Korean American Evangelicals New Models for Civic Life

by Elaine Howard Ecklund

Studies of religion among our nation's newest immigrants largely focus on how religion serves the immigrant community -- for example by creating job networks and helping retain ethnic identity in the second generation. In this book Ecklund widens the inquiry to look at how Korean Americans use religion to negotiate civic responsibility, as well as to create racial and ethnic identity. She compares the views and activities of second generation Korean Americans in two different congregational settings, one ethnically Korean and the other multi-ethnic. She also conducted more than 100 in-depth interviews with Korean American members of these and seven other churches around the country, and draws extensively on the secondary literature on immigrant religion, American civic life, and Korean American religion. Her book is a unique contribution to the literature on religion, race, and ethnicity and on immigration and civic life.

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 2006

About the author

Elaine Howard Ecklund is the Herbert S. Autrey Chair in Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Rice University, as well as founding director of the Religion and Public Life Program. Her current research addresses how individuals use race, gender, and religious identities to bring changes to religious and scientific institutions. She is the author of dozens of research articles and four books. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, John Templeton Foundation, Templeton World Charity Foundation, and Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Her research has been cited thousands of times by local, national, and international media. In 2013, she received Rice University's Charles O. Duncan Award for Most Outstanding Academic Achievement and Teaching and in 2018 she will give the Gifford Lecture in Scotland. She has directed over 70 undergraduates in conducting research.