K Burke
Biographic Data
| ID | 10788 |
|---|---|
| NAME | K Burke |
| GIVEN NAMES | K |
| FAMILY NAME | Burke |
| SIGNATURE | BURKE K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Nebraska–Lincoln |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6302-4446 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 72 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Holistic Education Framework for Individualised Anti‐Stigma Quality Learning
In any educational setting, stigmatisation and implicit biases can stifle growth and reduce the quality of the learning experience of students from low socio‐economic status by creating invisible barriers to opportunity and achievement. Furthermore, due to the lack of monitoring and mentoring, these invisible barriers become harder to detect and overcome. Considering that human learning potential has no limits, there is a need for quality teachin…
The Case for a New Mandate? Reflecting on 50 Years of Contemporary Sociology with New Editor Kelsy Burke, in Conversation with Paul Starr
The LGBT Politics of Religious Nones
Although nonreligious Americans are more likely than religious Americans to support LGBT rights, we know little about variation among the nonreligious. Research points to large political differences among nonreligious Americans, which could extend to views of LGBT rights. Using nationally representative survey data, we find that atheists are sometimes more supportive of LGBT rights than are agnostics; atheists and agnostics are consistently more …
The Influence of Religious Affiliation on the Political Views of LGBT Americans
With a nationally representative, repeated cross-sectional sample of over 250,000 Americans from 2016 to 2019, we investigate the role that religious and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) identities play in influencing Americans' political attitudes, centering the narratives of religious LGBT Americans. We find that nearly half of LGBT Americans affiliate religiously. Logistic regressions show that identifying as religious is related…
Making the Case: Examining Outcomes of Religious-Based Claims in Federal Litigation Involving LGBT Rights
Religious Exemption, LGBT Rights, and the Social Construction of Harm and Freedom
In this article, we examine how courts make decisions in religious exemption cases that implicate LGBT rights in a wide range of contexts including education, employment, and medical care. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis of 50 federal cases decided between 1990 and 2020, we demonstrate a shift in how anti-LGBT sentiment is expressed by parties bringing religion-based claims—from a broad condemnation of LGBT identity to a narrow condemnat…
Moral narratives of sobriety: A qualitative study of a lived religion framework of Alcoholics Anonymous
This study examines how Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) can be understood as a “lived religion” that seeks to legitimize and moralize certain experiences and beliefs through narratives that are affirmed by the substance abuse recovery community. Through a qualitative analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with both actively recovering and non-actively recovering participants of AA, we identify three distinct moral narratives described by participants relat…
In a Religious Celebration”? The Religious Defense of LGBT Rights in U.S. Federal Courts
This article advances scholarship on the relationship between sexuality, religion, and the law within the United States by analyzing case summaries and court opinions of the federal appellate cases decided between 1990 and 2020 that involve a religion-based claim being used to advance or defend gay and lesbian rights. Contrary to dominant public narratives that position religion uniformly in opposition to progressive sexual values, these cases sh…
LG but Not T: Opposition to Transgender Rights Amidst Gay and Lesbian Acceptance
This article draws on sociological theories of affect and ambivalence to empirically examine individuals who express support for the rights of gays and lesbians but not transgender people. Using a representative survey of Nebraska residents and quantitative and qualitative analysis of close-ended and open-ended responses, we find that the group we call “inconsistents” are more similar demographically to consistent opponents, they outnumber consis…
The Struggle to Stay: Why Single Evangelical Women Are Leaving the Church, by Katie Gaddini
Through a multiyear ethnography, Gaddini masterfully narrates the stories of evangelical women, many of whom self-identify as feminists, and who live, work, and worship in cities in the United States and United Kingdom. The Struggle to Stay expands and diverges from now classic works on religious women’s agency that address how and why women remain committed to patriarchal religion. The women in this book defy dichotomous stereotypes: they are de…
The Pornification of America: How Raunch Culture Is Ruining Our Society
The False Dichotomy of Sex and Religion in America
Religion and sexuality are polysemic categories. While conservative religion often fights against progressive sexual politics in contemporary America, this 'usual story' is fractured and destabilized by people navigating the relationship between religion and sexuality as complex social creatures, not pundits or caricatures. Drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship, I examine salient issues of sexual politics-including abortion and reproductive …
LGBT Employment Nondiscrimination: Debating Sexuality and Citizenship
Pee in Peace' or 'Make Everyone Uncomfortable: Public Perceptions of Transgender Rights
