The Gülen Movement: A Sociological Analysis of a Civic Movement [and its Finances] Rooted in Moderate Islam

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:30 in Discussion Forums

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Prof Helen Rose Ebaugh

Where: Dialogue Society, London
with Professor Helen Rose Ebaugh, Department of Sociology, University of Houston

Biography of Professor Helen Rose Ebaugh

Professor Ebaugh received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University in 1975 with specialties in organizational Sociology and the Sociology of Religion. In addition to five books, she has published numerous articles in scholarly journals, including The American Sociological Review, Social Forces, the Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Sociological Analysis and The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.

She served as president of the national Association for the Sociology of Religion, helped organize and served as the first chair of the American Sociological Association's Section on the Sociology of Religion and is past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Ebaugh received two consecutive research grants from the Pew Charitable Trusts to study religion and the new immigrants in the US. The results from the first grant that focused on the role of religious congregations in the incorporation of new immigrants, is described in Religion and the New Immigrants: Adaptations and Continuities in New Immigrant Congregations (AltaMira Press, 2000). The second book from the project, Religion Across Borders: Transnational Religious Networks (AltaMira Press, 2002) is an analysis of the impact of religious ties among immigrants in the United States and family/friends in their home countries.

With a major grant from the Lilly Endowment, Ebaugh studied inter-faith coalitions and their provision of social services. In addition to a national survey of these coalitions, she and her research team conducted fieldwork in 10-12 coalitions across the country, with focus upon the interrelationships between coalitions and the religious congregations with which they partner in their joint effort to provide social services to the needy. Most recently (2009) Ebaugh published a book on the Gülen Movement, a transnational moderate Islamic movement devoted to education and interfaith dialog. Her next project will trace the growth of the movement worldwide. She routinely teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the Sociology of Religion and the study of World Religions.