Search

How does the American public understand the term chaplain? What fraction interact with chaplains and in what settings? What is the content of those interactions and do care recipients find them valuable? We answer these questions with data from a nationally representative survey (N = 1096) conducted in March 2022 and interviews with a subset (N = 50) of survey recipients who interacted with chaplains. We find that people in the United States do not have a consistent understanding of the term chaplain. Based on our definition, at least 18% of Americans have interacted with a chaplain. Among those who interacted with a chaplain as defined in the survey, the majority did so through healthcare organizations. Care recipients include people who were ill and their visitors/caregivers. The most common types of support received were prayer, listening and comfort. Overall, survey respondents found chaplains to be moderately or very valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers how chaplains embody the core tenets of cross–cultural religious literacy. This work begins with empathy and humility and in its ideal supports individuals and institutions in their mission driven work. Every day chaplains and spiritual care providers work across many axes of difference, ideally embodying the mutual engagement which builds mutual respect, mutual reliance, and resilience. This essay provides a brief description of chaplains and their work as well as changes in their training and preparation needed to better prepare them to do this everyday work of covenantal pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the provisions of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, this paper draws on new qualitative data collected from seafarers' welfare centres, charities involved in seafarers' welfare service provision, seafarers, port chaplains and seafarers' centre volunteers. It examines the kinds of port-based welfare services currently provided to seafarers, and whether these meet seafarers' expectations/needs. It provides new data on the perspectives of chaplains and stakeholder organisations in relation to the provision of seafarers' services and starkly reveals the contemporary funding challenges experienced by these individuals/groups. The paper critically appraises the current reliance by ports, shipping companies, and government entities on the provision of free welfare services for seafarers. It concludes that Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, guidance relating to the funding of seafarers' welfare services requires strengthening and that the funding of seafarers' welfare services in ports across the world requires remedial action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand and improve the experiences of Black chaplains, it is essential to consider how they experience and are integrated into their workplaces. This article draws from interviews with ten Black chaplains in the military and prisons. In light of historic, state-sanctioned, discrimination in these institutions, we ask how these chaplains experience their workplaces racially. All experience racial burdens in the workplace as part of being the first or only Black chaplain or in response to overt racial discrimination. They identify few to no formal workplace efforts to support them as Black chaplains and spoke of resistance to informal efforts that have been tried over the years. State and federal workplaces must recognize the racial burdens Black chaplains' experiences and take action to respond to and support these systemic workplace issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the gallows and fields of war to the street and bedside, chaplains of color have been present and instrumental in providing spiritual and emotional support in public and private settings across the United States. Their histories and experiences are not well documented and integrated into the field of spiritual care and chaplaincy, a field often understood as predominantly White, male, and Christian. This article introduces this special issue by offering historical context—particularly for Black chaplains—and naming the key themes that weave through the articles included. Naming the experiences of chaplains of color is a central step in responding to historically grounded racial inequities in the work of chaplaincy and spiritual care in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seafarers have long interacted with religious figures in addition to the merchants, government officials, and members of the public they meet when ships come into port. Today these religious figures are primarily Christian chaplains who provide material and spiritual assistance in ports around the globe. This article extends research about the interactions between port chaplains and seafarers by asking—for the first time—how seafarers experience port chaplains. Drawing on lived religion approaches to the study of religion, it is clear that, while most seafarers rely on port chaplains for practical assistance, a significant minority experience them as religious figures who can be trusted, offer blessings, and quietly remind them of God. The lived religion lens reveals aspects of seafarers' spiritual and religious agency which are frequently overlooked because they take place quietly in the interstices of their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents the findings of an ESRC-funded project about religion in the context of the international global shipping industry, with particular focus on the work of port chaplains. We describe the physical, emotional, spiritual and financial risks involved in port chaplaincy work, and the way this form of religious employment is distinctly gendered. But the risks and challenges of port chaplaincy are considered alongside its intrinsic rewards and potential for professional fulfilment, most especially through the traffic of material goods and the sharing of hospitality that enable relationships between chaplains and seafarers. Our work contributes to the scholarly field of workplace chaplaincy by providing an empirical case study of port chaplains who typically operate as 'lone workers' as they minister to seafarers whose labours are so vital to the global economy. We consider the fact that lone workers can be vulnerable to exclusion from effective management practices which otherwise assume face-to-face interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How often do people have contact with chaplains? How valuable do they find that contact? We answer these questions with data from a 2019 NORC AmeriSpeaks survey. Twenty-one percent of respondents had contact with a chaplain in the past two-years, 57% in