Evan Stewart
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evanstewart.bsky.social
Evan Stewart
@evanstewart.bsky.social
2.9K followers 590 following 190 posts
Social Scientist @ UMass Boston
Studying the stakes of pluralism in social change.
(Non)Religion & Spirituality | Climate | Public Opinion
https://www.evan-stewart.com
@socimages.bsky.social
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evanstewart.bsky.social
Wild day for local politics. Big shifts on the Quincy, MA city council, and while most of the conversation is about broader city issues it is also a fight about...public religious expression!
www.wbur.org/news/2025/11...
"As Quincy’s mayor of 17 years, Koch has generated multiple controversies since he was reelected to a seventh term last year. Behind closed doors, he dedicated roughly $850,000 of public money to commission statues of two Catholic saints for a new public safety building. He also proposed a wage hike that would have given him a 79% raise, and his city clerk discounted more than a third of the signatures submitted in a ballot initiative to rein in the pay raise. Both issues are tied up in litigation."
November 5, 2025 at 1:54 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Catching up on peer reviews today. If you don't like my comments, blame Reviewer 2.5.
A photo of a black cat chilling out on the bottom shelf of a bookshelf.
August 27, 2025 at 4:07 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Tomorrow #ASA2025 / ASR2025: Let's talk tarot. Come out to see @cmarsinelli.bsky.social & me with new findings on what practitioners say & what audiences reward with attention when we study spiritual practice online, at scale. Session 50668 - Religion & the Therapeutic at Noon!
Screenshot of a slide titled "The Case: Tarot & Spiritual Practice Online, at Scale." We show that self-reports of practicing tarot in the last 12 months are up among 18-29 year olds in the National Religion and Spirituality Survey, and the Pew Research Center reports 30% of Americans consult astrology, tarot cards, or fortune tellers.
August 11, 2025 at 10:19 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
We are HIRING @umbsociology.bsky.social! Gender, sexuality, theory. I'm not on the hiring committee (sabbatical 😈), but feel free to DM or say hi at ASA if you have questions. #socsky
employmentopportunities.umb.edu/boston/en-us...
The Department of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB) invites qualified persons to apply for a tenure-track assistant professor position to join our faculty beginning September 1, 2026. Candidates should have demonstrated research and teaching strengths in the sociology of gender/sexualities with a preference for candidates who can teach Queer Theory/Methods. Candidates who are able to teach a first-year course for sociology majors requiring qualitative methods preferred. Candidates should have an emerging/established research program with the potential to generate external funding, a strong commitment to teaching and mentoring, the capacity to expand diversity initiatives on campus, and enhance the university’s commitment to public service.
July 18, 2025 at 2:59 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
They say they talk about it at higher rates than other issues & leaders in other religious traditions. But that doesn't mean congregational characteristics don't matter. We also find Catholic leaders of majority-Hispanic congregations are more likely to talk about it — clearly some responsiveness.
Predicted Values for Congregation Race x Catholic Interaction. Plot presents marginal predictions and 84 percent CIs (corresponding to p < .05 significance level) for the likelihood of discussing immigration by congregational characteristics. Majority-hispanic congregational leaders are more likely to discuss immigration than majority-white congregational leaders, and this effect is more pronounced for Catholics than others.
June 27, 2025 at 2:23 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Diane points out cross-pressure on the case of immigration — Catholic social teaching on immigration is pretty clear, but polarization means that message may not fly with increasingly conservative congregants. So, what do clergy say they do? In NSRL data, they report talking about immigration.
Plot showing proportion of leaders discussing immigration relative to other issues. This figure reports weighted estimates and 84% CIs (corresponding to p < .05 significance level) for the proportion of religious leaders in each denominational group who report discussing each issue with their congregations. Issues are ordered according to the ranked prevalence among Catholic congregations to facilitate comparison. Catholic leaders say they discuss immigration more than other issues (save for abortion), and they say this at higher rates than leaders in other denominations.
