Brian Steensland

Brian Steensland is Associate Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 2002 and joined the IU faculty in the same year. His research interests include politics, culture, religion, and inequality in American society. He is the author of The Failed Welfare Revolution, which examines the rise and fall of guaranteed income policies as a strategy to reform the American welfare system in the 1960s and 1970s. Based on original research in presidential archives as well as analyses of media coverage, the book highlights the role that cultural factors played in shaping welfare policy development. Brian currently has two projects underway. The first examines the alliance formed between religious traditionalists and economic libertarians in the rise of modern conservatism (1940s-1970s). The second is a contemporary study of faith-based “social enterprise” initiatives to serve the poor and disadvantaged.

Brian teaches courses on social theory, social policy, religion and society, and American political culture. He has received the Trustees Teaching Award from Indiana University and the Edwin H. Sutherland Excellence in Teaching Award from the Department of Sociology.

Book
Steensland, Brian. 2008. The Failed Welfare Revolution: America's Struggle over Guaranteed Income Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
■ Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book on Culture, American Sociological Association, 2009
■ Political Sociology Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship, 2009

Selected Articles/Chapters
Steensland, Brian. 2008. "Why Do Policy Frames Change? Actor-Idea Coevolution in Debates over Welfare Reform." Social Forces 86:1027-1054.

Steensland, Brian. 2006. "Cultural Categories and the American Welfare State: The Case of Guaranteed Income Policy." American Journal of Sociology 111:1273-1326.
    ■ Best Article Award, Sociology of Culture section, American Sociological Association, 2007
    ■ Honorable Mention, Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award, Political Sociology section, American Sociological Association, 2007

Steensland, Brian. 2002. "The Hydra and the Swords: Social Welfare and Mainline Advocacy, 1964-2000." Pp. 213-36 in The Quiet Hand of God: Faith-based Activism and the Public Role of Mainline Protestantism, edited by Robert Wuthnow and John H. Evans. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.

Steensland, Brian, Jerry Z. Park, Mark D. Regnerus, Lynn D. Robinson, W. Bradford Wilcox, and Robert D. Woodberry. 2000. "The Measure of American Religion: Toward Improving the State of the Art." Social Forces 79:291-318. (RELTRAD syntax)
    ■ Best Article Award, Sociology of Religion section, American Sociological Association, 2001