a healthcare setting. The majority find that contact moderately or very valuable. Christians were more likely than non-Christians and respondents with no religion to have contact with chaplains. People of color who were not Christians or had no religion were more likely than their white counterparts to have contact with a chaplain. Those living in the southern and western United States were also more likely than those living in the northeast to have contact with a chaplain. When contact with a chaplain did take place, Christians were more likely than those of no religion to find the contact moderately or very valuable. Respondents from the midwest, south, and west, those who were more educated, and those who were older were also more likely to find contact with a chaplain valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two-thirds of American hospitals have chaplains. This article explores the organizational and business models that underlie how chaplains are integrated into hospitals. Based on interviews with 14 chaplain managers and the 11 healthcare executives to whom they report at 18 hospitals in 9 systems, we identify three central findings. First, there is significant variation in how spiritual care programs are staffed and integrated into their hospitals. Second, executives and chaplain managers see the value of chaplains in terms of their quality of care, reliability and responsivity to emergent patient and staff needs, and clinical training and experience working within a complex environment. Third, few departments rely on empirical data when making decisions about staffing, tending instead to default to the budgetary status quo. These findings provide the basis for a larger more systematic study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of questions that have been raised about education for professional healthcare chaplaincy, we examined the skills and knowledge Clinical Pastoral Educators believe students need to perform the essential tasks and responsibilities of a chaplain. At 19 recently re-accredited ACPE centers across the country, we asked educators about the knowledge chaplains need to be effective, the specific content areas they teach, and how didactic education is planned and organized within their programs. Beyond a focus on religious diversity, we found little consensus among educators regarding a core knowledge base that should be taught during CPE. While most respondents in our study recognize the importance of didactic education in preparing students to become chaplains, there is a lack of consistency in didactic curricula across programs. Our findings suggest the need for broader conversation and collaboration among educators, national chaplaincy organizations, and theological schools regarding the goals, priorities, and outcomes of CPE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changing U.S. demographics and the growing emphasis on diversity in the healthcare workforce requires professional healthcare chaplains to examine the characteristics of its own workforce. Previous research suggested that chaplains were mainly Caucasian/White and Mainline Protestant. To explore further, this paper presents a baseline sketch of the workforce and identifies important differences among board-certified chaplains (BCCs), certified educators, certified educator candidates (CECs), and clinical pastoral education (CPE) students. Although missing data quickly became the central story of the analysis and thus requires caution in comparison, the preliminary results suggest BCCs and Certified Educators are older and Whiter/more Caucasian than CECs and CPE students. At least one-third of chaplains and Certified Educators identify as Mainline Protestant, but students and CECs reported greater variation in religious affiliation. Chaplains may be similar to users of healthcare and hospitalized persons in terms of gender and race/ethnicity. Recommendations include suggestions for improving the data infrastructure of professional chaplaincy organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances a long-standing sociological interest in the relationship between religion and work. As protections for freedom of religious expression have played a more central role in the US and Europe, questions have been raised about the implications for people who are associated with heterogeneous workplaces. In this context, we consider the work-based practices of multinational groups of migrant workers who self-affiliate to a variety of religions and none. Our research employed non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews with multinational groups of seafarers working on cargo vessels, as well as participant observation with seafarers and chaplains in ports. The findings indicate that religious beliefs offer solace and support to seafarers. However, they also highlight workers' desire for religion to be kept private on board in order to avoid interpersonal conflict. The findings have broader application in a variety of diverse environments where migrant and indigenous workers are employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion is a consistent, positive predictor of health in older adults. Studies focused on religion and spirituality as a coping mechanism find significant positive effects on the lives of older adults. This study investigated how an older person's living situation influences his or her access to spiritual and religious resources and, consequently, his or her health. Utilizing existing data, this pilot project examined the relationship between visits from a chaplain and the mood, pain level, functional ability, and/or discharge status of elders residing in the rehabilitation unit of one long-term care facility. Samples of patients who did and did not have chaplaincy visits were matched based on their level of frailty. Analytic comparisons revealed no significantly different outcomes in terms of mood, pain level, functional ability, or discharge status for patients visited by a chaplain. The outcomes suggest future hypotheses and offer a model for outcomes-based chaplaincy research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chaplains, like professionals in a range of industries, have long sought to maintain and build occupational power by articulating their professional mandate and advocating for their work. I describe how leaders of the Association of Professional Chaplains and its predecessor organizations used multiple strategies to articulate and re-articulate their professional mandate between 1940 and the present to become a companion profession, one that comes alongside another without seeking to challenge its jurisdiction. I find chaplains seeking to develop