Third Edition
ANTHONY GIDDENS ● MITCHELL DUNEIER ● RICHARD APPELBAUM ● DEBORA CARR
Slides created by Shannon Anderson, Roanoke College
Chapter 12: Education and Religion
1
The big issues
• Why is education so important as a social
institution?
• How are education and inequality connected?
• How does sociology look at religion?
• What does religion look like around the world
today?
• What does it look like in the United States?
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2
The birth of modern education
• In pre-modern societies, formal education was
for the elite and the clergy.
• What existed for the masses was family-based
learning.
• Mass education was nonexistent prior to
modernity, when educational systems first
appeared.
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3
Industry, nation, and schooling
•
•
•
•
Mass education was introduced as
industrialization spread.
Schools provided an appropriately socialized
and educated workforce.
More and more jobs required basic academic
skills.
The modern workforce had learn how to
learn as technologies were constantly
changing.
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4
Industry, nation, and schooling
• Specialization became increasingly important,
alongside a general education.
• As industry needs changed, educational
systems were occasionally left trying to catch
up. This still happens today.
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Sociological theories on
education
• A great deal of variation exists in theoretical
approaches to education.
• Two of the major perspectives:
– Functionalist
– Conflict
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Literacy
• Literacy was relatively unimportant prior to
Reformation and the rise of science.
• Alongside those changes came the printing
press, which helped in expanding literacy.
• Mass education systems were also a major
factor in increasing rates of literacy.
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Education in developing
countries
• During the colonial era there were mixed
feelings about educating indigenous peoples.
• Eventually local elites were educated.
• This choice backfired as the newly educated
elites led revolutionary movements.
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Education in developing
countries
• Educational systems in the former colonies was
and has remained top heavy, with stronger higher
education than the primary and secondary.
• This has led, in part, to today’s problem of “brain
drain” at the top and illiteracy at the bottom.
• Local education programs are now being
promoted in many such nations.
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Education and inequality
•
•
•
Historically, education has been seen as a
primary means for promoting equality.
But research indicates this is often not the
case.
In fact, our current system of education
largely reproduces inequality.
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“Savage inequalities”
• Journalist Jonathan Kozol’s 1991 book showed
massive inequalities in schools in the United
States
• For example:
– East St. Louis: poor, black, no resources
– Westchester County, NY: wealthy, white, an
abundance of resources
• Critics have said his methodology was flawed.
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“Between school effects”
• Earlier on (1966), James Coleman offered a
more systematic way of studying educational
inequality.
• He found that actual school facilities were less
different than expected.
• His conclusion: student background was more
important than school facilities or resources.
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Tracking
• Tracking involves separating students into
different instructional groups, ostensibly based
on ability.
• Students and teachers internalize these labels.
• Privileged children are more likely to be
placed in higher tracks, ultimately reproducing
inequality.
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Education reform
• Starting in the 1960s, desegregation and
busing were used to promote equality.
• Much disagreement remains over what needs
to happen to improve our system today:
–
–
–
–
Vouchers
Charter schools
Privatization
Home-schooling
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Why is religion so important?
• Religion is a “cultural system of commonly
shared beliefs and rituals that provides a sense
of meaning and purpose by creating an idea of
reality that is sacred, all-encompassing, and
supernatural” (p. 344).
• Religion is also a cultural universal dating
back some 40,000 years.
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How sociologists approach
religion
•
There are four broad themes being considered:
1. We are not concerned with the truth of religion.
2. Our focus is on the organization and
institutionalization of religion.
3. We often see religions as unifying but also see
where they can lead to conflicts.
4. Religiosity is explained by social, rather than
psychical or spiritual, factors.
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Classical theories of religion
• Durkheim was interested in the social functions of
religion:
– Provided shared sacred beliefs and practices
– Provided shared moral order and social unity
• Weber studied religion as part of major social change:
– Saw a connection between Protestantism and
capitalism
– Saw Eastern religions as oriented differently
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Classical theories of religion
• Marx, drawing the German philosopher
Feuerbach, saw religion as ideology
reinforcing inequality:
– Religion as the “opiate of the masses”
– Religion as self-alienation
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Contemporary theories of
religion
• Scholars in more recent years have done their
research in religiously plural societies.
• Religious pluralism and secular culture
threaten certain social functions of religion.
• Secularization of some sort is now accepted by
most sociologists.
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How are religions organized?
•
•
•
•
Churches
Sects
Denominations
Cults/New religious movements
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Globalization and religion
• Religious nationalist movements have gained
traction as a reaction to Western encroachment
• Religious nationalism is frequently connected
to global violence
• Rise of Catholic liberation theology in the
Southern hemisphere.
