A Singleton
Biographic Data
| ID | 66208 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A Singleton |
| GIVEN NAMES | A |
| FAMILY NAME | Singleton |
| SIGNATURE | SINGLETON A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Deakin University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5545-2149 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 74 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Spirituality, wellbeing and risks in contemporary societies
Increasing numbers of adults and young people in contemporary societies are identifying as ‘spiritual but not religious’ or as ‘spiritual and religious’ (Fedele and Knibbe 2020; Halafoff, Singleton
Séances and scandals: Female spirit mediums, persecution and spiritual authority in interwar Australia
Spiritualism thrived in Australia between the world wars through a network of Spiritualist churches, private readings and séances. Women were central to this activity. They conducted most private consultations, led church mediumship and held leadership roles in many Spiritualist congregations, including as ordained ministers. Mass mourning after the Great War, losses from the influenza pandemic and the economic struggles of the Depression increas…
The Past in the Present: Understanding Australian Attitudes to History
Every year, millions of Australians choose to read popular history and watch historical documentaries. Despite the apparent political, social, economic and personal significance of history, we have very little reliable information about what Australians think and believe about history. What do Australians think that history is? What do they think it is for? How have they learnt about the past and how do they decide what historical knowledge is tr…
Fire on the Island: Fear, Hope and a Christian Revival in Vanuatu, Tom Bratrud (2022)
Review of: Fire on the Island: Fear, Hope and a Christian Revival in Vanuatu , Tom Bratrud (2022) New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 276 pp., ISBN 978 1 80073 464 7 (hbk), £99
Introduction to the Special Issue: (Non)Religion, Spirituality, and Ecological Politics
Research Protocol: A Transdisciplinary Multi-Case Study Research Design Using Mixed Methods to Evaluate the Long-Term Impact of Holocaust Museum Education in Australia
Holocaust museums around the world are distinctive in their emphasis on educational missions premised on the idea of 'never again', a deep belief that increasing public awareness of the history and contemporary significance of the Holocaust - the mass murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi regime during World War Two - can prevent the future recurrence of such events. In the Australian context, tens of thousands of school students visit …
Spirituality, with Andrew Singleton
Spirituality -with
Hans Mol and the Empirical Study of Australian Religion: Revisiting the 1966 Religion in Australia Survey
This article examines the Religion in Australia survey (RIA) that was conducted in 1966. Led by sociologist Hans Mol, this was the first major survey of religion in Australia. Mol’s findings were published in his landmark monograph, Religion in Australia (1971), which is arguably the most comprehensive work ever written on the religious lives of Australians. To reveal the varieties of Christian belief and practice, Mol developed a typology that c…
Spiritual tourism: Understandings, perspectives, discernment, and synthesis
The prolific and increasing number of academic studies concerned with spiritual tourism echoes humans’ enduring quest for spirituality through travel and the entanglement of many destinations in this unique form of social activity. Yet, what we know about spiritual tourism remains equivocal and unsynthesized. This critical review, followed by a thematic analysis offers a comprehensive and rigorous overview of the nexus between spirituality and to…
Spiritual complexity in Australia: Wellbeing and risks
The turn of the twenty-first century was characterised by ‘spiritual revolution’, with claims that interest in New Age spirituality was eclipsing religion and would continue to do so in the future. Since then, scholars of religion have been more focused on religious diversity and the rise of the non-religious. While interest in spirituality, uptake of spiritual practices, and identification as ‘spiritual but not religious’ have continued to grow,…
The Victorian Spiritualists’ Union and the Surprising Survival of Spiritualism in Australia
The new religion of Spiritualism emerged in the mid-19th century. Through mediumship, Spiritualists contacted the dead, believing them to have "passed over" to another plane of existence. It spread from America to Great Britain before arriving in Australia in the 1850s. This article charts the history of the world's oldest continuously running Spiritualist organisation, the Victorian Spiritualists' Union (VSU, est. 1870), exploring the unexpected…
A Little Outpost
This article explores the short life of the Ballarat Spiritualist Fellowship and the Spiritualist history of its founder, Lorraine Culross (b. 1952), to offer both a “wide-angle” and “up-close” account of Australian Spiritualism and the fortunes of its churches, especially in the postwar era. Spiritualism first came to Australia in the nineteenth century, in the form of public lectures, stage demonstrations, and private séances. A church movement…
Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality, by ANDREA R. Jain
