Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Effects of Evangelical Conversion on Latin American Masculinity, and its Social Consequences.

宗教原教旨主义在过去几十年中迅速发展，特别是在发展中世界，重新恢复宗教信仰是应对贫困和社会危机状况的普遍做法。与此同时，人们对男性、女性及其在社会中的适当角色的态度也发生了变化。在拉丁美洲，这两种现象(宗教增长和性别意识形态的变化)似乎是有联系的。随着越来越多的男性皈依福音派基督教，他们也改变了自己的态度和行为，特别是他们对男子气概的观念和对女性的态度。该项目将通过比较天主教和福音派新教男女的生活，考察萨尔瓦多圣米格尔市宗教和性别意识形态之间的联系。这位研究人员是一名会说英语和西班牙语的西班牙裔美国研究生，他将使用访谈、生活史和调查来仔细记录和了解宗教皈依的过程和后果。宗教从等级森严的传统信仰转变为更加平等主义的个性化信仰，是当今世界范围内的一种现象。这项研究将有助于我们对这一过程的理解。由于这项研究将在战后经济低迷的国家进行，因此也有可能与处于类似情况的其他社会进行比较。最后，这项研究将有助于拉美裔研究生的科学教育，这是美国科学界代表性较低的少数群体。

Religious fundamentalism has grown rapidly over the past several decades, particularly in the developing world where renewed religious faith is a common response to conditions of poverty and social crisis. At the same time, attitudes concerning men, women, and their appropriate roles in society, also have changed. In Latin America, these two phenomena (religious growth and changes in gender ideology) appear to be linked. As men convert in increasing numbers to evangelical Christianity, they also alter their attitudes and behaviors, particularly their notions of manhood and their attitudes towards women. This project will examine the link between religion and gender ideology in the city of San Miguel, El Salvador, by comparing the lives of Catholic and evangelical Protestant men and women. The researcher, an Hispanic American graduate student who is blingual in English and Spanish, will use interviews, life histories, and surveys to meticulously document and understand the process and consequences of religious conversion. Religious conversion from hierarchical traditional faiths to more egalitarian personalized ones is a worldwide phenomenon today. This study will contribute to our understanding of this process. Because the study will take place in a post war state with a depressed economy, it also may be possible to draw comparisons with other societies in similar situations. Finally, the research will contribute to the science education of an Hispanic graduate student, an under represented minority in American science.