R
ESEARCH
A
CCOMPLISHMENTS AND
O
BJECTIVES
* E
LAINE
H
OWARD
E
CKLUND
,
D EPARTMENT OF S OCIOLOGY
Since receiving a PhD in sociology from Cornell University in 2004, my research program has resulted in $842,486 in peer-reviewed external grants to develop three original data collections, two books with Oxford University Press and nineteen peer-reviewed research articles. Perhaps more significant, through a series of somewhat distinct projects, I have emerged with a particular theoretical interest in how institutional cultures constrain and empower the development of individual identities, a continuing interest in the sociology of religion as well as a growing interest in the sociology of science.
Other hallmarks of my research program include a commitment to mixed-method’s research, the desire to work with teams of junior and senior scholars on large projects that generate extensive publication output, and an aspiration to translate scholarly work to the broader public.
My first two research projects were centered squarely within the sociology of religion. The earliest MA thesis work examined how Catholic women in local parishes, some of whom considered themselves feminists, interpreted and challenged institutional categories of what it means to be
Catholic. I conducted focus groups, in-depth interviews and participant observation among six Catholic parishes and showed that women developed several kinds of “change identities” to maintain Catholic commitments while subtly altering parish practices. This work was cited broadly within the sociology of religion and sociology of gender and articles generated from the study have been re-printed in two religion textbooks.
Although I initially started the Catholic feminism project because I had an advisor at Cornell interested in gender and family, through this study I developed an interest in understanding how individuals bring changes to larger institutions while remaining squarely within them. My dissertation examined how the categories for “good” action found within a Korean ethnic and a multiethnic religious organization shaped conceptions of American citizenship. Through this project I also gained an appreciation for the value of using diverse methods to attack complicated research questions, developing an original data collection that included in-depth interviews, participant-observation and a survey. The dissertation was further developed to become Korean American Evangelicals: New
Models for Civic Life, which was published by Oxford University Press in November 2006. In Korean
American Evangelicals I show that the schemata developed by Korean Americans in a multiethnic church when compared to those in an ethnic church helped them mediate between larger institutional ideas about civic participation and individual identities and practices of local civic responsibility.
Through examining this case in the context of other work on second-generation immigrants, I generated propositions about the kinds of identities Koreans and other groups of second-generation immigrants will need to activate to bring changes to the relationship between religion and American civic life.
To further understand how different ethnic groups of new immigrants and their children compare to other groups of Americans in the frameworks they develop for ethnic identities, political commitments, and forms of religiosity, I am Principal Investigator (with Michael Emerson of Rice
University, co-PI) for a national study—“Religion Immigrant Civic Engagement (R.I.C.E.)”—funded primarily by a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation . Over the past three years I have collected or supervised data collection of over 200 in-depth interviews with a random sample of immigrants and the native born as well as participant-observation in twelve religious and ethnic organizations. This study involved managing a project team of twelve members in five cities and utilized four languages.
Through the R.I.C.E. study, I have examined how various forms of religion and spirituality influence immigrant civic participation, such as voluntary association membership, community service, political participation, and various forms of collective action, as well as how religion and spirituality help shape

civic identities. Initial findings reveal nuances about how national contexts (in the US and in the nation of origin) shape group civic identities. For example, Arab Muslim immigrants are deeply involved in
American political life. And Chinese Buddhists use religious frames to justify difference between themselves and Chinese Christians in how they understand the relationship between politics and religion. Through managing the complexities of a large research team I became committed to involving undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows under the umbrella of one project in ways that have a direct pedagogical benefit to each group. I am currently working on five articles based on the findings from this study, all of which are co-authored with either an undergraduate or graduate student.
Recently my research program has taken a new turn. Between 2006-2010 I conducted an examination of religious, ethical, and spiritual frameworks among natural and social scientists at twenty-one elite US research universities (supported primarily by a $293,000 grant from the John
Templeton Foundation). Through a survey of 2,500 faculty members (with a 75% response) and 275 in-depth interviews, I examined cultural constructions of the boundaries between science and religion and compared such constructs between natural and social scientists. I also coordinated the involvement of twelve undergraduate students, three graduate students and three other assistant professors in data collection, analysis, and publication output from the Religion among Academic Scientists (RAAS) study. While I initially approached this study as a sociologist of religion, I emerged with a deeper interest in the sociology of science.
