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Abby Day

Staff details

Abby Day

Position

Emerita Professor of Race, Faith & Culture

Department

Sociology

Email

abby.day (@gold.ac.uk)

Abby Day’s work is focused on building capacity and representing sociology of religion both inside and outside academe

Abby Day’s work is focused on building capacity and representing sociology of religion both inside and outside universities, nationally and internationally, through teaching, research, publishing and supervision.

She is Executive Editor of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, past-Chair of the Sociology of Religion study group within the British Sociological Association, a member of the ESRC Peer Review College, and past Trustee of the Sociological Review. She also serves as a Member, Office for National Statistics, on census questions regarding Ethnicity, Identity, Language and Religion.

Academic qualifications

  • PhD Religious Studies, Lancaster University 2006

Teaching and supervision

Abby's current undergraduate modules are: ‘Analysing the Complexity of Contemporary Religious Life (3rd year)’ and ‘Religion Crime and Law’ (2nd year) Her post-graduate teaching focuses on two sociology of religion themes for the MA Thinking Sociologically.
Abby teaches on the 1st year Module, Crime Control and the State.

Research interests

Research focuses on religion and national identity, generations, gender, crime and social justice.

Featured publications

2022: How to Get Published and Win Research Funding. London: Routledge (Out June 19 2023)
Most journal articles and research proposals are rejected. That represents a waste of everyone’s time, energy, and spirit, especially now when, more than ever, academic careers are precarious. In this

2022: Why Baby Boomers Turned from Religion: Shaping Belief and Belonging, 1945-2021. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 2022
Offers an in-depth, current study of Ex-Christian Baby Boomers Reveals the reasons they left religion and with what they replaced it Challenges accepted theology on the subject

2022: Diversity, Inclusion, and Decolonisation: Practical Tools for Improving Teaching, Research and Scholarship. Edited with Lois Lee, David Thomas and J
Despite progress, the Western higher education system is still largely dominated by scholars from the privileged classes of the Global North. This book presents examples of efforts to diversify points

2020: Sociology of Religion: Overview and Analysis of Contemporary Religion. London: Routledge. 2021
he first sociology of religion textbook to begin the task of diversifying and decolonizing the study of religion, Sociology of Religion develops a sociological frame that draws together the personal,

Publications and research outputs

Book

Day, Abby. 2022. Why Baby Boomers Turned from Religion: Shaping Belief and Belonging, 1945-2021. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192866684

Day, Abby. 2017. The Religious Lives of Older Laywomen: The Last Active Anglican Generation. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198739586

Day, Abby. 2011. Believing in Belonging: Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199577873

Edited Book

Day, Abby, ed. 2016. Contemporary Issues in the Worldwide Anglican Communion: Powers and Pieties. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 9781472444134

Day, Abby and Lövheim, Mia, eds. 2015. Modernities, Memory and Mutations: Grace Davie and the Study of Religion. Farnham: Ashgate. ISBN 9781472436177

Book Section

Day, Abby. 2019. Anthropology of Ministry. In: Martyn Percy; Emma Percy and Ian Markham, eds. The Study of Ministry: A Comprehensive Survey of Theory and Best Practice. London: SPCK Publishing, pp. 41-55. ISBN 9780281081363

Article

Day, Abby. 2020. Towards increasing diversity in the study of religion. Religion, 50(1), pp. 46-52. ISSN 0048-721X

Day, Abby. 2019. Textbooks for teaching the sociology of religion. Religion, 49(2), pp. 296-307. ISSN 0048-721X

Day, Abby. 2016. Response to: Around Abby Day’s Believing in Belonging: Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World. Religion and Society: Advances in Research, 7, pp. 97-111. ISSN 2150-9298 2150-9301

Media engagements

2022: Guardian on census and Christian decline, Baby Boomers and Millennials
Abby Day commented on new census data for various print and broadcast publications. The Guardian (29/11/2022) analysis included a comment from Abby on the decline of Christianity and the baby boomer g

2022: BBC Radio Live on census and Christian decline
BBC Radio 5 Live (29/11/2022) also interviewed Abby [from 06:08] about the decline in Christianity across England and Wales.

2022: The World
Abby said: “This is a story about generations over time, in a sense, it’s quite predictable.” US Podcast The World (29/11/2022)