News

New article in The Sociological Review 

November 3rd, 2025

Researchers from the University of York, Dr Anna Strhan and Dr Joanna Malone have recently had a new article published open access in The Sociological Review with colleagues Dr Peter Hemming (University of Surrey) and Professor Sarah Neal (University of Sheffield).  The article explores the nature and scope of therapeutic education in the post-COVID educational context, its relationship with citizenship and character education, and the role of religion, Read it online here.

The research is part of the Becoming Citizens of 'Post-Secular' Britain: Religion in Primary School Life project.

Lucy Potter begins new ESRC fellowship on Blasphemy and Apostasy in the UK Asylum System

October 1, 2025

Lucy Potter has joined the RASSC Lab as a ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow. Her expertise bridges the fields of forced migration studies and non-religion.

Lucy's research explores the journeys of 'apostate' refugees in becoming non-religious in contexts with blasphemy and/or apostasy laws; and their asylum claims in the UK. By analysing the policy and practice surrounding these claims, she unpacks the ways asylum bureaucracies impose stereotypical notions of non-religiosity. 

The core of her work explores how refugees negotiate rigid expectations, outlining the complexities of identity construction and the adequacy of the British asylum system in making accurate decisions.

You can read more about Lucy's research in The Conversation, and listen to her discuss her work on the Humanism Now podcast.

Metin Koca Presents Preliminary Findings of His British Academy Fellowship Research at Turkey's National Political Science Congress

September 22, 2025

At the 4th National Political Science Congress of the Turkish Association of Political Science, hosted by Izmir University of Economics in the city of Izmir on 20-21 September, Metin Koca presented preliminary arguments from his ongoing British Academy International Fellowship research at the University of York.

Speaking in the panel Religion and Politics in Turkey, Koca delivered a talk titled “‘Mistaken but Righteous: Islamism’s Encounter with Nonreligion in the Shift from Divine to Humane Politics.” His presentation examined how successive generations of Islamist governance reconfigure the boundaries between religious and nonreligious frameworks, highlighting the paradoxical ways state-sponsored religious socialisation creates new grounds for disaffiliation.

This was the first occasion on which Koca shared his fellowship research in Turkey. With his participation, the University of York was among the 21 universities from outside Turkey represented at the congress.

Anna Strhan discusses Growing Up Godless on the New Books Network podcast and at the European Humanist Services Network

September 10, 2025

In a recent New Books Network podcast, Anna Strhan and Rachael Shillitoe discussed their new book, Growing Up Godless: Non-Religious Childhoods in Contemporary England (Princeton University Press) with Prof. Dave O'Brien. 

Anna also spoke about the book at the European Humanist Services Network seminar in Berlin in September.

You can listen to the podcast here and find out more about the book in a brief interview Anna and Rachael did for The Society Pages.

Alex Arthur-Hastie co-organises British Sociological Association Sociology of Religion Study Group 50th Anniversary Annual Conference

July 16, 2025

In the role of co- Events Officer for the British Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion Study Group (SocRel), Alex spent much of the summer organising and running the study group's 50th anniversary annual conference with co-organiser, Dr Jennifer Riley. The conference, held at Durham university in July, focused on the history of both the study group (and the field) and the future directions for the sociology of religion, and several RASSC members presented their research there. 

The support of scholarly communities like SocRel becomes all the more important during turbulent times for UK higher education, and Alex and co-organiser Jennie worked through some adversity to ensure that the annual conference came to be and were able to offer a record number of funded places for PGRs and scholars without access to institutional support to be able to attend. Alex and Jennie have already begun work on SocRel '26, the venue for which they expect to announce soon.