I happened to spot my review copy of Peace Love Yoga on my home-office desk while I was doing a yoga headstand (sirsasana in Sanskrit). Staring at it, I was discomforted, and not because of my inverted state. This practice helps me but does it also benefit others? Are there any ways in which an individual’s focus on the personal benefits negatively impacts others? Jain’s provocative and original book explores the political and economic consequenc…
An Examination of Sexual Health Information Sources, Knowledge and Behaviours Among Australian Teens: A Latent Class Analysis
Jehu J. Hanciles: Migration and the Making of Global Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: William. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2021; pp. 461
Jehu J.Hanciles: Migration and the Making of Global Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: William. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2021; pp. 461
A Tribute to Gary Bouma
Emeritus Professor Gary Bouma was many things to many people. He was Australia’s pre-eminent scholar of the sociology of religion. As an ordained Anglican priest, Gary was noted for his pastoral care of his parishioners and others who sought his counsel and spiritual support. He was a loving husband, father and grandfather. Moreover, his deep commitment to social justice and harmony greatly influenced Gary’s participation in interfaith dialogue. …
Age
A Sociologist among the Spirits
This article is an academic autobiography of Andrew Singleton, an Australiansociologist of religion whose work focuses on applied, mixed-methodsstudies of youth religion, religious belief and new religious movements.It starts with a sociology of religion class, describes graduate researchthat utilised qualitative methods, and post-doctoral work in quantitativemethods, and then concludes by discussing recent mixed-methodsprojects. The career arc o…
Religious literacy of Australia’s Gen Z teens: Diversity and social inclusion
Australia is a culturally, religiously and linguistically diverse country, however, learning about the religious dimensions of this superdiversity is inadequately reflected in the national school curriculum, notwithstanding recent attempts to address this at the state level in Victoria. Debates regarding the role of religion in school have raged across the country for decades and have impeded the introduction of learning about diverse worldviews …
Methodological challenges of designing a survey to capture young people’s (non-binary) affiliations in relationship to religion, sexuality and gender
Large-scale population studies surveying young people in relation to their worldviews have tended to frame their identities in a fixed and limited capacity while also treating the topics of religion/spirituality and sexuality/gender as discrete categories of scholarly analysis. We highlight the affordances and limitations of foregrounding fixed religious, sexual and gender-based identity categories in the process of collecting and analysing data …
Complex, Critical and Caring: Young People's Diverse Religious, Spiritual and Non-Religious Worldviews in Australia and Canada
Recent scholarly and media perspectives on religion and youth have often depicted young people as being apathetic when it comes to religion. The methods used in research on religion are also typically informed by outdated, fixed idea of religious identity that are no longer applicable, especially to young people. This paper confronts these issues by applying contemporary theories of religious diversity, including lived religion and religious comp…
The summer of the Spirits: Spiritual tourism to America’s foremost village of spirit mediums
Making Sense of the World of Faith: Recent Trends in Data, Methods and Explanations of Religious Change
Todd Johnson and Brian Grim, The World’s Religion in Figures: An Introduction to International Religious Demography. Wiley Blackwell, Chichester, 2013, pp. xxiii + 376, ISBN: 9780470674543 (cloth). André Droogers and Anton van Harskamp (eds.), Methods for the Study of Religious Change: From Religious Studies to Worldview Studies. Equinox, Sheffield, 2014, pp. vi + 207, ISBN: 978178190434 (pbk). Peter Kivisto, Religion and Immigration. Polity Pres…
Seven heavens? The character and importance of afterlife belief among contemporary Australians
n\t\t\t\t\tThis article draws on in-depth qualitative interviews with 52 people to examine the meaning and character of afterlife belief among contemporary Australians. It explores the varieties of afterlife belief and considers the impact such beliefs have, particularly in relation to death and dying. The analysis reveals that afterlife belief is varied, individualistic and mainly arrived at with little to no reference to orthodox religious teac…
Are religious ‘nones’ secular? The case of the nones in Australia
The number of people with no religious affiliation (religious ‘nones’) is growing in the west. However, little is known about the religiosity – or non-religiosity – of these people. Using representative survey data, this report examines the levels of religious belief and practice among Australian religious nones and compares this with those who identify with a religion. It is found that there is a deep congruence with no religious affiliation and…
The “New Man” is in the House: Young Men, Social Change, and Housework
Many scholars and journalists argue that housework is slowly being transformed in the late-modern era, with men doing more housework, women doing less, and outside help being utilized more often. Much of this optimism is held out for the younger age groups, especially members of “Generation X” (those born between 1965 and 1979). Drawing on findings from interviews with 22 middle-class Generation X men, this article examines the meaning and value …
