CHAPTER 12: FAMILIES AND RELIGION
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Explain what is meant by family as a social institution.
2. Discuss the different family configurations existing in American families in the 21st
century.
3. Explain how family is shaped by race, class, gender, and age stratification systems.
4. Compare kinship systems cross-culturally, elaborate on how they are culturally
relative social structures, and identify the different normative types of marriage
relationships.
5. Compare and contrast the extended family and the nuclear family, discuss the changes
that industrialization brought to these systems, and industrialization’s effect on the
status of women and its contribution to institutionalized prostitution.
6. Discuss and analyze family from the three major sociological schools of
thought/perspectives, including the feminism theory of family.
7. Identify the major features and functions of U.S. marriage systems in the U.S.,
including how gender, economics, and power relationships shape the relationships.
(Be careful not to romanticize marriage in your thinking.)
8. Identify the patterns of divorce within the U.S. and factors that contribute to divorce
rate statistics.
9. Discuss and provide grounded reasons for the following types of family violence
(social problems): partner abuse, child abuse, incest, and elder abuse.
10. Elaborate on the changes in family structure in the U.S. and the positive and negative
consequences associated with changing family structures.
11. Discuss global changes in family structure worldwide resulting from global
economic and demographic influences (e.g. transnational families) and its impact on
the entire social structure of this country.
12. Discuss family issues such as balancing work and family and the resulting social
policies including: the Family Medical Leave Act, child care, and elder care.
13. Define religion sociologically listing the major elements of all religions (e.g. religion
is institutionalized) and explain how it is related to other social facts such as social
class, race, age, gender, education, work and the economy, and politics.
14. Describe the significance of religion and the dominance of Christianity in the U.S.
and the integration of other religions into the U.S. landscape as a result of
immigration patterns.
15. List and describe the different belief systems about the number of gods or goddesses
worshipped and the gender dominances of religions.
16. Analyze religion from the three major sociological theoretical perspectives (include
feministic perspective as part of conflict) and include the theoretical contribution of
theorists such as Durkheim, Weber, and Marx.
17. Describe the correlations between race and ethnicity and religion.
18. Discuss religious extremism as an aspect of religious diversity and elaborate upon the
consequences (locally and globally) of the actions and beliefs of the extremists.
19. Discuss the ideal type characteristics – proposed by sociologists – of the three major
types of religious organizations (churches, sects, and cults).
20. Elaborate on the process of religious socialization and conversion.
21. Explain the role of religion in social change and its particular significance for African
Americans and women.