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The 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision accomplished more than the national legalization of same-sex marriage; it also laid bare a deep rift among US Supreme Court justices over the question of whether and how religious objections to same-sex marriage should be accommodated in this new era of marriage equality. This chapter will explore the rift revealed in Obergefell between the Court’s differing conceptions of religious free exercise and will highlight the ways in which this legal dispute was translated into a forceful mode of conservative religious activism in the buildup to the groundbreaking 2016 election.

Megachurches are thriving in religious markets at a time when Americans are asserting their ability as consumers of religious products to engage in religious switching. The apparent success of megachurches, which often provide a low cost and low commitment path by which religious refugees may join the church, seems to challenge Iannocconne's theory that high commitment churches will thrive while low commitment churches will atrophy. This paper aims to investigate this issue.

This paper employs a signaling model to illustrate the strategy and organizational forms megachurches employ to indicate a match between what the church produces and the religious refugee wishes to consume in an effort to increase their membership. The model illustrates that megachurches expect little in regard to financial or time commitment of new attendees. However, once the attendees perceive a good fit with the church, the megachurch increases its expectation of commitment. Data from the FACT2000 survey provide evidence in support of the model's predictions.

Data from the FACT2000 survey provide evidence in support of the model's predictions.

The paper serves to illustrate the dynamic process by which megachurches attract new attendees and transform those that find a good fit between their needs and what the church offers into full members of the church.

The expansion of religious diversity in US workplaces increases the relevance of leaders' religious motivations and the impact on their organizations. This paper aims to investigate whether small company leaders' religious motivations predict their perceptions that their organization's values are directed to the welfare of others.

A survey was mailed to top executives of Midwestern US firms with 20 to 250 employees, measuring leaders' organizational values and religious motivation. The sample revealed itself to be mostly Christian.

Findings show that, as predicted, leaders higher in extrinsic religious motivation toward personal benefit were less likely than those lower in this type of religious motivation to perceive other‐directed organizational values. However, neither intrinsic religious motivation nor extrinsic religious motivation toward social ends predicted a tendency to perceive other‐directed organizational values.

Future research directions could assess the impact of beliefs associated with faith traditions on leader values and decision making. Further, a qualitative approach to data gathering may result in richer data. Limitations include a relatively low response rate and a sample skewed toward religiously motivated, mostly Christian small business leaders.

Just because small business leaders are religiously motivated does not mean that their perceived organizational values will be directed toward the welfare of others.

Little research exists about how small business leaders' religious motivations affect their organizational values. This research counters common assumptions that leaders' religious motivations will affect how they view their organizations' values.

This paper aims to explore the multicultural education strategies employed by primary school teachers in Georgia.

In-depth interviews with 65 primary school teachers were used. The interviews were analyzed using the theoretical framework of multicultural educational approaches defined by James Banks. The approaches used by Georgian teachers were classified into four approaches to multicultural education: contributions, additive, transformation and social action approaches.

The research revealed that the majority of teachers use the contributions and additive approaches to multicultural education. The use of the transformation approach by teachers is very rare and only happens if school textbooks, as well as exercises and assignments in the textbooks, provide this opportunity. The social action approach to multicultural education has not been used in primary grades in Georgia. The research revealed that some teachers reject diversity in their classroom as well as the necessity of developing their students’ intercultural sensitivity. These teachers have an informed and conscious approach to not using multicultural approaches in the teaching process. This approach is named by the author as the “inactive action approach”, which is specific to Georgia and is widely used in primary school classes.

The study has scientific and practical importance. The findings of this study also have practical importance. They can be used for the implementation of teacher education and training programs in Georgia. Consideration of these findings will contribute to the implementation of the National Objectives of General Education and the National Curriculum of Georgia.

This study makes contribution to the development of the field of multicultural education in Georgia.

Past research has identified a negative association between national income and female entrepreneurship rates. Data from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) 2012 are analyzed to determine whether the Human Development Index (HDI) predicts female entrepreneurship rates. The purpose of this paper is to indicate how other socioeconomic variables that measure human development interact with national income to predict female entrepreneurship rates.

Data were drawn from the 2012 GEM data set, which provides information on female entrepreneurship rates in 61 countries. To test relevant hypotheses, dependent and socio-demographic variables were sourced from international databases to perform quantitative cross-country regression analyses.

National income significantly predicted female entrepreneurship rates in the univariate analysis. However, this relationship became non-significant when development indices were added to the model. In contrast, the HDI, the Gender Inequality Index, and national religious composition were robust, significant predictors.

This study presents evidence that human and gender development indices, and national religious composition, are better predictors of female entrepreneurship rates than national income. Thus, studies on female entrepreneurship rates should account and adjust for human development and gender equality indices. As religiosity continues to be pervasive within multiple nations, policymakers should consider this when developing interventions geared toward promoting female entrepreneurship.

This paper identifies factors other than economic determinism to explain variance in female entrepreneurship rates and demonstrates that human development and gender inequality indices are better predictors of female entrepreneurship rates.

