When learning is explicit and formalized—when some people consciously teach, while others adopt the role of learner—the process of socialization is call education. Education provides pathways for social change. The history of education in the United States is one of expansion and institutionalization. Early American political leaders advocated public education as an essential component of democratic societies. 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 it does offer opportunity and help to establish social order, but it also reinforces existing beliefs, values, and norms that justify the status quo and its inequalities. As a social institution, education performs a rather conservative function in transmitting 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 the labor force: punctuality, discipline, scheduling, and responsible work habits. Education can also stimulate social change. Colleges and universities are particularly committed to cultural innovation.

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 through the teaching of what Philip Jackson called 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 affects the student's actual achievements. Schools tend to preserve social class inequalities in each new generation—the correspondence principle—often by tracking. Thus people are picked for success based not on potential and ability, but on factors such as social class, race, ethnicity, and gender. 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. While students may appear to constitute a cohesive, uniform group to some, the student subculture is actually complex and diverse. Among college students, four distinctive subcultures have been noted: collegiate, academic, vocational, and nonconformist.

Homeschooling is attracting a broad range of families. More than 2 million students are now being educated at home. Poor academic quality, peer pressure, and school violence are motivating many parents to teach their children at home. Critics worry about the isolation of homeschooled children, but supporters counter that children can do just as well as at home as at school.

Historically religion has played a powerful role in people's lives, and it continues to shape individual behavior, national policy, and international action. Sociologists have sought to better understand 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."

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 of the 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. Nevertheless, religion continues to play a significant role. Worldwide, tremendous diversity exists in religious beliefs and practices. Overall, about 85 percent of the world's population adheres to some form of religion.

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 offers meaning and purpose for 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 dominance of Protestants of 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 it reinforced the interests of the powerful, and 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.