Dawn Llewellyn is Senior Lecturer in Christian Studies, Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Chester, UK. Her research has focused on Christian and post-Christian women's reading practices, third wave feminism and religion, feminist generations, motherhood and elective childlessness in Christianity, and methodologies in religious studies. She is the author of Reading, Feminism, and Spirituality: Troubling the Waves, and with Deborah F. Sawyer co-edited Reading Spiritualities: Constructing and Representing the Sacred (Ashgate 2008). Sonya Sharma is Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Department of Criminology and Sociology, Kingston University London, UK. Sonya Sharma's research has focused on women's experiences of church life and sexuality, religion in healthcare and religion in families and young people. She is co-editor of Women and Religion in the West: Challenging Secularization (Ashgate 2008) and co-author of Christian and the University Experience: Understanding Student Faith.
"""From public policy to everyday experience, religion is interwoven with systems of inequality and with means for countering that inequality. This wonderful collection allows us to see that complicated reality from multiple geographical and social locations, providing rich resources of new knowledge and sharp new perspectives."" Nancy Ammerman, Boston University, USA ""This insightful collection of essays explore matters of faith, equalities and inequalities through attention to the structures, institutions and lived experiences that are part of contemporary religious landscapes. A diversity of significant issues are investigated across different terrains including policy, legislation, social and political contexts, and embodied experiences. This is a must read for scholars interested in matters of religion, belief and faith in public and private life."" Peter Hopkins, Newcastle University, UK ""This fresh and invigorating collection reminds us the study of religious ‘difference’ often neglects the issue of power and inclusion. Taking as its theme the way that the religious or the secular may enable or thwart access to the public sphere, it presents a rich feast of new research and reflection."" Linda Woodhead, Lancaster University, UK"