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Regional Sociology Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Regional Sociology

A Sociological Study Of Atheism And Naturalism As Minority Identities In Appalachia., Kelly E. Church-Hearl Dec 2008

A Sociological Study Of Atheism And Naturalism As Minority Identities In Appalachia., Kelly E. Church-Hearl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study aims to provide a sociological understanding of people who hold minority beliefs about spirituality and religion and to improve our sociological and social-psychological understanding of a-religious and alternatively religious people. Data were collected through indepth interviews with 10 atheist and 11 naturalist respondents. The study examines the religious histories of the respondents, how they left mainstream religion, how they adopted a minority identity with regard to religion/spirituality, and their personal experiences living in a predominately Christian area. I hypothesized that atheists and naturalists would hold minority identities and feel subordinated or oppressed by the dominant group: Christians. …


Politics Among Danish Americans In The Midwest, Ca. 1890-1914, Jorn Brondal Jan 2008

Politics Among Danish Americans In The Midwest, Ca. 1890-1914, Jorn Brondal

The Bridge

During the last decades of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, ethnicity and religion played a vital role in shaping the political culture of the Midwest. Indeed, historians like Samuel P. Hays, Lee Benson, Richard Jensen (of part Danish origins), and Paul Kleppner argued that ethnoreligious factors to a higher degree than socioeconomic circumstances informed the party affiliation of ordinary voters.1 It is definitely true that some ethnoreligious groups like, say, the Irish Catholics and the German Lutherans boasted fullfledged political subcultures complete with their own press, their own political leadership and to some extent, at least, their own …