Symbols, Stories, and Practices

New Empirical Directions in the Study of Religious Meaning

Bibliographic Data

ID2277010
AuthorsDon Sherman Grant (University of Arizona), Don Grant (0000-0002-9534-5591, University of Arizona, corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume42
Issue2
Pages233-251
Publication date2001-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0253 • E-ISSN: 1533-8525
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/tsq.2001.42.2.233
OpenAlexW4231188512
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited65

Over the past three decades, there has been a growing interest in religion's special meaning-making function. At the same time, scholars have become increasingly sensitive to the fact that the meanings evoked by religious symbols, stories, and practices are not universally shared and that they vary by social context. To date, sociologists of religion interested in the problem of shared meaning have not employed methods that can bring together diverse religious meanings and social settings in the same research design. As a result, their work has produced few empirical generalizations upon which a long-term research agenda might be built. In other subdisciplines, such as cultural sociology, researchers have employed new quantitative methods that can empirically connect variations in cultural meanings to variations in social context. This article calls for importing these methodological advances into the sociological study of religious meaning

Context (archaeology) · Empirical research · Epistemology · Function (biology) · Meaning (existential) · Social science · Sociology · Sociology of culture · Psychology · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Religious Tourism and Spaces · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Psychology

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