We analyze a survey of Nebraskans as a case study to examine public opinion of transgender rights. Using a mixed-methods design, we find an even divide among mostly cisgender survey respondents on whether transgender people should be able to use the restroom that aligns with their gender identity. Our findings mirror national data and show that identifying as female, being more liberal politically, and being less religious are associated with sup…
White Women Who Lead: God, Girlfriends, and Diversity Projects in a National Evangelical Ministry
A robust body of literature has used feminist analysis to study white evangelical women in the United States, but few of these studies have addressed the reproduction of racial inequality. Beginning with the assumption that women-led evangelical ministries are racialized organizations, the authors examine the relationship between racial and gender ideologies and the messages of white evangelical women leaders at the IF:Gathering, a popular annual…
Created by god and wired to porn: Redemptive Masculinity and Gender Beliefs in Narratives of Religious Men’s Pornography Addiction Recovery
The literature on hybrid masculinity suggests that some men manage subordinate or contradictory forms of masculinity while still maintaining and benefiting from gender inequality. Drawing from 35 in-depth qualitative interviews with religious participants in pornography addiction recovery programs, we expand this literature by illustrating how hybrid masculinity operates through shared cultural knowledge about sex, gender, and sexuality. We find …
Constructing Pornography Addiction's Harms in Science, News Media, and Politics
In order to describe pornography's harms in the twenty-first century, an age of unprecedented access to Internet technology, some advocates-including activists, religious leaders, politicians, and scientists-use a medical/scientific framework to claim that pornography is biologically addictive. This article examines public discourse on "pornography addiction" to extend theories of sociology of science and sociology of sexualities about scientific…
Sexual Encounters and Manhood Acts: Evangelicals, Latter-Day Saints, and Religious Masculinities
This chapter argues that men confront expectations surrounding marital intimacy in distinctly gendered ways, asserting their religious masculinities despite sexual obstacles. Sexuality is implicated in manhood, acts since hegemonic masculinity depends upon heterosexuality to maintain gender imbalances between men and women. Religion, like heterosexuality, provides a platform with which men can justify manhood acts. The evangelical ex-gay movement…
Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews
Logics of Freedom: Debating Religious Freedom Laws and Gay and Lesbian Rights
In the wake of marriage equality for same-sex couples, many states have introduced and passed laws that provide religious exemptions for certain services and benefits for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) persons. The authors use data from a general population survey of Nebraskans as a mixed-methods case study to examine public opinion of religious freedom laws. Drawing on data from both closed-ended ( n = 1,117) and open-end…
Christians under Covers: Evangelicals and Sexual Pleasure on the Internet
Christians under Covers shifts how scholars and popular media typically talk about religious conservatives and sexuality. Moving attention away from debates over homosexuality, premarital sex, and other sexual sins, this virtual ethnography examines the online world of Christian sex advice—blogs, message boards, and online stores that promote the idea that God wants married, heterosexual couples (but only them) to have great sex. The internet all…
Sexual Encounters and Manhood Acts: Evangelicals, Latter-Day Saints, and Religious Masculinities
The experiences of men in traditional religions are complex, at times inconsistent, and not necessarily the direct result of religious teachings. This article draws from two qualitative case studies to examine the ways in which evangelical and Latter-Day Saint men understand masculinity and their spiritual beliefs in the context of sexual activity. The authors present two masculine practices-acceptance of sexual rejection and sexual indifference-…
What makes a man: Gender and sexual boundaries on evangelical Christian sexuality websites
This article examines how some evangelical Christian men create alternative meanings associated with gender-deviant sex in order to justify it within an evangelical framework. The author shows how Christian sexuality website users construct gender omniscience—a spouse and God’s all-knowing certainty about one’s “true” gender identity—to reconcile men’s interests in non-normative sex with their status as Christian patriarchs. By constructing gende…
Women’s Agency in Gender‐Traditional Religions: A Review of Four Approaches
The concept of agency is useful for feminist research on women in gender‐traditional religions. By focusing on religious women’s agency, scholars understand these women as actors, rather than simply acted upon by male‐dominated social institutions. This article reviews the advantages and limitations of feminist scholarship on the agency of women who participate in gender‐traditional religions by bringing into dialog four approaches to understandi…
Superstars and Misfits: Two Pop-trends in the Gender Culture of Contemporary Evangelicalism
This paper examines gender in two forms of mediated contemporary Protestant evangelicalism in the United States: a male-dominated punk network, called Misfits United, and a women’s group studying Beth Moore’s Bible study, It’s Tough Being a Woman (ITBAW). While the appearance and performance styles of these two groups are drastically different, both support gender hierarchies in similar ways. Misfits United and Moore’s ITBAW present the gender of…
Logics of Freedom: Debating Religious Freedom Laws and Gay and Lesbian Rights