A Comparative Study of the Successful Management of Religious Diversity: Melbourne and Hong Kong
The study of the management of religious diversity has largely proceeded non-comparatively at national and organizational levels. As a result it is not yet possible to declare what promotes and what hinders the emergence of harmonious inter-religious relations in religiously diverse societies. This article compares the management of religious diversity at an urban level through a comparison of Melbourne, Australia and Hong Kong. The article first…
Complex, Critical and Caring: Young People's Diverse Religious, Spiritual and Non-Religious Worldviews in Australia and Canada
Recent scholarly and media perspectives on religion and youth have often depicted young people as being apathetic when it comes to religion. The methods used in research on religion are also typically informed by outdated, fixed idea of religious identity that are no longer applicable, especially to young people. This paper confronts these issues by applying contemporary theories of religious diversity, including lived religion and religious comp…
The summer of the Spirits: Spiritual tourism to America’s foremost village of spirit mediums
Your Faith Has Made You Well: The Role of Storytelling in the Experience of Miraculous Healing
Beyond Heaven? Young People and the Afterlife
It is widely assumed that, given their age and life stage, teens and emerging adults do not spend much time thinking about their own mortality or the afterlife. However, national surveys of teens in the US, Great Britain, and Canada indicate that approximately half of all teens in these countries believe in life after death. Drawing on both national survey data and qualitative interview material, this article explores patterns and understandings …
Methodological challenges of designing a survey to capture young people’s (non-binary) affiliations in relationship to religion, sexuality and gender
Large-scale population studies surveying young people in relation to their worldviews have tended to frame their identities in a fixed and limited capacity while also treating the topics of religion/spirituality and sexuality/gender as discrete categories of scholarly analysis. We highlight the affordances and limitations of foregrounding fixed religious, sexual and gender-based identity categories in the process of collecting and analysing data …
Spirituality in adolescence and young adulthood: A method for a qualitative study
This paper discusses an ongoing research project on contemporary forms of youth and young adult spirituality, highlighting issues in the history and definition of spirituality and in development of appropriate qualitative methods of investigation. Previous research on the topic has been bedevilled by difficulties of definition. 'Spirit' and 'spirituality' have a long history in both philosophy and religion and surviving senses of the terms includ…
Men Getting Real: A Study of Relationship Change in Two Men's Groups
Questions about men's capacity to change the ways they relate to one another have informed recent scholarly and popular discussions about men's relationships. One social context which consistently produces anecdotal claims about changes in men's relationships is dedicated men's groups. This article presents the findings from a qualitative study conducted with participants in two relationally centred men's groups. It discusses the type and quality…
Good Advice for Godly Men: Oppressed Men in Christian Men's Self-Help Literature
This paper is a critical content analysis of the genre of Christian men's sefl-help literature. It examines the ways in which this genre constructs and addresses men as a collective beset by their own 'unique' problems (including sexual addiction) and considers why the authors favor such characterizations. Men are portrayed as being just like any other disadvantaged group whose lives are characterized by oppression. It is suggested that this medi…
Research Protocol: A Transdisciplinary Multi-Case Study Research Design Using Mixed Methods to Evaluate the Long-Term Impact of Holocaust Museum Education in Australia
Holocaust museums around the world are distinctive in their emphasis on educational missions premised on the idea of 'never again', a deep belief that increasing public awareness of the history and contemporary significance of the Holocaust - the mass murder of six million European Jews by the Nazi regime during World War Two - can prevent the future recurrence of such events. In the Australian context, tens of thousands of school students visit …
I wonder what he’s saying”: Investigating domestic discourse in young cohabitating heterosexual couples
No Sympathy for the Devil: Narratives about Evil
Christian religious experiences usually take place within the context of a religious group or community. Some of these experiences play a central role in propagating and sustaining group identity and belief. In many Pentecostal and charismatic communities, the most conspicuous experiences of this kind are those orchestrated by the devil, including 'demon possession' and 'supernatural assault'. Often, these encounters are thought to be part of an …
No Sympathy for the Devil: Narratives about Evil
