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Much is known historically about the formal place for religion and spirituality in various countries. Less is known sociologically about the actual ways religion and spirituality are present in public institutions or about the conceptual and methodological assumptions that underlie how scholars approach the study of religion within public institutions. We conceive of public institutions broadly as those institutions that need to follow state regulations, are publicly accountable, and are supported (totally or partially) with state funds. We aim in this symposium to begin to develop a comparative analytical framework for analyzing ways religion and spirituality shape and are shaped by public institutions across three distinct sectors—hospitals, the military, and prisons—in Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We outline three questions—the descriptive, the analytic, and the methodological—and suggest points of analytic comparison that might facilitate a systematic comparison of public institutions across several countries.

Each of the essays presented enters the conversation about religion in public institutions through a different analytic doorway. The essays presented here enlarge and challenge various aspects of our initial analytic framework and enable us to see our blind spots and propose next steps. Reflecting on the contributions, we outline three additional issues to consider: the centrality of religion to the organizational identity or to organizational goal achievement, the effect of a specific aspect of the institution's organizational structure on religion, and the relevance of larger cross‐national differences for explaining differences in the same institution across national borders. Finally, we call for additional cross‐national case studies that will enable continued development of the comparative framework we propose.

Immigrant adaptation refers to the processes by which newcomers adjust and integrate socially, economically, and politically within a new host society. Factors such as ethnicity, race, gender, education level, marketable skills, religious affiliation, and language competency may impact the ease with which immigrants adjust to a new cultural and social system. Host society responses to newcomers, including a nation's willingness and ability to offer citizenship, jobs, education, housing, and political agency, are important aspects of the immigrant integration dynamic. Additionally, the push and pull factors propelling immigration play a role in immigrant adjustment to a new locale. Terms such as assimilation, acculturation, incorporation, and integration have been used to describe differing ways newcomers adjust to and are absorbed within a nation's economy, political system, and social sphere.