In the wake of marriage equality for same-sex couples, many states have introduced and passed laws that provide religious exemptions for certain services and benefits for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) persons. The authors use data from a general population survey of Nebraskans as a mixed-methods case study to examine public opinion of religious freedom laws. Drawing on data from both closed-ended ( n = 1,117) and open-end…
Sexual Encounters and Manhood Acts: Evangelicals, Latter-Day Saints, and Religious Masculinities
The experiences of men in traditional religions are complex, at times inconsistent, and not necessarily the direct result of religious teachings. This article draws from two qualitative case studies to examine the ways in which evangelical and Latter-Day Saint men understand masculinity and their spiritual beliefs in the context of sexual activity. The authors present two masculine practices-acceptance of sexual rejection and sexual indifference-…
LG but Not T: Opposition to Transgender Rights Amidst Gay and Lesbian Acceptance
This article draws on sociological theories of affect and ambivalence to empirically examine individuals who express support for the rights of gays and lesbians but not transgender people. Using a representative survey of Nebraska residents and quantitative and qualitative analysis of close-ended and open-ended responses, we find that the group we call “inconsistents” are more similar demographically to consistent opponents, they outnumber consis…
Pee in Peace' or 'Make Everyone Uncomfortable: Public Perceptions of Transgender Rights
We analyze a survey of Nebraskans as a case study to examine public opinion of transgender rights. Using a mixed-methods design, we find an even divide among mostly cisgender survey respondents on whether transgender people should be able to use the restroom that aligns with their gender identity. Our findings mirror national data and show that identifying as female, being more liberal politically, and being less religious are associated with sup…
Created by god and wired to porn: Redemptive Masculinity and Gender Beliefs in Narratives of Religious Men’s Pornography Addiction Recovery
The literature on hybrid masculinity suggests that some men manage subordinate or contradictory forms of masculinity while still maintaining and benefiting from gender inequality. Drawing from 35 in-depth qualitative interviews with religious participants in pornography addiction recovery programs, we expand this literature by illustrating how hybrid masculinity operates through shared cultural knowledge about sex, gender, and sexuality. We find …
Superstars and Misfits: Two Pop-trends in the Gender Culture of Contemporary Evangelicalism
This paper examines gender in two forms of mediated contemporary Protestant evangelicalism in the United States: a male-dominated punk network, called Misfits United, and a women’s group studying Beth Moore’s Bible study, It’s Tough Being a Woman (ITBAW). While the appearance and performance styles of these two groups are drastically different, both support gender hierarchies in similar ways. Misfits United and Moore’s ITBAW present the gender of…
Religious Exemption, LGBT Rights, and the Social Construction of Harm and Freedom
In this article, we examine how courts make decisions in religious exemption cases that implicate LGBT rights in a wide range of contexts including education, employment, and medical care. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis of 50 federal cases decided between 1990 and 2020, we demonstrate a shift in how anti-LGBT sentiment is expressed by parties bringing religion-based claims—from a broad condemnation of LGBT identity to a narrow condemnat…
The False Dichotomy of Sex and Religion in America
Religion and sexuality are polysemic categories. While conservative religion often fights against progressive sexual politics in contemporary America, this 'usual story' is fractured and destabilized by people navigating the relationship between religion and sexuality as complex social creatures, not pundits or caricatures. Drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship, I examine salient issues of sexual politics-including abortion and reproductive …
Constructing Pornography Addiction's Harms in Science, News Media, and Politics
In order to describe pornography's harms in the twenty-first century, an age of unprecedented access to Internet technology, some advocates-including activists, religious leaders, politicians, and scientists-use a medical/scientific framework to claim that pornography is biologically addictive. This article examines public discourse on "pornography addiction" to extend theories of sociology of science and sociology of sexualities about scientific…
Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews
The Influence of Religious Affiliation on the Political Views of LGBT Americans
With a nationally representative, repeated cross-sectional sample of over 250,000 Americans from 2016 to 2019, we investigate the role that religious and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) identities play in influencing Americans' political attitudes, centering the narratives of religious LGBT Americans. We find that nearly half of LGBT Americans affiliate religiously. Logistic regressions show that identifying as religious is related…
Making the Case: Examining Outcomes of Religious-Based Claims in Federal Litigation Involving LGBT Rights
In a Religious Celebration”? The Religious Defense of LGBT Rights in U.S. Federal Courts
This article advances scholarship on the relationship between sexuality, religion, and the law within the United States by analyzing case summaries and court opinions of the federal appellate cases decided between 1990 and 2020 that involve a religion-based claim being used to advance or defend gay and lesbian rights. Contrary to dominant public narratives that position religion uniformly in opposition to progressive sexual values, these cases sh…
