Dr. Claire Gilliland is a sociologist of religion and inequality who cares most centrally about getting students hooked on the big questions of sociology: Why is our society set up this way? Who benefits, and who is harmed? What else could be possible?

In her research, she studies how religious leaders talk about social issues from the pulpit. Specific projects include an analysis of local clergy responses to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, a study of UMC clergy surrounding denominational debates over sexuality and inclusion, and an analysis of how the largest Protestant congregations (gigachurches) construct family roles in their Mother’s Day and Father’s Day services. These projects largely rely on publicly available online data and content analysis methods, which have created numerous opportunities for collaboration with Furman students.

At Furman, she teaches courses in these subject areas, including Introduction to Sociology, Sociology of Religion, and Sociology of Gender and Sexuality. Additionally, she has taught Introduction to Poverty Studies (PVS 101) to support the Poverty Studies minor. She regularly teaches the yearlong quantitative methods sequence, SOC 302-303. In this sequence, she loves the chance to mentor students as they craft and carry out independent research projects, while also teaching them statistical tools to both analyze their own project data and become better consumers of the statistics all around us.

Education

• Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• B.A., Furman University