Rebecca Catto
Department of Sociology and Criminology
Assistant Professor
Campus:
Kent
Biography
My research is grounded in the sociology of religion and connected by an overarching interest in how the secular and religious interact, particularly in Europe and North America, attentive to power relations and social justice issues in these dynamics.
I'm a Brit in Ohio figuring it out, and delighted to work with graduate students.
I am also Faculty Advisor for Kent State's Sociology undergraduate organization The Sociology Collective. Please get in touch if you're a student interested in being involved.
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RebeccaCatto
Education
Ph.D. Sociology, University of Exeter
MA. Anthropology and Sociology of Religion, King's College London
BA. Theology, University of Oxford
Research Methods
interviews
participant observation
focus groups
Publications
- Catto, Rebecca, James Riley, Fern Elsdon-Baker, Stephen Jones, and Carola Leicht (2022). 'Science, religion, and nonreligion: engaging subdisciplines to move further beyond mythbusting', Acta Sociologica, online first
- Catto, Rebecca (2021). 'Glocal Power and the Sociology of Religion: How Robertson’s Theory of Globalization Helps Us to See beyond Secularization'. In Globalization/Glocalization: Developments in Theory and Application, edited by P. Beyer. Leiden: Brill.
- Jones, Stephen, Fern Elsdon-Baker, Rebecca Catto, and Tom Kaden (2020). What science means to me: Understanding personal identification with (evolutionary) science using the sociology of (non)religion. Public Understanding of Science.
- Catto, Rebecca, Stephen Jones, Tom Kaden, and Fern Elsdon-Baker (2019). Diversification and internationalization in the sociological study of science and religion. Sociology Compass.
- Jones, Stephen H., Rebecca Catto, & Tom Kaden (editors). (2019) Science, Belief and Society: International Perspectives on Religion, Non-religion and the Public Understanding of Science. Bristol University Press, Bristol.
- Jones, Stephen, Rebecca Catto, Tom Kaden, and Fern Elsdon-Baker (2019). ‘That’s how Muslims are required to view the world’: Race, culture and belief in non-Muslims’ descriptions of Islam and science. The Sociological Review. 67(1): 161-177.
- Catto, Rebecca (2020). Science as Secular: Dynamics of Reflection, Tolerance, and Contestation in British and Canadian Scientific Workplaces. In Identity in a Secular Age: Science, Religion, and Public Perceptions edited by F. Elsdon-Baker and B. Lightman
- Kaden, Tom, Stephen Jones, Rebecca Catto, and Fern Elsdon-Baker (2017). Knowledge as Explanandum: Disentangling Lay and Professional Perspectives on Science and Religion. Studies in Religion. Online first.
- Catto, Rebecca (2017). Islam in Europe and the Amman Message: Overview, Challenges and Potentials. In Muslim Identity in a Turbulent Age: Islamic Extremism and Western Islamophobia, edited by M. Hardy, F. Mughal and S. Markiewicz. London: Jessica Kingsley
- Eccles, Janet and Rebecca Catto (2017). The significance of sacred secular space in the formation of British atheist identities. In Materiality and the Study of Religion: The Stuff of the Sacred, edited by T. Hutchings and J. McKenzie. London and New York
- Davie, Grace, Rebecca Catto, and Linda Woodhead (2016). Secularism and Secularization. In Religions in the Modern World: Traditions and Transformations, edited by L. Woodhead, C. Partridge, and H. Kawanami. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 551-570.
Affiliations
University of Birmingham
Awards/Achievements
- 2022 - 2023 Center for Teaching and Learning Faculty Fellow
- Fall 2022 Research and Creative Activity Appointment
- June 2022 Invited to become a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR)
- 2014 -2022 Co-Principal Investigator on the £3.4 million "Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum, Global Perspectives" project funded by the Templeton Religion Trust.
- 2020 'How do you know? A podcast exploring the numbers behind our beliefs, and everything in between’, Co-Investigator, $12,0000, Mozilla Foundation
- 2014 - 2017 Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum, Co-Investigator, £1.9 million, Templeton Religion Trust
