The Role of Education and Religion in Society
Education
When some people consciously teach, while others adopt the role of learner in socialization.
Secularization
Religion becomes private while other social institutions maintain sets of norms, independent of religious guidance.
In the past few decades, increasing proportions of people obtained high school diplomas, college degrees, and advanced professional degrees. Education has become a vast and complex social institution that prepares citizens for the roles demanded by other social institutions, such as the family, government, and the economy.
Transmitting Culture
Exposing young people to existing beliefs, norms, and values of their culture. Sometimes nations reassess the ways in which they transmit culture to students.
Promoting Social and Political Integration
Common identity and social integration fostered by education contributes to societal stability and consensus.
Maintaining Social Control
Schools teach students punctuality, discipline, scheduling, responsible work habits, and how to negotiate a bureaucratic organization.
Serving as an Agent of Change
Best indicator of a person’s lifetime earnings is still the number of years of formal schooling that person has received. Education is an instrument of elite domination. The educational system socializes students into values dictated by the powerful and stifle individualism and creativity to promote relatively insignificant change.
The Hidden Curriculum
Standards of behavior deemed proper by society are taught subtly in schools.
Credentialism
Increase in the lowest level of education needed to enter a field. Number of occupations viewed as professions has risen. Credentialism may reinforce social inequality.
Bestowal of Status
Education can distribute members among a variety of social positions by sorting people into appropriate levels and courses of study.
Tracking
Practice of placing students in specific curriculum groups on the basis of test scores and other criteria. Correspondence principle promotes values expected of individuals in each social class and perpetuates social class divisions.
Sexism in the 20th Century
Stereotypes in textbooks, pressure to study traditional women’s subjects, unequal funding for athletics, and employment bias. Women have made strides in continuing education. Labeling approach suggests that if people are treated in particular ways, they may fulfill expectations. Teacher-expectancy effect has an impact on student performance.
Weber’s Characteristics of Bureaucracy
Division of labor, hierarchy of authority, written rules and regulations, impersonality, employment based on technical qualifications.
Challenges in Teaching
Teachers undergo many perplexing stresses. Between a quarter and a third of new teachers quit within their first 3 years. Fewer students choose teaching as a career due to perceived low income.
Student Subculture
Complex and diverse. High school cliques and social groups form according to race, social class, physical attractiveness, placement in courses, athletic ability, and leadership roles in the school and community. Gay and lesbian students are particularly vulnerable. Peer group pressure to conform is intense at this age. In colleges: Collegiate subculture, academic subculture, vocational subculture, nonconformist subculture. Each student is exposed to competing subcultures and must determine which seems most in line with his or her feelings and interests. About 1.5 million schooled at home. Critics counter that homeschooled children are isolated from the larger community. Good alternative for children with ADHD and learning disabilities. Quality control is an issue.
Religion
Unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things (Durkheim). Collective act includes many forms of behavior in which people interact with others. Sacred: elements beyond everyday life that inspire awe, respect, and even fear. Profane: includes the ordinary and commonplace. Sociologists study religion through norms and values of religious faiths through their substantive beliefs and the social functions it fulfills. 89% of the world’s population adheres to some religion. Christianity is the largest faith, Islam is the 2nd largest. Judaism forms the historical foundation for Christianity and Islam. Hinduism embraces a number of gods and reincarnation. Buddhism developed as a reaction against Hinduism and uses meditation to overcome selfish cravings. Manifest functions are open and stated functions; religion defines the spiritual world and gives meaning to the divine. Latent functions are unintended, covert, or hidden functions; might include providing a meeting ground for unmarried members. Durkheim viewed religion as an integrative force in human society. It gives meaning and purpose to lives, offers ultimate values and ends, and strengthens social integration. Integrative power is seen in work with immigrant groups. Religion’s emphasis on divine and supernatural allows us to “do something” about calamities we face. Encourages people to view personal misfortunes as relatively unimportant. Religious function of social support is also apparent in people’s use of social media. The Weberian Thesis: Protestant ethic emphasizes a disciplined work ethic, this-worldly concerns, and a rational orientation for life. “Spirit of capitalism” has emerged as a generalized cultural trait. Liberation theology is the use of a church in a political effort to eliminate poverty, discrimination, and other forms of injustice from a secular society. Theorists stressed the fundamental role women play in religious socialization. Women generally take a subordinate role in religious governance. Women play a vital role as volunteers, staff, and educators. In the U.S., women are more likely than men to be affiliated with religion. Religious beliefs are statements to which members of a particular religion adhere. Fundamentalism emphasizes doctrinal conformity and literal interpretation of sacred texts. It is found worldwide. Spirituality is not as strong in industrialized nations as in developing nations. Religious rituals are practices required or expected of members of a faith. In recent decades, participation in religious rituals tended to hold steady or decline. Religious experience is the feeling or perception of being in direct contact with ultimate reality or of being overcome with religious emotion. Ecclesiae are religious organizations claiming to include most or all members of a society. Denominations are large, organized religions not officially linked with the state or government. Sects are relatively small religious groups that broke away from some other religious organization to renew the original vision of the faith. They are fundamentally at odds with society and do not seek to become established national religions. Established sects are out-growths of sects that remain isolated. New Religious Movements (NRMs) or cults are small, secretive religious groups that represent either a new religion or a major innovation of an existing faith. They tend to be small and are viewed as less respectable than more established faiths. Ecclesiae, denominations, and sects are best viewed as types along a continuum. From an individual perspective, religion and spirituality are remarkably fluid. There has been a rapid rise of the electronic church. Many people shop online for a church or faith.