Christian religious experiences usually take place within the context of a religious group or community. Some of these experiences play a central role in propagating and sustaining group identity and belief. In many Pentecostal and charismatic communities, the most conspicuous experiences of this kind are those orchestrated by the devil, including 'demon possession' and 'supernatural assault'. Often, these encounters are thought to be part of an …
Your Faith Has Made You Well: The Role of Storytelling in the Experience of Miraculous Healing
The Importance of Narrative in Negotiating Otherworldly Experiences: The Case of Speaking in Tongues
Preview this article: The Importance of Narrative in Negotiating Otherworldly Experiences: The Case of Speaking in Tongues, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/ni.12.2.06sin-1.gif
I wonder what he’s saying”: Investigating domestic discourse in young cohabitating heterosexual couples
Men Getting Real: A Study of Relationship Change in Two Men's Groups
Questions about men's capacity to change the ways they relate to one another have informed recent scholarly and popular discussions about men's relationships. One social context which consistently produces anecdotal claims about changes in men's relationships is dedicated men's groups. This article presents the findings from a qualitative study conducted with participants in two relationally centred men's groups. It discusses the type and quality…
The “New Man” is in the House: Young Men, Social Change, and Housework
Many scholars and journalists argue that housework is slowly being transformed in the late-modern era, with men doing more housework, women doing less, and outside help being utilized more often. Much of this optimism is held out for the younger age groups, especially members of “Generation X” (those born between 1965 and 1979). Drawing on findings from interviews with 22 middle-class Generation X men, this article examines the meaning and value …
Spirituality in adolescence and young adulthood: A method for a qualitative study
This paper discusses an ongoing research project on contemporary forms of youth and young adult spirituality, highlighting issues in the history and definition of spirituality and in development of appropriate qualitative methods of investigation. Previous research on the topic has been bedevilled by difficulties of definition. 'Spirit' and 'spirituality' have a long history in both philosophy and religion and surviving senses of the terms includ…
Good Advice for Godly Men: Oppressed Men in Christian Men's Self-Help Literature
This paper is a critical content analysis of the genre of Christian men's sefl-help literature. It examines the ways in which this genre constructs and addresses men as a collective beset by their own 'unique' problems (including sexual addiction) and considers why the authors favor such characterizations. Men are portrayed as being just like any other disadvantaged group whose lives are characterized by oppression. It is suggested that this medi…
A Comparative Study of the Successful Management of Religious Diversity: Melbourne and Hong Kong
The study of the management of religious diversity has largely proceeded non-comparatively at national and organizational levels. As a result it is not yet possible to declare what promotes and what hinders the emergence of harmonious inter-religious relations in religiously diverse societies. This article compares the management of religious diversity at an urban level through a comparison of Melbourne, Australia and Hong Kong. The article first…
The spirituality of young Australians
A research project conducted in 2003–2006, the Spirit of Generation Y, using both extended interviews and a nationwide survey, revealed three main strands in the spirituality of young Australians: traditional, alternative and humanist. Their involvement in traditional religions was declining, like that of their parents, and although some adopted alternative spiritualities, the stronger trends were toward indifference or humanism. Eclecticism in w…
Boys in Crisis? Australian Adolescent Males beyond the Rhetoric
The prevailing public discourse about Australian adolescent males is largely pessimistic, couched in the language of the “crisis in masculinity.” Using data from a nationally representative telephone survey, the Spirit of Generation Y survey (SGY), this paper investigates whether adolescent boys' subjective opinions of their lives accord with this public representation. Contrary to the public discourse about male youth, these data suggest that th…
Models of Youth Ministry in Action: The Dynamics of Christian Youth Ministry in an Australian City
Christian-based youth ministry in many Western countries is being conducted in difficult circumstances. How might denominations, parishes, and youth workers best approach youth ministry? Theologian Arthur Canales (2006) Canales, Arthur D. 2006. Models for adolescent ministry: Exploring eight ecumenical examples. Religious Education, 101(2): 204–232. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] proposes eight different models o…
The impact of World Youth Day on religious practice
World Youth Day, a youth‐focused Catholic celebration, is the largest recurring youth event in the world. The 10th International World Youth Day (WYD) was held from 15–20 July 2008, in Sydney, Australia and attenders participated in a week‐long series of religious events and activities. Little research in English has been conducted on WYD generally, and specifically on the impact participation has on the faith of attenders. This article investiga…
The rise and fall of the Pentecostals: The role and significance of the body in Pentecostal spirituality
