In sociology,secularization is a multilayered concept that generally denotes "a transition from a religious to a more worldly level." There are many types of secularization and most do not lead to atheism,irreligion,nor are they automatically antithetical to religion. Secularization has different connotations such as implying differentiation of secular from religious domains,the marginalization of religion in those domains,or it may also entail the transformation of religion as a result of its recharacterization.
David G. Bromley is a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University,Richmond,VA and the University of Virginia,Charlottesville,VA,specialized in sociology of religion and the academic study of new religious movements. He has written extensively about cults,new religious movements,apostasy,and the anti-cult movement.
Tariq Modood,is a British Pakistani Professor of Sociology,Politics,and Public Policy at the University of Bristol. Modood is the founding director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship.
William Sims Bainbridge is an American sociologist who currently resides in Virginia. He is co-director of Cyber-Human Systems at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He is the first Senior Fellow to be appointed by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Bainbridge is most well known for his work on the sociology of religion. Beginning in the 2010s he has published work studying the sociology of video gaming.
Rodney William Stark was an American sociologist of religion who was a longtime professor of sociology and of comparative religion at the University of Washington. At the time of his death he was the Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at Baylor University,co-director of the university's Institute for Studies of Religion,and founding editor of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion.
David Marsh,is a British political scientist. He is currently Professor of Political Sociology and the Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Birmingham and Fellow at the Institute of Governance and Policy Analysis (IGPA).
The Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) is a national data archiving and dissemination service that was founded in January 2003. It is funded jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Jisc. In July 2012,the ESRC announced it will become a partner in the UK Data Service,to be established as of October 1st of 2012.
Diane Rosemary Elson is a British economist,sociologist and gender and development social scientist. She is Professor Emerita of sociology at the University of Essex and a former professor of development studies at the University of Manchester.
Roger Finke is a Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at The Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives. He is a former president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion.
David Oscar Moberg was an American Christian scholar,who was Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Marquette University. His areas of specialization included methodology in qualitative research,sociology of religion,sociology of American evangelicals,ageing and religion (gerontology).
Bryan Stanley Turner is a British and Australian sociologist. He was born in January 1945 in Birmingham,England. Turner has held university appointments in England,Scotland,Australia,Germany,Holland,Singapore and the United States. He was a Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge (1998–2005) and Research Team Leader for the Religion Cluster at the Asian Research Institute,National University of Singapore (2005–2008).
The AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme was a five-year strategic research initiative funded by two UK research councils:the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council,running from 2007 to 2012. It funded 75 projects across UK universities investigating various aspects of the complex relationships between religion and society,both historical and contemporary.
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) is an American nonprofit,nonpartisan research and education organization that conducts public opinion polls on a variety of topics,specializing in the quantitative and qualitative study of political issues as they relate to religious values. Studies and data produced by the PRRI have been used in a variety of peer-reviewed scholarly analyses of religion and American culture,including studies on economic inequality and questions of redistribution,attitudes toward immigration,attitudes toward climate change,and religious attitudes toward social prejudice.
Cathie Marsh was a British sociologist and statistician.
Michael Savage,is a British sociologist and academic,specialising in social class. Since 2014 he has been the Martin White Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE),the post traditionally awarded to the most senior professor in the department. In addition to being Head of the Sociology Department between 2013 and 2016,Savage also held the position of Director of LSE's International Inequalities Institute between 2015 and 2020. He previously taught at the University of Manchester and the University of York.
Grace Riestra Claire Davie is a British sociologist who serves as professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Exeter. She is the author of the book Religion in Britain Since 1945:Believing Without Belonging.
Sasha Roseneil is a group analyst and a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. Roseneil became the ninth vice chancellor of the University of Sussex in August 2022.
Angela Dale is a British social scientist and statistician whose research has involved the secondary analysis of government survey data,and the study of women in the workforce. Formerly Deputy Director of the Social Statistics Research Unit of City,University of London,and Professor of Quantitative Research and Director of the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research at the University of Manchester,she is now a professor emerita at Manchester.
