CH-7-8 Families – SOC Sociology 2020 : Chapter Notes

This Document Contains Chapters 7 to 8 Chapter 7 Families CHAPTER OUTLINE LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Describe the various compositions of family. 2. Discuss the significance of kinship patterns. 3. Discuss the interrelationship of marriage and family. 4. Describe the variations in family life and intimate relationships. 5. Discuss varying child-rearing patterns in family life. 6. Discuss the impact of diverse lifestyles on the social institution of the family. 7. Describe the trends and factors associated with divorce. CHAPTER SUMMARY Because families are varied in structure and style, we need a sociological approach that is sufficiently broad to encompass all those things we experience as family. The substantive definition of the family is based on blood, meaning shared genetic heritage, and law, meaning social recognition and affirmation of the bond, including both marriage and adoption. The state of being related to others is called kinship. The family and the kin group are not necessarily one and the same. The United States follows the pattern of bilateral descent, which means that both sides of a person’s family are regarded as equally important. In patrilineal descent, only the father’s relatives are significant in terms of property, inheritance, and emotional ties. In societies that favor matrilineal descent, only the mother’s relatives are significant. An extended family is a family in which relatives (e.g., grandparents, aunts, or uncles) live in the same home as parents and their children. The nuclear family includes a married couple and their unmarried children living together. Most people in the United States assume the nuclear family is by far the most common arrangement. In fact, 29.1 percent of U.S. families consist of a married couple with children under the age of 18 years, and only 9 percent of families have a male breadwinner and a stay-at-home mother. Family types are relevant to various forms of marriage, which include monogamy, serial monogamy, and polygamy (which includes polygyny and polyandry). The functionalist definition of the family focuses on what families do for society and their members. This more inclusive definition encompasses a broader range of intimate groups than the substantive definition. William Ogburn identified six primary functions that families perform: (1) reproduction, (2) socialization, (3) protection, (4) regulation of sexual behavior, (5) affection and companionship, (6) provision of social status. Authority patterns within families have often been shaped by gender. A society that expects males to dominate in all family decision making is termed a patriarchy. By contrast, in a matriarchy, women have greater authority than men. Within the egalitarian family, spouses are regarded as equals; however, wives may hold authority in some spheres and husbands in others. Our social positions shape our choices when selecting mates. Many people now use the Internet for matchmaking services. In many traditional societies, parents still arrange marriages for their children. Our potential pool is shaped by social norms. Endogamy specifies the groups within which a spouse must be found and prohibits marriage with outsiders. Exogamy requires mate selection outside certain groups, such as one’s own family or certain kinfolk. The incest taboo prohibits sexual relationships between certain culturally specified relatives. Homogamy—the conscious or unconscious tendency to select a mate with personal characteristics and interests similar to one’s own—also influences the selection of marriage partner. Within the United States, social class, race, and ethnicity create variations in family life. Social class differences matter when it comes to parenting. The subordinate status of racial and ethnic minorities profoundly affects their family lives in the United States. The African-American family suffers from many negative and inaccurate stereotypes. Although Mexican American men have been described as exhibiting a sense of virility, personal worth, and pride in their maleness that is called machismo, Mexican Americans are also more familistic than many other subcultures, Familism refers to pride in the extended family, expressed through the maintenance of close ties and strong obligations to kinfolk outside the immediate family. Caring for children is a universal function of the family, yet the ways in which different societies assign this function can vary significantly. Parenthood is one of the most important social roles in the United States. With the lifting of laws stating that only married couples could adopt in the United States, adoption, a legal process that allows for the transfer of the legal rights, responsibilities, and privileges of parenthood to a new legal parent or parents, became more common amongst homosexual couples and single people, although the national numbers have been declining overall. A recent development has been the extension of parenthood, involving adult children continuing to live at home or returning home after college or divorce. The idea of a family consisting of a wage-earning husband and a stay-at-home wife has largely given way to the dual-income household. The diminishing of the “unwed mother” stigma has paved the way for more acceptance of single-parent families, in which only one parent is present to care for the children. As a result of single parents who marry or divorced parents who remarry, stepfamilies are also an integral part of family structures. One of the most dramatic social trends in recent years has been the tremendous increase in male–female couples who choose to live together without marrying. This practice of cohabitation rose sixfold in the 1960s and increased another 72 percent between 1990 and 2000. More and more people are postponing entry into marriage or choosing not to marry at all. The percentage of the U.S. adult population that has never married grew from 15 percent in 1960 to 28 percent in 2010. There has also been a significant increase in childlessness in the United States, and many couples make a conscious decision not to have children, calling themselves child-free rather than childless. Same-sex couples highlight the difficulty of defining families in too narrow terms. There is a growing acceptance that such relationships do constitute families. As of July 2013, 13 states and the District of Columbia have provided gay and lesbian couples the same right to marry as guaranteed to heterosexual couples. In addition, many jurisdictions have passed legislation allowing for the registration of domestic partnerships. Divorce is also in integral element of family dynamics. In the United States and many other countries, overall divorce rates began to increase in the late 1960s but then leveled off; since the late 1980s, the divorce rate has declined by 30 percent. Perhaps the most important factor in the rise in divorce over the last 100 years has been increasing social acceptance of divorce. There is significant sociological debate over how the children of parents who divorce are affected. Some sociologists point to research showing that divorce leads to higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, limited resources for college, and fear of intimacy among the children of the divorced union. Other researchers have found that, for many children, divorce is a welcome change to an unsatisfactory status quo. RESOURCE INTEGRATOR Focus Questions Resources 1. What is the range of family composition, kinship, and authority patterns, in the United States and worldwide? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: substantive definition of the family, kinship, bilateral descent, patrilineal descent, matrilineal descent, extended family, nuclear family, monogamy, serial monogamy, polygamy, polygyny, polyandry, functional definition of families, patriarchy, matriarchy, egalitarian family 2. How do mate selection and family life vary in the United States and throughout the world? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: endogamy, exogamy, incest taboo, homogamy, machismo, familism, adoption, single-parent family 3. In what ways is family life becoming more diverse in the United States? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: cohabitation, domestic partnership 4. What are the major trends in divorce in the United States? LECTURE OUTLINE I. Global View of the Family • In the U.S., new roles, new gender distinctions, and new child-rearing patterns have all combined to create new forms of family life. • Because families are varied in structure and style, we need a sociological approach that is sufficiently broad to encompass all those things we experience as family. A. Substance: What a Family Is • The substantive definition of the family is based on blood, meaning shared genetic heritage, and law, meaning social recognition and affirmation of the bond, including both marriage and adoption. • In this definition, the boundaries are clear, and allow us to track who is related to whom over time. The U.S. Census relies on this definition because it is easier to count such families. 1. Kinship Patterns • Kinship is the state of being related to others. • Kinship is culturally learned, and is not totally determined by biological or marital ties. • The family and the kin group are not necessarily the same. Family is a household unit, but kin do not always live together or function as a collective body on a daily basis. • In bilateral descent, both sides of a person’s family are regarded as equal. The United States follows this system, although most societies give preference to one side or the other. • In patrilineal descent, only the father’s relatives are significant in terms of property, inheritance, and emotional ties. • In matrilineal descent, only the mother’s relatives are significant. 2. Family Types • Historically, family connections served as a valuable resource. • An extended family is a family in which relatives—such as grandparents, aunts, or uncles—live in the same household as parents and their children. • Extended families provide greater emotional and financial support. • The nuclear family consists of a married couple and their unmarried children living together. Most people in the U.S. assume that the nuclear family is by far the most common arrangement, but in fact, married couples with children under 18 make up around 30 percent of total families. 3. Types of Marriage • Monogamy is a form of marriage in which one woman and one man are married only to each other. • Serial monogamy is a form of marriage in which a person may have several spouses in his or her lifetime but only one spouse at a time. • Polygamy is a form of marriage in which an individual may have several husbands or wives simultaneously. Most societies throughout the world have preferred polygamy to monogamy. • There are two types of polygamy: in polygyny, a man may have more than one wife at the same time; in polyandry, a woman may have more than one husband at the same time. • The main limitation to the substantive definition of the family is that there are people who seem to be family but do not fit neatly into blood or law. Example: Stepsiblings. B. Functions: What Families Do • People in the United States seem to agree that the traditional definitions of family are too restrictive. • A functionalist definition of families focuses on how families provide for the [physical, social, and emotional needs of individuals and of society as a whole. • Sociologist William F. Ogburn outlined six primary functions that families perform for us: (1) reproduction, (2) socialization, (3) protection, (4) regulation of sexual behavior, (5) affection and companionship, and (6) provision of social status. • Any group that fulfills these functions is like family to us. Examples: Dorm mates, teammates, long-term friends. C. Conflict: Who Rules? • Historically, power has been distributed according to gender. • In a patriarchy males are expected to dominate all family decision making. • Men typically find divorce easier than women in a patriarchy. • Women have greater authority than men in matriarchies, which are very rare. • Friedrich Engels said the family is the ultimate source of social inequality because of its role in the transfer of power, property, and privilege. Historically, the family has legitimized and perpetuated male dominance. • In an egalitarian family, spouses are regarded as equals. Egalitarian families are becoming more common in the United States. • The social class of parents significantly influences children’s socialization experiences and the degree of protection they receive. Thus, the family helps to maintain inequality. II. Marriage and Family • Over 95 percent of all men and women in the U.S. will marry at least once. • Our social positions shape our choices when picking partners. A. Courtship and Mate Selection • Traditional cultures still define courtship largely through the interaction of parents and matchmakers, who arrange marriages for their children. • Even in cultures where choosing our own mates is more common, such as the United States, we are limited by our social location. • Endogamy is the restriction of mate selection to people within the same group. In the U.S., many people are expected to marry within their own racial, ethnic, or religious group. It is intended to reinforce group cohesiveness. • Exogamy requires mate selection outside certain groups, usually one’s own family or certain kinfolk. • The incest taboo prohibits sexual relationships between certain culturally specified relatives. In the U.S., this means we must marry outside the nuclear family. • Until the 1960s, interracial marriage was outlawed in some states. • Marriage between African Americans and Whites has increased more than tenfold in recent decades. • Despite the overall increase in the acceptance and practice of interracial marriage, most married people continue to select a partner of the same race. • Homogamy is the conscious or unconscious tendency to select a mate with personal characteristics and interests similar to one’s own. • Homogamy is the principle behind most online dating services. B. Variations in Family Life and Intimate Relationships 1. Social Class Differences • Matter when it comes to parenting. • Historically poor and working-class families were more authoritarian while middle-class families were more permissive and less likely to use physical punishment. • The extremes have been reduced, but the material, social, and cultural resources children inherit from their parents help to reproduce social class across generations. • Women play a significant economic role in poor families. Example: In 2011, over 31 percent of all families headed by women with no husband present were below the official poverty line, compared to 6.2 of married couples. 