Beliefs in Society-kSocial Groups

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Social Class

Traditional view- religiosity is higher in working class due to Weber’s theodicy of the disprivilege and Marxist’s idea that religion is the “opiate of the mases”.
Marxists- Religion serves to legitimise power of the ruling class and keep the working class from rebelling, with hope for a reward in the afterlife.

However, evidence in contemporary society, religiosity is higher in middle classes.
2015- 62% of churchgoers are middle class, possibly due to religion offering opportunities for social networking, not belief, or because middle class individuals are just more religious.

In the UK, the Anglican Church (CoE) is more middle class than the Roman church or the Methodist church.
This could be because the Anglican church is the established church and is seen as the religion of the ruling class - described as the “Tory Party at prayer”. But the Anglican Church today often takes anti-establishment positions on social issues.
The Roman Catholic church is more working class in the UK- might relate to its predominance in some well-established and newer migrant communities (Irish and Eastern European).
Also areas that were traditionally popular with Irish immigrants were large industrial cities of the North, such as Liverpool.
Although Catholicism is often seen as a conservative religion, particularly in terms of social attitudes, in the UK, Catholics are significantly more likely to vote for Labour than Anglicans.
Methodism is also more working class- most likely to do with geographical areas where the faith is well-established, such as in industrial areas of the north of England.
Also its history as a sect and the issues about sects’ appeal to working class individuals- also stood up for workers rights.

NAMs and cults appeal to middle class too- sense of spiritual deprivation.
Bruce- spiritual needs seem more important to those who have few material needs. Middle class individuals can still feel relatively deprived and therefore seek answers for why they are not as successful as some of their peers.

Gender

Women are significantly more likely to attend church than men and are also much more likely to self report as being religious.
2005 Church census- congregations were divided 57% women and 43% men.
1990 poll- 84% of women believed in God vs 64% men.

Traditional view- women’s expressive role (nurturing and caring) is a good match with religious faith- raising children in their religion and taking them to church was seen as apart of that role.
Women’s proximity to childbirth, childrearing, caring for the sick and caring for the elderly gives them a reason to pray and seek spiritual support and guidance.
Women traditionally have been marginalised in domestic roles, giving them more time to devote to religion whereas men had little time away from work and therefore were more likely to spend it on leisure pursuits.

However, other reasons.
Women live longer than men- older people are significantly more religious than young adults, and there are more older women.
Men and women are socialised differently and women are socialised to be more compliant and passive, which traditional, established religions expect.
Men are socialised to be more dominant and therefore, while they take leadership positions in churches, they are less happy to simply accept what they are told form the pulpit.

Some feminists, like Simone De Beauvoir, argue that women are sold a false ideology by religious teachings which encourages them to believe that they will get their reward in heaven and should therefore by committed and devoted to their faith.
Glock and Stark- women are more likely than men to get involved in religious sects due to them experiencing more deprivation- material, spiritual and relative, than men, because of patriarchy.
Similar reason for why working-class and minority ethnic groups are more likely to join sects as well.
Woodhead noted that women are more likely to get involved in cults and NAMs than men are.
Men have drifted away from the main established religions at a faster rate than women, but tend not to have replaced this with alternative spiritual beliefs, whereas women are attracted to the “Holistic Milieu”- particularly middle class women.
NAMs are seen to be consciously and deliberately female- orientated- being seen as more attractive to women.

Miller and Hoffman- attitudes to risk between genders is a key factor.
Men are more willing to take risks than women and higher levels of religiosity are evident among the risk averse.
This is because lack is religion is risky- it risks not going to heaven. Known as “risk- averse”.

Woodhead- suggested that churches have become feminised- secularisation has had a bigger impact on men than women.
Echoed by Bruce- religion becomes more of a private matter than a public one, it appeals more to women, particularly those who perform a domestic role and look after children.

Evaluation-

Women would appear to attend church more than men, but that does not mean that they are more likely to believe in their chosen faith- going to church for friends or supporting families,
May be other reasons why women are more likely to respond to surveys stating they have a religious belief and affiliation- they may see it as socially desirable to have a religion based on historic association and answer surveys accordingly.
Young men may have opposite response and worry that religious faith is not socially desirable or might be seen as “uncool”.
Some sects are very male- dominated and can have quite extreme and conservative views about the role of women in society. E.g. New Christian Right movement in USA. However, some women may have this same view.

