Browsing by Author "Chan, Esther"

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    Moral Schemas in Articulation and Intuition: How Religious People Evaluate Human Reproductive Genetic Technologies
    (Wiley, 2017) Ecklund, Elaine Howard; Peifer, Jared L.; White, Virginia; Chan, Esther
    As new and more effective human reproductive genetic technologies (RGTs) rapidly develop, religious voices remain an important part of public discussion about the moral standing of such technologies. Here, we compare how individuals from different religious traditions evaluate disease RGTs (detecting genetic diseases inﾠvitro) when compared to enhancement RGTs, allowing parents to select features of a child. Findings are gleaned from analysis of 270 interviews with individuals from 23 Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religious organizations, with supporting data from a national survey of more than 10,000 Americans. We find that respondents engage in clearly defined discursive moral reasoning to evaluate the propriety of disease RGTs while moral intuitions manifest themselves in responses to enhancement RGTs. We argue that schemas provide resources for moral discourses while also shaping moral intuitions expressed through emotions. Our results have implications for how religious people respond to new technologies when their institutional and denominational structures do not have readily discernable moral frameworks to guide responses.
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    Perceptions of Science Education Among African American and White Evangelicals: A Texas Case Study
    (Springer, 2014) Korver-Glenn, Elizabeth; Chan, Esther; Ecklund, Elaine Howard
    Evangelicals have been highlighted at the intersections of religion, science, and education, yet little is known about how evangelicals perceive public science education and how these perceptions compare across racial lines. Here we analyze how African American and white evangelicals view science education through 40 in-depth interviews collected from two evangelical congregations in Texas. Without raising the topic of evolution, we find that African American leaders, white leaders, and white laity engaged in faith-based, evolution-contesting discourse, but African American laity rarely framed science education in faith-based ways. For them, science education was often linked to educational resources or was distant from their lived experiences. Our findings clarify disjuncture and overlap among African American and white evangelicals by exploring perceptions that challenge and affirm the public institution of science education in different ways. Our conclusion stresses the need to examine perceptions of science and education among religious subgroups differentiated along social and historical lines.