2. Racial and Ethnic Differences • The subordinate status of racial and ethnic minorities affects their family lives. • Female kin ease financial strains among Black families headed by single mothers. • Black family life has also emphasized deep religious commitment and high aspirations for achievement. • Native Americans draw on family ties to cushion hardships. • Mexican American men are known for exhibiting machismo, a sense of virility, personal worth, and pride in their maleness, but Mexican Americans also tend to be more familistic than many other subcultures. • Familism refers to pride in the extended family, expressed through the maintenance of close ties and strong obligations to kinfolk outside the immediate family. C. Child-Rearing Patterns • Caring for children is a universal function of the family, but different societies assign this function to family members differently. 1. Parenthood and Grandparenthood • Parenthood is one of the most important social roles in the U.S. • Alice Rossi identified four factors the complicate the transition to parenthood and the role of socialization: (1) little anticipatory socialization for the social role of caregiver, (2) only limited learning occurs during the pregnancy period, (3) transition to parenthood is abrupt, and (4) society lacks clear and helpful guidelines for successful parenthood. • Extension of parenthood is a recent development. Example: Adult children living at home longer, and divorced children returning home to live with parents. In 2012, approximately 60 percent of men and 52 percent of women aged 18–24 lived with their parents, compared to 52.4 and 34.9 percent, respectively, in 1960. • In 2012, approximately 7 million children in the United States lived in a household with a grandparent, including 1.5 million who had no parents present to assist in raising them. 2. Adoption • Process that allows for the transfer of legal rights, responsibilities, and privileges of parenthood to a new legal parent or parents. • The number of international adoptions is still substantial, but it has declined in recent years. • In 1995, New York (after Vermont and Massachusetts) held that couples do not have to be married to adopt. Under this ruling, unmarried heterosexual couples, lesbian couples, and gay male couples can all legally adopt children in New York. 3. Dual-Income Families • Majority of married people are dual-wage earners. As of 2013, among married couples with children under 6, 55 percent have both husband and wife in the labor force. • Opportunity and need have driven this rise. 4. Single-Parent Families • Stigma attached to unwed mothers has significantly diminished. • In the U.S. in 2012, about 21 percent of White, non-Hispanic children lived with only one parent, as did 31 percent of Hispanic children, 55 percent of African American children, and 13 percent of Asian/Pacific Islander children. • Although 86 percent of single parents in the U.S. are mothers, the number of households headed by single fathers nearly quadrupled between 1970 and 2012. • Single fathers tend to be more isolated than single mothers. 5. Stepfamilies • Stepfamilies are a result of single parents who marry or divorced parents who remarry. • Sociologist Susan Stewart recommends expanding our definition of stepfamilies to include cohabitating couples with children from previous relationships, families whose stepchildren do not live with them full-time, gay or lesbian couples with children from former heterosexual relationships, and stepfamilies with adult children.• Compared to children raised by biological parents, children raised in families with stepmothers are likely to have less health care, education, and money spent on their food. This may be due to the stepmother holding back out of concern for seeming too intrusive or relying on the biological father to carry out parental duties. III. Diverse Lifestyles • Marriage rate has declined since 1970 because people are postponing marriage, and because more couples, including same-sex couples, are forming partnerships without marriage. A. Cohabitation • The practice of a man and a woman living together in a sexual relationship without being married. • Number of unmarried-couple households rose sixfold in the 1960s and another 72 percent between 1990 and 2000. • More common among African Americans and American Indians; least common among Asian Americans. • Cohabitation is also extremely common in Europe. • Many unmarried couples have one or more children in the household. • About half of all people who cohabit have previously been married. B. Remaining Single • Postponing marriage is related to growing economic independence of young people. • Single persons may choose not to limit their sexual intimacy and not to become dependent on another person. • Singles may form support groups to counter societal expectations. C. Remaining Childless • There has been a significant increase in childlessness in the United States. • More and more couples are choosing not to have children, and regard themselves as child-free rather than childless. • Economic considerations have contributed to this attitude. Example: In 2011, parents can anticipate spending $295,560 to feed, clothe, and shelter a child from birth to age 18. If the child attends college, that amount could double. D. Lesbian and Gay Relationships • Such couples highlight the difficulty of defining families in too narrow terms. • Based on 2012 election exit polls, researchers found that 5 percent of the adult voting population identify themselves as either gay or lesbian. • Gay and lesbian couples face discrimination on both a personal and legal level. Their inability to marry in many states denies them rights of married couples. • Vermont gave gay couples the legal benefits of marriage through civil union in 1999. In 2003, Massachusetts granted gay couples the right to marry. As of July 2013, 13 states and the District of Columbia have provided gay and lesbian couples the same right to marry as guaranteed to heterosexual couples. • Many jurisdictions have passed legislation allowing for the registration of domestic partnerships that provide at least some of the legal benefits of marriage. • Polls as of 2013 show that 51 percent now hold the view that same-sex marriage should be legal. IV. Divorce A. Statistical Trends in Divorce • Divorce rates began to increase in the late 1960s, but have declined since the late 1980s. • Declining divorce rates are due partly to the aging of the baby boomer generation and the corresponding decline in the proportion of people of marriageable age, but also indicate an increase in marital stability in recent years • About 63 percent of divorced people remarry. Women are less likely to remarry because many retain custody of their children. B. Factors Associated with Divorce • Greater social acceptance over the past 100 years. • Relaxing of negative attitudes by religious groups. • Growing worldwide acceptance. Example: Increasing divorce rate in South Korea. C. Impact of Divorce on Children • Sociologists dispute the impact that divorce has on the children of dissolved unions. • One major study found higher rates of drug and alcohol abuse, limited resources for college, and greater fear of intimacy as an adult among children whose parents had divorced. • However, some sociologists have concluded that, for many children, divorce signals welcome end to highly dysfunctional relationship. Example: National study (Paul R. Amato and Alan Booth, 1997) showed that in about a third of divorces, children actually benefited from parental separation because it lessened their exposure to conflict. KEY TERMS Adoption In a legal sense, a process that allows for the transfer of the legal rights, responsibilities, and privileges of parenthood to a new legal parent or parents. Bilateral descent A kinship system in which both sides of a person’s family are regarded as equally important. Cohabitation The practice of a man and a woman living together in a sexual relationship without being married. Domestic partnership Two unrelated adults who have chosen to share a mutually caring relationship, reside together, and agree to be jointly responsible for their dependents, basic living expenses, and other common necessities. Egalitarian family An authority pattern in which spouses are regarded as equals. Endogamy The restriction of mate selection to people within the same group. Exogamy The requirement that people select mates outside certain groups. Extended family A family in which relatives—such as grandparents, aunts, or uncles—live in the same household as parents and their children. Familism Pride in the extended family, expressed through the maintenance of close ties and strong obligations to kinfolk outside the immediate family. Functionalist definition of families A definition of families that focuses on how families provide for the physical, social, and emotional needs of individuals and of society as a whole. Homogamy The conscious or unconscious tendency to select a mate with personal characteristics and interests similar to one’s own. Incest taboo The prohibition of sexual relationships between certain culturally specified relatives. Kinship The state of being related to others. Machismo A sense of virility, personal worth, and pride in one’s maleness. Matriarchy A society in which women dominate in family decision making. Matrilineal descent A kinship system in which only the mother’s relatives are significant. Monogamy A form of marriage in which one woman and one man are married only to each other. Nuclear family A married couple and their unmarried children living together. Patriarchy A society in which men dominate in family decision making. Patrilineal descent A kinship system in which only the father’s relatives are significant. Polyandry A form of polygamy in which a woman may have more than one husband at the same time. Polygamy A form of marriage in which an individual may have several husbands or wives simultaneously. Polygyny A form of polygamy in which a man may have more than one wife at the same time. Serial monogamy A form of marriage in which a person may have several spouses in his or her lifetime, but only one spouse at a time. Single-parent family A family in which only one parent is present to care for the children. Substantive definition of the family A definition of the family based on blood, meaning shared genetic heritage, and law, meaning social recognition and affirmation of the bond including both marriage and adoption. ADDITIONAL LECTURE IDEAS 7-1: Tibetan Family Life From 1938 through 1957, His Royal Highness Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark, a trained anthropologist, carefully recorded his observations of family life in mountainous Tibet. His work offers a glimpse at family life in a culture very different from our own. The ideal Tibetan family was a polyandrous one in which all brothers had a common wife. Unrelated men might, in some cases, share a woman. However, the close association of brothers served to reduce the jealousy that might arise if a number of unrelated men were sharing the same wife. The cohusbands of a particular woman would agree among themselves as to which one would have sexual relations with the wife on any given day. Apparently, the women had little say in the matter. Birth control was nonexistent and restriction on sexual behavior prior to marriage was minimal. Nevertheless, in a very poor society that could not afford to feed many children, an unmarried woman bearing a child was expected to abandon the baby in the river. The proportion of Tibetan marriages that were polyandrous varied from 90 percent in the rural areas to only 2 percent in the capital of Lhasa. Since polyandry was so common and more than one-fourth of Tibetan males were Buddhist monks, many women remained single throughout their lives. Some became nuns, some lived permanently in the households of their married brothers, and others turned to prostitution. As in most societies, Tibetan families did not all correspond to the ideal. Most families were monogamous, especially in the cities. Some affluent nobles and merchants practiced polygyny (one man having several wives). In rare cases, the cohusbands of a polyandrous family would collectively take on a second wife. Generally, this occurred when the first was unable to bear a p’horjag, or heir. It should be noted that since Prince Peter recorded these observations, Tibet has become an autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China. As a result, these patterns have undoubtedly undergone change. See H.R.H. Prince Peter of Greece and Denmark, “The Tibetan Family System,” in Meyer F. Nimkoff (ed.). Comparative Family Systems. