Faith; Gender; Religion; Christianity; Social Justice; Higher Education; Youth; Equality and Diversity

Kristin Aune joined Coventry University in 2014, having taught on sociology and youth work and theology programmes at the University of Westminster, Ridley Hall Cambridge and the University of Derby. At Derby she became Reader in Sociology and Director of the Centre for Society, Religion and Belief. She has been a visiting fellow at Grinnell College, Iowa, and Uppsala University. She leads the Centre’s Faith and Peaceful Relations research group.

She has undertaken pioneering work on gender, religion and feminism. Her book on single women’s marginalisation in the church led to a PhD on gender in evangelical Christianity, the findings of which were widely published. Fascinated by how women’s changing lives are affecting their faith commitments, she co-edited Women and Religion in the West: Challenging Secularization, which traces the disaffiliation of women from religious institutions, exploring differences between Christianity, Islam and alternative spirituality. Her book with Catherine Redfern, Reclaiming the F Word, was a ground-breaking study of the resurgence of feminism in Britain and attracted major public attention. Several articles about feminists’ approaches to religion and spirituality emerged. In 2015 she ran, with colleagues at Uppsala and Coimbra universities, the ‘Is secularism bad for women?’ workshops, from which a special issue of the journal Social Compass appeared in 2017. She was the Principal Investigator on the 2016-18 project 'Domestic Abuse in UK Churches: A Case Study of Cumbria' (with Dr Rebecca Barnes at the University of Leicester and Mandy Marshall, Director of the charity Restored). 

Religion and higher education is her other research area. Her latest book on this is 'Religion and Higher Education in Europe and North America' (ed., with Jacqueline Stevenson, Routledge 2017). From 2009-2012 she was Co-Investigator on 'Christianity and the University Experience in Contemporary England', a three-year AHRC and ESRC project with Durham and Chester universities exploring Christian students’ experiences of university and how faith shapes, and is shaped by, university life. From 2016-18 she is co-directing, with Revd Dr Jeremy Law at Canterbury Christ Church and Dr Mathew Guest at Durham, the project Chaplains on Campus, exploring university chaplaincy in UK universities. She is also Principal Investigator on the project 'Tackling religion-based hate crime on the muliti-faith campus' (funder: Office for Students, 2018-2020) and Co-Investigator on a study of religious student societies (led by the think tank Theos). 

I am motivated by how research can contribute to social justice and bring about positive social change. Specifically, I want to do research which simultaneously promotes gender equality and religious freedom, bridging the gap between religion, which can be neglected by those concerned with women’s rights, and women’s rights, which can be neglected by religious groups and those who study them. Marginalisation relating to faith, gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity, disability and nation negatively affects many people. It is the responsibility of researchers to uncover this, not only to advance social justice, but also to reshape society, policy and research.