How Religion, Social Class, and Race Intersect in the Shaping of Young Women's Understandings of Sex, Reproduction, and Contraception.

Using a complex religion framework, this study examines how and why three dimensions of religiosity-biblical literalism, personal religiosity, and religious service attendance-are related to young women's reproductive and contraceptive knowledge differently by social class and race. We triangulate the analysis of survey data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life study (RDSL) and semi-structured interview data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) to identify and explain patterns. From the quantitative data, we find that all three dimensions of religiosity link to young women's understandings of sex, reproduction, and contraception in unique ways according to parental education and racial identity. There is a lack of knowledge about female reproductive biology for young women of higher SES with conservative Christian beliefs (regardless of race), but personal religiosity and religious service attendance are related to increased contraceptive knowledge for young black women and decreased knowledge for young white women. From the qualitative data, we find that class and race differences in the meaning of religion and how it informs sexual behavior help explain results from the quantitative data. Our results demonstrate the importance of taking a complex religion approach to studying religion and sex-related outcomes.

COVID-19 Remote Learning Transition in Spring 2020: Class Structures, Student Perceptions, and Inequality in College Courses.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced all face-to-face college courses to transition to remote instruction. This article explores instructional techniques used in the transition, student perceptions of effectiveness/enjoyment/accessibility of those techniques, barriers that students faced due to the transition, and race/class/gender inequality in experiencing those barriers. We used surveys in introductory courses by two instructors (the authors) to compare students' reactions to our transitions and the transitions in their other courses. We found that which instructional technique instructors use is less important than how well they implement it for student learning. Although there is a tradeoff between enjoyment and accessibility, instructors can use techniques to increase accessibility of interactive formats. Internet and technology barriers were extremely common, even for students who did not anticipate problems. Most students experienced barriers to their learning due to the pandemic, including distractions, increased anxiety, and feeling less motivated, especially for nonwhite, female, and first-generation college students.