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965, pp. 192–208. 7-2: Cultivation Theory Cultivation theory, which was developed by media researchers, suggests that there are consistent images, themes, and stereotypes that cut across programming genres. As a whole, these different media images cultivate a view of the family and gender roles, for example, that is consistent. Thus, viewers who watch comedies, soap operas, news stories and weekly news programs, sporting events, dramas, and late night television programs will develop similar and consistent views. Unfortunately, these media views of the family and gender roles are oftentimes partially or completely incorrect and widespread. Males are generally viewed as more ambitious and successful than women, and women are more nurturing and emotional than men. Similarly, the view of the family presented in Leave it to Beaver, The Brady Bunch, One Day at a Time, Roseanne, The Simpsons, and Dawson’s Creek has influenced generations of viewers’ thoughts about the typical family system in the United States. The family has never been as perfect as we were led to believe by the Cleaver family of Leave it to Beaver, and it is generally not as dysfunctional as is presented in The Simpsons. William Ogburn suggests that the family is in the process of dying because it is no longer fulfilling the functions that were its traditional responsibility. These functions, he claims, are now being fulfilled by other social institutions: school systems, welfare departments, police departments, and the like. However, Coontz, Skolnick, and others suggest that the family is changing to meet the needs of a changing society, and that the media distorts our impression of the functions and the success of the family system in any of the supposed golden eras of this institution. (Note: This would be a good point to generate a class discussion about the media’s current and past presentation of the family and gender roles. Students have access to “classic” television programs on cable and they can compare and contrast the changing views of the family and male and female gender roles, and assess the accuracy and impact of these presentations.) See Stephanie Coontz. The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trip. New York: Basic Books, 1992; William F. Ogburn, “The Changing Family,” The Family 19 (1939): 139–143; Nancy Signorielli, “Children, Television, and Gender Roles—Messages and Impact,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 33 (June 1989): 325–331; Nancy Signorielli and N. Morgan (eds.). Cultivation Analysis: New Directions in Media Research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990; Arlene Skolnick, “Public Images, Private Realities: The American Family in Popular Culture and Social Science,” in Changing Images of the Family, Virginia Tufte and Barbara Myerhoff (eds.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979, pp. 297–315; Bryan Strong, Christine DeVault, and Barbara W. Sayad. The Marriage and Family Experience, 8th ed. New York: Wadsworth, 2000. 7-3: Marital Power Sociologists Robert Blood, Jr., and Donald Wolfe developed the concept of marital power to describe the manner in which decision making is distributed within families. They defined power by examining who makes the final decision in each of eight important areas that, the researchers argue, traditionally have been reserved entirely for the husband or for the wife. These areas include what job the husband should take, what house or apartment to live in, where to go on vacation, and which doctor to use if there is an illness in the family. Recent research suggests that money plays a central role in determining marital power. Money has different meanings for members of each sex: For men it typically represents identity and power; for women, security and autonomy. Apparently, money establishes the balance of power not only for married couples but also for unmarried heterosexual couples who are living together. Married women with paying work outside the home enjoy greater marital power than full-time homemakers do. Labor not only enhances women’s self-esteem but also increases their marital power, because some men have greater respect for women who work at paying jobs. Sociologist Isik Aytac studied a national sample of households in the United States and found that husbands of women holding management positions share more of the domestic chores than do other husbands. In addition, as a wife’s proportional contribution to the family income increases, her husband’s share of meal preparation increases. Aytac’s research supports the contention that the traditional division of labor at home can change as women’s position in the labor force improves and women gain greater marital power. Comparative studies have revealed the complexity of marital power issues in other cultures. For example, anthropologist David Gilmore examined decision making in two rural towns in southern Spain. These communities, one with 8,000 residents and the other with 4,000, have an agricultural economy based on olives, wheat, and sunflowers. Gilmore studied a variety of decision-making situations, including prenuptial decisions over household location, administration of domestic finances, and major household purchases. He found that working-class women in these communities, often united with their mothers, are able to prevail in many decisions despite opposition from their husbands. Interestingly, wives’ control over finances in these towns appears to lessen with affluence. Among the wealthier peasants, husbands retain more rights over the family purse strings, especially in terms of bank accounts and investments. In some cases, they make investments without their wives’ knowledge. By contrast, in the working class, where surplus cash is uncommon and household finances are often based on borrowing and buying on credit because of the uncertainties of household employment, the wife “rules” the household economy, and the husband accepts her rule. Sources: Isik A. Aytac, “Wife’s Decision-Making at Work and Contribution to Family Income as Determinate of How Domestic Chores Are Shared.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Boston, 1987; Robert O. Blood, Jr., and Donald M. Wolfe. Husbands and Wives: The Dynamics of Married Living. New York: Free Press, 1960; Philip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz. American Couples: Money, Work, Sex. New York: Morrow, 1983; Deborah D. Godwin and John Scanzoni, “Couple-Consensus during Marital Joint Decision-Making: A Context, Process, Outcome Model,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 31 (November 1983): 943–956; Gladis Kaufman, “Power Relations in Middle-Class American Families,” Wisconsin Sociology 22 (Winter 1985): 13–23. 7-4: The Tradition of the “Bride Price” “Ali Eski and Nuran Aydogmus were young and very much in love and wanted to get married, but their families could not agree on the ‘bride price,’ so they committed suicide.” So began a story in the New York Times late in 1980. The tradition of the bride price has persisted for many centuries in Turkish culture, particularly in certain rural areas in which age-old values remain dominant. In this case, the young woman’s father insisted on a price of 100,000 liras (about $1,100) before he would consent to the marriage. Ali Eski’s family offered 30,000 liras in advance and the rest in a promissory note, a common practice in the area, but their offer was rejected. The tragic death of 22-year-old Ali Eski and 16-year-old Nuran Aydogmus led to a new debate over this cultural practice. Many urban young people and intellectuals attacked the bride price, arguing that it treats women as commodities to be bought and sold. But older rural people defended the custom as a guarantee of a prospective bride’s virginity; in addition, a special commission established by the Turkish government to study the issue filed a report generally favoring the bride price. As a result, this custom continues to be a part of Turkish culture. See Marvin Howe, “Couple’s Suicide over ‘Bride Price’ Shocks Turks,” New York Times (December 21, 1980): 24. 7-5: Endogamy and Exogamy For students raised in the United States, it may be difficult to understand just how powerful rules of exogamy and endogamy can be. Many of the traditional rules of endogamy in the United States—barring marriages and romantic relationships across racial, ethnic, and religious groups—have faded in influence during the past half-century. The key rule of exogamy in the U.S.—an incest taboo against romantic involvement among close relatives—is so engrained in our culture that it seems more like a law of nature than a socially constructed rule. Introducing students to rules governing marriage choice from other cultures can better demonstrate the enormous power that these regulations can have, and the legal and social controversies they can create. South Korea For many centuries, the South Korean government enforced rules of exogamy that prevented countless couples from marrying, solely based on their surnames and ancestral homes. Until 1997 it was illegal for two people with the same surname, who also originated from the same ancestral clan, to marry. Given the small number of surnames in South Korea, this law eliminated a great number of marriage possibilities. It is estimated that 55 percent of South Korea’s population shares just five surnames (Kim, Park, Lee, Choi, and Chong), and that almost 40 percent of the population has their ancestry in one of three clans. When the law was originally enacted 700 years ago, it may have served as a useful check against incest. Today, however, very few people who share the same surname and clan are more than distantly related from a biological standpoint. During the past century, many thousands of South Koreans have been negatively impacted by this ancient law. Some of these dongbohn couples ended their romantic relationships before marriage, upon discovering that they were “family.” Others had informal weddings and lived together as husband and wife, but could not gain legal recognition of that marriage. In addition to the social stigma they may suffer, such couples could not qualify for family tax breaks or insurance plans. At several points during past three decades, informally married dongbohn couples have been granted a temporary amnesty period during which they can register their marriages, thus making them legal. In addition, the law against dongbohn marriages itself was finally overturned in 1997. Even so, in the eyes of many South Koreans dongbohn relationships still violate traditional Confucian standards of incest. It is expected that for the foreseeable future, a social stigma against dongbohn couples will still keep many Kims, Parks, Lees, Chois, and Chongs, from finding true love among other Kims, Parks, Lees, Chois, and Chongs. Taiwan Arthur Wolf’s classic study of historical marriage patterns in Taiwan—Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845–1945—brings to light a social context in which incest taboos kept many married couples from developing a sexual interest in one another, even without a biological relationship between them. Before 1945, it was not uncommon for a set of parents to select a bride for their son at a very young age, often when the “bride” was still an infant. The bride immediately moved in with her “in-laws,” and was raised by them much in the same way that they would raise a daughter. At some point after the son and adopted daughter-in-law passed through puberty, they would be expected to marry and begin a sexual relationship. But the prospective bride and groom often protested, and not infrequently refused to marry altogether. It was not the notion of an arranged marriage to which they were opposed, since arranged marriages were standard practice at this time. Moreover, there was no general social disapproval of marriages between sons and adopted-daughters-in-law. Rather, Wolf argues that since an adopted daughter-in-law was essentially raised as a sister to her future groom, by the time of the marriage both parties had developed the same sort of sexual aversion to one another that biological siblings do. There is ample additional evidence to bolster this claim. Among adopted sisters-in-law who married their intended grooms, fertility rates were much lower than for other women. Divorce rates among couples raised in the same household were also much higher than for most others, even though an adopted daughter-in-law would often develop very close relationships with her in-laws, compared to tenuous or nonexistent ties to her birth family. Wolf’s study demonstrates in a powerful way that the incest taboo is very much a socially constructed norm, to the point that it can create sexual avoidance between people who are not biologically related. Sources used for this essay and additional reading ideas include: Michael Baker, “South Korea Ends a Taboo, Strikes Blow for True Love,” Christian Science Monitor (August 4, 1997); Korea Herald, “Saving the Marriage Ban?” (November 29, 1999); Sangwon Suh and Jane L. Lee, “A Relative Improvement,” Asiaweek 22 (January 19, 1996); Sheryl WuDunn, “Love in the Land of Kims,” Vancouver Sun (September 13, 1996); Arthur Wolf and Chieh-shan Huang. Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845–1945. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1980. 7-6: Inheriting Divorce Are the children of divorced couples more likely to become divorced themselves? The answer appears to be in the affirmative, but the reasons are complex. Sociologist Paul Amato analyzed longitudinal data to determine the extent of intergenerational transmission of divorce. Data came from the Study of Marriage Over the Life Course, which consisted of telephone interviews with a national sample of 2,033 married persons who were 55 years old and younger in 1980. They were then interviewed again, in keeping with a longitudinal analysis, in 1983, 1988, and 1992. Based on these data, parental divorce is associated with increased risk of offspring divorce, especially when the wives or both spouses have experienced the dissolution of their parents’ marriage. This association is true in second marriages, as well as in the initial marriages. The age of offspring at marriage, cohabitation, socioeconomic attainment, and pro-divorce attitudes have only modest impact on the estimated effect of parental divorce. In contrast, a series of interpersonal behaviors offers the largest share of explanation. Among interpersonal behaviors, Amato includes problems with anger, jealousy, hurt feelings, communication, infidelity, and so forth. These findings suggest that parental divorce elevates the risk of offspring divorce by increasing the likelihood that children will exhibit behaviors that interfere with the maintenance of a mutually rewarding marriage relationship. Adult children from divorces are exposed to poor models of two-person behavior and may not learn the skills and attitudes that facilitate functioning in a dyadic social relationship. Similarly, children of divorce may be predisposed to develop traits, such as a lack of trust or an inability to commit, that lead to disharmony. See Paul Amato, “Explaining the Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (August 1996): 628–640. 7-7: Housework within Lesbian and Gay Households The recognition that family structures are variable has led social scientists to begin exploring some previously overlooked variations. Combining interviews and observation research, sociologist Christopher Carrington conducted a study of the housework of 52 “lesbigay” households (26 lesbian households and 26 gay men’s households). Carrington looked at couples who had been in relationships at least two years. The housework considered included cleaning, taking care of pets and plants, yard work, laundry, and household paperwork. In general, housework is often taken for granted or designated as an unfortunate part of family life. Rarely in the United States is daily housework viewed in a positive light. However, the research suggested that participating in housework helps “lesbigays” develop a stronger sense of themselves as families, “maintaining our yard and building.” “Lesbigay” couples with more resources were able to invest more money and time into the housework. Carrington found such couples to have developed more of an identity as a family. See Christopher Carrington, “Housework Among Lesbigay Families: Sociological Variation in the Extent and Character of Housework.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, New York, 1996. TOPICS FOR STUDENT RESEARCH AND CLASSROOM DISCUSSION 1. Ask students to identify the various ways technology has affected the composition of the family, and discuss how future technological innovations could further change family functions. 2. Ask students to compile a list of factors they would want their parents to consider if they were entering into an arranged marriage, and discuss how certain cultures criticize our rationale of romantic love for marriage. 3. Ask students to report on their opinions about using the Internet for finding a mate, and discuss whether such technology is being used as a primary or secondary relationship factor. 4. Ask students to search for evidence regarding any association between marital happiness and cohabitation, and discuss why some couples may choose marriage instead of cohabitation. 5. Ask students to discuss various social barriers that may be intentionally designed to discourage men from actively caring for children of divorce. REEL TALK Monsoon Wedding (Mirabai Films, 2001, 114m). During monsoon season, a family comes together in Mumbai, India, to celebrate a traditional arranged marriage. Complications ensue as Indian cultural traditions clash with newer Western lifestyles. Director: Mira Nair. Lalit Verma: Naseeruddin Shah. Pimmi Verma: Lilette Dubey. Aditi Verma: Vasundhara Das. Ria Verma: Shefali Shah. P. K. Dubey: Vijay Raaz. Hemant Rai: Parvin Dabas. Topic: Family, marriage, diverse lifestyles. Chapter 8 Education and Religion LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Describe the role of education from the various sociological perspectives. 2. Discuss the nature of schools as formal organizations. 3. Discuss the sociological definitions of religion. 4. Describe the components of religious behavior. 5. Discuss the basic forms of religious organization. 6. Identify the diverse nature of world religions and practices. 7. Discuss the role of religion from the various sociological perspectives. CHAPTER SUMMARY As societies became more diverse and the division of labor increased, we placed a greater emphasis on more formal socialization. To do so, we turned to education, a social institution dedicated to the formal process of transmitting culture from teachers to students. Early American political leaders advocated public education as an essential component of democratic societies. The history of education in the United States is one of expansion and institutionalization. Initially public schools were open only to White males, but over time—in part through the efforts of sociologists like W. E. B. Du Bois and Jane Addams—public education expanded to include everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, or national origin. Sociologists have closely examined the degree to which education actually succeeds in providing social order and individual opportunity. They have found that while it does offer opportunity and helps to establish social order, it also reinforces existing beliefs, values, and norms that justify the status quo and its inequalities. As a social institution, education preserves and transmits the dominant culture. It also aims to provide experiences that will unify a diverse population. Through the exercise of social control, schools teach students various skills and values essential to their future positions in society: manners, punctuality, creativity, discipline, responsibility. Education can also stimulate social change. Colleges and universities are particularly committed to cultural innovation. Also, the responsibility placed on schools and teachers for the care of children while they are in school has increased as more parents participate in the paid labor force. However, there are significant inequalities in the educational opportunities available to different groups. One of the ways schools reinforce the existing system of inequality is what sociologists call the hidden curriculum—standards of behavior that society deems proper and that teachers subtly communicate to students. Through the teacher-expectancy effect, a teacher’s expectations about a student’s performance can affect the student’s actual achievements. Schools tend to preserve social class inequalities in each new generation, often by tracking—the practice of placing students in specific curriculum groups on the basis of their test scores and other criteria. According to the correspondence principle, schools tend to promote the values expected of individuals in each social class and perpetuate social class divisions from one generation to the next. Students today also face elevated expectations due to credentialism, a term used to describe an increase in the lowest level of education to enter a field. The educational system has long been characterized by discriminatory treatment of women. Title IX played a pivotal role in expanding access. Schools have become bureaucratized. Max Weber noted five basic principles of bureaucracy, all of which are evident in the vast majority of schools: (1) division of labor—specialized experts teach particular age levels of students and specific subjects; (2) hierarchy of authority—each employee of a school system is responsible to a higher authority; (3) written rules and regulations—teachers must submit lesson plans, and students, teachers, and administrators must all adhere to established policies and procedures or face sanctions for not doing so; (4) impersonality—teachers are expected to treat all students the same way, regardless of their distinctive personalities and needs; and (5) employment based on technical qualifications—hiring and promotion—and even grading—are based on technical qualifications alone. The status of any job reflects several factors, including the level of education required, financial compensation, and the respect given the occupation by society. Teachers are feeling pressure in all three areas. School leaders often seek to develop a sense of school spirit and collective identity, but student subcultures are actually complex and diverse. Among college students, four distinctive subcultures have been noted: (1) collegiate, (2) academic, (3) vocational, and (4) nonconformist. Community colleges are a testament to the ideals of Jefferson, Franklin, and Mann. Their relatively low cost and open enrollment lower the barriers to success. These students are more likely to be older, female, Black, Hispanic, low-income, and part-time, compared to their peers at four-year colleges. Some opt out of formal schooling. More than 1.5 million students are now being educated at home. Dissatisfaction with academic quality, negative peer pressure, and school violence motivate many parents to teach their children at home, along with a desire to provide religious or moral instruction. While the rise in homeschooling points toward pluralism and the desire to retain unique subcultural values, it also undermines the historical commitment to public education as a means of fostering unity within society. Religion is a social institution dedicated to establishing a sense of shared identity, encouraging integration, and offering believers meaning and purpose. Sociologists take two basic approaches to defining religion: what religion is and what it does. According to a substantive definition of religion, religion has a unique content or substance that separates it from other forms of knowledge and belief. This unique focus commonly involves some concept of the sacred, which encompasses elements beyond everyday life that inspire respect, awe, and even fear. The sacred realm exists in contrast to the profane, which includes the ordinary and commonplace. Different religious groups define their understanding of the sacred or profane in different ways. According to a functionalist definition of religion, religion unifies believers into a community through shared practices and a common set of beliefs relative to sacred things. For functionalists, the supernatural or something like it is not an essential part of religion. This approach has its roots in the work of Émile Durkheim. Durkheim defined religion as a “unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things.” The unification of believers into a community is the most important part; what they believe, what they practice, or what they view as sacred is less important than that they have these beliefs, practices, and shared sacred things in common. When investigating components of religion that are common to most groups, sociologists focus on how religious groups organize beliefs, rituals, experience, and community. Religious beliefs are statements to which members of a particular religion adhere. Fundamentalism refers to a rigid adherence to core religious doctrines. Religious rituals are practices required or expected of members of a faith. They remind adherents of their religious duties and responsibilities. Religious experience refers to the feeling or perception of being in direct contact with the ultimate reality, such as a divine being, or being overcome with religious emotion. Sociologists find it useful to distinguish among four basic forms of religious organization. An ecclesia is a religious organization that claims to include most or all members of a society and is recognized as the national or official religion, such as Islam is in Saudi Arabia. A denomination is a large, organized religion that is not officially linked to the state or government. A sect can be defined as a relatively small religious group that has broken away from some other religious organization to renew what it considers the original vision of the faith. An established sect is a religious