What Is Religion? Religion has to do
with those socially shared and organized ways
of thinking, feeling, and acting that concern
ultimate meanings and assume the existence of
the supernatural or “beyond.” Religion is
centered in beliefs and practices that are related
to sacred as opposed to profane things and
often involves rituals.
A Global View: Varieties of ReligiousBehavior Religious behavior is so varied
that sociologists attempt to categorize it. One
scheme distinguishes between simple
supernaturalism, animism, theism, and a
system of abstract ideals.
Religious Organizations Sociologists
distinguish between four ideal types of
religious organization: churches,denominations, sects, and cults. Whereas
churches and denominations exist in a state of
accommodation with the larger society, sects
and cults find themselves at odds with
established social arrangements and practices.
Religion and Secular Change: TheProtestant Ethic Max Weber studied
several world religions to see how a religious
ethic can affect people’s behavior and claimed
that religion could be a source of social change.
Specifically, he linked the rise of capitalism to
the Protestant ethic, particularly Calvinism
and asceticism.
Adapting Tradition: Religion inContemporary Life The secularizationthesis states that profane considerations gain
ascendancy over sacred considerations in the
course of social evolution, but little evidence
supports the notion that secularization is
occurring in the United States.
Fundamentalism andEvangelicalism Fundamentalist and
evangelical groups are on the rise in the United
States and elsewhere in the world.
Fundamentalism opposes modernity and
reaffirms traditional authority, accepting the
Bible as the literal word of God. Evangelicals
profess a personal relationship with Jesus
Christ.
State-Church Issues The First
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has
provided the foundation for the principle of the
separation of church and state. The basic tenet
of civil religion is that the United States is a
nation under God with a divine mission.
The FunctionalistPerspective Functionalist theorists look to
the contributions religion makes to societal
survival and are interested in totemism.
According to Émile Durkheim, religion is the
symbolization of society.
The Conflict Perspective Some conflict
theorists depict religion as a weapon in the
service of ruling elites who use it to hold in
check the explosive tensions produced by
social inequality and injustice. Other conflict
theorists see religion as an active force shaping
the contours of social life.
Education
Social scientists view learning as a relatively
permanent change in behavior or capability that
results from experience. Education is one
aspect of the many-sided process of
socialization by which people acquire
behaviors essential for effective participation in
society.
The Bureaucratic Structureof Schools As schools grew larger they had
to standardize and routinize many of their
operations and establish formal operating and
administrative procedures.
The Effectiveness of Schools
Successful schools foster expectations that
order will prevail and that learning is a serious
matter. Cross-cultural research suggests that
teachers in some other countries spend more
time developing concepts rather than simply
stating them.
Alternatives to Traditional PublicSchools Parents are increasingly choosing to
educate their children in ways other than in
traditional public schools. Alternatives include
charter schools, religious schools, nonreligious
private schools, and home schooling.
The Availability of HigherEducation College and university student
populations are highly skewed in terms of race,
ethnicity, and family income. Only 20 percent
of the nation’s undergraduates are young
people between 18 and 22 years of age who are
pursuing a parent-financed education.
The Functionalist Perspective Viewed
from the functionalist perspective, a specialized
educational agency is needed to transmit the
ways of thinking, feeling, and acting mandated
by a rapidly changing urban and
technologically based society.
The Conflict Perspective Conflict
theorists see schools as agencies that reproduce
and legitimate the current social order, citing
credentialism as one factor and the
correspondence principle as another. By
reproducing and legitimating the existing social
order, the educational institution benefits some
individuals and groups at the expense of others.
The Interactionist Perspective
Symbolic interactionists see classrooms as
“little worlds” teeming with behavior. They see
U.S. schools primarily benefiting advantaged
youngsters and alienating disadvantaged
youngsters through the hidden curriculum and
educational self-fulfilling prophecies.
Medicine
The functions now carried out by the institution
of medicine were once embedded in the
activities of the family and religious
institutions.
The U.S. Health Care DeliverySystem In recent decades the medical care
industry has grown appreciably larger,
consuming about 14 percent of the nation’s
gross domestic product. Hospitals, physicians,
and nurses comprise central roles in the health
care delivery system.
Rising Health Care Costs: IsManaged Care the Answer? Soaring
health care costs have led to new arrangements
for financing it. Managed care arrangements
are part of many traditional insurance plans.
They also form the basis for health
maintenance and preferred provider
organizations.
Alternatives to the U.S. Health CareSystem: A Global Perspective Health
care is managed differently in different
countries. In China health care is provided at
essentially no charge for most citizens. In Great
Britain 90 percent of the funding for its
National Health Service comes from general
taxation. In Kenya a national health service
employs physicians and owns hospitals, but
health care is also available from other sources.
Canada’s system provides medically necessary
physician and hospital services to all citizens.
The Functionalist Perspective
Functionalists note that health is essential to the
preservation of the human species and organized
social life. One way societies contain the
negative effects of health problems and disease
is through institutionalizing illness in a sick role.
The Conflict Perspective Conflict
theorists note that some people achieve better
health than others because they have access to
those resources that contribute to good health
and recovery should they become ill.
The Interactionist Perspective
Interactionist theorists view sickness as a
condition to which we attach socially devised
meanings. For example, an increasing number of
behaviors that earlier generations defined as
immoral or sinful are coming to be seen as forms
of sickness—the medicalization of deviance.
