The Religion and Public Life Program at Rice University

01/03/2024

The Boniuk Institute and RPLP are hiring! We're seeking an Administrative Operations Specialist. The position will act as the faculty representative and administrative support-at-large for the Boniuk Institute Director and provide administrative operations support to the RPLP's outreach/programming arm.

Learn more and apply to work with our team:

The Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance is seeking an Administrative Operations Specialist. The position will act as the faculty representative and administrative support-at-large for the Boniuk Institute (BI) Director and provide administrative operations support t...

10/31/2023

The Boniuk Institute is now accepting applications for its spring 2024 reading religion salon. Applications are due November 6. Learn more: https://buff.ly/3Sknce8

08/22/2023

RPLP researchers working on our "Faith at Work" study examined if and how regional and local culture contributes to different styles of religious expression. Learn more about their findings in latest Rice University news release, "Varied regional culture may affect individual expression of religion in US":

Religious expression in the workplace — from wearing symbols of one’s beliefs to discussing faith at work — varies from geographic location to location, with Christians more likely to express their faith in the South, Jews most likely in the Northeast and Muslims most likely to do so out West,...

08/14/2023

New research alert!

"The Association between Religious Discrimination and Health: Disaggregating by Types of Discrimination Experiences, Religious Tradition, and Forms of Health" has been published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

Using survey data from a probability sample of U.S. adults and measures representing a variety of discrimination experience types, our analyses suggest that religious discrimination is indeed harmful for health, but that experiences of religious discrimination do not universally affect mental and physical health in the same ways. Rather than significant differences in the health impacts of religious discrimination across different religious groups, we find more variation in the health impacts of different types of experiences with discrimination. Further, we find that mental health is negatively impacted by a wider range of experiences with religious discrimination than physical health. These findings are in line with social psychological research on the differential health impacts of discrimination, and they highlight the importance of context in studies of the health effects of religious discrimination.

https://buff.ly/3KADX08

07/21/2023

SEEKING UNDERGRAD RESEARCH FELLOWS THIS FALL: The Boniuk Institute and the RPLP are hiring undergraduate students for research work this fall. Students will learn about and contribute to large-scale interdisciplinary research related to religion, religious tolerance, pluralism and discrimination, social inequality, race, gender, science, health, and the body.

In their work, undergraduate fellows will assist with data collection, analysis, and research administration related to several social science projects, and they will additionally assist with reviews of the academic literature, online data collection, collection and processing of qualitative data, and support of article and book writing efforts.

The deadline to apply is Friday, August 4th. For more information, please see here:

Fostering diversity and an intellectual environment, Rice University is a comprehensive research university located on a 300-acre tree-lined campus in Houston, Texas. Rice produces the next generation of leaders and advances tomorrow’s thinking.

06/17/2023

Earlier this month, project co-leaders John Evans and Elaine Howard Ecklund hosted the “Report the Results” conference at University of California San Diego. This was a chance for all researchers who had received funding from the RPLP’s re-granting initiative to gather and share project findings. Projects addressed topics as diverse as science and religion on social media; health, healing, and Islam in Morocco; and indigenous meanings of science and spirituality.

06/16/2023

Coauthors Elaine Howard Ecklund and Dave Johnson were recently guests on the New Books Network podcast to discuss their 2021 book, Varieties of Atheism in Science. Listen here:

Elaine H. Ecklund and David R. Johnson, "Varieties of Atheism in Science" (Oxford UP, 2021)

06/15/2023

Check out these findings from the latest RPLP research: Religious calling to a job can motivate employees but might result in mistreatment going unaddressed.

Feeling a religious or spiritual calling to a job can be a huge motivator, but it can also potentially result in employee mistreatment and exploitation going unaddressed, according to new research from Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance and the ...

05/06/2023

Congratulations to our undergraduate fellow Lindsey Schirn who was inducted into the Rice chapter of Phi Beta Kappa today. She also graduates from Rice tomorrow!

04/25/2023

We congratulate Enrique Quezada on a succecssful doctoral dissertation defense! Dr. Quezada will join Agnes Scott College in the fall as an assistant professor of political science.

04/24/2023

CONGRATULATIONS to Esmeralda Sánchez Salazar on passing her doctoral dissertation defense earlier this month. Her thesis is entitled "Latinos, Faith and Education: Examining Religion's Role in Shaping Latino College and STEM Outcomes." We look forward to continuing to follow Dr. Sánchez Salazar and her work!

04/20/2023

Today was a full day for undergrad student fellow Lindsey Schirn who has worked with RPLP since spring 2021. She presented her senior honors thesis which addressed Judaism, politics, and perceptions of Antisemitism, both historically and today. She also received this year's Weber-Durkheim award from Rice's Department of Sociology. Congratulations Lindsey!