June 27, 2025 at 2:19 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
The trust gradient with social class in this report is wild. From a longitudinal followup survey: "People who said they didn’t live comfortably were more likely to lose trust than those who did live comfortably."
A bar chart showing that "Americans with lower levels of education or income are less likely to say most people can be trusted." 24% for people with a high school degree or less, 52% for those with post-graduate education. 25% for the lowest income bracket, 46% for the highest.
May 8, 2025 at 4:57 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Or, something more contemporary that I can't stop thinking about: mindingourway.com/rest-in-moti...
Quote from linked essay Rest in Motion: "And yet, most people have this model of the world where whenever they're not resting, they're taking damage. When the homework isn't done, they're taking damage. When they're reading a textbook, they're taking damage. When they go to sleep with work unfinished, they're taking damage. When they're at a large social event, they're taking damage. Some part of them yearns to be in the rest state, where they don't need to do all these things, and insofar as they aren't, they're suffering a little."
May 7, 2025 at 5:00 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Any one of those. Marx isn't always my favorite, but definitely useful for this. How does the coursework get SO painful that you'll jump through so many hoops to hide AI? Or, pre-AI, why was it so painful to make folks jump through so many hoops for extra credit? I think alienation helps to explain.
Quote from Marx's Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844: "Till now we have been considering the estrangement, the alienation of the worker only in one of its aspects , i.e., the worker’s relationship to the products of his labor. But the estrangement is manifested not only in the result but in the act of production, within the producing activity, itself. How could the worker come to face the product of his activity as a stranger, were it not that in the very act of production he was estranging himself from himself?"
May 7, 2025 at 4:59 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
I think LLMs can be useful. But I also think the problem with LLMs in higher ed is part of a MUCH bigger problem: alienation from cognitive work. ⬇️

"We saw an inverted pattern of Bloom's Taxonomy...Claude was primarily completing higher-order cognitive functions,"
www.anthropic.com/news/anthrop...
Bar chart showing demand for different skills in Bloom's Taxonomy pulled from Claude AI prompts in education. Creating leads with 39.8% of prompts.
April 10, 2025 at 1:20 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Heads up for higher ed instructors out there. Trolling? Promotion? Trollmotion?

Also, heads up for anyone with unique higher ed data access. I feel like there’s an RDD study in here somewhere.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announcing ChatGPT plus will be free for college students in the US & Canada through May
April 3, 2025 at 8:35 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
"All content was closely supervised for quality and safety in our trial, with rapid expert intervention available. This approach may continue to be necessary when testing similar future models to ensure safety." And the results summary...
Therabot users showed significantly greater reductions in symptoms of MDD(mean changes: −6.13 [standard deviation {SD}=6.12] vs. −2.63 [6.03] at 4 weeks; −7.93 [5.97] vs. −4.22 [5.94] at 8 weeks; d=0.845–0.903), GAD (mean changes: −2.32 [3.55] vs. −0.13 [4.00] at 4 weeks; −3.18 [3.59] vs. −1.11 [4.00] at 8 weeks; d=0.794–0.840), and CHR-FED (mean changes: −9.83 [14.37] vs. −1.66 [14.29] at 4 weeks; −10.23 [14.70] vs. −3.70 [14.65] at 8 weeks; d=0.627–0.819) relative to controls at postintervention and follow-up. Therabot was well utilized (average use >6 hours), and participants rated the therapeutic alliance as comparable to that of human therapists.
March 31, 2025 at 9:11 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
This was a fun project! We know that people support diversity in principle more than in practice, but...how much? In a first pass with survey data, we have some interesting insights like this:
Figure 7. Predicted Principle-Personal Gaps by Race & Political Partisanship Interaction. Notes: Figure illustrates differences in predicted principle-personal gap by partisanship and race. White Republicans exhibit higher gaps (More support for diversity in principle than personal intermarriage) than Black or Hispanic Republicans. Predictions are generated from Model 2 in Table 5 and include all controls, and slope differences are statistically significant (Black vs White p<.05; Hispanic vs White p<.01).