group that is the outgrowth of a sect, yet remains isolated from society. The Seventh-Day Adventists and the Amish are contemporary examples. A new religious movement or cult is generally a small, alternative religious group (e.g., Heaven’s Gate) that represents either a new faith community or a major innovation in an existing faith. Early sociologists predicted that modern societies would experience widespread secularization, which involves religion’s diminishing influence in the public sphere. Though the percentage of those who opt out of organized religion continues to rise, tremendous diversity exists worldwide in religious beliefs and practices. Early sociologists sought to provide a science of society. They recognized the significant role that religion had played in maintaining social order in the past, and believed it essential to understand how it had accomplished this. Émile Durkheim viewed religion as an integrative force in human society. Religion provides a form of “societal glue,” which gives meaning and purpose to people’s lives. The integrative power of religion can be found in celebrations of life events, such as weddings or funerals, or in times of crisis or confusion, such as immediately after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Max Weber sought to understand how religion might also contribute to social change. He focused on the relationship between religious faith and the rise of capitalism in his pioneering work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. He suggested the overwhelming number of Protestant business leaders and skilled workers was due to the Protestant ethic, a disciplined commitment to worldly labor driven by a desire to bring glory to God. The Roman Catholic clergy in Latin America are at the forefront of liberation theology, which advocates the use of a church in a political effort to eliminate poverty, discrimination, and other forms of injustice. Advocates of this view sometimes sympathize with Marxism. Karl Marx described religion as an “opiate” that drugged the masses into submission. He argued that religion’s promotion of social stability only helps perpetuate patterns of social inequality. Marxists suggest that by inducing a “false consciousness” among the disadvantaged, religion lessens the possibility of collective political action. Women have played a fundamental role in religious socialization. Yet because most faiths have a tradition of exclusively male leadership, and because most religions are patriarchal, they tend to reinforce men’s dominance in secular as well as spiritual matters. RESOURCE INTEGRATOR Focus Questions Resources 1. What are the sociological perspectives on education? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: education, hidden curriculum, teacher-expectancy effect, tracking, correspondence principle, credentialism 2. How do sociologists analyze schools as formal organizations? 3. How have sociologists defined religion? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: religion, sacred, profane 4. What are the components of religion? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: religious belief, fundamentalism, religious ritual, religious experience, ecclesia, denomination, sect, established sect, new religious movement (NRM) or cult 5. What are the major world religions? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: secularization 6. What are the major sociological perspectives on religion? IN THE TEXT Key Terms: Protestant ethic, liberation theology LECTURE OUTLINE I. Education in Society • With the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of globalization, schools became essential agents of socialization. • As a society we invest time and money in education, a social institution dedicated to the formal process of transmitting culture from teachers to students. • Early American political leaders such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson advocated public education as an essential component of democratic societies. • Horace Mann, often referred to as the “father of public education,” held that education is the great equalizer. • The history of education in the United States is one of expansion and institutionalization. • Initially public schools were open only to White males, but over time—in part through the efforts of sociologists like W. E. B. Du Bois and Jane Addams—public education expanded to include everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, or national origin. • From 1940 to 2012 the proportion of people with a high school diploma increased from 25 percent to 88 percent. The proportion with a college degree rose from 5 percent in 1940 to 31 percent in 2012. • Institutionalization has occurred as education has become more formalized. Educational institutions have become more professional and bureaucratic. II. Sociological Perspectives on Education • Sociologists have closely examined the degree to which education actually succeeds in providing social order and individual opportunity. They have found that it does offer opportunity and helps to establish social order, but it also reinforces existing beliefs, values, and norms that justify the status quo and its inequalities. A. Education and Social Order • Society needs people with the knowledge and skills to perform the tasks necessary for its continued existence, and individuals need this know-how to survive and prosper. Sociologists have identified five positive functions that education serves for both individuals and society. 1. Transmitting Culture • As a social institution, education preserves and transmits the dominant culture. • Schooling exposes each generation people to the existing beliefs, norms, and values of their culture. • Students learn respect for existing values and norms and reverence for established institutions. 2. Promoting Social Integration • Provides experiences that will unify a population composed of diverse racial, ethnic, and religious groups into a community whose members share a common identity. Example: Immigrant children. • Integrative function of education in the past was most obvious in its emphasis on promoting a common language. 3. Training and Social Control • Students learn manners, punctuality, creativity, discipline, and responsibility, skills and abilities needed well beyond the classroom. • Schools serve as a transitional agent of social control between childhood and entry into the labor force and wider society. • Schools select and train students to become effective workers in specialized jobs. 4. Cultural Innovation • Sex education classes and affirmative action in admissions illustrate the efforts of education to stimulate social change. • Colleges and universities are particularly committed to cultural innovation. • Campuses provide an environment in which students with widely divergent ideas and experiences can interact. Example: Foreign exchange programs. 5. Child Care • Historically, family members had the primary responsibility to teach and care for their children until adulthood. • Increasingly, schools and teachers are expected to do more of the job. • Movement toward day care and preschool is driven in part by changes in the economy. B. Education and Inequality • Significant inequalities exist in the educational opportunities available to different groups. Example: Disparities in funding and facilities between urban and suburban schools. 1. The Hidden Curriculum • Refers to standards of behavior deemed proper by society and taught subtly in schools. • Prepares students to submit to authority. • Value is placed on pleasing the teacher and remaining compliant rather than on creative thought and academic learning, thus socializing students to submit to authority figures. 2. Teacher Expectancy • Student outcomes can become a self-fulfilling prophecy based on how teachers perceive students. • Teacher-expectancy effect refers to Psychologist Robert Rosenthal and school principal Lenore Jacobson’s documentation of the impact that a teacher’s expectations about a student’s performance may have on the student’s actual achievements. Example: “Spurters” experiment. 3. Bestowal of Status • Ideally, the institution of education selects those with ability and trains them for positions requiring greater skill or knowledge. • In practice, factors other than potential and ability shape outcomes, such as social class, race, ethnicity, and gender. • The educational system denies most disadvantaged children the same educational opportunities afforded to children of the affluent, thus preserving social class inequalities in each new generation. • Tracking refers to the practice of placing students in specific curriculum groups on the basis of test scores and other criteria. This can reinforce the disadvantages that children from less affluent families face. • Recent research on tracking has shown that it does not necessarily identify those students with the potential to succeed. • The correspondence principle refers to the tendency of schools to promote the values expected of individuals in each social class and perpetuate social class divisions from one generation to the next. Example: Working-class children placed on vocational tracks. 4. Credentialism • An increase in the lowest level of education required to enter a field. • Can reinforce social inequality since those with poor and minority backgrounds are more likely to lack the financial resources needed to obtain degree after degree. • Educational institutions profit from upgrading of credentials. • Can increase the status of an occupation and lead to demands for higher pay. 5. Gender • The educational system has long been characterized by discriminatory treatment of women. • Oberlin College was first institution of higher learning to admit women in 1833, but Oberlin believed that women should aspire to become wives and mothers. Female students were expected to wash men’s clothes, care for their rooms, and serve them meals. • In the 20th century, sexism in education was evident in many ways. Examples: Textbooks with negative stereotypes of women, pressure on female students to prepare for “women’s work,” unequal funding for women’s and men’s athletic programs. • Strides have been made, largely as a result of women’s movements that worked for social change. Title IX played a pivotal role in expanding women’s access. Example: Dramatic rise in percentage of women earning college degrees. 6. Inequality and Opportunity • Some educators have wondered if disadvantaged students should avoid college rather than risk the long-term emotional toll of failure there, which seems high given all the barriers they face. • Sociologists John R. Reynolds and Chardie L. Baird (2010) sought to answer the question “Do students who try but fail to achieve their educational dreams experience long-term frustration and anxiety?” and concluded that the answer is no. • Those who fail to fulfill their aspirations develop “adaptive resilience,” allowing them to cope with their lack of college success. III. Schools as Formal Organizations • Today’s schools, when viewed as examples of formal organizations, are similar to factories, hospitals, and business firms. A. The Bureaucratization of Schools • Schools have become bureaucratized. • Weber noted five basic principles of bureaucracy, all of which are evident in the vast majority of schools. (1) division of labor—specialized experts teach particular age levels of students and specific subjects; (2) hierarchy of authority—each employee of a school system is responsible to a higher authority; (3) written rules and regulations—teachers must submit lesson plans, and students, teachers, and administrators must all adhere to established policies and procedures or face sanctions for not doing so; (4) impersonality—teachers are expected to treat all students the same way, regardless of their distinctive personalities and needs; and (5) employment based on technical qualifications—hiring and promotion, and even grading, are based on technical qualifications alone. • The trend toward more centralized education particularly affects disadvantaged persons. • The standardization of educational curricula generally reflects the values, interests, and lifestyles of the most powerful groups in our society, and may ignore those of racial and ethnic minorities. • The disadvantaged often lack the time, financial resources, and knowledge necessary to sort through complex educational bureaucracies and to organize effective lobbying groups. B. Teaching as a Profession • Teachers must work within the system, submitting to its hierarchical structure and abiding by its established rules. But they also want to practice their craft as professionals with some degree of autonomy and respect for their judgment. • Conflicts arise from simultaneously serving as an instructor, disciplinarian, administrator, and employee. • Level of formal schooling remains high, salaries are significantly lower than for comparably educated professionals, overall prestige of profession has declined. • Many teachers have become disappointed and frustrated and have left the educational world. C. Student Subcultures • Schools provide arena for students’ social and recreational needs. • Development of interpersonal relationships. Example: High school and college students may meet future spouses and establish lifelong friendships. • High school cliques may develop based on race, social class, physical attractiveness, academic placement, athletic