Purpose – In this chapter, we advance research on the socioeconomic ranking of religious groups by using both income and wealth to document the rankings of the six major religious groups in the United States – Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, black Protestants, and the religiously unaffiliated – during 2001–2007, a period marked by both catastrophic economic losses and widespread economic gain.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Drawing from the Panel Study on Income Dynamics (PSID), we provide descriptive statistics to explore the socioeconomic differences among the six major religious groups. In addition, we note their ownership rates and changes in wealth and income during 2001–2007.

Findings – Overall, these findings point to enduring stratification in the U.S. religious landscape. Based on median net worth, leading into the Great Recession, the six major religious groups ranked in the following order: Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelical Protestants, the unaffiliated, and black Protestants. At the same time, these findings point to the upward mobility of white Catholics, who increased their income and made the greatest increase in net worth between 2001 and 2007. These data also suggest a decline in the socioeconomic status of the religiously unaffiliated as compared to previous studies.

Research implications – These findings illustrate the degree to which certain religious groups have access to wealth and other resources, and have implications for how the years leading into the Great Recession may have influenced households’ vulnerability to financial shocks.

Originality/Value – We use both income and wealth to examine whether different religious groups experienced any changes in income and wealth leading into the 2008 economic downturn.

This chapter provides a comprehensive examination of the diverse strategies employed in various Asian regions to address family planning. Beginning with an in-depth analysis of family planning programs in South Asia, this chapter offers a comparative overview that highlights the unique characteristics and outcomes within this dynamic context. Furthermore, this chapter employs case studies to explore the multifaceted influences of religious beliefs, legal frameworks, and sociocultural factors on family planning practices. By delving into these complexities, it offers a nuanced understanding of the challenges and successes in different Asian regions. This comparative exploration equips policymakers and practitioners with valuable insights to inform more effective and culturally sensitive family planning initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to report on an action research programme in the UK to address this through the notion of religious literacy.

Drawing on original research and analysis in UK higher education settings, the article will argue that health and social care educators, policy makers and practitioners need to develop their religious literacy in order to engage fully and competently with the religion and belief identities of their service users in a religiously diverse and complex world.

The relationship between religion and belief on the one hand and health and social care practice has been scarcely addressed, despite the important work of Furness and Gilligan in the UK and Canada in the USA. Their work appears as exceptional within a wider context of professions which have been forged in a predominantly secular milieu, despite having their roots in Christian social services in the USA, Canada and the UK. New research in the sociology of religion shows that religion and belief themselves vary in form, number and mix around the world, and that the religious landscape itself has changed enormously in the period during which secular social work has been changing significantly in recent years. It has been observed that in the UK secular assumptions reached a peak of confidence in the 1960s, when social work was most rapidly consolidating as a public profession (Dinham 2015). The inheritance has been generations of health and social care practitioners and educators who are ill-equipped to address the religion and belief identities which they encounter. In recent years this has become a pressing issue as societies across the West come to terms with the persistent – and in some ways growing – presence of religion or belief, against the expectations of secularism. In total, 84 per cent of the global population declares a religious affiliation (Pew, 2012); globalisation and migration put us all in to daily encounter with religious plurality as citizens, neighbours, service users and professionals; and internationally, mixed economies of welfare increasingly involve faith groups in service provision, including in social work and welfare settings across Europe and North America. Yet the twentieth century – the secular century – leaves behind a lamentable quality of conversation about religion and belief. Public professionals find themselves precarious on the subject, and largely unable to engage systematically and informedly with religion and belief as they encounter them.

Religion and belief have been bracketed off in education in departments of Theology and Religious Studies. Social work education has largely neglected them, and professional standards, benchmarks, values and toolkits, have tended to use proxies for religion and belief, such as “spirituality”, which are often ill-defined and vague. In a context of the reemergence of public faith, and a widespread acknowledgement that religion and belief did not go away after all, health and social care face the pressing challenge of engaging skilfully. This article draws on an action research programme in the UK to address this through the notion of religious literacy. Reflecting on original research and analysis in UK higher education settings, the article will argue that health and social care educators, policy makers and practitioners need to develop their religious literacy in order to engage fully and competently with the religion and belief identities of their service users in a religiously diverse and complex world.

This paper aims to explore the changing nature of religion (also described in terms of faith or spirituality) as experienced in the USA, particularly regarding the interrelationship between business and religion within the contexts of culture, law and management. With a solid understanding of these subjects, business leaders, judges and public policy officials will be able to more effectively deal with issues arising from a more religious workplace.

This paper begins by examining the religious nature of the USA, with attention paid to the embrace of religious tolerance from a cultural perspective and religious liberty from a legal perspective. The piece then looks at the characteristics associated with religious vibrancy. Then, the paper delves into the impact of religion on business, both yesterday and today. Legal and managerial literature, studies and perspectives are used to determine how business can respond and perhaps even embrace a more religious business environment.

After describing and critiquing cultural, legal and managerial dimensions associated with an increasingly religious business environment at worker and owner levels, this paper suggests there exists currently an adequate legal structure to serve the needs of religious workers and owners, if properly managed. More research is needed to find solutions to situations where competing interests conflict, but this paper provides a foundation upon which further study can be conducted.

This paper draws from cultural, legal and management sources to provide an understanding of the current religious environment facing business, legal and public policy leaders.