Poor and unwanted: Sociologist Susan Crawford Sullivan

For her award-winning book Living Faith: Everyday Religion and Mothers in Poverty, Susan Crawford Sullivan interviewed a diverse group of women who were living in poverty. She asked them about the challenges of parenting, working and surviving on little income. She discovered that many drew on strong religious beliefs as they struggled with everyday problems. Sullivan teaches sociology at the College of the Holy Cross.

How would you describe the religious lives of the women who participated in your study?

Most of the women identified themselves as having no religion, yet 80 percent of those still said that religion was important in their lives. Most women offered theological explanations for the things that happened in their lives. A woman might say that she became homeless as a part of God’s plan, because now she was going to get better housing through the shelter than she could have on her own. One woman told me that her homelessness was part of God’s plan because now she had more opportunities to share her faith, including sharing it with me. They framed suffering in terms of character development.