CAGE and religion Flashcards
What stats are there on class and religion?
AO2/3
- YouGov 2015: more than 60% of regular churchgoers are middle class compared to only 38% of the working class
- BSA 2012: 73% of the working class claimed to have never attended a religious service
- Voas and Watt 2014: church attendance is higher in the South of England than the North and Midlands
- Voas and Watt 2014: note growing church attendance in suburban areas where there are high performing faith schools
What are the problems with using statistics for religion and class?
AO3
- Lawes: going to church ≠ devout religion - people may go out of obligation, social desirability, or lie
- Davie: attendance ≠ belief - believing without belonging
- Helland: attendance isn’t the best way to measure participation - religion online
- Leech and Campos: selection by mortgage - MC can afford to move to areas that have better schools - these are typically faith schools. Davie: leads to bogus baptisms as parents have their children baptised into a church in order to get admission to these schools - not genuine
What scholars can be applied to class and religion?
Churches, denominations, sects, cults, NAMs
AO1/2 - should know them - not new
CHURCHES:
- Ahern and Davie: church is closely tied with elite/monarchy so it was desirable for MC to attend. WC didn’t trust the Anglican church - felt they were embarassed by them
DENOMINATIONS:
- Lehman: Pentecostal challenge = option of the poor
- Weber: Protestant work ethic
SECTS:
- Troeltsch: status frustration - response to marginalisation
- Norris and Ingleheart: existential security theory
- Stark and Bainbridge: supernatural compensators
- Weber: theodicies of disprivilege
CULTS + NAMs:
- Stark and Bainbridge: spiritual deprivation
What are some stats on gender and religion?
AO3
- BSA: 55% of women and 44% of men claim to have a religion
- PEW 2010: About 97 million more women claim to have a religion worldwide
- Bierley 2005: most churchgoers are female and women are more likely to attend regularly than men
- PEW: Women are more likely to pray daily - 8% more women
What sociologists talk about socialisation and motherhood?
AO1/2
- Miller and Hoffman: women are socialised to be more submissive, passive, obedient, obedient, and nurturing a religion promotes this too. Also, women are more risk averse - want to avoid risk of hell
- Halman and Draulans: women are the guardians of family life - especially responsible for moral development and religious socialisation
- Davie: visions of God - females perceive God as loving, comforting, forgiving whereas males see God as more controlling
- Bruce: NAMs focus on nuturing and cooperation - fit the expressive role
- Walter and Davie: Women are closer to life and death - give life through birth and experience more deaths as they live longer
- Greeley: women care for sick relatives
Who talks about women’s greater life expectancy?
AO1/2
As of 2023 the life expectancy is 79 for men and 83 for women
- Voas and Crockett: creates disengagement e.g. retirement, losing loved ones - turn to religion for comfort
- Davie: women are more connected to the fragility of life
Who talks about women being marginalised?
AO1/2
- Weber: religion can promote theodicies of disprivilege which offer solutions for frustration towards patriarchal oppression
- Bruce: women are twice as likely to join sects - people typically join these due to status frustration
- Stark and Bainbridge: sects offer compensation for the orgasmic (poor health), ethical (women are more morally conscious), and social (more likely to be in poverty) deprivation women are more likely to face
Who uses work as an explanation of gender differences?
AO1/2
- Bruce: due to secularisation and rationalisation religion has been pushed to the private sphere - this is also where women typically occupy. Women have more time to access religion as they are more likely to work part time or not at all
Who talks about NAMs and women?
AO1/2
- Heelas and Woodhead: Kendal Project - 80% of the holistic mileu were female
- Bruce: in NAMs the self is the highest authority - women finally get a chance to focus on themselves and not societal pressures e.g. triple shift
- Woodhead: NAMs are in the individual sphere - women are marginalised in both the private and public sphere, NAMs offer a third sphere where they can gain status and be their authentic selves
- Brown: there is a divide between the women who join NAMs and those who join more structured, fundamentalist groups. NAMs appeal most to white MC women
What does the case of women converting to Orthodox Judaism show?
AO2
- MC American Christian women were converting as Orthodox Judaism maintains clear distinction between gender roles which is attractive to women who value domesticity
- Motherhood was given a special status - seperate but equal roles
What is the relationship between women are different religious organisations?
AO1/2
DENOMINATIONS:
- Brusco: study of the Pentecostal Colombian women
- Drogus: Pentecostals believe men are the higher authority but there is growing belief in more equal gender roles
SECTS:
- Bruce: Women are twice as likely to join
- Glock and Stark: women are likely to join due to orgasmic deprivation - many sects offer spiritual healing
CULTS:
- MC women join cults - require payment, spiritual deprivation (Stark and Bainbridge)
How can we explain declining female participation in religion?
AO3
Aune et al: since the 1980s women have been leaving the main church at a faster rate than men. This could be due to:
- Feminism: religion encourages conservative gender roles e.g. motherhood for women but women are now more ambitious (Sharpe: ‘Like a Girl’)
- Changing roles of women: 72% work now - have less time to engage in Church activities - due to march of progress (Sommerville)
- Changing family types: increased divorce, cohabitation
- Decreased fertility
What are the stats on age and religion?
AO3
- BSA: 55+ is the most common age group who attend church regularly
- Bierley: under 15s have the highest church attendance - this falls significantly after 15
- 15-19 year olds are projected to make up only 2.5% of churchgoers by 2025
- Voas and Crockett: each generation is half as religious as the last one
How do Voas and Crockett explain age differences?
AO1/2
- The ageing effect: people turn to religion when they are closer to death - need supernatural compensators (Stark and Bainbridge)
- The period/cohort effect: generations born in periods of social change/upheaval/anomie are more likely to be raised religiously
- Disengagement: older generation are more isolated due to retirement, loss of loved ones, etc. Religion offers a sense of community.
- Secularisation: religion declines with each generation - when both parents are religious its 50% likely the child will be religious, when only one parent is religious there’s just a 25% chance. Arweck and Beckford: the 1960s saw the collapse of religious socialisation. Hervieu-Leger: cultural amnesia.
Who focuses on young people specifically and why they’re less religious?
AO1/2
- Browne: religion is seen as ‘uncool’ and repetitive to young people and the values religion promotes don’t allign with their own e.g. stance on homosexuality, abortion, premarital sex - this is why it needs to be comodified and repackaged to become relevant again - Lyon: disneyfication
- Cusack: western societies have seen a decline in traditional religion but young people are still interested in spirituality. Roof: in modern society there is an expanded spiritual market place. Lynch: young people also have more access to technology which means they can better access this wider market and pick and mix beliefs to identify with e.g. vampirism, horoscopes
- Davie: young people have belief but don’t belong - practice more privately
- Lynch: young people might worship mor ‘secular’ things e.g. football, celebrities, politicians
- Lyotard: the death of religious metanarratives has meant that young people are less religious
- Bruce: less religious education. Christian Research: 100 years ago 1/2 of all children were in some sort of Sunday School - now only 1 in 25 are
- Pragmatic reasons: young people don’t want to commit to spending time at church as would rather do other things whereas older people experience disengagement (Voas and Crockett)
