Academic Discipline and Faculty Religiosity in Secular and Church-Related Colleges

Abstract

In a previous study of a state-supported university in the Southeast, no statistically significant differences were found in the personal religiosity of faculty in scientific and nonscientific disciplines. On the other hand, faculty in fields in which religion is likely to be studied (eg, sociology and psychology) were found to be less religious than faculty in fields in which religion is not studied (eg, engineering and physics). The present research was undertaken to determine whether these results are generalizable to another region and to other types of schools. The data, gathered from faculty at 15 schools in a large Midwestern metropolitan area, suggest that the earlier results can be generalized, but only to secular colleges and universities. In church-related schools virtually the opposite relationships obtain; in those schools faculty in scientific fields are less religious than faculty in nonscientific fields, whereas there is no systematic relationship between faculty religiosity and the extent to which a faculty members discipline involves the study of religion. The different patterns observed in church-related schools are probably traceable to the concentration of faculty pursuing religious vocations in fields involving the study of religion.