By situating my survey in the midst of previous surveys of academic scientists, results from this research also uncovered changes in views about the intersection of science and religion in the academy and insight to the cultural development of science. RAAS, and the other studies that will flow from it, provide insight to the narratives professional scientists offer when two different institutional fields, the realm of science and the realm of religion, (with seemingly different logics of action), are placed beside one another. The study culminated in Science Vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think , which was published by Oxford University Press in May of this year. Like breaching experiments, this work is novel because it forces respondents to talk about things they ignore, seek to keep at a distance, or secretly hope someone will ask them about. And because academics are potentially more selfconscious thinkers, (when compared to many in the general public), this work is helping sociologists and others understand how cognitive frameworks operate when seemingly irreconcilable realms of knowledge interact. Less than one month after publication, Science Vs. Religion received positive reviews in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Discover Magazine,
Publisher’s Weekly, and The
Washington Post.
In addition to a book , this study resulted in eight peer-reviewed manuscripts, including two in Social Problems and one in Social Forces. Five other articles are in various stages of the review process. In addition I authored nine op-eds and essays based on study data and results have received national and international media coverage, including that in USA Today, The Washington
Times, Washington Post, Nature, The Scientist, ABCNews.com, NBCNews.com, Chronicle of Higher
Education, and Xinhua News. In part through the media interest generated from the RAAS project, I started to think deeply about better ways for scholars to translate their work to broader publics.
Connecting to my newer substantive interest in science, I received funding for “Perceptions of
Women in Academic Science (PWAS)” through the National Science Foundation ($299,334, grant #
0733976 with an additional NSF supplement of $55,000 awarded summer 2009). Over the past two years as the PI (with Anne Lincoln of Southern Methodist University, co-PI) I have developed a national study that examines women’s and men’s self-reported reasons for pursuing academic science careers in biology or physics as well as the perceptions both genders have of women’s contributions to academic science. I fielded a survey in 2009, which achieved a 72% response, and am in the process of completing 250 in-depth interviews with both men and woman at different stages of the academic career track. Findings are already providing deeper understanding of institutional changes in gender beliefs and practices in the sciences and how these connect to the cultural development of individual
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identities. Surprisingly, initial results reveal that younger men in science may bring changes to how gender is perceived in their science fields. Men are more likely to credit their science careers with a divorce and young men experience more dissatisfaction when they do not have as many children as they want because of their work as scientists. Although data collection is still under way this study has already resulted in four conference presentations and two manuscripts, one of which has received an invitation for revision from Science. When the data collection is complete, it will also illuminate effective approaches to encouraging the presence of women in science.
The recent RAAS and PWAS studies are part of a larger research agenda that I will continue to develop over the next five years. This agenda will focus on cultural construction of categories and individual ideas about the intersection of religion and science (individually and together) with other knowledge spheres. The series of research projects I am in the process of initiating will also have practical implications for public science and involve collaborating with a diverse set of scholars as well as developing models of research pedagogy for undergraduate and graduate students. An initial area of future research will compare how different civic organizations (including religious organizations), and schools compare in the impact they have on science learning among youth. Last year I reached the finalist round for a W.T. Grant Foundation Younger Scholars Program proposal for a study on this topic and will submit another proposal this year. In another study I will examine how academic scientists at research universities and institutes in the US, UK and China compare in the kinds of cognitive frameworks scientists in these nations use to understand the intersection of science, morality and ethics. I have received a revise and resubmit on a grant to the NSF to field this study (with Kirstin
Matthews and Steven Lewis of the Rice University Baker Institute for Public Policy, co-PIs). This work would be innovative as there is no other team undertaking such an ambitious study to examine how scientists in different national contexts understand the relevance of ethics to their work.
To summarize, my research interests span a variety of specializations, all within the sociology of culture. Most recently these include using analytic frameworks to bring insight to contemporary examinations on religion, immigration, and science. I am interested in developing theories about the interaction between individual agency and organizational structures. In particular the interplay between competing institutional logics of action and how they shape the construction of individual identities captures my attention. My future research program will focus more narrowly around the sociology of science in addition to the study of religion and culture. And my past, current, and projected research demonstrates my commitment to employing multiple methods of inquiry, to engaging diverse literatures, to leading teams of researchers to address broad scholarly questions in systematic ways that generate high publication output, and to conducting research that serves sociologists, the broader community of scholars and the broader public.
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