Age and Belief

Often said that older people are more religious but that is a rather ethnocentric view, as in the UK, this largely applies to Christianity.
2011 UK census- 22% of those wo identify as Christian were over 65 vs 3.9% of Muslims.
88% of Muslims were under 50.
While Christianity has a rapidly aging population, other religions, notably Islam, have a much younger age profile.
Brierley- average age of church goers increased from 37 to 49 between 1979 and 2005.

Older people are often more religious because:
More aware of their own mortality, wanting to book a place in the afterlife,
Religious practice was more common when they were young and they were socialised to be religious in a way younger people are not,
Religious organisations offer a social life and support network for people who have become more isolated and disengaged from wider society.

Younger people are often less religious because:
Religious institutions are unattractive or boring,
Greater competition- both in terms of a spiritual marketplace and in terms of other pursuits and other, secular, sources of inspiration.
For example, young people might find some of the functions of religion in subcultures through sport, celebrities, popular music etc.
Lynch- sociologist to this argument- when Durkheim talked of the sacred and profane, he saw the sacred as religion, but many young people see secular heroes and symbols as sacred instead.
Bruce- decline in religious education- though there was a revival of faith schools on the 1990s and 2000s, there has been a huge decline in Sunday schools. Bruce predicted that Sunday Schools might die out by 2016, but he was wrong, though are more rare.
These ideas were outlined by Voas and Crockett.

Brierley- the age group with the lowest church attendance was 15-19. However- children may not have much choice in attending church, either from family or through church school- not necessarily an indication of belief, although it suggests that many parents still consider it important.

Reason for the peak in attendance not being in the very oldest group is presumably because the oldest believers struggle to attend ceremonies because of health or mobility issues or lack of transport.
Sects often appeal to young adults, for some of the same reasons that they appeal to the working class and to women- same with NAMs.

Evaluation-
A small but significant group of young people completing the census opted for various “comedy” religions rather than state that they had no religion. E.g. Jedi Knights in 2011 and “heavy metal”.
“Believing without belonging”.

Ethnicity and Belief

Almost all minority ethnic groups in the UK are more religious and show higher levels of religiosity than the white British majority- Modood.
Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims in the UK see Muslim as their primary identity.
Young Muslims in the UK had a greater knowledge of their religion than their parents did.
However, Modood found some evidence of declining religiosity among some Asian men- young Sikhs were less likely to wear a turban than their fathers were.
Bruce- cultural transition- MEGs use religion and religious institutions to assist the process of immigration- building religious communities to help support them to reduce the shock of transition form one way of life to another.
If Bruce was correct- seeing second and third generation immigrants having less need for religion and therefore see a secularisation process in such communities. Little evidence for this- opposite in Muslims.
Bruce- cultural defence- Immigrant communities or other minorities use religion to defend themselves from the hostility of the majority population- building a safe community away from racism. Could be a reason for increase in religion in young Muslims, due to increasing Islamophobia in British society.

Johal- religious identity is increasingly important in multi-cultural and multi-faith society.
Supported by Davie who suggests that religious identity provides a sense of belonging and cultural identity.
Bird- Greater levels of religiosity in countries of origin, membership of a religious group providing a sense of community and identity, maintaining cultural identity and tradition, religious socialisation and a way to deal with oppression.

Chryssides- suggests the new immigrants can choose:
Apostasy- abandoning their beliefs in order to try and fit into a hostile environment.
Accommodation- adapting their beliefs to make them more in tune with the values if the new environment.
Renewed Vigor- increase religiosity and observance in response to a hostile environment.

Evaluation-
Religiosity is seen as very important in some MEGs and therefore lack of religious faith would be highly deviant viewpoint to admit to- disguising levels of atheism and agnosticism.
Bruce- suggests high levels of religiosity are not down to high levels of religious belief, but other social factors- hence why there is cultural transition and defence.
Areas which have seen high levels of Polish immigration have seen an increase in the congregations in their Catholic churches.