ability, and leadership roles. • Some students are creating gay–straight alliances (GSAs), school-sponsored support groups bringing gay teens together with sympathetic straight peers. • Four ideal types of subcultures among college students: (1) collegiate—focuses on having fun and socializing; (2) academic—identifies with the intellectual concerns of the faculty and values knowledge for its own sake; (3) vocational—views college as a means of obtaining degrees essential for advancement; and (4) nonconformist—hostile to the college environment, and seeks out ideas that may or may not relate to studies. D. Community Colleges • Exist as a testament to ideals put forth by Jefferson, Franklin, and Mann. • Relatively low cost and open enrollment lower barriers to success. • Students are more likely to be older, female, Black, Hispanic, low-income, and part-time, compared to their peers at four-year colleges. • Appear to provide opportunities for everyone, and some do use them as stepping stone to success. • But also help justify the existing system of inequality because failure to succeed is perceived as the individual’s responsibility alone so students are more likely to blame themselves than criticize the social structure. E. Homeschooling • More than 1.5 million American children are now educated at home. • Homeschooled families are more likely to be White, have two parents in the household but only one in the labor force, have college-educated parents, and have three or more children. • Religious or moral instruction continues to be important reason in the decision to homeschool, but parents also may choose to homeschool their children because of academic concerns or concerns about school environments. • Other parents see it as a good alternative for children with ADHD and LDs. • Rise in homeschooling points to growing dissatisfaction with the institutionalized practice of education. Although such new forms of schooling may better meet the individual needs of diverse groups, they also undermine the historical commitment to public education as a means of fostering unity within society. IV. Defining Religion • Religion is a social institution dedicated to establishing a shared sense of identity, encouraging social integration, and offering believers a sense of meaning and purpose. • Sociologists take two different approaches to defining religion: the first focuses on what religion is, and the second focuses on what it does. A. Substance: What Religion Is • According to the substantive definition of religion, religion has a unique content or substance that separates it from other forms of knowledge and belief. • This unique focus commonly involves some concept of the sacred, referring to that extraordinary realm that becomes the focus of religious faith and practice. It provides believers with meaning, order, and coherence. • The sacred encompasses elements beyond everyday life that inspire respect, awe, and even fear. People interact with the sacred through ritual practices, such as prayer or sacrifice. • The sacred realm exists in contrast to the profane, which includes the ordinary and commonplace. • Different religious groups define their understanding of the sacred or profane in different ways. Examples: A piece of bread for Christian communion, a candelabrum for Jews, incense sticks for Taoists and Confucians. B. Function: What Religions Do • A functionalist approach focuses on what religions do, with a particular emphasis on how religions contribute to social order. • According to the functionalist definition of religion, religion unifies believers into a community through shared practices and a common set of beliefs relative to sacred things. • The emphasis is on the unifying dimension of religion rather than on the substance of that which unifies. Thus, the supernatural or something like it is not an essential part of religion. • This approach has its roots in the work of Émile Durkheim. He defined religion as a “unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things . . . which unite into a single moral community . . . all those who adhere to them.” • This definition points to three aspects sociologists focus on when studying religion: a unified system of beliefs and practices, involving sacred things, in the context of community. • What the beliefs (doctrine, dogma, creed) and practices (shared rituals) are matters less than the fact that they are shared. • Durkheim’s emphasis on sacred things focuses less on the objects themselves than on the believers’ attitude toward these objects. • The unification of a body of believers into a shared community is the most important part of Durkheim’s definition. • Anything that does what Durkheim’s three elements do can function as a religion. Example: Sports fans. V. Components of Religion • When investigating components of religion that are common to most groups, sociologists focus on how religious groups organize beliefs, rituals, experience, and community. A. Beliefs • Religious beliefs are statements to which members of a particular religion adhere. • Fundamentalism refers to a rigid adherence to core religious doctrines, often accompanied by a literal application of scripture or historical beliefs to today’s world. Example: Growth of Christian fundamentalism in the U.S. • Fundamentalism is found worldwide among most major religious groups. • U.S. Christian fundamentalists have fought against the teaching of evolution in public schools. B. Rituals • Religious rituals are practices required or expected of members of a faith. Example: Muslims’ hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca. • Rituals affirm beliefs and remind adherents of their religious duties and responsibilities. • Religion develops distinctive norms to structure behavior, and uses sanctions to reward or penalize behavior. Examples: Bar mitzvah gifts, expulsion for violating religious norms. C. Experience • Religious experience refers to the feeling or perception of being in direct contact with the ultimate reality, such as the divine being, or of being overcome with religious emotion. Example: Being “born again.” D. Community Sociologists find it useful to distinguish among four basic forms of religious organization. 1. Ecclesiae • An ecclesia is a religious organization that claims to include most or all members of a society and is recognized as the national or official religion. Example: Islam in Saudi Arabia. • Generally, ecclesiae are conservative in that they do not challenge the leaders of secular government. • The political and religious institutions often act in harmony and reinforce each other’s power in their relative spheres of influence. • Ecclesiae are declining in power in the modern world. 2. Denominations • A large, organized religion that is not officially linked to the state or government. • Like an ecclesia, it tends to have an explicit set of beliefs, a defined system of authority, and a generally respected position in society. But a denomination lacks the official recognition and power held by an ecclesia. • Roman Catholicism is the largest single denomination in the U.S. • Collectively, Protestants account for about 51 percent of the U.S. adult population. 3. Sects • A relatively small religious group that has broken away from some other religious organization to renew what it considers the original vision of the faith. • Sects are at odds with the dominant society and do not seek to become established national religions. • They require intensive commitments and demonstrations of belief by members. • Sects are often short-lived. • An established sect is a religious group that is an outgrowth of a sect, yet remains isolated from society. Examples: Hutterites, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, Amish. 4. Cults or New Religious Movements • Historically, cult has been used by sociologists to describe alternative religious groups with unconventional religious beliefs. • Partly due to extremism of some cults (e.g., Heaven’s Gate), many sociologists now use the expression new religious movement (NRM) to mean a small, alternative religious group that represents either a new faith community or a major innovation in an existing faith. • NRMs are similar to sects in that they tend to be small and are often viewed as less respectable than more established faiths. • Unlike sects, NRMs normally do not result from schisms or breaks with established ecclesiae or denominations. Some cults may be totally unrelated to existing faiths. • Like sects, NRMs may be transformed over time into other types of religious organizations. Example: Christian Science Church began as a NRM, but today exhibits the characteristics of a denomination. VI. World Religions • Early sociologists predicted that modern societies would experience widespread secularization, which involves religion’s diminishing influence in the public sphere, especially politics and the economy. • As of 2012, approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population identified as “nones” (either agnostic or atheist). • Approximately 11 percent of the world’s population identifies as agnostic or atheist. • About 85 percent of the world’s population adheres to some religion. • Worldwide, tremendous diversity exists in religious beliefs and practices. • Christianity is the largest single faith; Islam is the second largest. • Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are monotheistic. • Hinduism is polytheistic and distinguished by a belief in rebirth through reincarnation. • Buddhism is based on teaching of Siddhartha, or Buddha. Goal is to reach enlightenment through meditation. VII. Sociological Perspectives on Religion • Early sociologists sought to provide a science of society that would tap the ways of knowing built into the scientific method and apply them to society. • They recognized the significant role that religion had played in maintaining social order in the past, and believed it essential to understand how it had accomplished this. A. Integration • Émile Durkheim viewed religion as an integrative force in human society. Religion provides a form of “social glue,” which gives meaning and purpose to people’s lives. • The integrative power of religion can be found in celebrations of life events (weddings or funerals) or in times of crisis and confusion (after the 9/11 terrorist attacks). • Integrative impact is evident for immigrant groups and within specific faiths and denominations. • Such integration can come at the expense of outsiders, and can contribute to tension and even conflict between groups or nations. Example: Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. B. Social Change • Max Weber sought to understand how religion might contribute to social change. • He focused on the relationship between religious faith and the rise of capitalism, and presented his findings in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. 1. The Weberian Thesis • He found that in European nations with both Protestant and Catholic citizens, an overwhelming number of business leaders, owners of capital, and skilled workers were Protestant. He saw this as a consequence of the Protestant ethic, a disciplined commitment to worldly labor driven by a desire to bring glory to God that was shared by followers of Martin Luther and John Calvin. He argued that this emphasis on hard work and self-denial was essential to the development of capitalism. • His argument has been hailed as one of the most important theoretical works in the field, and as an excellent example of macrolevel analysis. • Weber stressed that the collective nature of religion has social consequences for society as a whole. 2. Liberation Theology • Use of a church in a political effort to eliminate poverty, discrimination, and other forms of injustice from a secular society. Example: Roman Catholic activists in Latin America. • A more contemporary example of religion as a force for social change with clergy in the forefront. • Advocates of this view sometimes sympathize with Marxism. • Activists believe that organized religion has a moral responsibility to take a strong public stand against the oppression of the poor, racial and ethnic minorities, and women. • Term dates to 1973 publication of A Theology of Liberation by Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Peruvian priest. • One result was a new approach to theology that built on the cultural and religious traditions of Latin America rather than on models developed in Europe and the United States. C. Social Control • Karl Marx also opposed the traditional role of religion. In his view, religions inhibited social change by encouraging oppressed people to focus on otherworldly concerns rather than on their immediate poverty or exploitation. 1. Marx on Religion • He described religion an “opiate” that drugged the masses into submission by offering a consolation for their harsh lives on earth—the hope of salvation. Example: Slaves in the U.S. adopting Christianity, which taught that obedience would lead to salvation and eternal happiness in the hereafter. • Marx believed that religion’s promotion of social stability perpetuates social inequality, and the dominant religion reinforces the interests of those in power. • Marxists suggest that by inducing a “false consciousness” among disadvantaged people, religion lessens collective political action. 