Chapter 12 - Education And Religion

Question 1

Literacy

Answer 1

The ability to read and write

Question 2

Why did schooling become widespread only after the industrialization?

Answer 2

There was a great demand for specialized schooling that could produce an educated, capable workforce.

Question 3

What are some functions of formal schooling?

Answer 3

Provides feelings of nationalism and mass education

Question 4

What are the three most frequently cited reasons for home schooling?

Answer 4

Concerns about the school environment, a desire to provide moral instruction, and a dissatisfaction with the academic instruction of other schools.

Question 5

Why are there so many illiterate people in the developing world?

Answer 5

They have limited access to resources for education.

Question 6

Tracking

Answer 6

Dividing students into groups that receive different instruction on the basis of perceived similarities in ability

Question 7

According to Kozol, has education become an equalizer in American society?

Answer 7

It has not. As many schools are still suffering from not enough funds, simply due to the fact that their neighborhood is poor. This lack of a good education makes it harder for children in poverty to get out of poverty.

Question 8

How do Coleman’s findings differ from the result of Kozol’s research?

Answer 8

Coleman found that schools were segregated on account of race, while Kozol studied the segregation of class. Both relate to one another.

Question 9

What affects does tracking have on academic achievement?

Answer 9

For those labeled as ‘smart’, it can cause them to achieve more. While it works the same in reverse, and the ‘slow’ students achieve less.

Question 10

Hidden curriculum

Answer 10

The fact that Children learn things such as gender roles through schooling

Question 11

How do schools perpetuate existing inequalities across generations?

Answer 11

Schools teach students through example that some students are inherently more intelligent then others.

Question 12

Functional literacy

Answer 12

Having reading and writing skills that are beyond a basic level and are sufficient to manage one’s everyday activities and employment tasks

Question 13

Theism

Answer 13

A belief in one or more supernatural deities

Question 14

What are the three main components of religion as a social institution?

Answer 14

1. Religion is a form of culture
2. Religion involves beliefs that take the form of ritualized practice
3. Religion provides a sense of purpose

Question 15

How do sociologists differ from other scholars in their approach to studying religion?

Answer 15

1. Sociologists are not concerned with whether religious beliefs are true or false
2. Sociologists are especially concerned with the social organization of religion
3. Sociologists often view religions as a major source of social solidarity because religions provide their believers with a common set of norms and values.
4. Sociologists tend to explain the appeal of religion in terms of social forces rather than purely personal, spiritual, or psychological factors.

Question 16

Alienation

Answer 16

The sense that our own abilities as human beings are taken over by other entities.

Question 17

Sacred

Answer 17

Something that inspires awe amongst religious groups

Question 18

Profane

Answer 18

That which belongs to the mundane, everyday world

Question 19

Why did Karl Marx call religion the “opium of the people”?

Answer 19

Religion defers to happiness and rewards in the afterlife, he said.

Question 20

What are the differences between classical and contemporary approaches to understanding religion?

Answer 20

Classical = the key problem facing religions in the modern world is secularization

Contemporary = religions can be thought of as organizations in competition with one another for followers

Question 21

Secular thinking

Answer 21

Worldly thinking. Seen in the uprise of science, technology, and rational thought in general.

Question 22

Secularization

Answer 22

A process of decline in the influence of religion

Question 23

Religious economy

Answer 23

A theoretical framework within the sociology of religion that argues that religions can be understood as organizations in competition for followers

Question 24

Sect

Answer 24

A religious movement that breaks away from orthodoxy and follows its own unique set of rules and principles

Question 25

Denomination

Answer 25

Religious sect that has lost its revivalist dynamism and become an institutionalized body

Question 26

Cults

Answer 26

Fragmentary religious groupings to which individuals are loosely affiliated but that lack any permanent structure

Question 27

Religious nationalism

Answer 27

The linking of strongly held religious convictions with beliefs about a people’s social and political destiny

Question 28

Liberation theology

Answer 28

An activist catholic religious movement that combines catholic beliefs with a passion for social justice for the poor

Question 29

Describe four types of religious organizations

Answer 29

1. Churches
2. Sects
3. Denominations
4. Cults

Question 30

Between school effects

Answer 30

A comparison of how schools differ from on another

Question 31

What was the main conclusion of the landmark studies of educational inequality carried out in the 1960s by James Coleman, and later replicated by Christopher Jencks?

Answer 31

Educational and occupational attainment are governed mainly by family background and nonschool factors.

Question 32

Which major sociological thinker made the distinction between “the sacred” (objects such as crosses, bibles, and jewelry that have a direct spiritual connection to the divine) and “the profane” (the ordinary objects of everyday life, such as chairs, tables, and sinks)?

Answer 32

Durkheim