Researching religion : why we need social science /
This book establishes the relevance of social science for the study of religion and promotes a particular kind of social science. Even if we confine ourselves to academic disciplines, there are very many ways of viewing religion. Certain kinds of questions about religion can only be answered by the...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford, United Kingdom :
Oxford University Press,
2018.
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| Edition: | First edition. |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | This book establishes the relevance of social science for the study of religion and promotes a particular kind of social science. Even if we confine ourselves to academic disciplines, there are very many ways of viewing religion. Certain kinds of questions about religion can only be answered by the methods and approaches of social science: if one is interested in the social causes and consequences of religious belief and behaviour, then one has to do social science. Steve Bruce underlines the value of quantitative social research. He shows that while detailed ethnographies have enormous value in helping us get 'inside' religious belief and behaviour, they are severely limited by problems of scale and representativeness in their value for generating and testing explanations. While the primary focus is social research, the examples are drawn from studies of religious belief and behaviour, so it also presents a very large number of important observations about the nature of religion in the modern world. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780191090189 0191090182 9780191828904 0191828904 |