March 27, 2025 at 12:59 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Katsyris Rivera-Kientz, a go-to expert on racial & ethnic variation in climate attitudes, presenting new dissertation work at #ESS2025!
3 articles published last year. 2 lead-authored. Rockstar. @umbsociology.bsky.social
Opening slide: a sociological look to climate perceptions and behaviors across race and ethnicity. Katsy stands to the right, smiling.
March 7, 2025 at 5:52 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Alum of @umbsociology.bsky.social & new SUNY Oswego Prof. Tim Dacey sharing work on aggregate attitude shifts on environmental policy with severe weather exposure. #ESS2025
Tim sharing results estimating the effect of severe weather exposure on support for environmental initiatives by cohort. Positive changes emerge among older cohorts.
March 7, 2025 at 5:42 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Notable emergence of nonprofit orgs dedicated to political depolarization after 2016. @nicolesanjuan.bsky.social sharing important dissertation work in progress at #ESS2025.
@umbsociology.bsky.social
Nicole presenting a bar chart on the rise of nonprofit organizations dedicated to political depolarization. New organizations spike in 2016.
March 7, 2025 at 2:53 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Very timely new paper from my colleague Neeraj @soc-forum.bsky.social:

Job title data from colleges and universities shows steady growth toward DEI language, BUT: "schools' language choice has little association with institutional characteristics"

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
#socsky
Evolving language in diversity-related job titles Figure 3 presents the proportion of the schools in a given year that scored a 1 for the six simple binary indicators described above. "Diversity," "Equity," and "Inclusion" show a steady increase since 2013, while terms like "Multiculturalism" have declined or held steady.
February 20, 2025 at 6:32 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Cool postdoc alert: careers.duke.edu/job/Durham-P...
#socsky
Post-Doctoral Associate Religion and Social Change Lab Duke University Start Date: July 1st, 2025 The Religion and Social Change Lab (RaSCL) at Duke University is seeking a postdoctoral research associate. You will join a team of researchers studying religious leaders, with a particular emphasis on seminary training. You can read more about our team and our research on our website. RaSCL is closely allied with the Duke Clergy Health Initiative and the Duke Divinity School. Description of Duties The position will entail writing original research articles and stakeholder reports broadly on clergy formation, the dynamics of politics and polarization in Mainline Protestant churches, clergy health, and the religious trends impacting churches and those who lead them. In addition, the successful candidate can devote a small portion of their time to publishing research from their dissertation. We expect the successful candidate to publish in peer-reviewed journals and contribute to stakeholder reports. Responsibilities will include qualitative data collection, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and writing. It will also involve developing research protocols, participant interactions and scheduling, manuscript preparation, IRB submissions, and the supervision of students and research assistants. Applicants must have completed a PhD in sociology or psychology prior to the start date.
February 20, 2025 at 1:08 AM
evanstewart.bsky.social
There's a new invite from @ruthbraunstein.bsky.social to submit to @sssreligion.bsky.social's 2025 Annual Meeting in your email inboxes. I'm the program chair this year! Wanted to highlight one key quote for #socsky people here interested in religion - we want your cool ideas!
Quote from email: "SSSR has always been about both advancing cutting-edge research and building a diverse and supportive community, and I am looking forward to more opportunities for this in Minneapolis. The 2025 Annual Meeting will feature paper sessions, discussion and book panels (formerly known as "author-meets-critics" sessions). We are also open to other creative ideas for how to share and germinate research, foster community, and stimulate innovation. If you would like to propose something new along these lines, please contact our Program Chair Evan Stewart at program@sssreligion.org."
