Attending Church at the Turn of the (20th) Century
One of the things about teaching the sociology of religion is that, at various points – from its function and role in society to secularisation theory – you’ll find yourself referring to “religion in the past”. And if you want to anchor your observations in something slightly more-solid than an airy wave of the hand […]
Agencies of Socialisation
Another day, another PowerPoint Presentation. And this time its “All About The Agencies” The Presentation identifies a range of primary and secondary socialising agencies (family, peers, education, workplace, media and religion to be precise) and provides some simple information / examples for each in five categories: Behaviour Roles Norms Values Sanctions. If this sounds a […]
Belonging Without Believing
I seem to have got into a habit of writing stuff about secularisation recently, whether it be the more-or-less straightforward stuff about the intergenerational decline in religious beliefs to accompany the long-term decline in religious practices in countries like Britain or the rather more left-field increase in paranormal beliefs recently seen in countries like the […]
Losing Their Religion? Using Statistical Evidence to Evaluate Secularisation
The secularisation debate in A-level Sociology, encompassing a wide diversity of ideas around pro, anti and post-secularisation positions, is an increasingly complex area for students to cover. Although this can make it a somewhat daunting topic, it also provides significant opportunities for students to critique these different positions (and gain solid marks for knowledge, application […]
Sociology in Focus for A2: Free Textbook
Sociology in Focus for A2 is, as you may have guessed, the companion volume to the previously-posted AS text and it’s no great surprise that its design and layout perfectly complements its AS counterpart. This includes the by-now standard colour-coded sections, lots of pictures, activities and questions that, at the time, were considered a quite […]
Sociology Revision Cards
Back in the day, before the invention of Learning Tables / Knowledge Organisers, students had to make do with Revision Cards – lists of all the key ideas and concepts you might need to know for an exam (you’ll find a selection here if you want to take a trip back to a time before […]
The Sociological Detectives: Ch-Ch-Changing NRMs
Another in the New Religious Movements series of PowerPoint Presentations, this uses the Sociological Detective format to investigate a “crime scene” to unearth various clues based on Eileen Barker’s observations about why NRM’s change over time. The basic idea is that as each clue is unveiled it contributes towards an understanding of Movement change and […]
New Religious Movements: Who Joins?
Another PowerPoint in what’s rapidly evolving into some sort of NRM-based series. This, as you might expect, complements the previously-posted Characteristics and Pathways Presentations and draws once more on the work of Professor Eileen Barker. There’s not a lot to say about it except that it’s a deceptively-simple Presentation that identifies and outlines Characteristics.
Religion: Why do people join cults?
We’re currently researching and scripting a couple of films on secularisation and New Religious Movements and a spin-off from this, as you may have noticed, is a range of religion resources either based on stuff we’ve found – NRM Pathways and NRM Characteristics – or stuff other people have already produced. This post falls into […]
New Religious Movements: 6 Characteristics
Basic PowerPoint Presentation, designed for whole-class use, that identifies Barker’s 6 characteristics of New Religious Movements. The concept of New Religious Movements was initially developed, by writers such as Eileen Barker (1999), to reflect a general unease and dissatisfaction with the contemporary usefulness of the “sect – cult” distinction. More-specifically, the argument in favour of […]