New Book on Religion and Sexuality
Pamela Dickey Young, Heather Shipley and Tracy Trothen have edited and contributed to a new book entitled Religion and Sexuality (UBC Press, 2015).
What issues arise when religion and sexuality intersect in a variety of different contemporary contexts? The regulation of sexuality within the public arena has been strongly influenced, indeed at times has been controlled by, religious groups and ideologies. In more recent scholarship, however, in-depth consideration of the relationship of religion and sexuality to each other has explored the ways in which various forms of religion and various "non-normative" sexualities do, in fact, coexist, demonstrating that religion and sexuality are not necessarily in opposition to one another. Through examining representations of both religion and sexuality in media, public discourse and legislation, the diversity and complexity of how people develop religious and sexual identities and practices is foregrounded, using analyses from multiple theoretical and methodological approaches.
This volume encompasses scholarship from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, combining academic analysis with interviews, policy analysis, and discourse on topics such as education, economics and same-sex marriage.
This book examines specific sites where religion and sexuality intersect. Members of the general public, who are always interested when sex and religion appear to collide, will find the general topics appealing. Academics will be drawn to in the wide range of approaches the book presents to this developing field of study in sex and religion.
Dr. Heather Shipley presented RGSY data at last year's Gender and Education Association Conference hosted by the Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research, London South Bank University. .
Our online survey is now closed; thank you to all of our survey participants, we appreciate your time and will be moving to the interview phase of the project in fall 2013!
Dr. Pamela Dickey Young and Dr. Heather Shipley have been invited to the at London South Bank University in April. Dr. Shipley will be presenting her paper The Policy of Identity: Regulating Religion, Youth and Sexuality in Education in Canada, which includes data from the RGSY project.
We are still actively recruiting participants for the RGSY survey.
Pamela Dickey Young's Religion, Sex and Politics: Christian Churches and Same-Sex Marriage in Canada has just hit the shelves.
In it, Prof. Young analyzes the same-sex marriage debate in Canada by examining the intersections between religion, sexuality and public policy. The various arguments made by religious groups, both for and against same-sex marriage, are discussed, illustrating the range of perspectives on sexuality espoused by Christian groups and the numerous ways in which they influence the outcomes of legislation and court decisions.
We are pleased to announce that the RGSY survey has received 621 responses so far.
Pamela Dickey Young and Heather Shipley were invited to talk about the RGSY project at the University of Nottingham on September 3, 2012. The talk, entitled, "Religion, Gender and Sexuality among Youth in Canada" was a report on the current state of the RGSY research. This talk was given as part of a larger event entitled "Religion, Youth and Sexuality: Stories from the United Kingdom and Canada," where Dr. Andrew Yip and Dr. Sarah Jane Page also talked about their Religion, Youth and Sexuality project in the UK. The enthusiastic audience was composed of academics and those who work with youth in religious organizations and in community projects.
The survey is now live and can be found in both and .
If you are between the ages of 18-25 and live in Canada, please consider participating in the survey.
If you know potential survey participants, please forward the urls to anyone who might be interested in participating, or to anyone who might forward it on to potential participants.
Our (rgsyproject) is now live! Please like us to receive project updates.
Heather Shipley and Pamela Dickey Young have been invited to the University of Nottingham on September 3 as part of an event hosted by Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip and Sarah-Jane Page entitled: Religion, Youth and Sexuality: Stories from Great Britain and Canada.
Pam and Heather will talk about preliminary findings on the Canadian survey on Religion, Gender and Sexuality Among Youth in Canada and will work with Drs. Yip and Page to develop further comparative implications of the study.