an economic base, aligning interests across distinct segments of the profession and creating new professional associations, lobbying for legislative support, and offering their services in institutional voids. They further adopted the language of healthcare around questions of identity, charting, and accreditation and, chaplains used not just the frameworks but the methods of healthcare—evidence based research—to try to demonstrate their value. This history can help chaplains and chaplaincy leaders today to form a more comprehensive sense of their history and think more strategically regarding how to make the case for their profession going forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment plays a central role in evaluating and strengthening student learning in higher education, and sociology departments, in particular, have increasingly become interested in engaging in assessment activities to better understand students’ learning. This qualitative study builds on previous research on assessment by asking what students in one American university department see themselves learning in the sociology major. Rather than asking students to reflect on whatwethink they are learning, we asked open-ended questions about skills, topics and modes of education they considered most significant to their learning. The 25 sociology majors in our study included second-year students, graduating fourth-year students and alumni who had graduated five years prior, enabling us to compare what students have learned or are learning across cohorts. Our findings demonstrate that students emphasise a common collection of skills, topics and – especially – modes of learning in the major, despite their various course selections and interests within the discipline, and also that majors’ orientations to sociology vary as they move through, and beyond, the undergraduate curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores how social service providers in two small, geographically distinct cities—Portland, Maine, and Olympia, Washington—understand the importance of welcoming and incorporating new immigrants in their cities. We focus on how providers characterize their responsibilities, how they understand the importance of responding to new immigrants, and what they describe as the challenges and opportunities presented by recent immigration to their cities. Despite differences in Portland and Olympia, we find that providers in both cities combine a sense of moral responsibility to help immigrants, with an emphasis on the economic and cultural resources immigrants bring to cities. These insights expand recent immigration scholarship from a focus on immigrants alone to include the perspectives and logics of social service workers who are often their first points of contact in new places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how municipal, civic, and religious organizations in two New England cities—Portland, Maine and Danbury, Connecticut—provide social services for recent immigrants. We draw on data gathered in interviews with representatives of 48 organizations to demonstrate how different types of organizations in each city articulate and act on their responsibilities for recently arrived immigrants. We find that in Portland, municipal and civic organizations provided most of the social services to new immigrants, while in Danbury, civic and religious organizations did. This is because most immigrants to Portland are refugees while most immigrants to Danbury are economic migrants. These findings contextualize studies of single organizations and point to what immigration scholars can learn by studying broader organizational fields in comparative perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To date, the field of health care chaplaincy has had little information about how pediatric palliative care (PPC) programs meet the spiritual needs of patients and families. We conducted a qualitative study consisting of surveys of 28 well-established PPC programs in the United States followed by interviews with medical directors and professional chaplains in 8 randomly selected programs among those surveyed. In this report, we describe the PPC chaplain activities, evidence regarding chaplain integration with the PPC team, and physician and chaplain perspectives on the chaplains' contributions. Chaplains described their work in terms of processes such as presence, while physicians emphasized outcomes of chaplains' care such as improved communication. Learning to translate what they do into the language of outcomes will help chaplains improve health care colleagues' understanding of chaplains' contributions to care for PPC patients and their families. In addition, future research should describe the spiritual needs and resources of PPC patients and families and examine the contribution chaplains make to improved outcomes for families and children facing life-limiting illnesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores factors that lead Asian Americans, both as a group and as subgroups, to obtain a college degree in comparison to members of other racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Using data from the 2000 wave of the National Education Longitudinal Study, we find that the effects of race on educational attainment virtually disappear once individual and family factors are controlled. However, there is significant heterogeneity in college attainment among Asian Americans. In addition, we find that the effects of socioeconomic status, parental expectations, eighth-grade grade point average, and family structure are generally weaker for Asian Americans relative to non-Asians while parental immigrant status and standardized test scores are stronger. Asians appear to be “protected” from many of the usual factors that negatively affect educational outcomes while receiving an enhanced benefit from being of an immigrant family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the history and practice of Thai Buddhism in America from the early 1970s, when the tradition first arrived, to the present. It is the first systematic historical overview of the tradition in the United States and is based largely on unique information gathered over an eighteen-month period in interviews with the Abbots of eighty-seven Thai Buddhist temples in America. After providing a brief history of Thai immigration, the paper presents and analyzes the history and current locations, leadership, attendership, and activities of Thai Buddhist temples in the United States. At the center of the paper is evidence of the multidimensional ways Thai Buddhism is adapting in the American context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]