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Penny Edgell

Protrait: Penny Edgell

Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Ph.D. 1995 University of Chicago
Room 1039 Social Sciences
Phone: 612-624-9828
Email: edgell@umn.edu
Website: blog.lib.umn.edu/edgell/home/

Curriculum Vitae

Interest Areas

American Religion; Sociology of Culture; Gender Roles; Family; Social Change; Racial Boundaries and Identities.

Current Research

Dr. Edgell is beginning a new research project on how religious, scientific, and legal frameworks intersect to shape how people understand contemporary social issues (e.g. like genetic engineering, Intelligent Design, or GLBT adoption). Her work on the National Survey of Religion and Family Life focuses on the support that religious communities and networks provide for managing work and family life across different racial and socio-economic contexts. She is also working with colleagues Joseph Gerteis and Douglas Hartmann on the American Mosaic project, a study of how Americans make sense of racial, religious, and other forms of diversity in American life.

Selected Publications

"Religion and Family: Contemporary Problems, Emerging Issues." 2008. Pp. 1038-1064 in The Oxford Handbook for the Sociology of Religion, edited by Peter Clarke. New York & London: Oxford Press.

"Religious Influences on Understandings of Racial Inequality in the United States," with Eric Tranby. 2007. Social Problems, 54(2):263-288.

"Religious Influences on Work–Family Trade-Offs," with Samantha Ammons. 2007. Journal of Family Issues, 28(6):794-826.

"Beyond the Nuclear Family? Familism and Gender Ideology in Diverse Religious Communities," with Danielle Docka. 2007. Sociological Forum, 22(1):25-50.

"Atheists as 'Other': Moral Boundaries and Cultural Membership in American Society," with Joseph Gerteis and Douglas Hartmann. 2006. American Sociological Review, 72(2): 211-234.

Religion and Family in a Changing Society. 2005. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.