Show Summary Details

Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2022. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 28 June 2022

Abstract and Keywords

This essay provides an overview of what is known about atheists in North America. It begins with estimates of the total number of atheists in North America, including Central America, Caribbean nations, Mexico, Canada, and the US. Demographic characteristics of atheists in Canada, Mexico, and the US based on the World Values Survey are also examined. What life is like for atheists in the US, including the discrimination they experience and the issues they must address in developing an atheist identity in a predominantly religious country, are also detailed. The essay concludes with suggestions for future research.

Keywords: atheist, North America, United States, Mexico, Canada, Central America, Caribbean, demographics, discrimination, identity development

Ryan T. Cragun

Ryan T. Cragun is an assistant professor of Sociology at the University of Tampa. His research focuses on the nonreligious, secularization, and Mormonism.

Joseph H. Hammer

Joseph H. Hammer is a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University. His research focuses on stigma, with specific attention to how it impacts diverse individuals' willingness to seek counseling and psychological well-being.

Jesse M. Smith

Jesse M. Smith is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His interests include nonreligion, deviance, and the self.

Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.