About
I am a visiting assistant professor of sociology at Brigham Young University. My research focuses on understanding the changes to and relationships between the fields of family, religion, and politics. I am also interested in developing the meta-theoretical approach of critical realism, exploring the methodological potential of LLM’s for social scientific research, and theorizing about the role of rhetoric and ethics in social scientific inquiry.
I graduated in sociology from the University of Notre Dame in August 2024. My dissertation research looked at the phenomenon of political depolarization among the American mass public (through questions on the Cooperative Election Study), as an emerging field within the sphere of civil society (through a network analysis of all the organizations working to bridge political divides in the contemporary U.S.), and on a theoretical level (through examining the conditions of possibility for depolarization).
I have published on the role of religion in families, theorizations of Western family change in modernity, changes to religion and family in modernity, and on arranged marriage amongst South Asian Muslim immigrants.
Before attending Notre Dame, I received both an M.S. (2018) and a B.A (2016) in sociology at Brigham Young University (BYU-Provo). I have taught classes on family sociology, introductory statistics and data analysis, and social problems and have presented my work at the annual meetings for the American Sociological Association (ASA), National Council of Family Relations (NCFR), and the Society for Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), amongst others.
Publications
PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
2024 Wurm, Greg J. “Religion, Family, and Modernization Theory in the West.” Forthcoming at Theory and Society. DOI: 10.1007/s11186-024-09563-6
2022 Wurm, Greg J. “Theorizing Arranged Marriage: The Case of South Asian Muslim Immigrants in Love Marriage Societies.” Journal of Family Theory and Review. 14(4):644-659. DOI: 10.1111/jftr.12470
2019 David C. Dollahite, Loren D. Marks, Greg J. Wurm. “Generative Devotion: A Theory of Sacred Relational Care in Families of Faith.” Journal of Family Theory and Review. 11(3):429-448. DOI: 10.1111/jftr.12339
2019 Knapp, Stan J., Greg J. Wurm. “Theorizing Family Change: A Review and Reconceptualization.” Journal of Family Theory and Review. 11(2):212-229. DOI: 10.1111/jftr.12329
2018 Wurm, Greg J., David C. Dollahite, and Loren D. Marks. 2018. “The Inner Logic of Religion(s): Theoretical Implications Regarding Eight American Religious-Ethnic Communities.” Marriage & Family Review 54(7):635-347. DOI: 10.1080/01494929.2018.1469570
BOOK CHAPTER
2019 Wurm, Greg J., David C. Dollahite, and Loren D. Marks. 2019. “The Inner Logic of Religion(s): Theoretical Implications Regarding Eight American Religious-Ethnic Communities.” Pp. 19-31 in David Dollahite and Loren Marks (Eds.). Strengths in Diverse Families of Faith: Exploring Religious Differences. New York: Routledge.