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Religion in the United States
• Despite declines in religious identification,
Americans remain believers at high rates.
• The decline in identification with some religious
group:
1990: 90%  2001: 81%
• The biggest decline was among Christians, while the
most growth was in those with no religious
identification.
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Figure 12.1 Religious Affiliation (percentage of
U.S. population)
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Rise of conservative
Protestantism
• Recent research has shown that more than ½ of
Protestants describe themselves as “born
again.”
• The increase in conservative Protestantism
affects all Americans.
• There has been a decline in liberal and
moderate Protestantism at the same time as the
growth in more conservative denominations.
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Gallup on global religion
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Religion and socioeconomic
status
• Socioeconomic status varies by religious group
membership.
– Jews and liberal Protestants have the highest SES,
then moderate Protestants and Catholics, followed
by conservative and black Protestants.
• Jews are most likely to be Democrats,
conservative Protestants to be Republicans.
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This concludes the Lecture
PowerPoint Presentation for
Chapter 12: Education and Religion
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27
Clicker Questions
1. Which perspective in sociology has argued that education
expanded in response to employers’ need for their workers to
possess certain traits (self-discipline, dependability, and
punctuality, for example) that were best taught in school?
a. functionalists
b. Marxists
c. feminists
d. symbolic interactionists
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28
Clicker Questions
2. What was the main conclusion of the landmark studies of
educational inequality carried out in the 1960s by James
Coleman, and later replicated by Christopher Jencks?
a. Educational and occupational attainment are governed mainly
by family background and nonschool factors.
b. Outside of the poorest areas, black schools are often as well
funded as white schools.
c. Reform of the educational system is essentially useless without
reform of society.
d. Intelligence is largely a product not of heredity but of the
environment and, in particular, the actions of parents.
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Clicker Questions
3. One main reason for the rise of large educational systems was
the process of
a. medical innovation.
b. agricultural expansion.
c. industrialization.
d. technological innovation.
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Clicker Questions
4. How do sociologists define the term religion?
a. events that absorb the public imagination and generate a good deal of
communal activity (in the way of marketing campaigns, television
specials, and e-mail) a long time after they actually happened, such as
Elvis, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., the Beetles, Star
Wars, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),
Oprah, South Park, and so on
b. a cultural system of commonly shared beliefs and rituals that provide a
sense of ultimate meaning and purpose by creating an idea of reality
that is sacred, all-encompassing, and supernatural
c. a search for inner fulfillment
d. any organization that meets in a church and is led by priests or ministers
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31
Clicker Questions
5. Linking strongly held religious convictions with beliefs about a
people’s social and political destiny is
a. religious economy.
b. religious nationalism.
c. civil religion.
d. ethical religions.
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Clicker Questions
6. Which major sociological thinker made the distinction between
“the sacred” (objects such as crosses, bibles, and jewelry that
have a direct spiritual connection to the divine) and “the
profane” (the ordinary objects of everyday life, such as chairs,
tables, and sinks)?
a. Marx
b. Durkheim
c. Weber
d. Foucault
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Clicker Questions
7. What do some sociologists consider to be one of the most
important trends in global religion today?
a. Islamic revivalism
b. the creation of the Israeli state
c. religious nationalism
d. secularization
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Art Presentation Slides
Chapter 12
Education and
Religion
Anthony Giddens
Mitchell Duneier
Richard P. Appelbaum
Deborah Carr
Chapter Opener
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
With the spread of industrialization, the demand for
educated workers increased. The newly expanded education
systems emphasized basic skills like reading, writing, and
mathematics instead of specific skills for work.
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
The problem of schools falling into disrepair is a
chronic one in poverty stricken areas all over the country.
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Globalization and Everyday Life
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
Globalization and Everyday Life
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
In 1970 a U.S. judge in North Carolina ordered that
black students be bused to white schools and that
white students be bused to black schools.
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2011 W.W. Norton & Company
In his research on the social and economic influence of religions
around the world, Max Weber categorized Eastern religions as Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
“other- worldly” and Christianity as a “salvation religion.”
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Óscar Romero, Archbishop of El Salvador, led a
movement against the repressive political regime.
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
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Figure 12.1 Religious Affiliation (percentage of
U.S. population)
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
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Table 12.1 Changes in Religious Self-Identification
in the United States, 1970– 2005
Essentials Of Sociology, 3rd Edition
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This concludes the Art Presentation Slides
Slide Set for Chapter 12
Essentials Of Sociology
THIRD EDITION
by
Anthony Giddens
Mitchell Duneier
Richard P. Appelbaum
Deborah Carr