Now in its fourteenth season, The Apprentice is one of Britain’s longest running T.V. series and remains one of the most popular, with average weekly viewing figures stable at just over 7 million for the past four years. In this post, I’m just going to analyse what its ‘social functions’ might be by applying a … Continue reading “Sociological Perspectives applied to The Apprentice….”
The ‘New Age Movement’, common during the 1980s, refers to a collection of unconventional spiritual and therapeutic practices influenced by Buddhism, Taoism, psychology, paganism, and more. The movement encourages individual choice in spiritual beliefs and practices, emphasizing self-improvement and personal empowerment. Beliefs in natural healing, mysticism, fate, and interconnectedness are characteristic. It also challenges the notions of religious authority, instead promoting a relative, varied approach to spiritual fulfillment.
Secularization is the declining social significance of religion in society. The extent of secularization is usually ascertained (for the purposes of A-level sociology) by using three broad indicators: belonging, behaving, and belief, and there are numerous specific measures associated with each indicator. This post aims to provide brief revision notes on some of the contemporary … Continue reading “Evidence for Secularization”
Science is empirical, open, evolving and objective, but is religion the opposite?
Functionalists and Marxists argue religion prevents change, Max Weber and others disagree!
Beliefs in society is an option within AQA A-level sociology. It usually taught in the second year of study. This page contains an overview of the module and provides links to more detailed posts on the following topic areas: This page is a work in progress and will gradually be populated with links to posts … Continue reading “Beliefs in Society”
Radical Feminists emphasize the patriarchal nature of some mainstream religions such as Catholicism and Islam. They argue that such religions have developed in patriarchal societies and have been ‘hijacked’ by men. Men have interpreted religious doctrines in order to justify their positions of power. Radical Feminists also believe that religion often serves to compensate women … Continue reading “Radical Feminist Perspectives on Religion”
Summary of chapter One A fairly lengthy, paraphrased summary with a few comments in italics In consumer culture people behave ‘unreflexivly’ – without thinking about what they consider to be their life purpose and what they believe to be the right means of reaching it, without thinking about about what prompts them into action or … Continue reading “Bauman’s Consuming Life A Summary – Chapter 2 – The Society of Consumers”
In his work “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life”, sociologist Durkheim proposed a theory of religion based on the sacred, which transcends ordinary life, and the profane, referring to mundane routines. He saw religion as a mechanism to distinguish between these and argued that religious rituals reinforce social bonds and collective conscience. Moreover, Durkheim identified totemic religion, found among Aboriginal societies, as the simplest religious practice. Noting that worship of the totem signifies respect for society, he argued that societies, in essence, worship themselves through religion. Criticisms of his theory include lack of generalizability and less relevance to complex societies.
In the first section Bauman provides an overview of some of the key features of contemporary urban areas. Firstly, that modern urban areas are increasingly gated – To illustrate this he offers a description of Heritage Park, a new 500 acre gate community about to be built not far from Cape Town in South Africa, … Continue reading “A Summary of Chapter Three of Liquid Modernity by Zygmunt Bauman – Time/Space”