2. Gender and Religion • Women have played a fundamental role in religious socialization. • When it comes to religious leadership, however, women generally take a subordinate role. • Most faiths have a long tradition of exclusively male spiritual leadership, and most religions are patriarchal. • Thus they reinforce men’s dominance in secular as well as spiritual matters. • Nationally women compose approximately 20 percent of U.S. clergy, even though they account for 34 percent of students enrolled in theological institutions. KEY TERMS Correspondence principle The tendency of schools to promote the values expected of individuals in each social class and to prepare students for the types of jobs typically held by members of their class. Credentialism An increase in the lowest level of education required to enter a field. Denomination A large, organized religion that is not officially linked to the state or government. Ecclesia A religious organization that claims to include most or all members of a society and is recognized as the national or official religion. Education A social institution dedicated to the formal process of transmitting culture from teachers to students. Established sect A religious group that is the outgrowth of a sect, yet remains isolated from society. Fundamentalism Rigid adherence to core religious doctrines, often accompanied by a literal application of scripture or historical beliefs to today’s world. Hidden curriculum Standards of behavior that are deemed proper by society and are taught subtly in schools. Liberation theology Use of a church, primarily Roman Catholicism, in a political effort to eliminate poverty, discrimination, and other forms of injustice from a secular society. New religious movement (NRM) or cult A small, alternative faith community that represents either a new religion or a major innovation in an existing faith. Profane The ordinary and commonplace elements of life, as distinguished from the sacred. Protestant ethic Max Weber’s term for the disciplined commitment to worldly labor driven by a desire to bring glory to God, shared by followers of Martin Luther and John Calvin. Religion A social institution dedicated to establishing a shared sense of identity, encouraging social integration, and offering believers a sense of meaning and purpose. Religious belief A statement to which members of a particular religion adhere. Religious experience The feeling or perception of being in direct contact with the ultimate reality, such as a divine being, or of being overcome with religious emotion. Religious ritual A practice required or expected of members of a faith. Sacred Elements beyond everyday life that inspire respect, awe, and even fear. Sect A relatively small religious group that has broken away from some other religious organization to renew what it considers the original vision of the faith. Secularization Religion’s diminishing influence in the public sphere, especially in politics and the economy. Teacher-expectancy effect The impact that a teacher’s expectations about a student’s performance may have on the student’s actual achievements. Tracking The practice of placing students in specific curriculum groups on the basis of their test scores and other criteria. ADDITIONAL LECTURE IDEAS 8-1: Both Boys and Girls Have Reason to Feel Disadvantaged in School Recent studies have focused on how schools work against young women, documenting such sexist practices as failing to involve women as much as men in classroom discussion, differential treatment in career guidance, and even episodes of sexual harassment. However, University of Chicago educators Larry Hedges and Amy Nowell (1994) point to systematic differences in reading and writing, with girls outperforming boys. The same analysis of six national data sets from 1960 through 1992 also showed that boys outperform girls in science, mathematics, and auto mechanics. Why these differences exist and persist is not clear. For example, closer analysis shows that larger differences in the performances of the sexes occur even in areas not generally taught in schools, such as mechanical comprehension and other vocational aptitudes. On writing tests, young men score significantly lower than women do. Hedges and Nowell observe that “[t]he data imply that males are, on average, at a rather profound disadvantage in the performance of this basic skill” (7). Some of this difference may come from differences in reading between boys and girls: because reading may be linked to writing, girls write more fluently since they may also read books more frequently than boys. These results suggest that both men and women are harmed by these differences. See Larry V. Hedges and Amy Nowell, “Sex Differences in Mental Test Scores, Variability, and Numbness of High-Scoring Individuals,” Science (July 7, 1995): 41–45; and The Division of the Social Sciences, University of Chicago, “Both Boys and Girls Have Reasons to Feel Disadvantaged in School,” Reports 15 (Autumn 1995): 7–8. 8-2: Inequality in Education Educational achievements play a critical role in social mobility. Consequently, concern has been expressed that subordinate minorities in the United States, such as Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans, do not have positive experiences in schools that will assist them in later competition in the job market. This country’s minorities, however, are not alone in this experience. The anthropologist John Ogbu looked at educational opportunities and achievements in six societies and found group inequality in all of them. In Great Britain, for example, Black West Indian immigrants and their descendants (many of whom are born in Britain) perform poorly in school. By contrast, in New Zealand it is the native Maori people (the original islanders now outnumbered and dominated by White Europeans) who have the greatest difficulty in the educational system. Whites are 350 times more likely than Maori to attend college. In these societies, race was the critical factor differentiating successful and unsuccessful educational performance. However, in studying other societies, Ogbu found that inequality was evident even when racial distinctions were absent. In India, people from lower-caste backgrounds are physically indistinguishable from other residents. Yet children from the lower castes are much less likely to attend the private schools that launch Indians toward better careers. While lower-caste children account for more than 15 percent of India’s population, they constitute only about 5 percent of those attending college. Ogbu found certain common themes in all the societies he studied (one of which was the United States). The dominant groups in each society agree on the importance of education and the key role of educational attainment in shaping one’s position in adult life. At the same time, however, folk explanations in many societies contribute to prejudice and discrimination by ascribing failure in school to the alleged inferiority of subordinate minorities. More recent studies have demonstrated that educational inequalities persist around the world: • A study of educational attainment in Taiwan found a substantial difference between the “mainlanders” (those who immigrated to Taiwan from mainland China in the 1940s) and the native Taiwanese. The latter are much less likely to continue schooling than are the mainlanders. • Researchers have found a significant gap in educational attainment between Jews and Arabs living in Israel. In part, this has resulted from the government’s failure to apply compulsory school attendance laws to Arabs as forcefully as it has to Jews. • According to a 1992 report by the World Bank, children from poor and rural families around the world are less likely to attend primary schools than children from affluent and urban families are. Moreover, girls from all types of families are less likely to attend primary schools than boys are. The report urges governments to ensure greater access to education for these underrepresented groups. Sources: See Marlaine F. Lockheed, Adriaan M. Verspoor, and associates. Improving Primary Education in Developing Countries. Washington, DC: World Bank, 1991; John H. Ogbu. Minority Education and Caste: The American System in Cross-Cultural Perspective. New York: Academic, 1978; Shu-Ling Tsai and Hei-Yuan Chiu, “Changes in Educational Stratification in Taiwan,” in Yossi Shavit and Hans-Peter Blossfield (eds.). Persistent Inequality: Changing Educational Attainment in Thirteen Countries. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993, pp. 193–227. 8-3: The Halévy Thesis: Religion as a Stabilizer Max Weber is not the only scholar to contend that religion can exert an important influence on the process of social change. Elie Halévy (1870–1937), a Frenchman and noted historian who wrote at about the same time as Weber, was primarily interested in the stability of English society during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Halévy thesis suggests that Methodism, under the influence of John Wesley (1703–1791) and his followers, provided a kind of “escape valve” for the discontented English working class. This religious faith became a mechanism for dissent, an outlet for opposition to everything from labor practices to the monarchy itself. Yet this opposition was basically peaceful and was oriented to social reform rather than revolutionary change. From a Marxist point of view, Methodists were not part of the ruling bourgeoisie, yet they served the interests of the wealthy and powerful. For Halévy, the rise of Methodism explains why England, of all the nations of Europe, was most free from political disorders and revolutions during the 18th and 19th centuries. Halévy’s thesis has been criticized; in fact, many of the objections are similar to those raised in response to Weber’s monumental work. Some critics have argued that Halévy exaggerates the influence of Methodism and fails to explain the lack of revolt in England before this religion arose. Nonetheless, Halévy’s work, like Weber’s, contains important insights regarding the relationship between religious beliefs and the process of social change. See Elie Halévy. A History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century. Translated by E. I. Watkins and D. A. Barker. London: Ernest Benn; Halévy, 1924, rev. 1960; The Birth of Methodism in England. Translated by B. Senimel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971; Michael Hill. A Sociology of Religion. New York: Basic Books, 1973, pp. 183–203. 8-4: Unitarian-Universalism Ordinarily, we assume that people who practice the same religious faith hold to a common set of beliefs about the spiritual world, and that it is these beliefs which unite them as a community. But in at least one contemporary religious group in the United States, the Unitarian-Universalists (UUs), a central tenet is that the church should not impose any specific set of religious beliefs on its members. Today’s Unitarian-Universalist church includes members who consider themselves to be Christians, Buddhists, Jews, theists, Pagans, agnostics, and even atheists. Moreover, UUs come from a variety of religious backgrounds. Only 10 percent were raised in the Unitarian-Universalist faith (Dart 2001). Under such conditions, how is it that the Unitarian-Universalist church is able to survive? Why would anyone want to join such a church, and, when they do, how are Unitarian-Universalists able to create a sense of community? Today’s Unitarian-Universalist church came into being through the joining of two distinct religions, Unitarianism and Universalism. Unitarianism formed out of a rejection of the Trinity, or, in other words, out of a belief that Jesus was human and not supernatural. The original Universalists joined in a rejection of the concept of hell. Instead, they believed that God offers heavenly salvation to all. Both eventually became largely non-creedal religions whose members professed a wide variety of religious beliefs, and in 1961, the two organizations formally merged (Marshall 1988). There are currently about 225,000 Americans who are formal members of the Unitarian-Universalist Association, although as many as 629,000 Americans self-describe as Unitarian-Universalist (Dart 2001; Higgins 2003). What, if anything, allows UUs to feel a sense of togetherness with one another? One answer is in the socioeconomic characteristics of Unitarian-Universalists. Although diverse in their religious beliefs, UUs are remarkably homogenous in income, occupational prestige, education, and ethnicity. They have the highest average income and occupational prestige among mainline American religions, have a very high percentage of members who are college graduates, and are a largely White denomination (Roof and McKinney 1987). Likewise, Unitarian-Universalists are united by a common set of religious values—if not beliefs—including freedom of religion, religious thought based on reason, and social justice (Scholefield 1963). It is also important to understand that, from a sociological perspective, what holds religious organizations together may be something other than a coherent set of religious beliefs. A religious community can also congeal through shared assumptions about the broader reasons for assembling. While some congregations may see themselves primarily as a vehicle for religious worship, others may have more of a social activist or family orientation, for example (Becker 1999). Indeed, though, their lack of a unified religious creed has not been without its problems for the Unitarian-Universalists. In 2001, a breakaway group proposed to form the American Unitarian Association, an organization that would use 19th-century New England Unitarianism as the basis for its theological creed. Group organizers were dissatisfied with the diversity of religious beliefs within the Unitarian-Universalist Association, and wanted to form an organization with a clear religious creed (Christian Century 2001). Sources used for this essay and additional reading ideas include: Penny Egdell Becker. Congregations in Conflict: Cultural Models of Local Religious Life. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999; Christian Century, “Theological Stirrings in Unitarian Circles,” 118 (5) (2001): 8–9; John Dart, “Churchgoers from Elsewhere,” Christian Century 118 (33) (2001): 2; George N. Marshall. Challenge of a Liberal Faith. (3rd ed.) Boston: Unitarian-Universalist Association, 1988; Wade Clark Roof and William McKinney. American Mainline Religion. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987; Harry Barron Scholefield (ed.). The Unitarian Universalist Pocket Guide. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963; Robert Tapp. Religion among the Unitarian Universalists. New York: Seminar Press, 1973. 8-5: Courts and Holiday Displays Confusion continues regarding holiday displays that involve the government, however indirectly. In December 1995, a federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, ruled that adding Frosty the Snowman and Santa with a sleigh to a nativity scene, a Christmas tree, and a menorah makes a city’s holiday display legal. Judge Dickerson Debevoise said that “installing these symbols sufficiently demystified the holy” (Leavitt 1995: A3). Sociologists would regard these as efforts to make a legal distinction between what Durkheim called the sacred and the secular. At the heart of the conflict are the constitutional provisions of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The ruling followed a lawsuit brought by civil liberties activists that had led to the judge barring solely religious items on the City Hall lawn in Jersey City. “We shouldn’t have to censor those holidays that have a religious aspect,” said Mayor Bret Schundler (Leavitt 1995: A3). The Supreme Court ruled in June 1995 that if government allows public displays, it cannot choose to bar religious displays per se. Religious expression must be treated like other forms of expression, such as United Way donation thermometers, which are often displayed on the sides of public buildings or in parks. Not everyone agrees with the ruling. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State argues that “the Supreme Court is turning a lot of town squares into churchyards. And that has made a lot of people from minority religions feel like second-class citizens in their own towns” (Mauro 1995: A2). In Chicago, a government office building stopped playing Christmas music when there were protests, but a court saw no problems with a mixture of Christmas music along with winter seasonal songs. Sources: Jan Crawford Greenburg, “In Season to be Tolerant, It’s Still Easier Said than Done,” Chicago Tribune (December 21, 1995), sec. 3:1, 3; Paul Leavitt, “Christmas Displays OK,” USA Today (December 19, 1995): 3A; Tony Mauro, “Ruling Helps Communities Set Guidelines,” USA Today (December 21, 1995): A1, A2. 8-6: Goal Multiplication and Religious Organizations Religious groups fulfill many of what Durkheim would term secular (rather than sacred) functions. In recent years (with the emphasis on government downsizing), churches and other religious organizations have started providing services previously assumed by government agencies. Republicans want to roll back government-funded welfare programs and shift the social safety net to private organizations in general and to churches and religious charities in particular. There appears to be public support for this role. Yet, the public rejects the notion that the nation’s religious organizations should be the main source of funds for the needy. In a 1995 national Gallup survey, respondents were asked: “Who do you think should be more responsible for providing assistance to the poor—government or religious organizations?” The results showed 55 percent selecting the government, 28 percent religious organizations, 10 percent both, 4 percent neither, and 3 percent with no opinion. Among Republicans and Protestants, the government was still favored as a source for such funds, but by smaller margins. Only self-identified conservatives favored religious organizations over the government as the main source of support for assisting the poor. Some clergy and other observers are concerned about religious groups playing more of a role. They feel it is unconstitutional and spiritually wrong to force the poor through a religious doorway to meet their basic needs. Federal legislation has been proposed that would create a charity tax credit of $500 per taxpayer. It would allow taxpayers to designate money to a religious or charitable organization that devotes 70 percent of its efforts to poverty relief. Source: “Should Religious Organizations Provide All Welfare?” Emerging Trends 17 (November 1995): 5. 8-7: Women in the Clergy Throughout history and in many diverse cultures, the highest positions of spiritual leadership within organized religion have been reserved for men. Even today, the largest denomination in the United States, Roman Catholicism, does not permit women to be priests. A 1993 Gallup survey found that 63 percent of Roman Catholics in this country favor the ordination of women, compared with only 29 percent in 1974, but the church has continued to maintain its long-standing teaching that priests should be male. The largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, has voted against ordaining women (even though some of its autonomous churches have women ministers). Other religious faiths that do not allow women clergy include the Lutheran church–Missouri Synod, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, the Orthodox Church in America, the Church of God in Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and Orthodox Judaism. Despite these restrictions, there has been a notable rise in female clergy in the last 20 years. Female enrollment in seminaries in the United States has steadily increased since the early 1970s. For example, in 1973, women accounted for 10 percent of Protestant theological students; by 1992, the proportion of women had risen to almost 33 percent. Of 190 students in Reform Judaism’s rabbinical school in the 1992–1993 school year, 43 percent were female. Of 32 students who entered Conservative Judaism’s rabbinical school in late 1991, 15 were women. Nevertheless, as of 1992, 92 percent of all clergy in the United States were male. Clearly, many branches of Protestantism and Judaism have been convinced that women have the right to be ordained as spiritual leaders. Yet a lingering question remains: Once ordained, will these female ministers and rabbis be accepted by congregations? Will they advance in their calling as easily as male counterparts, or will they face blatant or subtle discrimination in their efforts to secure desirable posts within their faiths? It is too early to offer any definitive answers to these questions, but thus far, women clergy continue to face lingering sexism after ordination. According to a 1986 random sampling of 800 lay and ordained leaders of the United Church of Christ, women find it difficult to secure jobs in larger, more prestigious congregations. Women ministers in other Protestant faiths have encountered similar problems. Although they may be accepted as junior clergy or as co-pastors, women may fail to receive senior clergy appointments. In both Reform and Conservative Judaism, women rabbis are rarely hired by the largest and best-known congregations. Consequently, women clergy in many denominations appear to be restricted to the low end of clerical pay scales and hierarchies. Sources for this lecture include the following: Andrée Brooks, “Women in the Clergy: Struggle to Succeed,” New York Times (February 16, 1987): 15; Bureau of the Census. Statistical Abstract of the United States 1996. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996, p. 405; Debra Nussbaum Cohen, “The Right to Be Rabbis Won, Women Face Role’s Challenges,” Long Island Jewish World 29 (August 23–29, 1991): 3, 22–23; Richard N. Ostling, “The Second Reformation,” Time 140 (November 23, 1992): 52–58; Princeton Religion Research Center, “Attitudes toward Priests Changing Rapidly,” Emerging Trends 15 (October 1993): 5. 8-8: Doing Religion More than 100 people in a Black congregation are packed into the living room of an old house. Led by the pastor’s wife and four dancing women, the worshippers are singing, dancing, waving their arms. The church is rocking, and the pace doesn’t stop for three hours. Across town a White congregation is singing the same hymns, but no one is dancing. The mood is mellow and the drummer looks almost embarrassed to be there. Sharon Bjorkman uncovered these contrasting styles in the course of fieldwork researching forms of worship in churches in the Chicago area. This observation research was part of a nationwide study conducted by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. Bjorkman was interested in going beyond the doctrinal background of a particular church and observing the physical actions of the people attending services and those conducting them. As Durkheim noted, defining what is sacred in a religion is a collective act. Using the interactionist perspective, Bjorkman took notes on what happened at services, who participated, and what or who motivated them to do so. The first thing that she discovered was the disadvantage of being an outsider. For example, not “knowing the ropes,” she was unprepared for the strenuous physical activity in the Black church. In the churches she visited, she didn’t know whether to carry a Bible or what version to use. As Bjorkman notes, you need to be socialized to know what is expected of you in a church service. Depending on the socialization church members receive, usually through example and reprimand, they will be active or passive, loud or quiet, meditative or demonstrative. The church leader plays a key role in shaping the congregation’s actions. Leaders decide the format of services, including what songs are sung, what instruments are used, and how much to involve the worshippers. In services that call for testimonies from the congregation, the leader would actively solicit certain members and badger them if need be. The same tactic applied to “altar calls” where congregants would come forward to confess sins or seek blessings. As important as church leaders are, they would have little influence if the individual members chose not to cooperate. Worship styles, then, are jointly developed by leaders and members. Generally, Bjorkman found, leaders would take small incremental steps to “train” their members to accept a particular style of service. This study illustrates the crucial part that human relations play within formal organizations. Religious rituals are not just dry formal procedures dictated by a rote program of service. They evolve out of the active participation of leaders and members “doing religion” together. TOPICS FOR STUDENT RESEARCH AND CLASSROOM DISCUSSION 1. Ask students to identify (anonymously) their true motivation for initially attending college, and discuss the issues of credentialism and the bestowal of status as institutionalized factors associated with education. 2. Ask students to collect evidence supporting the integrative power of education, and discuss the perspective that education reinforces social order. 3. Ask students to identify rules or regulations that some educational institutions may use to encourage students to maintain the status quo and discourage individual creativity. 4. Ask students to identify events or objects that some religions may perceive as profane but that other religions would consider sacred. Discuss the transition of the ordinary into the realm of faith. 5. Ask students to search for evidence of various religious rituals that may seem bizarre to some, and discuss the significance of certain religious behaviors in encouraging adherence to religious norms. 6. Ask students to identify the various religious forces and elements that may have impacted the most recent war with Iraq. 7. Ask students to research Scientology and identify its origins as a spiritual philosophy or as a religion. REEL TALK The Apostle (October Films, 1997, 134m). Texan preacher Eulis “Sonny” Dewey lives a happy life with his wife Jessie until his world starts to crumble when he discovers that Jessie is having an affair with a young minister. Sonny seriously injures Jessie’s lover (who later dies) and leaves town for Louisiana, changing his name to “Apostle E.F.” There, he works as a mechanic for local radio station owner, who lets him preach on the radio. E.F.’s preaching gains traction and, alongside retired Brother Blackwell, he renovates and old church and gains a new following. Eventually, however, his past misdeeds catch up to him, and he is arrested and made to work in a chain gang, but not before delivering a last impassioned sermon. Director: Robert Duvall. Sonny: Robert Duvall. Topic: Religion Instructor Manual for SOC Sociology 2020 Jon Witt 9781260075311, 9781260726787, 9780077443191