This paper addresses the role and significance of the body in contemporary Pentecostalism. It begins with a description of the various body-centred spiritual experiences common in this tradition. Next, it considers the social context of the Pentecostal body, arguing that the premium and importance placed on outward bodily experiences is consistent with a broader societal focus on bodies and bodily appearance. Finally, it draws on in-depth interv…
Beyond Heaven? Young People and the Afterlife
It is widely assumed that, given their age and life stage, teens and emerging adults do not spend much time thinking about their own mortality or the afterlife. However, national surveys of teens in the US, Great Britain, and Canada indicate that approximately half of all teens in these countries believe in life after death. Drawing on both national survey data and qualitative interview material, this article explores patterns and understandings …
Are religious ‘nones’ secular? The case of the nones in Australia
The number of people with no religious affiliation (religious ‘nones’) is growing in the west. However, little is known about the religiosity – or non-religiosity – of these people. Using representative survey data, this report examines the levels of religious belief and practice among Australian religious nones and compares this with those who identify with a religion. It is found that there is a deep congruence with no religious affiliation and…
Making Sense of the World of Faith: Recent Trends in Data, Methods and Explanations of Religious Change
Todd Johnson and Brian Grim, The World’s Religion in Figures: An Introduction to International Religious Demography. Wiley Blackwell, Chichester, 2013, pp. xxiii + 376, ISBN: 9780470674543 (cloth). André Droogers and Anton van Harskamp (eds.), Methods for the Study of Religious Change: From Religious Studies to Worldview Studies. Equinox, Sheffield, 2014, pp. vi + 207, ISBN: 978178190434 (pbk). Peter Kivisto, Religion and Immigration. Polity Pres…
Seven heavens? The character and importance of afterlife belief among contemporary Australians
n\t\t\t\t\tThis article draws on in-depth qualitative interviews with 52 people to examine the meaning and character of afterlife belief among contemporary Australians. It explores the varieties of afterlife belief and considers the impact such beliefs have, particularly in relation to death and dying. The analysis reveals that afterlife belief is varied, individualistic and mainly arrived at with little to no reference to orthodox religious teac…
The summer of the Spirits: Spiritual tourism to America’s foremost village of spirit mediums
Age
A Sociologist among the Spirits
This article is an academic autobiography of Andrew Singleton, an Australiansociologist of religion whose work focuses on applied, mixed-methodsstudies of youth religion, religious belief and new religious movements.It starts with a sociology of religion class, describes graduate researchthat utilised qualitative methods, and post-doctoral work in quantitativemethods, and then concludes by discussing recent mixed-methodsprojects. The career arc o…
Religious literacy of Australia’s Gen Z teens: Diversity and social inclusion
Australia is a culturally, religiously and linguistically diverse country, however, learning about the religious dimensions of this superdiversity is inadequately reflected in the national school curriculum, notwithstanding recent attempts to address this at the state level in Victoria. Debates regarding the role of religion in school have raged across the country for decades and have impeded the introduction of learning about diverse worldviews …
Methodological challenges of designing a survey to capture young people’s (non-binary) affiliations in relationship to religion, sexuality and gender
Large-scale population studies surveying young people in relation to their worldviews have tended to frame their identities in a fixed and limited capacity while also treating the topics of religion/spirituality and sexuality/gender as discrete categories of scholarly analysis. We highlight the affordances and limitations of foregrounding fixed religious, sexual and gender-based identity categories in the process of collecting and analysing data …
Complex, Critical and Caring: Young People's Diverse Religious, Spiritual and Non-Religious Worldviews in Australia and Canada
Recent scholarly and media perspectives on religion and youth have often depicted young people as being apathetic when it comes to religion. The methods used in research on religion are also typically informed by outdated, fixed idea of religious identity that are no longer applicable, especially to young people. This paper confronts these issues by applying contemporary theories of religious diversity, including lived religion and religious comp…
A Tribute to Gary Bouma
Emeritus Professor Gary Bouma was many things to many people. He was Australia’s pre-eminent scholar of the sociology of religion. As an ordained Anglican priest, Gary was noted for his pastoral care of his parishioners and others who sought his counsel and spiritual support. He was a loving husband, father and grandfather. Moreover, his deep commitment to social justice and harmony greatly influenced Gary’s participation in interfaith dialogue. …
Sociology (31 works) · Political science (17 works) · Psychology (17 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Gender Studies (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (13 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (11 works) · Social Psychology (10 works) · Aesthetics (9 works)