Much research focuses on religious bias and in particular the marginalization of Muslims in America. What initially surprised post 9-11 researchers is that participants typically rank atheists lower than Muslims in the areas of private and public trust. Further research is needed to continue to understand the nature and extent of religious-based bias. The present study explores whether a job candidate's religion impacts perception of the candidate's "hireability" and source credibility, including elements of trustworthiness, expertise and attractiveness. Participants were randomly assigned to review an identical version of a resume in which only the implied religion of the candidate was manipulated. One line of the candidate's resume suggested that the candidate was Christian, Muslim, Scientologist, Atheist or no religion was indicated. Participants then rated the candidate using a 3-question Hireability Index (Rudman & Glick, 2001) and the Source-Credibility Scale (SCS: Ohanian, 1990). The SCS contains 3 subscales measuring Attractiveness, Expertise and Trustworthiness. In this study, attractiveness emerged as a variable influenced by the religion of the candidate. Trends in the data also suggest that the candidate's religion may influence the candidate's overall Hireability Index score as well. The results suggest that religion may influence variables related to hireability but seem to more strongly influence personal variables such as ratings of attractiveness when the ratings are made by participants who are young and educated.

In 2010 the Texas Education Agency adopted newly rewritten curriculum standards for the state's social studies courses K-12. The period leading up to the adoption of the standards proved contentious as the new standards moved out of the writing committees and into the public realm. The issues brought forth from initial readings of the standards appeared in the national spotlight as educators and the general public from around the country voiced their concerns. Many concerns centered on the belief that the Texas State Board of Education had rewritten the standards to reflect a more politically conservative world view along with an emphasis on traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs. Members of the state board argued that the previous standards reflected a politically liberal world view and that the board needed to bring balance to the standards. Because of national criticism changes were made but on a limited scale. The purpose of this study was to assess if the rewritten standards demonstrated a politically conservative preference as well as an emphasis on Judeo-Christian beliefs. During the analysis I included information regarding a preference for capitalism, a focus on Texas and U.S. history while minimizing world history and a focus on memorization rather than critical thinking. The analysis revealed that the rewritten standards demonstrate a politically conservative leaning while promoting traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs. Analysis and research further revealed that the standards promote capitalism while limiting the study of other economic systems in the world. In regards to the preference for Texas and U.S. history versus world history my analysis confirmed a limited presence of world history; however, research also revealed that this issue is not limited to the state of Texas, but a number of other states in the U.S. Finally, my analysis demonstrated that many of the standards' objectives begin with verbs found on verb lists from Bloom's Taxonomy. By using Bloom's Taxonomy I learned that a majority of objectives throughout the K-12 standards operate in the lower half of the Taxonomy rather than the upper half meaning that there is an emphasis on lower order thinking skills rather than higher order thinking skills.