Women’s Agency in Gender‐Traditional Religions: A Review of Four Approaches
The concept of agency is useful for feminist research on women in gender‐traditional religions. By focusing on religious women’s agency, scholars understand these women as actors, rather than simply acted upon by male‐dominated social institutions. This article reviews the advantages and limitations of feminist scholarship on the agency of women who participate in gender‐traditional religions by bringing into dialog four approaches to understandi…
Superstars and Misfits: Two Pop-trends in the Gender Culture of Contemporary Evangelicalism
This paper examines gender in two forms of mediated contemporary Protestant evangelicalism in the United States: a male-dominated punk network, called Misfits United, and a women’s group studying Beth Moore’s Bible study, It’s Tough Being a Woman (ITBAW). While the appearance and performance styles of these two groups are drastically different, both support gender hierarchies in similar ways. Misfits United and Moore’s ITBAW present the gender of…
What makes a man: Gender and sexual boundaries on evangelical Christian sexuality websites
This article examines how some evangelical Christian men create alternative meanings associated with gender-deviant sex in order to justify it within an evangelical framework. The author shows how Christian sexuality website users construct gender omniscience—a spouse and God’s all-knowing certainty about one’s “true” gender identity—to reconcile men’s interests in non-normative sex with their status as Christian patriarchs. By constructing gende…
Sexual Encounters and Manhood Acts: Evangelicals, Latter-Day Saints, and Religious Masculinities
The experiences of men in traditional religions are complex, at times inconsistent, and not necessarily the direct result of religious teachings. This article draws from two qualitative case studies to examine the ways in which evangelical and Latter-Day Saint men understand masculinity and their spiritual beliefs in the context of sexual activity. The authors present two masculine practices-acceptance of sexual rejection and sexual indifference-…
Christians under Covers: Evangelicals and Sexual Pleasure on the Internet
Christians under Covers shifts how scholars and popular media typically talk about religious conservatives and sexuality. Moving attention away from debates over homosexuality, premarital sex, and other sexual sins, this virtual ethnography examines the online world of Christian sex advice—blogs, message boards, and online stores that promote the idea that God wants married, heterosexual couples (but only them) to have great sex. The internet all…
Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews
Logics of Freedom: Debating Religious Freedom Laws and Gay and Lesbian Rights
In the wake of marriage equality for same-sex couples, many states have introduced and passed laws that provide religious exemptions for certain services and benefits for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) persons. The authors use data from a general population survey of Nebraskans as a mixed-methods case study to examine public opinion of religious freedom laws. Drawing on data from both closed-ended ( n = 1,117) and open-end…
Sexual Encounters and Manhood Acts: Evangelicals, Latter-Day Saints, and Religious Masculinities
This chapter argues that men confront expectations surrounding marital intimacy in distinctly gendered ways, asserting their religious masculinities despite sexual obstacles. Sexuality is implicated in manhood, acts since hegemonic masculinity depends upon heterosexuality to maintain gender imbalances between men and women. Religion, like heterosexuality, provides a platform with which men can justify manhood acts. The evangelical ex-gay movement…
White Women Who Lead: God, Girlfriends, and Diversity Projects in a National Evangelical Ministry
A robust body of literature has used feminist analysis to study white evangelical women in the United States, but few of these studies have addressed the reproduction of racial inequality. Beginning with the assumption that women-led evangelical ministries are racialized organizations, the authors examine the relationship between racial and gender ideologies and the messages of white evangelical women leaders at the IF:Gathering, a popular annual…
Created by god and wired to porn: Redemptive Masculinity and Gender Beliefs in Narratives of Religious Men’s Pornography Addiction Recovery
The literature on hybrid masculinity suggests that some men manage subordinate or contradictory forms of masculinity while still maintaining and benefiting from gender inequality. Drawing from 35 in-depth qualitative interviews with religious participants in pornography addiction recovery programs, we expand this literature by illustrating how hybrid masculinity operates through shared cultural knowledge about sex, gender, and sexuality. We find …
Constructing Pornography Addiction's Harms in Science, News Media, and Politics
In order to describe pornography's harms in the twenty-first century, an age of unprecedented access to Internet technology, some advocates-including activists, religious leaders, politicians, and scientists-use a medical/scientific framework to claim that pornography is biologically addictive. This article examines public discourse on "pornography addiction" to extend theories of sociology of science and sociology of sexualities about scientific…
LGBT Employment Nondiscrimination: Debating Sexuality and Citizenship
Pee in Peace' or 'Make Everyone Uncomfortable: Public Perceptions of Transgender Rights
