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Religiosity & Social Groups - Coggle Diagram
Religiosity & Social Groups
Gender
Reasons Why Women Are More Religious Than Men:
Miller and Hoffman:
Risk:
Men are more likely to take the risk that religion is wrong
Socialisation:
Women are socialised to be passive, obedient, caring - qualities favoured by religions
Roles:
Women have more time to fit religion in; and work with the young & elderly which brings up life questions more frequently
Bruce:
Paid Work:
Religion has been pushed out the workplace (where men are) and into the home (where women tend to be)
Browne:
The decrease of women in the 1960s in religion aligns with more women taking 'masculine' roles in the public sphere
Women & the New Age
Women more associated with 'nature' (childbirth) and therefore may be more attracted to New Age ideas
Bruce
argues that women's experience of child-rearing makes them less aggressive and goal-orientated, more caring - they wish to feel, which fits the emphasis of the New Age
The New Age emphasises importance of authenticity rather than acting out restrictive gender roles
Individual Sphere:
The conflict that women might have between their instrumental role in the public sphere and expressive role in the private sphere, can be avoided as New Age beliefs appeal to what
Woodhead
calls the individual sphere
This is concerned with individual autonomy and personal growth over role performance - base a woman's identity on their inner self rather than social roles
Class differences
Bruce (1996; 2011)
Argues that the class composition among women regarding religious beliefs and practices differs
Working-class women are more attracted to ideas which reinforce the passivity with which they live their lives, which may be tied to a class-based fatalistic resignation.
Belief in an all-powerful God, or fatalistic ideas such as superstition, horoscopes and lucky charms
Middle-class women attracted to New Age beliefs espousing personal autonomy, control and self-development - the ability of one to control their economic destiny --> links to education topic
Women compensators and Sects
Bruce (1996):
Estimates that there are twice as many women as men involved in sects
Stark and Bainbridge
Organismic deprivation:
stems from physical and mental health issues - women are more likely to suffer from ailments
Ethical deprivation:
Women tend to be more morally conservative - coincides with the world-rejection, and the pursuit of moral purity, evident in sects
Social deprivation:
Sects attract poorer groups and women are more likely to be poor
The Pentecostal Gender Paradox
Pentecostalism has grown rapidly across south America especially among the poor 13% of the population of Latin America are members of Pentecostal churches. While the religion is generally considered patriarchal seeing men as the head of households, it has however been popular among women. Martin describes this as the Pentecostal gender paradox
Brusco, from her study in colombia finds that the reason for this paradox exists within the fact that Pentecostalism preaches ascetism, and that men should provide for their households
As a result of these ideas Pentecostal women can use this to combat ideas of 'machismo', such as men spending about 20-40% of their income on substances such as alcohol or tobacco. Pastors instruct men to be responsible with the way they spend their incomes
Pentecostalism offers a way for women to improve their position in society, which is different from western liberalism. As it is critical of machismo culture. Drogus adds that chruch magazines and educational material of Pentecostalism also preaches for more equality withun marriage.
Rejections of this sociological view
Dr. Kristin Aune (2008)
Many women are put off by traditional values
Television programs promoting female empowerment discouraged religious involvement
Women found it difficult to make time to attend church
Evidence
Based her findings on information gathered from the English Church Census
English Church Census (2006): Found that the trend in church attendance in the UK has been one of overall decline - serves as a purely demographic, statistical corroboration of Aune's view
Ethnicity
*Why are Ethnic Groups More Religious?: (Bird) ( 1999)
members of ethnic minority groups come from religious societies
belonging to an ethnic minority means that religion can be the basis for a sense of community and belonging, and also helps them get to meet people.
Religion acts as a way of maintaining traditions
Religion helps people cope with oppression and racism
Socialisation can lead to a strong pressure on mainly Asian children to maintain religious commitment.