February 11, 2025 at 3:25 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Also, why is AGI *the thing* that solves free info transfer and not...libraries, the internet, Wikipedia, MOOCs, etc. It is true AGI could synthesize more info faster. It is also true that people ALREADY have access to college-level info transfer through self-study. The truth hides in this joke:
Modern Art = I could do that + Yeah, but you didn't
February 10, 2025 at 3:30 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Teasing new research on religion, race, & health just accepted at Soc of Religion with @elenavanstee.bsky.social. This was a super fun collaboration inspired by great work from folks including @mattmotta.bsky.social & @pennye.bsky.social. #socsky
Racialized Religion & Vaccine Hesitancy: Evidence from the General Social Survey by Evan Stewart and Elena G. van Stee, Accepted at Sociology of Religion. Abstract: Research has examined differences in vaccine hesitancy by religion and by race. Complex religion theory, however, argues that research should examine these two social forces in concert with one another to understand how the religious experience is racialized. Applying this theoretical approach, we examine the interaction of religion and race in a new module for vaccine hesitancy included in the 2022 General Social Survey. We find that the association between religiosity and vaccine hesitancy observed in other work is racialized. Stronger religious commitments are more strongly associated with more vaccine-hesitant attitudes for Black Americans than for White Americans. Yet stronger religious commitments are also more strongly associated with a higher likelihood of vaccine self-reports for a flu vaccine or a COVID-19 vaccine for Black Americans, after accounting for vaccine hesitancy attitudes. These indirect negative and direct positive associations between religiosity and vaccine reporting are important for understanding racialized differences in vaccine uptake. We use these findings to discuss how theories of racialized and complex religion can better serve the study of health and well-being.
January 23, 2025 at 3:33 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Tried this with a local model - I love that my take is usually "this is bad so I know an AI wrote it" and the model's take is "this is good so I know AI wrote it." 😂😂😂
An AI response: "I'm happy to provide a perspective on handling situations where a student's work appears to be generated by AI tools like ChatGPT, without having concrete evidence. Here are some examples: Introduction: "Based on the quality and style of your writing, I suspect that you may have used an external source for generating this paper. While we cannot prove it directly, my intuition suggests there might be issues." Addressing Concerns: "I appreciate the effort you put into this assignment, but based on the uniqueness and clarity of your ideas, as well as the style of writing, I believe you may have used an AI tool to generate this work." Requesting Clarification: "Your paper reads well, and it seems like a coherent piece of work. However, given the nature of the topic, my intuition tells me that you might have relied on external sources to craft your essay. If possible, I would appreciate it if you could share more about how you developed your ideas.""
December 16, 2024 at 4:29 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Please, for the love of all that is holy, the end of term is not the time for a phishing simulation in the work email.
Email source code line reading "X-PHISH: This is a security awareness phishing simulation test from InfoSec Institute that has been authorized by the recipient organization"
December 9, 2024 at 5:54 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Dr. Tim Dacey, now new TT faculty @ SUNY Oswego, doing important work on climate attitudes, risk perceptions, & partisanship.
doi.org/10.1111/soin...
The Green Elephants in the Room: Perceived Environmental Harm and Support for Regulation Among Republicans by Tim Dacey and Evan Stewart. Previous research identifies a “great paradox” in attitudes toward environmental regulation: some people close to environmental risk nevertheless oppose environmental regulation for partisan reasons. Does this pattern hold in large survey samples? Unexpectedly, we do not find evidence for it. Instead, we find that Republicans who report higher levels of personal environmental harm also report stronger support for environmental regulation.
November 20, 2024 at 4:13 PM
evanstewart.bsky.social
Joe Silcox, PhD, just defended his diss and is LEADING the way in studying the emerging field of recovery coaching. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Important theoretical work now out in Journal of Applied Social Science
The Professionalization of Stigma: The Novel Case of Recovery Coaching by Joseph W. Silcox and Evan Stewart. Research on stigma management techniques often emphasizes reducing and challenging negative associations with stigmatization. How do people manage stigma in social groups where negative associations may be socially or professionally advantageous? We answer this question with a case study of the emerging industry of “Recovery Coaching,” where firsthand experiences with drug use and recovery are part of a credentialing system that offers entry into a professional field.
November 20, 2024 at 4:13 PM