Through Topic Modeling

Secularization is a key concept in the social scientific study of religion, yet its meaning remains ambiguous due to varied definitions produced in the literature. This article aims to provide a data...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Fascinating paper! Scholars who are secular are more likely to believe in secularization & find evidence of it in their research. The opposite pattern is true for scholars who are religious. This is worth your time to read in full: sociologicalscience.com/download/vol...

Few terms have the ability to fire up conversations among sociologists of religion
like secularization. Despite the amount of research produced on the topic of religious change, no consensus has been reached on the trajectory of religion facing
modernity. In this study, we test whether the secularization controversy stems
not only from disagreements over empirical evidence on religious decline but also
from different religious and secular beliefs of researchers involved in the debate.
We find that religiosity has a significant negative impact on both believing in the
validity of the secularization thesis and finding evidence for it in published work.
This effect size is non-trivial: researchers with the highest level of religiosity are
24.0 percentage points less likely to believe in secularization and 19.2 percentage
points less likely to find evidence of secularization in their published work than
their secular colleagues. This result cannot be explained by differences in methods used (whether qualitative, quantitative, or non-empirical), study impact, or
by differences in the religious traditions or geographical areas under study. Importantly, we cannot determine who is responsible for the bias, whether religious
scholars, secular scholars, or both. Nor can we assess to what extent this bias is
explicit, intentional, and how much of it is implicit and unwanted. The precise
mechanisms through which such biases emerge remain unclear as well. Is it the case
that researchers make certain methodological choices to come up with a desired
study outcome that is consistent with prior beliefs and orientations? Or is it the case
that results that align with authors’ ideological views are evaluated less critically
than results disregarding their own personal beliefs? In our view, there is likely a
confirmation bias at work: people tend to seek, favor, recall, and value evidence
confirming their pre-existing beliefs while ignoring or downgrading disconfirming
evidence

Valeria Rainero@valeriarainero.bsky.social · 7mo ago

My first paper is out in #SociologicalScience! With Jörg Stolz and Ruud Luijkx, we found robust evidence of ideological #bias in #secularization research: researchers' own religiosity is correlated with their probability of finding evidence of religious decline in their publications. Read more: 👇

Valeria Rainero @valeriarainero.bsky.social · 7mo ago

My first paper is out in #SociologicalScience! With Jörg Stolz and Ruud Luijkx, we found robust evidence of ideological #bias in #secularization research: researchers' own religiosity is correlated with their probability of finding evidence of religious decline in their publications. Read more: 👇

Sociological Science@sociologicalsci.bsky.social · 7mo ago

NEW: Valeria Rainero, Jörg Stolz, Ruud Luijkx, The Faith Factor. How Scholars’ Religiosity Biases Research Findings on Secularization sociologicalscience.com/articles-v13...