Cultural Defence
Bruce (2002)
Argues that religion in such situations offers support and a sense of cultural identity in an uncertain or hostile environment
Bird (1999)
Religion among minorities could be a basis for community solidarity
A means of preserving culture and language
A way of coping with oppression in a racist context
Many black African and Caribbean Christians found that white churches in the UK did not actively welcome them, and some turned to founding or joining black-led churches (especially Pentecostal churches)
Brierley (2013)
Evidence shows that there has been a significant growth of new churches in London catering for specific languages and nationalities as a result of recent immigration
Cultural Transition (Bruce)
Religion as a means of easing the transition into a new culture by providing support and a sense of community
Herberg
sees high levels of religious participation among first-gen immigrants in the USA, which
Bruce
saw similarly in the UK
However, once a group (e.g Irish Catholics) has made the transition, the role of religion may decline
Pryce
on Pentecostalism:
Pentecostalism is a 'religion of the oppressed'
Helped African Caribbeans adapt to British society by playing a 'Protestant Ethic' role
Gave support and hope of an improving situation
Rastafarianism did the opposite: leant itself to African Caribbeans radically rejecting the wider society as racist & exploitative
Brierley
found that black people are twice as likely to attend church as whites, along with Muslims, Hindus and black Christians who were more likely to attend a place of worship every week
Weber( 1922) Finds that movements such as Pentecostalism attract ethnic minorities as they feel marginalized by society, and these religions provide advice on how to over come this, as well as build up a protestant work ethic.
Age
General pattern of religious participation is that the older a person is, the more likely they are to attend religious services.
Under 15s are generally more likely to go to church than most in the age groups above them - socialisation, perhaps
For any given age group, apart from those aged 65 and over, there is an ongoing fall in church attendance
Fall is sharpest among the young
Number of 15-19 year olds is projected to fall by half between 2015 and 2025, from 126,000 to 63,000
Brierley
By 2025, 15-19 year olds will be a mere 2.5% of all churchgoers
Half of all English churches have no-one under 20 attending
Brierly also found that 87% of 10-14 year old's claimed tat going to Church is boring, and felt that traditional teachings didn't relate to their lives
The exception to this according to Samad( 2006) is that young Pakistani and Bangladesh kids, who live in Britain find that religion is more central to their identity than nationalism, and thus they believe they honour their heritage by practicing Islam
Reasons for age differences
Voas and Crockett
Ageing effect:
People turn to religion as they get older
Heelas
Using evidence from the Kendal Project, argued that people become more interested in spirituality with age
As we approach death, we 'naturally' become more concerned about spiritual matters, afterlife, repentance of past misdeeds, etc.
More likely to attend church
Period or cohort effect:
People born during a particular period may be more or less likely to be religious because of the particular events they lived through, such as war or rapid social changes
Secularisation:
As religion declines in importance, each generation becomes less religious than the last
Found little evidence for the ageing effect and period/cohort effect - argue instead that secularisation is the main reason why younger people are less religious than older people
They found that in each succeeding generation, only half as many people are religious compared to the generation before it
Arweck and Beckford (2013)
They describe the 'virtual collapse of religious socialisation' after the 1960s
Trad. Sunday schools, which in the 1950s enrolled a third of all 14 year olds, have all but disappeared
Voas (2003
Even parents who share the same faith only have a 50/50 chance of raising their child to be a churchgoer as an adult
When parents are of different faiths (which are increasing), the chances fall to one in four
Conclusions
Likely to see a steadily ageing population of churchgoers
2015: one in three were aged 65 or over
2025: Predicted that over four in ten churchgoers would be over four in ten, without significant numbers of young people joining the congregations
Within two or three generations, practising Christians will have become a very small and old minority of the UK population
Class
Denominations
: Slightly anti-establishment, but still respectable.
Wallis
believes that they attract the upper class.
Martin
found that middle-class people may see church-going as an opportunity to network with members of the community & appear respectable --> explains why church attendance stats are high but religious belief is low for middle class people
Sects:
Traditionally recruit disadvantaged --> they require people to give up their life so those with less are more likely to give it up
Weber
introduced the concept of the ideology of disprivilege to explain the attraction of certain sects to the working class. They were taught that earthly sufferings were a test of faith and they would receive rewards in the afterlife.
Cults:
Can attract both the successful and the deprived depending on the specific cult
New Age Movements:
Bruce
points out that New Age moments have a primarily middle-class membership, as only the well-off can devote time & money to their practices
Lawes
found that numbers of lifelong atheists were small, but tended to be more common in those with a university educated middle-class background
Ahern and Davie claim
that the working class mistrust traditional religions such as Anglicanism as they associate them with authority & establishment.