Research

My research addresses the intersections of culture, religion, and economic sociology; a common theme in this body of work concerns the ways in which moral meanings influence economic processes.  I am also interested in the ways that different social locations shape individuals’ moral outlooks as well as prospects for mobility.   My research makes use of both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis, and has been published in numerous scholarly journals, including Poetics, Social Forces, and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Public Discourse and Market Processes

American political discourse appears increasingly polarized, particularly when pundits debate market capitalism – the wellbeing of “Main Street” versus Wall Street, the fate of manufacturing workers under globalization, and the ability of the private market to effectively distribute precious goods like health care.  What are Americans really fighting about when they debate these economic policies, and why do conservatives and liberals always seem to be talking past one another when they debate the specifics of these market dilemmas? In a book manuscript based on my dissertation and tentatively titled Wal-Mart Wars: Families, Citizens, and Morality in the Debate over America's Largest Retailer, I seek to answer these questions

The central argument of my dissertation research is that beneath all the talk of dollars and cents, bailouts and deficits, lies a rich moral vocabulary that Americans reference to evaluate these moral dilemmas of modern capitalism.  Above all, my book manuscript argues that when Americans debate economic issues in the public sphere, they are arguing not about the details of different policies and proposals, but rather contesting differing interpretations of symbols that are hidden and embedded in our shared language about money. 

The book manuscript examines the language and attitudes that Americans bring to bear upon a particularly prominent symbol of capitalism:  the giant discount retailer Wal-Mart.  Using public debate about Wal-Mart as a case study of the ways in which economic morality is contested in public discourse, I argue that although market discourse considers shared moral concepts – such as freedom, fairness, individualism, and thrift – the ways in which conservative and progressive activists invoke these ideas in their language represent profoundly different moral worldviews.   Most importantly, liberals build a moral worldview around the central category of the benevolent citizen, while conservatives emphasize the wellbeing of the family and the moral virtue of thrift – and thus “average working families” whose economic future has been jeopardized by globalization paradoxically view Wal-Mart as a savior, not a villain.  Wal-Mart Wars seeks to help Americans better understand their economic debates, while also envisioning more productive possibilities for moral public discourse and economic reform.

Religion, Stratification, and Social Change

Another theme in my research concerns the relationship between religious beliefs or affiliations and social stratification. In particular, my work has focused on how evangelicals compare to other religious groups in educational attainment, as well as how higher education may function slightly differently for evangelicals than it does for other religious groups. With co-authors Hana Shepherd and Conrad Hackett, I am also exploring the significance of large-scale social change in God images in the General Social Survey, with a special eye towards explaining how broad changes in Americans' conceptions of God can be explained by other social factors.

Low-Wage Workers and Unionization

My work has also addressed various aspects of low wage work, such as the potential for unionization among retail service workers. In a paper published in Research in the Sociology of Work, I argue that retail workers employ a relational ethic in understanding key aspects of their employment: job responsibilities, self-development, and conflict in the workplace.   This finding is significant for labor organizers who seek to make inroads in the largely unorganized retail sector, and suggests that traditional unionization models that emphasize power and conflict with management may be less successful than relational strategies that emphasize cooperation and mutual gain. 

I have also explored issues related to organized labor movements by analyzing different aspects of public religious discourse.  In an article entitled “Prayers of the People:  Moral Metaphors in the Right to Life and Faith Based Labor Movements” (published in Poetics in 2008), I compare the discursive strategies of scripted religious liturgy among pro-life and pro-labor activists.   Building upon George Lakoff’s theory of familial metaphors and political reasoning, my analysis identifies the smaller metaphors that make up larger moral frameworks, suggesting that moral worldviews may be more varied and contextually dependent than typically assumed, particularly in formal discursive settings.

For links to any of these published or working papers, please click here.