We analyze a survey of Nebraskans as a case study to examine public opinion of transgender rights. Using a mixed-methods design, we find an even divide among mostly cisgender survey respondents on whether transgender people should be able to use the restroom that aligns with their gender identity. Our findings mirror national data and show that identifying as female, being more liberal politically, and being less religious are associated with sup…
The Struggle to Stay: Why Single Evangelical Women Are Leaving the Church, by Katie Gaddini
Through a multiyear ethnography, Gaddini masterfully narrates the stories of evangelical women, many of whom self-identify as feminists, and who live, work, and worship in cities in the United States and United Kingdom. The Struggle to Stay expands and diverges from now classic works on religious women’s agency that address how and why women remain committed to patriarchal religion. The women in this book defy dichotomous stereotypes: they are de…
The Pornification of America: How Raunch Culture Is Ruining Our Society
The False Dichotomy of Sex and Religion in America
Religion and sexuality are polysemic categories. While conservative religion often fights against progressive sexual politics in contemporary America, this 'usual story' is fractured and destabilized by people navigating the relationship between religion and sexuality as complex social creatures, not pundits or caricatures. Drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship, I examine salient issues of sexual politics-including abortion and reproductive …
Making the Case: Examining Outcomes of Religious-Based Claims in Federal Litigation Involving LGBT Rights
Religious Exemption, LGBT Rights, and the Social Construction of Harm and Freedom
In this article, we examine how courts make decisions in religious exemption cases that implicate LGBT rights in a wide range of contexts including education, employment, and medical care. Through an in-depth qualitative analysis of 50 federal cases decided between 1990 and 2020, we demonstrate a shift in how anti-LGBT sentiment is expressed by parties bringing religion-based claims—from a broad condemnation of LGBT identity to a narrow condemnat…
Moral narratives of sobriety: A qualitative study of a lived religion framework of Alcoholics Anonymous
This study examines how Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) can be understood as a “lived religion” that seeks to legitimize and moralize certain experiences and beliefs through narratives that are affirmed by the substance abuse recovery community. Through a qualitative analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with both actively recovering and non-actively recovering participants of AA, we identify three distinct moral narratives described by participants relat…
In a Religious Celebration”? The Religious Defense of LGBT Rights in U.S. Federal Courts
This article advances scholarship on the relationship between sexuality, religion, and the law within the United States by analyzing case summaries and court opinions of the federal appellate cases decided between 1990 and 2020 that involve a religion-based claim being used to advance or defend gay and lesbian rights. Contrary to dominant public narratives that position religion uniformly in opposition to progressive sexual values, these cases sh…
LG but Not T: Opposition to Transgender Rights Amidst Gay and Lesbian Acceptance
This article draws on sociological theories of affect and ambivalence to empirically examine individuals who express support for the rights of gays and lesbians but not transgender people. Using a representative survey of Nebraska residents and quantitative and qualitative analysis of close-ended and open-ended responses, we find that the group we call “inconsistents” are more similar demographically to consistent opponents, they outnumber consis…
The Influence of Religious Affiliation on the Political Views of LGBT Americans
With a nationally representative, repeated cross-sectional sample of over 250,000 Americans from 2016 to 2019, we investigate the role that religious and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) identities play in influencing Americans' political attitudes, centering the narratives of religious LGBT Americans. We find that nearly half of LGBT Americans affiliate religiously. Logistic regressions show that identifying as religious is related…
Holistic Education Framework for Individualised Anti‐Stigma Quality Learning
In any educational setting, stigmatisation and implicit biases can stifle growth and reduce the quality of the learning experience of students from low socio‐economic status by creating invisible barriers to opportunity and achievement. Furthermore, due to the lack of monitoring and mentoring, these invisible barriers become harder to detect and overcome. Considering that human learning potential has no limits, there is a need for quality teachin…
The Case for a New Mandate? Reflecting on 50 Years of Contemporary Sociology with New Editor Kelsy Burke, in Conversation with Paul Starr
The LGBT Politics of Religious Nones
Although nonreligious Americans are more likely than religious Americans to support LGBT rights, we know little about variation among the nonreligious. Research points to large political differences among nonreligious Americans, which could extend to views of LGBT rights. Using nationally representative survey data, we find that atheists are sometimes more supportive of LGBT rights than are agnostics; atheists and agnostics are consistently more …
Sociology (24 works) · Gender Studies (20 works) · Political science (18 works) · Law (15 works) · Politics (12 works) · Human sexuality (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy (9 works) · American Constitutional Law and Politics (8 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (8 works)