(Why) is the Sociology of Religion Marginalized? Results from a Survey Experiment.

By several metrics, the sociology of religion subfield and its specialists are marginalized within academic sociology. Though various reasons for that marginalization have been ventured, systematic evidence is limited. This study used a 2022 survey experiment to assess how academic sociologists perceive the sociology of religion and its specialists and the potential biases influencing their evaluations. Sociology faculty and trainees (N = 536) were randomly assigned to evaluate one of six sociology subfields and their respective specialists. Sociology of religion was rated as the least mainstream, but was rated middle-of-the-pack in scientific rigor, need within sociology departments, and interest to undergraduates. Though sociologists of religion were rated comparably to specialists in other subfields on characteristics indicating intellectual rigor, they were more often characterized as "religious" and "conservative," and participants who characterized religion specialists as such downgraded the subfield on nearly every metric. Additional analyses show lower ratings were not due to generalized negativity toward "me-search." And secular sociologists were more likely than religiously affiliated ones to downgrade the religion subfield when its specialists were perceived as "conservative." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]